The Impact of Hope Upon Cultural Analysis

“The day will come when people cast aside the Party’s organizations that are attached to the state apparatus, allowing the social systems to function independently, backed up by the core forces of the society. With the passing of a dictatorial Party organization, the efficiency of the government will be improved and enhanced. And that day is right around the corner…

Removing the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) possession of people’s minds may prove to be more difficult than clearing out the CCP’s possession of state administrations, but such a removal is the only way truly to uproot the evil of communism. This can be achieved only through the efforts of the Chinese people themselves. With their minds set right and human nature returned to its original state, the public would regain its morality and succeed in a transition to a decent non-Communist society. The cure for this evil possession lies in the recognition of the evil specter’s nature and harmfulness, eradicating it from people’s minds, and clearing it out, so that it has no place to hide.”

Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party – p. 266-267

This was written in 2004. The day that was “just around the corner” is still apparently “just around the corner,” as we are now in 2020 and Chinese Communism is still as oppressive as it was in 2004. (Doubt me? Just ask the citizens of Hong Kong or Wuhan.)

It seems to me that people, for the most part, cannot live without convincing themselves that that which they most earnestly hope for is imminent. I have found that most often that their earnest hope translates into just so much happy talk. I see it here in this quote. I often hear or read it in the writings of postmillennialists. The day of recovery is “just around the corner.” “The schools will be Christian by the year 2000.” “There is Reformation breaking out in the inner city.” All happy talk engaged by postmills I know of in the 1980’s but now seen as hope filled but vastly errant prophesies.

I see it today in the voices of those who are so desirous of the end of Globalism they are now going around saying, “we are on the cusp of a new Nationalism.” More happy talk. More “wishin’ and hopin’ and hopin’ and wishin’ and thinkin’ and dreamin’ won’t get Nationalism to start.

Now mind you, I’m not saying that it is wrong to be hopeful. I am saying that it is unwise to let what you hope for interfere with your ability to make a level headed analysis of any situation. There was no reason in the 1980’s to think public schools were going to fall by the turn of the century. There was no reason in 2004 to think the end of the Chinese Communist party was just around the corner. And there is no reason today to think we are on the cusp of a global break out of a worthy Nationalism that will any time soon replace globalism

This book quoted above has been really quite good at analyzing the problems of Chinese communism, but here we come to the prospects of the future and they are full of happy talk about the end of the CCP being just around the corner… full of sentimental bunkum about human nature being returned to its original state, as if human nature in its original state is anything to hope for… full of the idea that the public will gain its morality much the way tinker-bell might regain her wings.

It seems that some people who can’t live without exaggerated hope cannot properly analyze without at the same time engaging in happy talk. A country that has been communist for 50 plus years like China does not just quit being communist over-night short of blood in the streets. Totalitarians, whether in the public schools, or as running huge nation-states do not just give up power, no matter how much happy talk is engaged upon. The hope of the one doing the analysis cannot get in the way of the facts on the ground.

This is one reason why I enjoyed reading Martyn Llyod Jones. Jones earnestly desire Revival and Reformation and yet as he aged Jones was honest enough to say it would not happen in his lifetime. Lloyd-Jones was able to, at one and the same time, have an earnest hope for Reformation and Revival and yet realize that the conditions were not ripe for Reformation and Revival.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

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