C039 10/30/55
© Project Winsome International, 1999

COMMUNISM AND CHRISTIANITY - PART 2
Dr. John Allan Lavender
John 8:31,32; 2 Timothy 3:1; Luke 21:26

One of the five great entrances to the Kremlin was originally known as the Spassky Gate. The Savior's Gate. It was set apart from the others by a magnificent picture of Christ which had been placed there in the year l647. For over two and a half centuries any man who walked through that gate was obliged to remove his hat as a sign of his humility before God.

In 1917, the year of the Russian Revolution, all of that was changed. The picture of our Redeemer was torn down. Along with it went the Christian concept of the worth of human personality and the universal need of God. In place of the admittedly casual religion that was typical of pre-revolutionary Christianity in Russia, the Red rulers have established a militant atheism. Their policy is aggressively hostile to religion and they seek to exterminate it all together.

Francis W. Coker, Professor of Government at Yale University, points out that they attempt to do this in two ways: First, by narrowly limiting the activities of religious groups. While they are allowed to hold a restricted number of services, they are prohibited from doing any kind of social, civic or philanthropic work. Any acts of kindness are to be done by the State alone. Thus, the church is set apart from the people. It is divorced from their human needs and the illusion is created that it does not really care about people and their problems.

Secondly, they are attempting to crush religion by carrying out a definite program of anti-religious propaganda and education aimed at luring the youth away from any vestige of faith they may have been given at home.

In his book, Conflict of the Ages, Arno C. Gaebelien gives an illustration of how they sometimes
combine the two techniques thus making a devastating impression upon the plastic minds of small children. He says:

"One of the tricks played on the children is to let them get very hungry. They are then told to pray to God to see if He will send them bread. So the innocent youngsters begin to pray little prayers to God for bread. Nothing happens. In the room is a picture of the Soviet idol, Lenin. The children are told that he will give them something to eat. They begin to plead with Lenin for something that will satisfy their hunger and presto, they are given bread."

To the innocent and believing mind of little children, such things make a lasting impression.

It is right here that Communism and Christianity come to grips with each other. Our main quarrel with them is not political and the church's task is not to defend or attack any political party. The Christian faith can never be identified with one particular economic system. It came into being under the cruelest kind of dictatorship. It has lived and thrived under a variety of economic systems. It survives today, not because of the American way of life, but in spite of it.

Our main quarrel with Communism is not political, or economic, it is religious. We stand with every fiber of our beings against its vicious philosophy that leaves God out and denies the high worth of human personality. That is fundamental and it is imperative that we recognize the true nature of our adversary.
To be withstood, Communism must be understood. So I wish to say first of all that

Our Enemy is Not Economic but Religious
One of the great paradoxes of Communism is that while it officially denounces religion in any form, it actually offers itself as a substitute religion.

Look at the way they have deified their leaders. Regarding Lenin, one author writes:
"Hundreds visit his shrine every day; his statues are set up in public places; pictures of him are put in positions of special honor in factories, schools and private homes; streets, railroad stations, and societies of all sorts are named for him. He is cited as an authority on every sort of subject and school children are taught to glorify him."

The religious mood of Communism is not only seen in the deification of its leaders, but also in the fact that it has a substitute for every attribute and experience of religion.

Its doctrine of God is that He does not exist. But when the Communist is pushed for an explanation for the development of man he will refer in hallowed zones to dialectic materialism, the law of change in history which means that eventually social justice will win. The result is, that while the follower of Marx denies the existence of God, in the very next breath he says there is something which is working for his good that eventually will win. Now what is that but a pallid, impersonal, inadequate substitute for the God of Christianity, whom we say is working for the victory of righteousness and justice and who will ultimately triumph over all the earth.

The Christian doctrine of conversion, in which a man does an about face and is converted or turned about so that his life instead of leading away from God is directed toward him, is also duplicated in the Communistic idea of brainwashing. Through this diabolical process a man's way of thinking is completely changed and he becomes a "new man" in his attitudes and emphases.

Following conversion the new Christian is encourage to study the Bible and to develop the ability to pray in order that he might grow in the Christian life. The young Communist is called upon to do the same. But instead of the Bible, he studies the words of Lenin and Marx. Sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph. Early in the morning and late at night he is required to attend cell meetings in which he must engage in thorough self-criticism in an effort to purge himself of such sins as laziness, insincerity, temper, pride, carelessness and a lackadaisical attitude toward the Party.

As the mature Christian grows in the Christian life he is asked to be a witness to others about Christ. He is faced with the fact that his only purpose in being a Christian is to lead others to His Savior. This evangelistic spirit has been borrowed by Communism, too. As the young convert develops in the Communist way of life, he is sent out to spread his gospel. And few Christians equal him in discipline and self-sacrifice as he willingly marches under the banner of the hammer and sickle singing,