What’s been tickling your ears? Christian historian William De Arteaga argues that conspiracy theories undermine factual history and he offers practical advice to avoid falsehoods and grow in the truth.

But I tell you that for every careless word that people speak, they will give an account of it on the Day of Judgment. – Matthew 12:36 (NASB)

But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” – Matthew 15: 18-20

 Those who guard their lips preserve their lives,
but those who speak rashly will come to ruin. – Proverbs 13:3

“You are not to say, ‘It is a conspiracy!’ Regarding everything that this people call a conspiracy, And you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. – Isaiah 8:12 (NIV)

America is plagued by conspiracy theories (CTs) now more than at any time in its history, and they seem to be gaining momentum.[1] Facebook, Twitter, and the tribalization of our news sources have aided this lamentable situation.[2] For instance, millions of evangelical Christians have come to believe in the QAnon CT. That is, the slanderous CTs based on nothing more than suspicions which claims that liberal elites abduct and kill children for sexual and satanic ritual purposes. Such persons as Hillary Clinton and Chief Justice Roberts are supposedly engaged in this Satanism.

Defining conspiracy theories

This chapter is adapted from William De Arteaga, America in Danger, Left and Right: Biblical Analysis, Actions and Intercessions for the Current Crisis (2022).

Let us start by trying to define what CTs are. They come in many varieties, but in general they are attempts to understand the world, or some negative aspect of it, through false, mythical, or incomplete knowledge. Often CTs are generated by combining a negative event with pre-existing suspicions against some group or person. Similarly, predictive CTs are stories based on suspicions that an evil group or person will do something evil. In CTs, suspicions are considered facts, and little or no attempt is made to verify the information on logical or normal evidential grounds. The anger, suspicion and distrust embraced by the CT believer (and his/her social group with similar beliefs) often diminishes logical reasoning or factual verification. Societies under stress often experience a rash of CTs when events in history begin to go against them. A recent example of this is the gaggle of CTs circulating in Russia during “Putin’s War” against the Ukraine, as in the belief that NATO wants to partition Russia.[3]

One especially tragic and sinful CT occurred over five hundred years ago during Europe’s bubonic plague (1347 to 1351). A rumor and CT spread among Christians that the plague was caused by Jews who poisoned the wells to exterminate Christians. This CT spread rapidly, and mobs all throughout Europe gathered up Jews by the thousands and burned them at the stake without any trial or evidence other than their suspicions. Many of the Jews who survived were looted of their goods and exiled out of Europe into Islamic Spain and other places. This corporate event was both a sin of slander and genocide – the “careless word” of the Bible in extreme. CTs about the Jews would continue to circulate for centuries, reaching their climax in the Nazi holocaust.

At the root of most CTs is an unbiblical assumption that history and current events should be understandable and go mostly one’s own way. If it does not, it is the result of a specific group of evildoers who make things go wrong. The Bible teaches to the contrary: mankind is universally afflicted with sin, and the outcomes in history are constantly molded by sinful, uninformed, foolish, and selfish choices by all peoples and governments. This results in the “wrongness” and chaos of normal history – that is, history without God’s intervening grace.

The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent word to them through his messengers again and again, because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his   people and there was no remedy.  He brought up against them the king of the Babylonians, who killed their young men with the sword in the sanctuary, and did not spare young men or young women, the elderly or the infirm. God gave them all into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. He carried to Babylon all the articles from the temple of God, both large and small, and the treasures of the Lord’s temple and the treasures of the king and his officials. They set fire to God’s temple and broke down the wall of Jerusalem; they burned all the palaces and destroyed everything of value there (2 Chronicles 39:15-19).

But back to modern CTs, let me describe a conspiracy theory I saw generated firsthand back in 1974 and which is typical of many CTs. The background to this: At the time Israel had just fought the Yom Kippur War. For the first days it went badly for Israel, but the Israeli Army and Air Force counter-attacked and gained the ascendency. However, Israel almost ran out of ammunition and other vital supplies. President Nixon organized a massive airlift to resupply the Jewish armed forces and enable them to continue their successful counterattack.

At this time a colleague at my job, Bob (not his real name) went to visit relatives in Louisiana, and there observed a large refinery and tankers offloading oil (probably from Venezuela). On his return he told me the oil shortage was “bogus” and a plot by oil executives to artificially raise the price of gas. “There is plenty of gas out there for everybody.” He saw one large refinery still operating, but he had no access to the details of whether it was working at limited or full production. Neither could he see at the same time the millions of cars in the US refueling at hundreds of thousands of gas stations, nor did he have any way to calculate if that refinery could supply all of America’s needs (of course not).

But Bob felt sure he had the truth and felt that he was a wise person with true, firsthand information that proved the oil executives were greedy and evil. This was a cheap way to bolster his self-esteem since he was not a greedy executive but a “regular guy.” To the contrary, he slandered gas executives he did not know. Of course, some gas executives were greedy and sinful, as in any group of human beings, but it is not true that they created the shortage, nor did they artificially jack up the price of gas. Note the sequence: a “wrong” situation (higher gas prices and low speed limit), a suspect group (oil executives), a leap of logic, and behold: a new CT is born along with its attached speculative slander – the “careless word” that the Bible warns us against.

Earlier, when I was a high-school teacher at an Atlanta public school (1970-1973) and taught at a predominantly African American high-school, I heard several conspiracy theories from the students. Among them was the CT that has now gotten wide traction among whites and African Americans alike: the moon landings were faked and never took place. This CT was partially driven, I believe, by their observation and hurt that none of the astronauts or supporting scientists manning the consoles at mission control in Houston were African American, and therefore the event was of little interest or joy to them.

This was not a harmless CT. I noticed that none of my students had any special interest in space science, unlike white kids of the era. Becoming a good scientist usually starts young, with curiosity and a passion to learn how the world works, but the CT about the moon landings cut that off, at least in space science. I have wondered how many more African American space scientists there could be now if that CT not been developed and believed. There was an element of speculative slander (careless word) and deception here as this CT created an imaginary group of high-ranking NASA officials who did not have the integrity to say that the moon mission was not possible, and therefore created a photographic studio to fake the landings, etc.^[5]

There is another class of CTs generated by people’s inability to accept the normal chaos and caprice of historical events. For instance, the Titanic struck the iceberg that sank it due mostly to the fact that the duty officer of that night did not give the sailors on lookout duty the required binoculars. Many other dramatic turns and events in history have occurred by such careless and trivial actions. But humans are tempted to believe major events are all intended by important figures or groups engaged in conspiracies.[6] To the contrary, chaos and mistakes are an ever present constant in history (as in personal life).

Are some conspiracy theories true?

Let me say that not all CTs are false, although most are. Sometimes a CT points to something that is true but not widely recognized.[7] It is indeed a serious problem figuring out which are true or false.

Let me also make a distinction between a conspiracy and a CT. Conspiracies and secret alliances, big and small, have occurred and will continue to occur throughout all of history. The most infamous one was the conspiracy to secretly exterminate the Jews from Europe that was plotted and carried out by the Nazis in World War II. A conspiracy is a plot to do something by real people. A CT is a hypothesis or theory that a group is plotting or doing something destructive without direct evidence, or on speculative evidence.[8]

Biblical wisdom vs. conspiracy theories

A significant question: Why is it that so many of the books of the Bible are historical? That type of religious writings is rarely found in the Scriptures of other world religions.[10] Especially unique in the Bible are the historical books that repeat with different perspectives the same events, as in the Gospels in the New Testament and the books of Chronicles and Kings in the Old. What type of wisdom does God expect us to receive from historical books? These are important questions that we must keep in mind as we compare the Biblical view of history with CTs.

The historical books of the Bible stress man’s freedom and responsibility in obeying or disobeying God and His commandments.[11] God does not interfere in man’s freedom to obey or disobey, to be foolish, or work out of misinformation. Sometimes He works though mankind’s sin and foolishness to get His providential way. An example is found in the account of Joseph and his brothers.

We see the Biblical view of restoration work out in the Israeli exile and return from their captivity in Babylon. In fact, the captives were first enticed by a false prophet called Hananiah to believe that they would be immediately returned to Jerusalem. He was prophesying out of his “flesh,” as Paul would put it, and confused the people’s yearnings to return home for God’s prophetic word. His words pleased but misled the exiles. But Jeremiah put Hananiah in his place:

Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord has not sent you, yet you have persuaded this nation to trust in lies. Therefore, this is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. This very year you are going to die, because you have preached rebellion against the Lord’” (Jeremiah 28: 15-16).

As a counter-point, Jeremiah wrote a letter to the exiles which really reflected God’s will and plans for them. It deflated heroic expectancy of the exiles. No hero would rescue them, the Babylonian king would not die in battle, etc. Instead, the true prophet had mundane but spiritually significant instructions:

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:4-7).

The exiles obeyed the true word of God, settled, blessed and prayed for the local government, and awaited divine restoration. That came, as described in the same chapter of Chronicles which described the horrible fall of the Jerusalem, via an unexpected source, a pagan king:

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing: “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: “‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up, and may the Lord their God be with them’” (2 Chronicles 36: 22-23).

Conspiracy Theories are Counterfeit History

From the Biblical standard, CTs are counterfeit history. They rob persons accepting CTs of the wisdom one should have in reading and understanding historical situations or relating them to present crises. Persons under the sway of CTs, Christian or not, are encouraged to believe that the elimination of an evil group and the triumph of a “good” faction will bring about peace and harmony. In effect, politics is confused with messianic expectations. Christians who buy into CTs believe they must give divine providence a helping hand. They want the offensive group or faction removed or exterminated so that the golden age may come forth. That dream might be, as Donald Trump supporters wish, an America where the Left is reduced to impotency and America returns to the conservative interpretation of the Constitution. Similarly, a Left-leaning might dream of an America free of Republican and “fascist” policies with a socialist economic and political system.

Well, guess what?

How to resist conspiracy theories

The harm of CTs range from being the sources of genocide as in the CT that the Jews caused the Black Death in the Middle Ages, to less destructive ones such as the CT that the Moon landings were bogus. But now, a potential disaster is looming if the 2024 election hangs in the balance of what happens in a few swing states. Pro-Trump Secretaries of State and election boards may believe it is their patriotic duty to correct the supposed wrong of the 2020 election and give Trump an unearned victory. That could push the country to some destructive civil disturbance or even civil war. This would be Satan’s delight and the practical end in America’s role as the model and protector of democracy in the world.

Image: Mel Poole

Less catastrophic but also bringing great evil is the ongoing ability of modern CTs to make it difficult for societies to establish simple base lines of truth and facts. This makes the rise of authoritarian societies attractive to many, as such regimes have the power to limit incoming information and CTs, and thus limit the divisions in society (while also limiting the ability to receive a corrective truth).

For Christians, embracing CTs are sin because they make slanderous accusations of the imagined villains (Matthew 12:36). Christians who hold to CTs are also subject to various distortions and detours in their Christian walk. For one, they acquire a sense of superiority over the other folk who do not believe in their specific CTs. They view themselves as having superior wisdom and discernment (recall Bob and his CT about the 1974 fuel shortage) when in fact the opposite may be true. The believers in QAnon are a case study of this. Not only do they take part in cycle of slander, they waste a great deal of time in the pursuit of clues about who is supposedly abusing children. Besides being sinful, this is time that could be used for creative good.

Spiritual progress into Christian discipleship demands the humility to know we are all sinners and fallible in our opinions. Our political views are marred by our limitations in discerning which news stories and sources are more accurate and which are mostly false. In many mono-political churches in the United States, CTs of one sort or another are believed by practically everyone in the congregation. This makes a critical evaluation of CTs not only difficult, but even grounds for being dis-fellowshipped if not believed. These churches will typically have less empathy for Christians of opposite political leanings. This leads to less communication and cooperation in areas where the church should be united. In short, CTs function as one more tool for Satan to use in further dividing an already divided Church. All of the above are great gains for Satan, for the weakening of the American nation and the weakening of the authority and prestige of the Evangelical church.

How to personally resist CTs

If a person is confused about what to believe in the present atmosphere of information overload, specifically which stories may be true or destructive CTs, let me suggest the following:

Pray that God give you the wisdom and discernment in distinguishing between an item of information that is a false CT and one that may be true. (We have noted that a few CT, often denied by reputable sources are true). Remember that a “careless word” is a sin of slander and displeasing to the Lord, even if many of your friends believe and spread it.

Understand that history does not go our way. The 20^th Century was the American century. The 21^st Century may not be an American Century unless there is transformative revival.

All persons, including Christians, are more susceptible to CTs as they give themselves the license of “hate thinking and talking” of their adversaries. As Christians we should recognize that hatred towards others is a sin, which includes thinking hateful thoughts against our political enemies (Matt 5:43). Thoughts such as “I hate Nancy Pelosi and everything she does.” This hate thought can be substituted with, “I believe Pelosi is seriously wrong in her politics and they are harmful for our Country.”  You can then pray for her, as in “Lord, guide her out of error into truth.” That would be a great prayer for any politician and in line with what Paul advocated (1 Tim 2:1-3).

One needs to come to an understanding that opposition is not hypocritical and evil but works out of differing assumptions. For instance, I have heard some Christians say things like, “Pelosi is an absolute hypocrite. All she wants is absolute power.”  Well, let’s leave the character judgement of hypocrite up to God. But Pelosi is acting and politicking on assumptions that are common and perfectly reasonable to Democrats but alien to Republicans, as in, believing government can solve most problems. That may be true, or false and destructive, but believing that is not hypocritical.

Vigorously abstain from sourcing radio, TV programs, and web sites that have been proven to spread CTs – as for instance the programs of Alexa Jones. Don’t look at them even for fun.

Cultivate an attitude of humility towards knowing the truth or asserting as true things that are not clearly true. Here Paul is a great example. He was arguably the person in the New Testament who received the most direct revelation from the ascended Jesus. Based on those revelations he wrote authoritatively, as in his letter to the Romans. But when an item of controversy was encountered that was not covered by Scripture or Jesus’ revelation to him, he expressed his opinion in tentative way, allowing the reader to understand that this was not firm revelation. An example is found in Paul’s response to some questions that arose in the Corinthian Church about marriage and problems of separation from a non-believing spouse. Paul is careful to state that what he says is not based on Jesus’ revelation but has a certain amount of wisdom, and the reader can exercise certain options (1 Corinthians 7:8-39).

Practice the words of humility when a news item or story is new and not fully vetted. Using such words as “perhaps, maybe” or the phrase “I will wait for more information” are great ways to sidestep a story that may be a slanderous CT. Of course, certain professions and lines of work demand decisions and actions well before the full facts are known, as in a policeman acting on a tip that may or not be true. For most of us, items of the political or culture wars should be areas where we use the language of humility to express our views.

Be aware that the phrase “everybody knows” most often refers to opinions held by one’s own group. For instance, in Woke circles “everybody knows” Trump is a fascist. In Conservative circles “everybody knows” Pelosi is a socialist, etc. A reminder, in the Middle Ages, “everybody knew” that the Jews poisoned the wells and produced the Black Death.

If you hear a story about your political enemies, and you would like to believe it, as in, “Pelosi is a paid Chinese agent,” because that would confirm your distrust of the Democrats, be suspicious. Express any opinion on that in the subjunctive, “Maybe the story is true, maybe not.”  That makes it easier to back off if the story is proven bogus.[14]

PR

This article has been adapted from “Conspiracy theories and the negation of history” from America in Danger. For an earlier version of this article, see “The Sinfulness and Destructiveness of Conspiracy Theories.” Used with permission.

Notes

[1] Jeffery Goldberg, “Conspiracy Theorists are Winning,” Atlantic Monthly (May 12,2929). https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/shadowland-introduction/610840/

[2] This chapter is a reworked version of an article I wrote for Pneuma Review, “The Sinfulness and Destructiveness of Conspiracy Theories,” Posted June 29, 2015. http://pneumareview.com/the-sinfulness-and-destructiveness-of-conspiracy-theories/ A useful Christian source is Rich Nathan’s article, “Why Do so many People Believe Conspiracies?” (Accessed April 20, 2023). https://www.richnathan.org/post/why-do-so-many-people-believe-conspiracies

[3] Ilya Yablukov, “Putin Used Conspiracy Theories Before, Now He Seems to Believe Them,” New York Times (April 25, 2022). https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/opinion/putin-russia-conspiracy-theories.html

[4] God’s judgement is a topic not often dealt with by modern theologians, but an excellent recent work on the issue is Steven J. Keillor’s God’s Judgments: Interpreting History and the Christian Faith (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2007).

[5] SCI Network. “The Truth Behind the Moon Landings,” TV program aired July 2019 which systematically demolished the pseudo-science behind the CT that American astronauts never walked on the moon. Also, the Wikipedia article, “Moon landing conspiracy theories,” gives a splendid summary of the theory and how it has been debunked by independent third parties. Verification of the moon landings include pictures from new, high-resolution telescopes which can identify the various lunar landers which are still on the moon.

[6] Jared Knott, Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters: 39 Tiny Mistakes that Changed the World (Duluth: Jefferson Central, 2020).

[7] Ross Douthat, “Jeffery Epstein and When to Take Conspiracies Seriously,” New York Times (Aug. 13, 2019). https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/opinion/jeffrey-epstein-suicide.html

[8] A historical note: Frederick the Great of Prussia suspected that there was a conspiracy between Austria, Russia and France to partition Prussia between them. He had no proof, so it was his CT. He preemptively attacked Austria on his suspicion, and many believed he was an aggressor. However, in the 20^th Century archival research revealed that Russia, France and Austria were indeed planning an attack. They had a conspiracy against Prussia. History if often complex.

[9] Most scholars of the history of historical writings (“historiography”) would reverse this and say that the West’s robust historical writings comes mainly from its Greco-Roman tradition with further developments especially in the early modern period. I hope to elaborate my dissident view that the Biblical influence is preeminent in a future book. For now, I would refer the reader to the classic study of historical method by the English Christian scholar: R.G. Collingwood’s The Idea of History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956) part II. Collingwood shows that Christian historical writing introduced the concept of character development or decline, a concept not found in the classical Greco-Roman writers who believed in set character via the stars, i.e., astrology. It is also important to understand the seminal work of Mircea Eliade’s, The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History (Princeton: Princeton University, 1955) in which the Eliade points out the critically important contribution of the Jews to history, that of linear history (non-repeating). See also, Thomas Cahill: The Gifts of the Jews (New York; Nan L. Talese: 1998), and the classic work by Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of History (New York: Basic Books, 1981). For use in a Christian school or adult Sunday school I strongly recommend John Fea’s Why Study History? (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013).

[10] The scriptures of other religions often have founder’s tales, but nothing to compare to the systematic history found in books of Kings or Chronicles.

[11] A modern Pentecostal classic on this is Jon Mark Ruthven’s work, What’s Wrong With Protestant Theology (Tulsa: Word and Spirit, 2013).

[12] Incidentally, this definitively disproved the John Birch’s conspiracy theory (for more on this, see America in Danger, chapter 11) that Truman, Eisenhower and other US presidents were presiding over a conscious conspiracy to turn the world over to the Communists. Rather, they employed the policy of containment, first articulated by the diplomat George F. Kennan, which urged that the Communist nations be contained but not attacked, proved true. Kennan foresaw that Communist society would fall apart in time. However, that was not totally true. Communism’s fall was brought forward by pressure from the West, as in President Regan’s “Star Wars” anti-ballistic missile program, and spiritual forces loosed by Pope Paul II. On the latter, see George Weigel’s, The End and the Beginning: The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (New York: Doubleday, 2010).

[13] Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History,” National Interest (Summer 1989).

[14] For more hints, from a secular viewpoint, on how to protect oneself from fake news and CTs see, Julie Jargson, “How to Tell Fact From Fiction, Even During War.” Wall Street Journal (Mar. 5, 2022) https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-spot-fake-news-even-during-a-war-11646434626

I cannot stress enough how important this article is. It should be read by anyone in a Christian leadership position. It is the finest article on the background to the takeover of the America university system by Marxists and radicals that has occurred in the past decades.

The Rev “Rob” Smith is an Anglican priest and lecturer of theology and ethics at Sydney Missionary Bible College, and a book review editor for the e-journal Themelios. It is published for the Evangelical English-speaking world, with contributors from this country, the UK and “down under.”

In his article, Rob Smith sets out to examine the concept of “Cultural Marxism” and determine if the term is useful, if it pertains to a real ideology, or if it is merely a myth invented by conservative activists to negatively broad brush the Left.

He goes about this principally from a historian’s perspective, and rightly affirms that intellectual history is especially difficult, though it is important:

The development of ideas and their links to the movements they generate or justify is often a messy process. It can be notoriously difficult to identify the precise relationship between this school of thought and that social phenomenon or to quantify the impact of particular individuals on larger social changes.

Rob begins his analysis by examining the main components of Karl Marx’s theories (especially useful for those who have not majored in economics or history in college). Rob points out that Marx came from a nominal Christian family and became an atheist as a boy, and never looked back. Not surprisingly, the salient feature of Marx’s theories was his hatred of the bourgeois (the economic middle class). He also developed a reliance on, and then reversed, the philosophy of Hegel. Marx believed that history was driven by materialists factors, not spirit as Hegel believed, and primarily driven by the struggle of the underclasses. Marx believed this would eventually end in a classless Utopia after the bourgeois were violently overthrown. He predicted that communist revolutions would first take place in Europe led by awakened industrial workers. Of course, this did not happen. In Russia and China, the Communist revolution was led by intellectuals and supported mostly by peasants.

Kentaro Toma

Marxist followers tried to make sense of why the industrial workers did not succeed in bringing revolution in Europe and America, and why only a minority were truly radicalized. The answers were worked out by an Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) who died young but left an extremely influential set of writings. These were done while he was in one of Mussolini’s prison – He had actually supported the fascist Mussolini earlier. Reflecting on his Catholic youth, Gramsci concluded that the reason that prevented workers from becoming communist as Marx had predicted was that the culture was Christian and held on to Judeo-Christian values and ethics. This would always impede and stop the spread of communism. His solution was not a frontal attack on the church, as was happening in Russia, but rather a slow takeover of church institutions and government agencies.

Gramsci’s work was not edited and published in English until 1970, but it circulated among the radical youths of the 1960s and continues to be vastly influential today among radicals and Marxists. The Rev. Smith affirms that after Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci is the most influential Communist writer of all time. What he advocated has become fact in the American University system, many NGOs, and through “liberation theology” in many parts of the Catholic Church.

This continued advancement of Marxism in the universities and other institutions of America was fueled by a group of Marxist intellectuals that came together at a Communist think-tank in Frankfort, Germany after World War I. They were independent of Stalin’s control, unlike the official Communist parties of the time, and developed different ideas about how to bring about the promised Communist Utopia. The Frankfort group, including Theodore Adorno, Eric Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, fled Germany after the Nazis won power (1933). For a time, they gathered in Columbia University and established the influential Marxist journal, Studies in Philosophy and Social Science. They were careful to be discrete and not overtly call for revolution or cite Karl Marx directly. What they did was develop critical theories of the important institutions of the West, with the intension that if they collapsed internally, or lost authority, the Communist revolution would succeed naturally, and utopia could be gained.

A salient quality of their writings was that they said nothing about the coming Utopia, assuming it would naturally fall into place. Several, including Eric Fromm, attempted to unite Marxist theory with Freudian psychoanalysis. Marcuse did this also, and in his Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (1955) went to the extreme of suggesting the capitalist bourgeois restrictions on sexuality were what made people unhappy. The liberated person should have no restrictions on sexual expression, including doing what some children do, playing with their own poop. He called this “polymorphous perversity” – a truly demonic idea which invites the spread many parasitic and bacterial diseases. In spite of this, Eros and Civilization became one of the foundations of the sexual liberation movement.

The writings of Gransci and the Frankfort group permeated American and European universities and blended with ecological, feminist, and LGBQ agendas to produce the political correctness movement – which is destroying freedom of speech in the universities. In this regard, Marcuse’s essay, “Repressive Tolerance” (1965) is key, as he suggested there that free speech can be oppressive to the underclasses of society and must be restricted.

The Rev. Smith concludes by identifying Cultural Communism as a real, strong, and active ideology. It is not a myth invented by right-wing activists, nor is it a Jewish plot as some have suggested. Although many in the Frankfort group were indeed Jews, it also had non-Jews. Rather, Cultural Marxism is Marxism elaborated and gone to seed while the West snoozed.

This is a masterful article, concise and insightful. Readers need not have a degree in philosophy or history to understand, though it might be difficult to follow for someone without a college education.

I find the only weak point in his article is the Rev. Smith’s section on how to reverse the present, awful situation in our universities. He advocates pursuing standard evangelistic techniques of conversations and evangelization with the radicals, as in, being polite and listening, and then giving the Gospel. Unfortunately, that has not worked very well. There have been Evangelical groups and clubs at universities for decades, and they have not stopped the universities’ march to radicalization. Traditional evangelism and apologetics has had relatively little impact on non-believers who are saturated with the ideas and myths of Marxism, while the writings of the New Atheists, have widely broadcast distorted and deformed views of Christianity.[1]

What the Rev. Smith is lacking is any understanding in the development that has occurred in recent decades in the area of spiritual warfare. He hints that some of the success of the Cultural Marxism may be due to demonic influences, but does not elaborate on this.

In this regard, I am preparing an essay which suggests that to counter Cultural Marxism it is necessary to massively employ spiritual warfare techniques and strategies, as in “concerts of prayer” that war against the territorial “principalities and powers” that reign over universities. Decades ago, the missiologist Peter Wagner showed this could be done to bind the demonic spirits that held back effective evangelization in the areas that resisted the Gospel.[2] To this type of spiritual warfare[3] should be added the “power evangelism” technique for individual evangelization made popular by John Wimber.[4] Indeed, radicalized individuals will not be swayed by evangelistic tracts or Billy Graham type crusades. Their deep contempt for Christianity makes them resistant to those forms of evangelization. But they will respond to the Gospel if it is presented, as scripturally mandated, with “signs and wonders,” as in their own healings (Heb 2:1-4). Power evangelism might best be brought to the universities through the “public prayer stations” where intercessors are posted on the streets to offer prayer to pedestrians. Even radicals have personal needs (“I’m sick,” “My girlfriend left me,” etc.) and are often willing to try prayer.[5]

Reviewed by William De Arteaga

Notes

[1] Siniscalchi, Glenn B., “Evangelization and the New Atheism,” American Theological Inquiry, 2 no 2 Jul 15 2009, p 29-41

[2] Peter Wagner has written many books and articles, but perhaps the two most pertinent in praying for the universities and colleges are: C. Peter Wagner, ed., Territorial Spirits: How to Crush the Enemy Through Spiritual Warfare (Shippensbury: Destiny Image, 2012) and Confronting the Powers (Regal, 1996)

[3] [Editor’s note: For a counter-point to the discussion of strategic level spiritual warfare, please see Larry Taylor, “Worldviews in Conflict: Christian Cosmology and the Recent Doctrine of Spiritual Mapping” Pneuma Review (Part 1 in Fall 2001 and Part 2 in Winter 2002).]

[4] John Wimber and Keven Springer, Power Evangelism (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1987).

[5] William L. De Arteaga, The Public Prayer Station: Taking Healing Prayer to the Streets and Evangelizing the Nones (Lexington: Emeth Press, 2018). Note the rapid conversion of a dedicated atheist during a prayer station healing, p. 62.

Chasing conspiracy theories is not going to solve any problems. True restoration begins when God’s people repent and walk in righteousness.

A recent conspiracy theory has garnered much national attention. It involves “Jade Helm 15,” an Armed Services training exercise employing the elite units of the Armed Forces in counter-terrorist warfare. About 1,200 servicemen will run exercises throughout the South West states including California, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. It is somewhat larger in area than the normal exercise of this sort, but the planners wanted to focus on problems of long range intrusion and evacuation of troops in sparsely populated desert terrain. That was certainly prudent in view of the ISIS situation in Syria, Iraq, and in West Africa.

War exercises have been held since the 1940’s, when the Army began mobilizing for World War II. General Eisenhower (then a Colonel) was a staff office in the “Battle of Louisiana” back in 1940 when that state was “invaded” by two American Armies. The Louisiana residents warmly welcomed the roughly 400,000 soldiers, who were often graciously billeted in private homes without cost. It was the last big exercise before the real war, and important lessons were learned, including the need for independent armored divisions.

But back to the present. The surprising and disheartening aspect of Jade Helm 15 is the reaction of many sincere Christians who see this exercise through the eyes of a far right conspiracy theory. They are informed, or rather misinformed, by right-wing anti-Obama web sites, and talk radio commentators such as Alex Jones.

The public briefing about Jade Helm in Bastrop, Texas, by the Army information officer, Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria, turned nasty. The conspiracy theory believers called the officer a liar, and that he was hiding the “true intent” of the exercise.[2] The conspiracy theory believers credit the soldiers participating as true patriots but, “They are merely following orders. What are under question are those who are pulling the strings at the top of Jade Helm 15 back in Washington.”[3]

But possibly the worst element of this conspiracy theory incident is that it has been given partial credence by the current governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. He ordered the Texas National Guard to “monitor” the various Armed Forces units that are taking part in the exercise.[4]

The elements of this conspiracy theory, like most others, are illogical and ludicrous. This irrationality is occulted in the believer’s mind by the accumulated distrust, disdain and fear of the Obama administration. This pattern of suspended logical thinking is one of the marks of a true conspiracy theory.

Let me take more time than I should to deconstruct this particular conspiracy theory.

• A majority of Texans disapprove of the Obama Administration. Using “back of the envelope” figures, that comes to at least 10,000,000 Texans who seriously dislike or distrust Obama. That is a whole lot of “opposition” to disarm and herd into various Wal-Marts. Especially given that Texans are among the most heavily armed segment of the American population, with untold numbers of hand-guns, assault rifles, 50 caliber sniper rifles, etc., in their possession. Our Special Forces and Seals and other anti-terrorist units contain some of the best soldiers in the world, but 1,200 against 10,000,000 is not possible except in action hero comic books.
• Most officers and enlisted personnel of our Armed Forces are of a center, or right-wing political opinion. Left leaning youth generally have distrust or contempt for our Armed Forces. Thus, few left-wing persons join our Armed forces, either at the officer or enlisted level. The demographics of the Armed Forces makes any campaign against right-wing civilians in Texas, or any other part of America that is “opposed to Obama” impossible.
• Officers and non-commissioned officers of all branches are educated, as part of their training, to disobey “illegal orders.” I remember instructions on this in my training during the Vietnam War. We had a film showing an imaginary incident in which an officer instructed a sergeant to force prisoners to march in front of his platoon to set off mines in a suspected minefield. That is against the Geneva Convention and the order by the officer was an illegal order. Our class was shown how to disobey such an order. The Armed forces still do that type of instruction. No American officer or soldier would obey the “mother and father” of all illegal orders—to arrest the “Obama opposition” even if such an insane order were given. Next time your son or cousin comes home for leave ask him if he would obey an order to arrest and possibly shoot the “Obama opposition.” This conspiracy theory is a slander to the American Armed Forces.

Even before this current Jade Helm conspiracy theory started doing its rounds, there were other web-based conspiracy theories about a government takeover on the web and talk-radio. One was that the Federal Government agents were disarming the American population by buying up all small arms ammunition. Again, Wal-Mart got into the myth, with the claim that Wal-Mart was completely sold out of small arms ammunition. Actually, many Wal-Marts, which are known for their low pricing on ammo, routinely sell out of stock and then restock within a day or two.

Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1998), 428 pages.

I look forward each year to the April issue of Christianity Today that features the 25 best books published in the past year. Reading through that list becomes my passion until the next list appears.

This year’s list proclaimed Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy to be the best of the best, and so it is—a must read for everyone who is a serious citizen of the Kingdom of God. Willard presents the Sermon on the Mount to the reader in a superbly reasoned order that I found too overwhelming to absorb except in short bites. I found myself constantly provoked to stop and ponder the blessings, meditating on the believer’s heritage which Willard puts forth so well in a profound, but simple way.

I made reading this book part of my daily early morning devotional time with the Lord, and I constantly found that I would use the ideas that Willard presented throughout the day as I interfaced with others.

Dallas A. Willard (1935 – 2013)
Image: Dieter Zander / dwillard.org

Willard likens life in the kingdom of man to flying an airplane upside down, compared to the informed citizens of the Kingdom of God who by natural choice and superior knowledge fly their planes right side up. Willard finds reality in the invisible world and unreality in the visible world. At one point he writes that “nothing fundamental has changed in the knowledge of ultimate reality and the human life since the days of Jesus” He goes on to say that “The number of theories, ideas and teachings that have emerged in recent centuries have not the least logical bearing on the ultimate issues of life and existence.”

Willard states the obvious but often ignored fact that Jesus is the smartest person to ever live on this earth; He is more than a nice person who spoke quotable pretty words. Indeed Jesus is competent to be trusted in every human endeavor, in every matter you will ever face. There is no one else to rely upon for better research and knowledge. Jesus has the best information on everything and is by far the most reliable resource on the things that matter most to you.

Willard builds on the foundation; Jesus, the only rock worth standing on. He then unpacks, examines, grapples with and applies what Jesus said we are to do. Let me put it this way, “You cannot do what I do, unless you do what I do.” If you aspire to be like Jesus, The Divine Conspiracy will be an immense help in seeing what true Christlikeness is all about.

Reviewed by H. Murray Hohns