Ankerberg Show

Dr. John Ankerberg: Welcome. Our topic today is about two men who had two radically different messages and left two legacies that changed the world and still shape it today. Karl Marx and D. L. Moody lived at nearly the same time. Both saw poverty, suffering, and injustice around them, but they offered opposing answers to what was wrong with the world and how it could be changed. Marx looked to political and economic revolution and the restructuring of society. Moody believed the deepest problem was in the sinful human heart and that real lasting change can only begin when men and women know Jesus Christ as their savior.

But Moody did not ignore people's physical needs. Having grown up in poverty himself, he went into one of the toughest areas of Chicago known as Little Hell and began a Sunday school for poor children that expanded quickly to over 1,000 children and 300 of their parents. Moody's work and reputation spread way beyond Chicago so that even President-elect Abraham Lincoln learned about his Sunday school and visited them and spoke briefly. As a result, Moody himself was invited to many places to speak and went on to preach the gospel to over 100 million people across America and Great Britain.

Karl Marx's writings meanwhile began to shape political movements and governments around the world and his radical ideas continue to influence our culture today. What did these two men actually believe? Where did their ideas lead? My guest today is Dr. Erwin Lutzer, who is the pastor emeritus of the Moody Church, where he served as senior pastor for 36 years. He's the author of 70 books and co-author with historian Dr. Greg Quiggle of their new book Marx and Moody, Two Contemporaries, Two Gospels, Two Tombstones, One Choice. Join us for this edition of the John Ankerberg Show. Welcome to our program.

I'm John Ankerberg. Let me ask you a question. Do you like these words? We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. I like those words a whole lot. In fact, a lot of Americans have died for those words. But you know, when you go to say this book that my guest that's sitting across the table wrote, it's just coming out, Marx and Moody.

Karl Marx is very famous for creating the Communist Manifesto. That was picked up and countries like Russia, the old Soviet Union, and then China, North Korea, Albania, they adopted his ideas. But here's what we're going to do today. We're going to take the Communist Manifesto and the ideas of Marx and we're going to talk about the fact that some communists around the world, they wanted to spread their message. And they kept thinking about the United States and they thought, how in the world are we going to persuade those Americans when they're so conservative? They got so many religious institutions that believe in God and they've got so many families.

The nuclear family is very important to them and their children. So, how are we going to take the hard communism that you find in the Communist Manifesto? How are we going to tweak that a little bit, change it a little bit, rebrand it and bring it into America to achieve our goals, but do it just a little differently? Does that sound like maybe what's happening today? We've got the man that wrote this book here and that's what we're going to talk about today. Talk about how the rebranding of the Communist Manifesto and straight what I call hard communism, how they changed it, rebranded it.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: John, I'm very glad to do that, but first of all, I want to make a quick comment about what you mentioned, that all are created equal and that we get our rights from God. When Marx transferred faith from God to the state, the state gives you your rights. What that means is you have no right even to criticize the state unless the state has given you that right and you have no right to live unless the state gives you that right.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Correct.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: So, we have to appreciate what we have here in America. But in answer to your question, how did Marxism come to America? I have to introduce people to an Italian by the name of Antonio Gramsci. He's sitting in prison in Italy.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Mhm.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Actually, Mussolini put him in prison because

Dr. John Ankerberg: Cuz he was afraid of his strict communism.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: He was afraid of his communism because fascism is different than communism. So, Gramsci is sitting in prison and saying, how can Marxism come to America as you laid out? How can that be done? And he decided that it was a very bad idea to think that America could have a revolution like Russia. Russia was a very bad example for communism. And so, the question is how do we do it? And that's where we get cultural Marxism. We get the slow march through the institutions. It has to be brought in incrementally so that in the process of doing that, people begin to say to themselves, it's really good.

This is what we should have. And so, people accept communism voluntarily. Gramsci believed that there were three barriers. There was Christianity. There was the home because remember, according to Marx, the family is oppressive. It has to be destroyed. In fact, Engels, who helped write the Communist Manifesto, said that as soon as a baby is able to exist without its mother, it should be taken by the state and educated. Children were trained to turn against their parents. So, what you have is strong families, you have Christianity, and you have capitalism. The question is how? And I think that what Gramsci wrote is going to be fascinating to people, particularly people who are interested in the church

Dr. John Ankerberg: Yes.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: because he talks about how this can be done through the media, through education, and through entertainment and so forth. But here's what he says, that even the church can be used to promote communism.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Correct.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Now, how? A socialist who knows how to use statements in scripture such as blessed are the poor or it is very difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven can be used to promote the idea of communism, namely that the rich are to be vilified because you have to remember how communists think. If you are rich, it's because you got rich on the backs of other people and therefore you made them poor. Now, that's not true,

Dr. John Ankerberg: Correct.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: but that's the way in which they view it. So, trash the rich and then it says a socialist who knows how to use these kinds of phrases can achieve very positive results in the work of moral and intellectual reform. It is a question of translating the religious language into historical political language of showing how the same aspirations that Christianity places on the beyond, namely heaven, can be realized on Earth through the collective action of men. Take the language of heaven, transfer it to Earth and we can bring in paradise. We don't have to wait until heaven.

In fact, in his mind, there was no heaven. And if you want another quote from him directly, socialism is precisely the religion that must kill Christianity. Now, the question is how does this siphon off and become part of American culture? I want to mention it very quickly. First of all, education, especially the trashing of our history. You know, George Orwell says that the best way to destroy a people is to take their history and to destroy it. In fact, communism has always done that. They've renamed countries. They've renamed cities.

Dr. John Ankerberg: They changed the names.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: They changed the names. Now, here's what's happening in our schools. America is being trashed. You know, we are racist, we are homophobic, we are greedy, we are capitalistic, and the list goes on and on. Now, Schlesinger, who was a confidant of President Kennedy, said this, history is to a nation what memory is to a person. Now, if a person loses his memory, he can be told he is whatever somebody wants him to be and he'll believe it. So, what you want to do is to take our past, make sure nothing good is said about America, make sure that it is always unfavorably compared with its ideals and then move on.

In fact, again to quote Orwell, the past was erased. The erasure was forgotten and the lie became the truth. In Chicago, there was a man by the name of Saul Alinsky and Saul Alinsky saw how he could apply Marxist principles to the conflict between white and black in the city. And through the providence of God, I met someone who actually worked with him and he said, we had some very good plans as to how we could improve some of the under-resourced parts of the city of Chicago. And he says Alinsky trashed them. He shouted at us, we are not here to solve problems.

We are here to use problems. What he wanted to do is to create perpetual conflict. Marxism always delights in perpetual change as we learned. And in this way, he would be able to bring about the foment that he hoped that eventually perhaps communism would be brought about. Now, it is very critical for people to be able to understand the fact that Alinsky would not allow anyone to compare America with any other country. Why? Because America will look too good. And what you don't want is a country, America, to look good. Now, that being said,

Dr. John Ankerberg: Correct.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: of course, what we ought to do is to acknowledge the sins of the past. Racism should be understood. Slavery should be understood. We're not saying that, but that's not the only thing that you can say about America. So, how does the Bible answer the question of racism by the way? In Colossians chapter 3 verse 11, the apostle Paul says, here in Christ there is not Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all. When I became the pastor of Moody Church in 1980, we recognized in downtown Chicago we were to work toward unity because someday in heaven there are going to be people from every tongue and nation.

They are all going to be gathered together, every color. And we should represent that on Earth, especially if we live in a community like that. But you know, when we got into the '90s and the 2000s, as a church we continue to do that. In fact, I think Moody Church is still like that today, but the culture was changing. Now, there was greater hostility and greater anger and greater blame and on and on.

Dr. John Ankerberg: How many different nationalities did you have in one

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: 70.

Dr. John Ankerberg: 70.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: 70 different nationalities.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Yeah. Right.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: That's amazing. Yeah, because we saw ourselves as living in downtown Chicago. People were welcome there from no matter where they came.

Dr. John Ankerberg: And it was the gospel that united them.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: It's the gospel. I'm going to say this more clearly in a single sentence than perhaps people have ever heard it. Social justice destroys and tears apart everything that Jesus died to bring together. And what we have to do is we have to meet together at the foot of the cross. We need to be able to deal with our differences. We confess the sins of the past. We understand what has happened, but that's not the only thing about America's history.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Yes.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: We have deep Christian roots and that should be appreciated. So, historically, number one, use diversity to divide and to destroy, trash our history, destroy the family. Very critical. That's why you find in many of our public schools today this hostility toward parents. In other words, the teachers are the ones who are supposed to be in charge.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Yeah, they won't even tell the parents what they're doing.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: And in some instances, this is hard to believe, but a boy may say that he's a girl in school and you're supposed to call him a she and his parents don't even know that their boy claims to be a she. I mean, let's just take a deep breath. John, who would have ever believed we'd live in a society where your son could tell you that he was pregnant? I mean, it's just just absurd. But you see, all of this also contributes to hostility between teachers and parents and so forth. Why? Well, let's go back to the manifesto that we dealt with last time where it says that parents can't be trusted with their child's education.

The child has to be educated by the state. And then of course, also to hate capitalism. If I might put it this way, first of all, what you need is to hate your parents, to hate capitalism, and to hate your country. If you have accomplished that, you've accomplished a great deal because now you're trashing America and what you are doing is especially as we talk about social justice, we can understand here that Gramsci's vision is being accomplished.

Dr. John Ankerberg: That's correct.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: And then you think of our government. You know, you have these many emphases on world government and so forth. And you think of Karl Marx and all that he has done and his vision. It may not be hard Marxism. We'll discuss that next time, but it certainly is

Dr. John Ankerberg: Yeah.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: a form of Marxism.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Yeah, I've got one here that I think is very important. Another goal of Marxism is the abolition of free speech.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Yes. And the reason is because they feel it is unfair for capitalists to be able to present their views. You also have in our universities today often times a great deal of violence if they just get a speaker that disagrees.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Take Charlie Kirk.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Yeah. After he had been put to death, there was a conference that was organized to help people to understand what Charlie Kirk believed, the gospel, capitalism, communism, and so forth. And yet you have violence.

Dr. John Ankerberg: It was the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Yeah, you have violence. What was that about?

Dr. John Ankerberg: And they had to cancel the event because there was so much commotion. They didn't want free speech.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Right. What I want the people who are listening to us today to understand is this. There is an alternate way. Did Moody know about communism? He sure did. I'm paraphrasing his words, but he said this, unless we share the gospel within the cities, the leaven of communism and infidelity are going to become so strong that we will see a riot the likes of which we have never seen. He understood that communism was dangerous, but I want you to grasp his preaching because after all, we are deeply committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, showcasing it over and against Marxist philosophy.

And I want you to grasp how Moody was a visionary in his preaching. Not too well educated, but that's okay. He loved God and he loved the gospel. Capture his imagination. I can imagine that when Christ said to the little band around him, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel, Peter said, Lord, do you really mean that we are to go back to Jerusalem and preach the gospel to those men that murdered you? Yes, said Christ. Go hunt up that man that spit in my face and tell him he may have a seat at my kingdom yet.

Peter, go find that man that took the cruel crown of thorns and placed it on my brow and tell him that I have a crown ready for him in heaven. If he comes into my kingdom and there will be no thorns in it, hunt up that man that took the reed and brought it down over the cruel thorns driving them into my brow and tell him I will put a scepter in his hand and he shall rule over the nations of the Earth if he accepts my salvation. Search for the man that drove the spear into my side and tell him there is a nearer way to my heart than that.

Tell him I forgive him. My friend today, no matter your past, no matter the mess that you may have made, God is able to forgive you, to cleanse you in the midst of a world that is losing its way and all the confusion and all the voices, there can be a voice of hope, a voice of calmness through Jesus Christ who died for us. When it comes down to Marx and Moody, I trust that you will follow Moody's path because as we shall see eventually at his grave, our words those who do the will of God abide forever.

If you've never received Christ, no matter what you have done right now, you can believe and be saved. Father, speak to people at this moment. Help them to understand the supremacy of the gospel and to thank you that you died for sinners and that there is hope beyond the grave. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Thank you, Erwin. And folks, next week we're going to talk about something that I think you're going to want to hear. It's called Democratic Socialism, Marxism Light. Sell the dream. Forget about how you pay for it. Sell it as a noble cause, but don't talk about how it's done. So, thank you, Erwin, for what you said today and we look forward to next week.

Dr. Erwin Lutzer: Thanks, John.

Dr. John Ankerberg: Now, thank you for listening to the John Ankerberg Show. We're a listener-supported ministry and your gifts help us continue to share the gospel with millions of people worldwide. To learn more about our resources or to support our mission, visit jashow.org or please call us at 1 800 805 3030. If you're in Canada, please visit jashow.ca or call us at 1 866 746 5803 or you can subscribe to us on YouTube. Your support makes a difference in spreading God's word.