EVANGELICALS AND OTHER CHRISTIANS SHOULD KNOW HISTORY
Right before elections of 2008 and 2012 I asked my friend, who has many evangelical friends, “Why evangelicals, other Christian denominations, Jews, and most believers of various religions do not actively participate in presidential elections, and thus let a socialist of any kind, and especially Lenin’s kind, to become a President of the USA?” I told him that United States has not been yet completely transferred from a capitalist to a socialist/communist country, although many noticeable changes have been completed and many others are in the process. And therefore all religious people, as all other citizens, can and should participate in elections and affect results of elections. All citizens should vote and, till it is not too late, protect themselves from the unescapable fate of majority of religious people in dozens of socialist/communist countries, which existed and collapsed in XX century and exist today. The fate of religious people in any socialist/communist country in XX century and even XXI century is not very attractive. To find out what happened with all those people Americans should read any of thousands books written by famous and not so famous people, who lived under socialist/communist yoke (some of them for many years), witnessed lawless behavior of a murderous governments and a ruling parties, and managed to run away out of socialist/communist “paradise” often risking their own life and lives of their family. In other words every American should learn history since "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."
My friend did not answer my question in 2008 at once but after couple of weeks, when we returned to the same discussion, he said that his evangelical friends do not care much about elections and who is in a government; they think that there are so many evangelicals in this country that no government can hurt them. Similar discussions we had in the middle of 2012. But right after re-election Obama as President I came across with publication of Billy Hallowell , titled “Are Christians at Fault for Obama’s Re-Election Win? Rev. Franklin Graham Says Yes”,Nov.19,2012. In this publication Billy Hallowell wrote:
“The Rev. Franklin Graham has a message for Christians who are unhappy with the results of the 2012 presidential election: You only have yourself to blame. In a recent interview with CBN News Chief Political Correspondent David Brody, Graham said that the majority of Christians simply don’t vote — inaction that has dire consequences in local and national elections, alike.
““What is your message to folks who are wondering what just happened, and it looks like they feel a semi hit them?,” Brody asked the faith leader, clearly referring to the aftermath of the 2012 presidential election.
Graham responded by noting that, based on statistics he’s seen, the majority of Christians do not vote in America. With a dearth of evangelicals heading to the polls, the son of the famed Rev. Billy Graham said that the responsibility for an Obama re-election win is on Christians’ shoulders.
“God is in control, and if Christians are upset, they need to be upset at themselves,” he told Brody. “We need to do a better job of getting our people - the Church - to vote.”
While he maintained that he’s not telling people how to vote (though he did emphasize the need to “stand for Biblical values”), he emphasized the need for adherents to be politically active at the local, state and national level. It’s not just the presidency that matters, he said, going on to note school boards, city councils and other venues as monumentally important to dictating the nation’s trajectory.”
History of 2008 and 2012 is recent history. But more complete history of tragic conflicts between socialist/communist ideology and any religion started long time ago from one of the most frequently paraphrased statements “Religion is the opium of the people" of socialist/communist Karl Marx, the founder of contemporary socialism and communism. History of conflicts between a socialist/communist government and religious people usually starts when socialists/communists capture the real power using any means. As we mentioned the history of XX and XXI centuries, before collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, knew dozens of socialist/communist countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Congo, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Nazi Germany, East Germany, Ethiopia, Hungary, Laos, Mongolia, Mozambique, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Somalia, South Yemen, Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia. At the present time there are only five communist countries in the world – China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. In spite on different locations, size, population, languages, history, etc., all those countries had and have similar internal and international policies, required by the socialist/communist ideology. One of many common internal policies, which we would like to mention, is abolishing of all religions, including torturing and execution of absolute majority of all religion servants and active believers and physical distraction (mainly by explosions) of majority of churches and synagogues. It is usually one of the first steps of any socialist\communist government, when it comes to power in a country. Small number of churches are not destroyed and used as stables for livestock or storage facilities for crops. For example, in Moscow after Bolshevik coup socialist/communist government left three churches and one synagogue (before Bolshevik coup Moscow had several thousands of churches), which they used to show tourists from Western countries as the evidence of religious freedom in the USSR. In 1950th or maybe earlier KGB installed photo cameras on all streets around those few churches and synagogue and any soviet citizen, who happened to be on those streets for any reason, has been photographed and next day has been called to “spetzchast – special department” at his work place, where he was interrogated by a KGB representative about the reason of being too close to church/synagogue building day before. If the reason was not good enough he could be punished up to losing job in Moscow and send to Siberia together with his family. But such a small punishment happened mainly after 1960, when Lenin and Stalin have already been dead. In a “good old” times of Lenin and Stalin punishment could be a fire squad for the guilty person and concentration camp for all of his family.
There is also history of countries of the world, where socialists/communists captured power by force or by elections and religious people ignored the fact. One of the most known examples is Russia, where Bolshevik/socialist/communist V. Lenin organized coup against democratic government, which had power after democratic revolution of 1917 and the czar’s abdication. During democratic revolution V. Lenin lived in Switzerland and did not know anything about what was going in Russia. But after returning to Russia with the help and financing of Germany V. Lenin organized am armed coup with the help of about 200 people and created totalitarian regime in country, where 99% of population were religious people and most of them were Orthodox Christians. I mention Russia because it was a country, which can be compared with the United States of today if one considers basic characteristics of both countries - both have large territories, large populations, Russia in 1914 was very reach country, called bread-basket of Europe; in time of democratic revolution and Bolshevik coup it was in state of war with Germany and had absolute majority of religious people, who believed socialist/communist slogans, created by V. Lenin, and socialist/communist propaganda. It should be said, that V. Lenin in his publications did not hide his hate for all religions, except Islam (read more in Our first car in Moscow, the USSR). V. Lenin and, after his death, J. Stalin constantly demonstrated their hate to all Russian religious people and nevertheless 166 million of religious people let them and socialist/communist government to destroy all religions, make all of people serfs of ruling socialist/communist party leaders and, in process, torture and murder at least 66 million people of Russia.
Socialists/communists captured power in all countries, using more or less the same approach. They do not hide their real final goal and they follow well publicized two steps program, given in infamous socialist/communist anthem La Marseillaise, which we learned by heart, when we were in school in Russia. Those steps are: Step 1 - to destroy existing world to the ground, and after that, Step 2 - to build new world.
To accelerate distraction of existing world to the ground they usually use V. Lenin’s practical slogans, created in 1917. Most popular slogan is ГРАБЬ НАГРАБЛЕНОЕ, means ROB THOSE WHO ROBBED YOU, and two others slogans are ВСЯ ЗЕМЛЯ КРЕСТЬЯНАМ, means ALL LANDS TO PEASANTS, and ВСЕ ФАБРИКИ И ЗАВОДЫ РАБОЧИМ, means ALL FACTORIES AND PLANTS TO WORKERS.
As history shows slogan ГРАБЬ НАГРАБЛЕНОЕ mob usually understands as a call to “rob people who has money since they have gotten their money by robbing you and others”. In 1917 coup and during following civil war this slogan resulted in distraction and burning to the ground by mob more than 70% of good houses in Russia and murdering millions hard working middle class peoples and their families including small children. The slogan is formulated as generic statement, therefore in different countries socialists/communists successfully use this slogan to attack different groups of people. In today’s presidential elections in the United States self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders uses this slogan to attack “billionaire class”, “Wall Street”, and hardworking middle class to get money for his socialist/communist “free” programs, progressive socialist Hillary Clinton follows Obama in trying to transfer wealth from hard working middle class to socialist government “free” programs. The obvious examples of how this slogan is used by various groups of scoundrels in Europe, USA, and other countries is behavior of “Occupy Wall street … and anything else” people a couple years ago in many USA cities. Majority of those “occupiers” never worked in their lives and answering to TV or radio interviewers they said that they are ready to start working only, if their starting salary/wage will be more than $80K. They were peeing and soiling right near the tents, where they slept during just another “occupation”. “Occupiers”, as any socialist/communist group, sincerely believe that everybody, who does not agree with them, should be robbed, beaten, jailed and killed.
Two others Lenin’s slogans are usually used by socialist/communist governments to move all lands, factories and plants from private owners to a government (they call it “public” property) and very soon to completely eliminate private property. In all socialist/communist countries that process didn’t take much time. After all properties including lands moved in socialist/communist hands, it means that “Step 1 - to destroy existing world to the ground” is successfully completed and socialist/communist government moves to make “Step 2 - build new world”. We should notice that completion of Step 1, i.e. distraction of existing world to the ground, never was a problem and any socialist/communist country succeeded in doing it. Depending on size of the country and resistance of the people it usually took relatively short time. All socialist/communist governments tried to make Step 2 but, as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money (to spend)." Historically, when a socialist/communist government cannot make Step 2 a success, it starts to look for guilty party to blame. In case of Russia and many other countries it was endless line of guilty groups of population – rich people, landowners, church, religious servants, officers of old Russia army, bourgeoisie, successful peasants (kulaks), religious peasants (kulaks), cultural elite, several dozen various minority peoples, etc. Each of those groups has been accused of resistance, spying, treason and other crime. Most of them have been arrested, jailed, murdered, or sent to concentration camps in Siberia and North parts of Russia. 66 mln (about 40% of old Russia population) of innocent people have been murdered by CHK-KGB during 74 years of socialists/communists regime. In 74 years (1917-1991) the largest and the richest (in its time) country in the world collapsed under load of socialism/communism. “New world” (Step 2) has never been built in any country. Socialist/communist governments in other countries acted similarly to the Soviet Union leaders, they never completed Step 2; in process of building socialism/communism some of them killed larger percent of their own population, than were killed in the Soviet Union, some of them a little bit less – it is the only difference between all socialist/communist countries.
Short excursus into socialist/communist countries histories teaches us that any group of population which do not participate in elections for any reason, independent of its size, effectively gives control of their future to other group(s) of population which may use it against them. 2008 and 2012 elections showed that evangelicals have given power, though unintentionally, to the socialist, who’s internal and international policies were mostly against interests of Christians and the United States.
We understand that a reader of this essay may ask some questions:
2. Why do we use most of the time cumbersome term “socialism/communism” instead of terms “socialist” or “communist”?
In our life experience and our readings we met various adjectives to words socialism and communism used by governments of socialist/communist countries:
revolutionary socialism (Mr. Karl Marx),
soviet socialism (the USSR),
matured socialism (used in the latest period of the USSR existence),
national socialism (used in Hitler’s Germany, shortening is NAZI of Naziism),
international socialism (used in one period of the USSR existence),
democratic socialism (used by Mr. Bernie Sanders of the USA Democratic party),
progressive socialism (Mrs. Hillary Clinton of the USA Democratic party),
chinese socialism (used in China and Russia),
etc, etc.
Our studies show that, in spite of different adjectives used in front of word socialism, behavior of all socialist and communist governments of the world were and are the same, and results of their catastrophic rulings are also the same.
NOTE:
For more information see page with interesting quotes about history, capitalism and socialism from famous and infamous historical leaders. Click highlighted words to see.
President Ronald Reagan liked to tell soviet anecdotes which describe socialism/communism of the Soviet Union better than anything else. These anecdotes have been forbidden in the USSR. All of them are funny ones. Click highlighted words to watch.
B.V. February 2016
Right before elections of 2008 and 2012 I asked my friend, who has many evangelical friends, “Why evangelicals, other Christian denominations, Jews, and most believers of various religions do not actively participate in presidential elections, and thus let a socialist of any kind, and especially Lenin’s kind, to become a President of the USA?” I told him that United States has not been yet completely transferred from a capitalist to a socialist/communist country, although many noticeable changes have been completed and many others are in the process. And therefore all religious people, as all other citizens, can and should participate in elections and affect results of elections. All citizens should vote and, till it is not too late, protect themselves from the unescapable fate of majority of religious people in dozens of socialist/communist countries, which existed and collapsed in XX century and exist today. The fate of religious people in any socialist/communist country in XX century and even XXI century is not very attractive. To find out what happened with all those people Americans should read any of thousands books written by famous and not so famous people, who lived under socialist/communist yoke (some of them for many years), witnessed lawless behavior of a murderous governments and a ruling parties, and managed to run away out of socialist/communist “paradise” often risking their own life and lives of their family. In other words every American should learn history since "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."
My friend did not answer my question in 2008 at once but after couple of weeks, when we returned to the same discussion, he said that his evangelical friends do not care much about elections and who is in a government; they think that there are so many evangelicals in this country that no government can hurt them. Similar discussions we had in the middle of 2012. But right after re-election Obama as President I came across with publication of Billy Hallowell , titled “Are Christians at Fault for Obama’s Re-Election Win? Rev. Franklin Graham Says Yes”,Nov.19,2012. In this publication Billy Hallowell wrote:
“The Rev. Franklin Graham has a message for Christians who are unhappy with the results of the 2012 presidential election: You only have yourself to blame. In a recent interview with CBN News Chief Political Correspondent David Brody, Graham said that the majority of Christians simply don’t vote — inaction that has dire consequences in local and national elections, alike.
““What is your message to folks who are wondering what just happened, and it looks like they feel a semi hit them?,” Brody asked the faith leader, clearly referring to the aftermath of the 2012 presidential election.
Graham responded by noting that, based on statistics he’s seen, the majority of Christians do not vote in America. With a dearth of evangelicals heading to the polls, the son of the famed Rev. Billy Graham said that the responsibility for an Obama re-election win is on Christians’ shoulders.
“God is in control, and if Christians are upset, they need to be upset at themselves,” he told Brody. “We need to do a better job of getting our people - the Church - to vote.”
While he maintained that he’s not telling people how to vote (though he did emphasize the need to “stand for Biblical values”), he emphasized the need for adherents to be politically active at the local, state and national level. It’s not just the presidency that matters, he said, going on to note school boards, city councils and other venues as monumentally important to dictating the nation’s trajectory.”
History of 2008 and 2012 is recent history. But more complete history of tragic conflicts between socialist/communist ideology and any religion started long time ago from one of the most frequently paraphrased statements “Religion is the opium of the people" of socialist/communist Karl Marx, the founder of contemporary socialism and communism. History of conflicts between a socialist/communist government and religious people usually starts when socialists/communists capture the real power using any means. As we mentioned the history of XX and XXI centuries, before collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, knew dozens of socialist/communist countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Benin, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Congo, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Nazi Germany, East Germany, Ethiopia, Hungary, Laos, Mongolia, Mozambique, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Somalia, South Yemen, Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia. At the present time there are only five communist countries in the world – China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. In spite on different locations, size, population, languages, history, etc., all those countries had and have similar internal and international policies, required by the socialist/communist ideology. One of many common internal policies, which we would like to mention, is abolishing of all religions, including torturing and execution of absolute majority of all religion servants and active believers and physical distraction (mainly by explosions) of majority of churches and synagogues. It is usually one of the first steps of any socialist\communist government, when it comes to power in a country. Small number of churches are not destroyed and used as stables for livestock or storage facilities for crops. For example, in Moscow after Bolshevik coup socialist/communist government left three churches and one synagogue (before Bolshevik coup Moscow had several thousands of churches), which they used to show tourists from Western countries as the evidence of religious freedom in the USSR. In 1950th or maybe earlier KGB installed photo cameras on all streets around those few churches and synagogue and any soviet citizen, who happened to be on those streets for any reason, has been photographed and next day has been called to “spetzchast – special department” at his work place, where he was interrogated by a KGB representative about the reason of being too close to church/synagogue building day before. If the reason was not good enough he could be punished up to losing job in Moscow and send to Siberia together with his family. But such a small punishment happened mainly after 1960, when Lenin and Stalin have already been dead. In a “good old” times of Lenin and Stalin punishment could be a fire squad for the guilty person and concentration camp for all of his family.
There is also history of countries of the world, where socialists/communists captured power by force or by elections and religious people ignored the fact. One of the most known examples is Russia, where Bolshevik/socialist/communist V. Lenin organized coup against democratic government, which had power after democratic revolution of 1917 and the czar’s abdication. During democratic revolution V. Lenin lived in Switzerland and did not know anything about what was going in Russia. But after returning to Russia with the help and financing of Germany V. Lenin organized am armed coup with the help of about 200 people and created totalitarian regime in country, where 99% of population were religious people and most of them were Orthodox Christians. I mention Russia because it was a country, which can be compared with the United States of today if one considers basic characteristics of both countries - both have large territories, large populations, Russia in 1914 was very reach country, called bread-basket of Europe; in time of democratic revolution and Bolshevik coup it was in state of war with Germany and had absolute majority of religious people, who believed socialist/communist slogans, created by V. Lenin, and socialist/communist propaganda. It should be said, that V. Lenin in his publications did not hide his hate for all religions, except Islam (read more in Our first car in Moscow, the USSR). V. Lenin and, after his death, J. Stalin constantly demonstrated their hate to all Russian religious people and nevertheless 166 million of religious people let them and socialist/communist government to destroy all religions, make all of people serfs of ruling socialist/communist party leaders and, in process, torture and murder at least 66 million people of Russia.
Socialists/communists captured power in all countries, using more or less the same approach. They do not hide their real final goal and they follow well publicized two steps program, given in infamous socialist/communist anthem La Marseillaise, which we learned by heart, when we were in school in Russia. Those steps are: Step 1 - to destroy existing world to the ground, and after that, Step 2 - to build new world.
To accelerate distraction of existing world to the ground they usually use V. Lenin’s practical slogans, created in 1917. Most popular slogan is ГРАБЬ НАГРАБЛЕНОЕ, means ROB THOSE WHO ROBBED YOU, and two others slogans are ВСЯ ЗЕМЛЯ КРЕСТЬЯНАМ, means ALL LANDS TO PEASANTS, and ВСЕ ФАБРИКИ И ЗАВОДЫ РАБОЧИМ, means ALL FACTORIES AND PLANTS TO WORKERS.
As history shows slogan ГРАБЬ НАГРАБЛЕНОЕ mob usually understands as a call to “rob people who has money since they have gotten their money by robbing you and others”. In 1917 coup and during following civil war this slogan resulted in distraction and burning to the ground by mob more than 70% of good houses in Russia and murdering millions hard working middle class peoples and their families including small children. The slogan is formulated as generic statement, therefore in different countries socialists/communists successfully use this slogan to attack different groups of people. In today’s presidential elections in the United States self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders uses this slogan to attack “billionaire class”, “Wall Street”, and hardworking middle class to get money for his socialist/communist “free” programs, progressive socialist Hillary Clinton follows Obama in trying to transfer wealth from hard working middle class to socialist government “free” programs. The obvious examples of how this slogan is used by various groups of scoundrels in Europe, USA, and other countries is behavior of “Occupy Wall street … and anything else” people a couple years ago in many USA cities. Majority of those “occupiers” never worked in their lives and answering to TV or radio interviewers they said that they are ready to start working only, if their starting salary/wage will be more than $80K. They were peeing and soiling right near the tents, where they slept during just another “occupation”. “Occupiers”, as any socialist/communist group, sincerely believe that everybody, who does not agree with them, should be robbed, beaten, jailed and killed.
Two others Lenin’s slogans are usually used by socialist/communist governments to move all lands, factories and plants from private owners to a government (they call it “public” property) and very soon to completely eliminate private property. In all socialist/communist countries that process didn’t take much time. After all properties including lands moved in socialist/communist hands, it means that “Step 1 - to destroy existing world to the ground” is successfully completed and socialist/communist government moves to make “Step 2 - build new world”. We should notice that completion of Step 1, i.e. distraction of existing world to the ground, never was a problem and any socialist/communist country succeeded in doing it. Depending on size of the country and resistance of the people it usually took relatively short time. All socialist/communist governments tried to make Step 2 but, as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money (to spend)." Historically, when a socialist/communist government cannot make Step 2 a success, it starts to look for guilty party to blame. In case of Russia and many other countries it was endless line of guilty groups of population – rich people, landowners, church, religious servants, officers of old Russia army, bourgeoisie, successful peasants (kulaks), religious peasants (kulaks), cultural elite, several dozen various minority peoples, etc. Each of those groups has been accused of resistance, spying, treason and other crime. Most of them have been arrested, jailed, murdered, or sent to concentration camps in Siberia and North parts of Russia. 66 mln (about 40% of old Russia population) of innocent people have been murdered by CHK-KGB during 74 years of socialists/communists regime. In 74 years (1917-1991) the largest and the richest (in its time) country in the world collapsed under load of socialism/communism. “New world” (Step 2) has never been built in any country. Socialist/communist governments in other countries acted similarly to the Soviet Union leaders, they never completed Step 2; in process of building socialism/communism some of them killed larger percent of their own population, than were killed in the Soviet Union, some of them a little bit less – it is the only difference between all socialist/communist countries.
Short excursus into socialist/communist countries histories teaches us that any group of population which do not participate in elections for any reason, independent of its size, effectively gives control of their future to other group(s) of population which may use it against them. 2008 and 2012 elections showed that evangelicals have given power, though unintentionally, to the socialist, who’s internal and international policies were mostly against interests of Christians and the United States.
We understand that a reader of this essay may ask some questions:
- Why do we discuss only evangelicals and not others religious denominations?
2. Why do we use most of the time cumbersome term “socialism/communism” instead of terms “socialist” or “communist”?
In our life experience and our readings we met various adjectives to words socialism and communism used by governments of socialist/communist countries:
revolutionary socialism (Mr. Karl Marx),
soviet socialism (the USSR),
matured socialism (used in the latest period of the USSR existence),
national socialism (used in Hitler’s Germany, shortening is NAZI of Naziism),
international socialism (used in one period of the USSR existence),
democratic socialism (used by Mr. Bernie Sanders of the USA Democratic party),
progressive socialism (Mrs. Hillary Clinton of the USA Democratic party),
chinese socialism (used in China and Russia),
etc, etc.
Our studies show that, in spite of different adjectives used in front of word socialism, behavior of all socialist and communist governments of the world were and are the same, and results of their catastrophic rulings are also the same.
NOTE:
For more information see page with interesting quotes about history, capitalism and socialism from famous and infamous historical leaders. Click highlighted words to see.
President Ronald Reagan liked to tell soviet anecdotes which describe socialism/communism of the Soviet Union better than anything else. These anecdotes have been forbidden in the USSR. All of them are funny ones. Click highlighted words to watch.
B.V. February 2016
