Faithful Observations: The Dust of Death — How Did We Get Here?

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” -Romans 12:2

Last week we reviewed the book The Benedict Option which forced us to admit that we are living in a “post-Christian” nation that requires us to examine our commitment to Christ and holy living.

The question that we need to ask next is this: How did we get here? Looking back in recent history this seemed to happen quickly and yet we can trace this back to the garden and realize we are always living “east of Eden.”

The Book of Ecclesiastes says that there is nothing new under the sun. And while many have spoken of the “unprecedented” nature of the rioting in the early summer of 2020, it is actually quite precedented.

We won’t go back to the beginning, but let me take you back to more recent events about 60 years ago. In 1967 there were 159 riots that summer, sparked by racial tension in Harlem.

The next wave of rioting took place in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King that spring. This was an election year in ’68 and unrest continued as the Democratic convention convened in Chicago. Students for a Democratic Society, led by Bill Ayers and other Marxist radicals, were joined by the Black Panthers and the Weathermen that triggered many violent acts.

Oh, by the way, we had the Hong Kong Flu (H3N2) in 1968 that killed between 1 and 4 million worldwide and U.S. deaths exceeded 100,000. Nixon was elected in ’68 and things seemed to go back to “normal.”

Now for the rest of the story.

There are two misconceptions held by many Americans. The first is that communism ceased to be a threat when the New Left of the Sixties collapsed and disappeared as well and the Soviet Union collapsed. Because the New Left lacked cohesion it fell apart as a political movement.

However, its revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups. Thus we now have for example, radical feminists, black extremists, anti-war ‘peace' activists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists, and ‘gay' rights groups.

Both communism and the New Left are alive and thriving here in America. They favor code words: tolerance, social justice, economic justice, peace, reproductive rights, sex education and safe sex, safe schools, inclusion, diversity, and sensitivity. All together, this is Cultural Marxism disguised as multiculturalism.

A fascinating book has been reissued by InterVarsity on its 50th anniversary entitled The Dust of Death by the Christian apologist Os Guinness. Os was born to medical missionary parents in China in the 1930s and they were forced to flee after the communist takeover of China.

Os spent several years at L’Abri with Francis Schaeffer, who engaged the cultural and intellectual world from a Christian perspective. Os traveled throughout the United States in the turbulent ’60’s and out of that came the iconic book by Os. He said that few people really understood what the goals of these Marxist, radical groups were and the danger that they were to our country. The history is chilling.

When the radicals were not able to bring about a physical revolution in the Sixties they realized that they would have to control the universities, media and culture to bring about a complete revolution — a “long march” through the culture. Their targets were the strong families, communities and cultural institutions of America.

They turned to a combination of the teachings of Nietzsche, Hegel, Marx, and Freud along with some later influences from Fascists and Marxists like Antonio Gramsci, while adding linguistics to create “Critical Theory,” and “deconstruction.” The goal of critical theory was not truth, but attacking and bringing down the current society and culture through unremitting, destructive criticism.

Critical Theory is a play on semantics. The theory was simple: criticize every pillar of Western culture—family, democracy, common law, freedom of speech, and others. The hope was that these pillars would crumble under the pressure.

Their recommendations included: 1) The creation of racism offenses, 2) Continual change to create confusion, 3) The undermining of schools’ and teacher’s authority, 4) The emptying of churches, 5) An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime, 6) Control and dumbing down of media, 7) Encouraging the breakdown of the family — among others.

The School believed there were two types of revolution: (a) political and (b) cultural. Cultural revolution demolishes from within. They saw it as a long-term project and kept their sights clearly focused on the family, education, media, sex and popular culture.

Os Guinness said today that, “Fifty years later, it’s clear that the “long march” through the institutions has succeeded. Academia, media, and Hollywood all reflect the thinking of the heirs of the French Revolution, rather than the ideals of 1776. America has been bewitched. The republic is in the process of switching revolutions from the American to the French.”

Next week we will put an interesting conclusion from another recent book on this series. Pray for our country and our leaders.