By Ron F. Hale
“My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism,” declared Karl Marx (1818-1883).
If only he could have heard and heeded the poetic words of James Weldon Johnson:
“Young man –
Young man –
Your arm’s too short to box with God.”
Marx was a mere mortal, foolish to think he could dethrone the Almighty, yet the cultural rot and toxic ideology being witnessed on many university campuses today–spring from the mind of this revolutionary.
The Frankfurt School was founded in 1923, in Frankfurt Germany on the campus of Goethe University. After the rise of Hitler’s Nazism, even secular Marxian intellectuals of Jewish decent were not safe in Germany. The school folded with Dr. Max Horkheimer receiving an invitation and home on the campus Columbia University in New York City in 1934 and remained until 1950. Sometimes called the “Horkheimer Circle,” these academics and social scientists, included men like T.W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, Geog Lukacs, Herbert Marcuse, and Walter Benjamen.
Critical Theory is synonymous with the Frankfort School. These men trained others to translate the ideology of Marxism from economic terms into practical cultural terms. This new revolution would not promote bullets, bombs and bloodshed in the beginning but seek to smash religion (Christianity in particular), morals, authority, patriotism and capitalism. Marx’s “Conflict Theory,” was translated into “Critical Theory.” The word “critical” is being used in the negative sense with this social principle employed to accelerate revolutionary political and cultural change.
The evolution of the Marxian term “Conflict Theory” is now seen in words like: Critical Theory, Critical Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Critical Legal Studies and Queer Theory. Concisely, those within this movement become professionals in “problematizing” social and cultural issues by attacking institutions and leaders with a desire to tear down or deconstruct in order to rebuild a secular utopia.
However, seeking to erase God, religion, morality, and family values from a society can result in a “reign of terror” as seen after the French Revolution (mid-1793 to mid-1794), and the world wars of the twentieth century. Reminiscent of Jesus’ parable of an unclean spirit leaving a person but slow to find holy and happy things to fill the void, the demon returned with seven other demonic friends making matters extremely worse. America is in decline because Cultural Marxism has been invited into America by university presidents who hire professors to indoctrinate students. These same professors inspire their students to protest, agitate and spew Jewish hatred and loathing for America.
Jesus would not preach CRT.
Genesis explains it perfectly, God created one race—the human race! CRT promotes tribalism. Activists and trained Marxist community organizers work hard to venomously pit us against one another. Jesus wants to bring us together in faith, purpose and power. Dividing people into categories of “oppressors” and the “oppressed” never came from the lips of Jesus. Divisions and oppression result from living in a sinful and fallen world. The evil one still seeks to devour and divide. Followers of Jesus will one day worship around heaven’s throne — people from every land, language, and level of society giving praise to our Lord Jesus.
CRT tears down marriage and family.
Jesus believed in marriage and family! Jesus preformed his first miracle at a wedding of a biological man to a biological woman. This sacred relationship could fulfill God’s blessing to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”
Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt School had a negative view of the traditional nuclear family. Since the Western world has been shaped by Judeo-Christian teachings and traditions honoring biblical definitions of sexuality and morality, Marcuse wanted the family to be replaced with secular alternative institutions. The public powers of state control would do a better job with family control. Today, American parents (especially in blue states) are being forced to deal with federal and state control over their parental rights in raising their children.
This redefinition of the American family was clearly seen when the website of the Black Lives Matters first appeared and before it was taken down and changed. Originally it said:
We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
Jesus and justice
God’s Word teaches forgiveness, love, unity, and that our “faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (I Cor. 2:5). Jesus treated the woman taken in adultery with divine justice. From the demoniac in the graveyard to the denying apostle named Peter, Jesus was gracious and just. Grace and forgiveness give way to grievance and contempt in the Critical Social Justice movement as the woke mob on college campuses collude with Hamas sympathizers to shout, “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” This same kind of hatred gave rise to the Holocaust during the rise and rule of Hitler.
Our God is described as:
He is the Rock. His work is perfect.
For all His ways are justice,
A God of truth and without injustice (Deuteronomy 32:4).
Jesus brings justice and judgement with him at his Second Coming. He has not been “dethroned” by Marx, mad-men, or the devil, for the last book of the Bible says:
Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals.
Maranatha!
Ron F. Hale — is an interim pastor and freelance writer. He has authored articles for The Stream, The Christian Post, The Christian Index, American Thinker, and various Baptist State newspapers.
