Marxist Wokism: The Christian Heresy

 

In my pastor’s sermon today, he talked about America being a pagan and post-Christian society. I certainly agree that we are in a post-Christian one, but “pagan” is not the right term.

Pagan societies, at least the ones we know about, have a few shared characteristics. They were self-perpetuating as societies; that is, they created an ethos that promoted families (even the ones that practiced child sacrifice and exposing infants still made sure they had enough children for a stable population), protected private property (don’t buy the “Native Americans didn’t understand land ownership” fraud), and inculcated respect for order, authority, and defending the tribe/polis/empire. They had, in other words, the virtues necessary to survive.

Moreover, they often practiced a great virtue in a multicultural society: tolerance. All peoples had gods and taboos; who was to say that one person’s gods were any less real than another’s? And adding another god to one’s person supernatural patrons hardly meant giving up one. Religious persecution and forcible conversion just weren’t concepts in a pagan world.

(Aside: one of my favorite anecdotes about Roman warfare was that before the Romans attacked a city, they had to perform a ceremony asking the gods of the city to abandon it and come over to the Roman side. That’s how seriously they took the concept of “there are gods everywhere, so don’t disrespect even the gods of your enemies.”)

What we see in modern leftism is a Christian heresy. Christian theology posits an Eden, a Fall, Original/Inherited Sin, Confession of Sin, Struggling in the Sinful World, and an Eschaton that returns the world to a sinless state. Marxist Wokism perverts this. Their Eden was a world where women ruled men (the myth of the matriarchy), all was shared in common (the myth of historical materialism), and no laws were needed (the myth of the noble savage). Into the Eden came the Fall where men subjugated women, created slaves and established unjust laws. Men, whites, and particularly white men are called out as being tainted with this original sin, as though females being protected by males is not a pattern of other apes and no other color of people have ever owned slaves. The only proper behavior for those carrying this sin is to confess their “privilege” and give up their possessions, hence the growing number of “anti-racism” struggle sessions and the demands of reparations by government check or theft/ tribute from white people. (e.g. the “protesters” demanding suburban whites give their homes away.) And once Marxist Wokism becomes established law and is the universal culture, a new Eden will emerge.

Marxist wokism is also similar to Christian heresies in how it provides no model for a workable society. Women are pressured to spend their fertile years gaining an education and establishing a career, poisoning themselves with hormones to become sterile and encouraged to kill any children that result. By the time they’re allowed to have children, their fertility is a fraction of what it was. The future belongs to the people who show up, and the last two Shakers should demonstrate that a society that doesn’t have kids eventually stops showing up.

The philosophy is also not compatible with long-term political or economic survival. Collectivist societies, from the first year of the Plymouth colony to the Soviet Union to Venezuela, inevitably collapse when working harder does not result in greater success. Collective political power without established rules and zealously maintained balances devolves into autocracy, from Rome to the Committee of Public Safety to the Politburo. And as can be seen in failed states across the world, when no respected authority enforces the laws, violent poverty is the result.

Just as Christianity seeks to create new people in Christ, Marxist Wokism too seeks to create new people. They will be like the New Soviet Man, only that the Soviet virtues of selflessness, education, discipline, and evangelical zeal in spreading the redeeming message of socialism are augmented with the ability to double-think axioms that “women should be treated equally to men, but should also get special benefits,” that “it’s wrong to judge people by the color of their skin, but all white people are racist,” that “I should not be judged by the actions of the people you group me with, but you should be judged by the actions of the people I group you with.” As a particular example of that last, look at how events where stores are vandalized and people are shot are described as “mostly peaceful” while all cops are assumed to be racist pigs based on the actions of a few.

Those double-think ideas also get to another aspect of Marxist Wokism’s heretical nature: it agrees with Christianity that there is such a thing as sin, but it denies that there can be any forgiveness. Those afflicted with whiteness and maleness must constantly beg forgiveness, but it will never be granted.

Finally, and the most concerning for Christians, Marxist Wokism shares Christianity’s certainty that its way is the only way. There is no pagan tolerance here; rather, there is the zealous fervor of Inquisitors torturing non-believers in converting and inspecting them constantly for evidence of relapse into old ways. Christians will be protected by the government for a time yet; but since politics are downstream of culture, Marxist Wokism may be able to successfully assault Christians before it fizzles out in the natural end of all heresies. In that case, we will be looking at a religious war unseen since the 30 Year’s War of the seventeenth century.

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  1. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Since Marx was of a Jewish family, one wonders, do Jews have heresies?

    • #1
  2. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Since Marx was of a Jewish family, one wonders, do Jews have heresies?

    Ah, Ricochet. Ricochet, Ricochet.

    • #2
  3. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Once they conquered a people the Romans tended to take their Gods back to Rome as a sign of conquest. The issue isn’t different belief systems, perhaps, but a struggle over which of them is dominant and normative?

    • #3
  4. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker: Those double-think ideas also get to another aspect of Marxist Wokism’s heretical nature: it agrees with Christianity that there is such a thing as sin, but it denies that there can be any forgiveness. Those afflicted with whiteness and maleness must constantly beg forgiveness, but it will never be granted.

    They’ve gone a long way in a short time. The Woke Inquisition has already begun. If you have ever deviated from the One True Path of Wokeness, you will be cast out.

    “But I was only twelve!”

    It matters not. Contrition is insufficient. To the Darkness with you!

    (To those who have fallen short of the One True Church of the Perpetually Cranky: c’mon over, gals and guys. We’ve got beer and we ordered pizzas. No, we didn’t let Arahant specify the toppings on all the pizzas. He made his own with blue cornmeal and spinach and capers and stuff. Anchovies too, probably. If we’ll put up with that, there’s not much we won’t put up with.)

    • #4
  5. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Once they conquered a people the Romans tended to take their Gods back to Rome as a sign of conquest. The issue isn’t different belief systems, perhaps, but a struggle over which of them is dominant and normative?

    You know, that puts in a new light Juno’s whining in Aeneid book I about the Trojans bringing defeated gods to Italy.

    • #5
  6. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Percival (View Comment):
    Anchovies too, probably.

    No fish.

    • #6
  7. Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw Member
    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw
    @MattBalzer

    “Say what you will about the tenets of paganism, at least it’s an ethos”.

    • #7
  8. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered…it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

    –G K Chesterton

    • #8
  9. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    Simply brilliant.

    Percival : If you have ever deviated from the One True Path of Wokeness, you will be cast out.

    “But I was only twelve!”

    But I was only four!

    Maddie Ziegler, who is the symbolic dancing stand in for the enigmatic rockstar Sia in the Sia videos, has been cast out from something she said in a video when she was only four years old. So you best destroy all your home videos  of you when your were a kid before the  Woke Inquisition comes for you.

     

    • #9
  10. Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker Coolidge
    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker
    @AmySchley

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):

    “Say what you will about the tenets of paganism, at least it’s an ethos”.

    Yep. Not one I’d particularly like to live under — ideas like woman are people too is one of the wonderful aspects of Christianity as compared to the pagan world — but it did at least work for thousands of years. None of these socialist experiments last beyond three generations. Yes, I fully anticipate the Chinese Communist Party to fall in the next dozen years. The replacement is unlikely to be an improvement in terms of personal freedom, but the CCP is falling apart at the seams. Watch the Chernobyl miniseries and you can see how it happens. Superiors become so used to lies that they can’t recognize truth, and when important decisions are based on fantasy instead of reality, the system falls apart.

    • #10
  11. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Hey Amy, how lovely to see you. Good post.

    • #11
  12. Hank Rhody, Badgeless Bandito Contributor
    Hank Rhody, Badgeless Bandito
    @HankRhody

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):
    None of these socialist experiments last beyond three generations. Yes, I fully anticipate the Chinese Communist Party to fall in the next dozen years.

    I was reflecting a month or so ago that you could tell that George Orwell was a leftist because of his faith in the permanence of society. You can’t have a boot stomping on a human face forever because inevitably the boot will get it’s shoelaces tied together.

    • #12
  13. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Good point.  Not pagan, although promoted by pagans.   At least if Chinese are pagans?

    • #13
  14. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Super post!

    • #14
  15. Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker Coolidge
    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker
    @AmySchley

    I Walton (View Comment):

    Good point. Not pagan, although promoted by pagans. At least if Chinese are pagans?

    Before communism, they were. And like other pagan cultures, so long as Christians were no threat to the government, they were left alone.*

    *Roman persecutions of Christians were based on the fact that they wouldn’t worship the Roman gods because that was a necessary patriotic duty, not because they cared about who Christians were worshiping. Romans accommodated Jews not doing this for a time so long as the Jews performed their own religious sacrifices and asked their God to bless Rome — it was close enough. 

    Once they went communist, Marxism became their religion, and as Tom Clancy wrote in “The Hunt for Red October,” “Marxism-Leninism was a jealous god, tolerating no competing loyalties.” The People’s Republic technically enshrines the right to worship for the five official religions in China (Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, and Protestantism) but those official established churches must push the Party line first and the religion second. * ^

    *This is why the establishment clause is so important: the church meddling in affairs of state isn’t nearly as dangerous to souls as the state meddling in the affairs of the church. 

    ^ Bergoglio’s willingness to let the CCP pick bishops for the Chinese Catholic Church ranks high on his list of bad decisions. 

    When in Beijing twelve years ago, I was struck in my encounters with rank-and-file Communist Party members. Their belief in communism was minimal; their membership was completely perfunctory social signaling the way so many American politicians use their church membership to suggest that they really are good people. 

    They are learning the hard way the problems of pushing women into education and the withdrew and away from motherhood. Sex selective abortions and the one child policy have resulted in 25 million men who will not find a spouse and have children of their own, a very dangerous group of people who have much less to lose by toppling the regime. Even when women are allowed to have two children (if both parents were only children it was allowed) they don’t, because they are still expected to provide the same level of housework as if they didn’t work at all. This is creating an upcoming entitlement crisis that will make our Social Security & Medicare problems look like nothing at all. 

    • #15
  16. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):
    *This is why the establishment clause is so important: the church meddling in affairs of state isn’t nearly as dangerous to souls as the state meddling in the affairs of the church. 

    This is what Jefferson’s “wall of separation” letter was all about.  Yet to this day, the left misconstrues its meaning in its attack on Christianity . . .

    • #16
  17. Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker Coolidge
    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker
    @AmySchley

    Stad (View Comment):

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):
    *This is why the establishment clause is so important: the church meddling in affairs of state isn’t nearly as dangerous to souls as the state meddling in the affairs of the church.

    This is what Jefferson’s “wall of separation” letter was all about. Yet to this day, the left misconstrues its meaning in its attack on Christianity . . .

    Eh, the church getting involved with the state isn’t great either, especially if it happens to the point of the church failing in its primary mission.

    That being said, I think Jefferson would have loved modern mainstream Protestantism, given his non-Christian Deism that denied miracles and the divinity of Christ. 

    • #17
  18. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):

    Eh, the church getting involved with the state isn’t great either, especially if it happens to the point of the church failing in its primary mission.

    There’s a good Locke quote about that. Someone who cares should ask me in the morning.

    • #18
  19. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):

    Eh, the church getting involved with the state isn’t great either, especially if it happens to the point of the church failing in its primary mission.

    There’s a good Locke quote about that. Someone who cares should ask me in the morning.

    It is morning where most of us are.

    • #19
  20. J Climacus Member
    J Climacus
    @JClimacus

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):

    “Say what you will about the tenets of paganism, at least it’s an ethos”.

    In the world of Marxist Wokism, The Dude will not be left alone to abide… he’ll be subject to a lot worse humiliations than being hit in the head with a coffee mug by the Malibu Chief of Police.

    • #20
  21. J Climacus Member
    J Climacus
    @JClimacus

    The philosopher Peter Kreeft once remarked that the difference between an ancient pagan and a modern post-Christian is like the difference between a virgin and a divorcee.

    • #21
  22. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):

    Eh, the church getting involved with the state isn’t great either, especially if it happens to the point of the church failing in its primary mission.

    There’s a good Locke quote about that. Someone who cares should ask me in the morning.

    I want to know. Get back to us when its morning in Hong Kong.

    • #22
  23. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):

    “Say what you will about the tenets of paganism, at least it’s an ethos”.

    Yep. Not one I’d particularly like to live under — ideas like woman are people too is one of the wonderful aspects of Christianity as compared to the pagan world — but it did at least work for thousands of years. None of these socialist experiments last beyond three generations. Yes, I fully anticipate the Chinese Communist Party to fall in the next dozen years. The replacement is unlikely to be an improvement in terms of personal freedom, but the CCP is falling apart at the seams. Watch the Chernobyl miniseries and you can see how it happens. Superiors become so used to lies that they can’t recognize truth, and when important decisions are based on fantasy instead of reality, the system falls apart.

    The looming possible disaster with the 3-Gorges Dam should be a major forewarning.  That damn [sic] project is exactly the sort of hubristic boondoggle the USSR was also well known for making.

    • #23
  24. Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker Coolidge
    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker
    @AmySchley

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):

    “Say what you will about the tenets of paganism, at least it’s an ethos”.

    Yep. Not one I’d particularly like to live under — ideas like woman are people too is one of the wonderful aspects of Christianity as compared to the pagan world — but it did at least work for thousands of years. None of these socialist experiments last beyond three generations. Yes, I fully anticipate the Chinese Communist Party to fall in the next dozen years. The replacement is unlikely to be an improvement in terms of personal freedom, but the CCP is falling apart at the seams. Watch the Chernobyl miniseries and you can see how it happens. Superiors become so used to lies that they can’t recognize truth, and when important decisions are based on fantasy instead of reality, the system falls apart.

    The looming possible disaster with the 3-Gorges Dam should be a major forewarning. That damn [sic] project is exactly the sort of hubristic boondoggle the USSR was also well known for making.

    Yeah. I think 3 Gorges will be the PRC’s Chernobyl. 

    • #24
  25. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):

    “Say what you will about the tenets of paganism, at least it’s an ethos”.

    Yep. Not one I’d particularly like to live under — ideas like woman are people too is one of the wonderful aspects of Christianity as compared to the pagan world — but it did at least work for thousands of years. None of these socialist experiments last beyond three generations. Yes, I fully anticipate the Chinese Communist Party to fall in the next dozen years. The replacement is unlikely to be an improvement in terms of personal freedom, but the CCP is falling apart at the seams. Watch the Chernobyl miniseries and you can see how it happens. Superiors become so used to lies that they can’t recognize truth, and when important decisions are based on fantasy instead of reality, the system falls apart.

    The looming possible disaster with the 3-Gorges Dam should be a major forewarning. That damn [sic] project is exactly the sort of hubristic boondoggle the USSR was also well known for making.

    Yeah. I think 3 Gorges will be the PRC’s Chernobyl.

    If they’re lucky.  Odds are, if it goes, it will be orders of magnitude worse.

    • #25
  26. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Locke, Letter Concerning Toleration:

    But, to speak the truth, we must acknowledge that the Church (if a convention of clergymen, making canons, must be called by that name) is for the most part more apt to be influenced by the Court than the Court by the Church.

    • #26
  27. Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker Coolidge
    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker
    @AmySchley

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    Amy Schley, Longcat Shrinker (View Comment):

    Matt Balzer, Imperialist Claw (View Comment):

    “Say what you will about the tenets of paganism, at least it’s an ethos”.

    Yep. Not one I’d particularly like to live under — ideas like woman are people too is one of the wonderful aspects of Christianity as compared to the pagan world — but it did at least work for thousands of years. None of these socialist experiments last beyond three generations. Yes, I fully anticipate the Chinese Communist Party to fall in the next dozen years. The replacement is unlikely to be an improvement in terms of personal freedom, but the CCP is falling apart at the seams. Watch the Chernobyl miniseries and you can see how it happens. Superiors become so used to lies that they can’t recognize truth, and when important decisions are based on fantasy instead of reality, the system falls apart.

    The looming possible disaster with the 3-Gorges Dam should be a major forewarning. That damn [sic] project is exactly the sort of hubristic boondoggle the USSR was also well known for making.

    Yeah. I think 3 Gorges will be the PRC’s Chernobyl.

    If they’re lucky. Odds are, if it goes, it will be orders of magnitude worse.

    To clarify, I mean “an event so devastating that it destroys confidence in the government’s competence and bankrupts the government in trying to alleviate it.” I agree that if 3 Gorges goes, the death toll and infrastructure damage will make Chernobyl look like nothing at all.

    • #27
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