Why Liberals reject the God of the Bible
Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto wrote: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” He went on to state that “the first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.” By definition, socialism requires the abolition of all moral absolutes established throughout the Bible. Under socialism, the almighty State must seek to arbitrarily promote civility in a culture without any model of divine “absolute truth” (see John 17:17).
Marxists deny the existence of God, or any supernatural entity outside or above nature. They acknowledge no need for a supernatural explanation of the universe and life. As they see it, nature supplies its own explanations. Also identified as Socialists, these individuals believe that science has proven that all species have evolved over billions of years from inorganic matter. Marx concluded, “Since Darwin has explained the development of all material things, science has no need for the intervention of the supernatural.” Marx termed this philosophy “dialectical materialism.”
Atheism began to spread throughout the world post-Darwin only because science was now supposedly able to furnish the explanations for our existence. Marx wrote: “Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.” Charles Darwin’s theory of “natural selection” and Karl Marx’s “dialectical materialism” furnished atheism the means by which to disprove the existence of God. Since a supernatural being is the basis of all religions, God must be a myth.
Change the economic base and you will change human beings.
— Karl Marx
This doctrine of evolution provides justification for abolishing not only God, but the right to private property and the biblical family as well. Marxists see no laws of God governing property and the family. They view property and family as late developments in man’s evolutionary climb from the swamp into modern civilization. In other words, property and family serve no moral purposes, and are simply the result of evolutionary progress. They are, therefore, subject to change.
Thus, Karl Marx saw mankind as mere matter that can be shaped and perfected by its external environment. Instead of seeking to change people from the inside out as the Gospel of Jesus Christ does, liberals in America today—in concert with Marx’s worldview—aim to mold individuals from the outside in. In fact Marx asserted, “Change the economic base and you will change human beings.” As he saw things, “the individual exists only as a means to satisfy the needs of the state.” Hence, Darwinism is the fundamental basis of the Marxists’ socio-economic system.
Once economic control of the individual is achieved, through means such as progressive taxation and redistribution of wealth, the State becomes all-powerful. Such an all-powerful state views itself, and not God, as the ultimate authority. The basic thesis of socialism is that man’s first loyalty must be to the State and not to God. So it shouldn’t be surprising that The Communist Manifesto calls for abolishing God and family. Under a socialist system, the State must determine what is right and wrong, without any competing loyalties to the one true God and the biblical family.
In view of all this it would stand to reason that it is impossible for a true Christian to be a socialist, or for a true socialist to be a Christian. Nevertheless, progressives have cleverly twisted the scriptures in order to make their materialistic philosophy appear Christian. In fact, Marx cynically pointed out in The Communist Manifesto that “nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a Socialist tinge.” After all, didn’t Jesus command us to care for our neighbor in need? However, liberals fail to realize that this commandment is to the individual and the church—not to civil government! Nor did Jesus advocate the employment of force to redistribute wealth, such employment being a distinctive mark of the State. This simple “oversight” is perhaps the foremost obstacle and untruth that prevents Christians from truly understanding economics and political ideology from a biblical perspective.
In a nutshell, the ultimate goal of the liberal-left seems to be to dethrone God and destroy capitalism (or biblical, free-markets). Karl Marx boasted, “The theory of communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.” He defined private property as a form of theft. Liberals see it as a social necessity to destroy the thieves, namely, the property owners and businessmen, and to replace them with some sort of collectivistic system. And once private property is abolished, parental authority is automatically transferred from the parents to the state—thus destroying the family as a primary social unit as well. Hence by attacking property and capitalism, family, and God are also attacked. Liberals and socialists recognize—and correctly so—that property, family, and God are inseparably linked.
Ray Harker is the founder of God in Government (www.GodGov.org), a teaching ministry and outreach dedicated to a Biblical worldview. He is the author of the books God in Government and Solid Food for the Soul.
