Can One Be Both Collectivist and Christian?

In the previous post we looked at different variations of Collectivism as it incarnates itself in political and economic arrangements. In this post we want to make the case that it is no more possible to be a Satanist and a Christian than it is to be a epistemologically self conscious collectivist and a Christian at the same time. This is absolutely key to emphasize at this time since there are those in the Reformed world who seem to suggest that it is of no moment or matter whether or not one is a socialist or whether or not a country is socialistic. I wish some Reformed Theologians would stick to theology proper and give up broader political analysis.

Collectivism exists. It exists everywhere. It is not an imaginary bogeyman that right wing nut case Christians have invented so they could have windmills to tilt at. Indeed, the notion that collectivism is the figment of hyper active imaginations could only be advanced in a cultural setting that is drenched in collectivism. We are so saturated with collectivism we don’t even see collectivism anymore as collectivism. Instead of seeing collectivism as collectivism we tend to see it as just the way things are. Collectivism has become the constant hum in the background of our thinking that help us keep time in all of our endeavors. Because this is true our vision of what it means to be “Christian” as been cast in collectivist terms. Christians are so collectivistic / socialistic in their thinking that they don’t realize that the current danger that is greatest to the Christian faith right now is one form of collectivism or another.

For proof of this I ask the reader how many sermons he has ever listened to that deal with the idolatry of collectivism in one form or another? Has the reader ever heard a sermon attacking the idol of collectivism in education? In government? In economics? Has the reader ever heard a sermon exposing the consequences to a people who fall in worship of the idol of collectivism? Has the reader ever heard a sermon that clearly posits the anti-thesis between the authority of the idol of collectivism and the authority of King Jesus? Has the reader ever heard a sermon revealing how the idol of collectivism tries to provide a salvation that only Jesus can bring? The greatest danger to the Church and to Christianity today is the idolatry of collectivism and yet we have some of our best and brightest in the Reformed world pooh poohing the necessity to speak to this subject in our pulpits.

It is not possible to be a epistemologically self-conscious simultaneous supporter of collectivism and Christianity because these two faiths are set in antithesis to one another. In the former, autonomous man in his corporate expression through the mechanism of central planning (a euphemism for sovereignty if there ever was one) seeks to take up the sovereignty of God, while in Christianity man recognizes that only God is sovereign. In collectivist arrangements the state is seeking to be the institution that provides redemption from the sin of want and austerity for its worshipers — and in doing so the collectivist state, as god, redefines both what sin and salvation is. In Christianity, on the other hand, only Jesus can provide redemption from sin — and as such both sin and redemption as defined biblically. In collectivist arrangements man is considered as mass and the individual is lost. In Christianity each man is created with the image of God imprinted upon them and thus has value.

Edmund Opitz has seen this clearly:

“As History’s vice-regent, the Planner is forced to view men as mass; which is to deny their full stature as persons with rights endowed by the Creator, gifted with free will, possessing the capacity to order their own lives in terms of their convictions. The man who has the authority and the power to put the masses through their paces, and to punish nonconformists, must be ruthless enough to sacrifice a person to a principle…a commissar who believes that each person is a child of God will eventually yield to a commissar whose ideology is consonant with the demands of his job.

And so, Opitz concludes, “Socialism needs a secular religion to sanction its authoritarian politics, and it replaces the traditional moral order by a code which subordinates the individual to the collective.”

In collectivist arrangements the state owns the children and so all children must be “educated” in the matrix of the state. Further, in collectivist arrangements it is by education that individuals and society experience regeneration. In Christianity however God owns our children and the parents are stewards of God to raise their children in the way of God’s new and better covenant of grace. Further, regeneration in Christianity is a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit quite apart from the state’s educational matrix. In collectivist arrangements the ultimate value is the glory of the state for in the state we live and move and have our being. In Christianity the ultimate value is the glory of God for in God we live and move and have our being. In collectivist arrangements the state is the ultimate authority and any god must submit to the state, while in Christianity God is the ultimate authority and the state must submit to God. In collectivist cultures the state uses guilt as a means of manipulating the people and atonement is achieved sado-masochistically, while in Christianity Christ takes away our guilt so that we do not have to involve ourselves in purges of self-atonement. In collectivist arrangements the state is the creator, giver, and arbiter of human rights, while in Christianity God is the creator, giver, and arbiter of all that is inherently human and all that comes from being human. In collectivist arrangements coercion is the foundation of exchange and commerce while in Christian arrangements the golden rule is the foundation of exchange and commerce.

Collectivism is to the church today what Gnosticism was to the church in the second century, which is to say it is a subtle heresy that gains so much traction in the Church because it is such a quality counterfeit. In point of fact much of what collectivism is, is Christianity sat on its head. It is Christianity through and through with its own doctrine of sin, regeneration, redemption, and glorification. It has its own church, its own sacraments, its own savior and priests and confessionals and catechism and hymns. The place it differs from Christianity is that it puts man on God’s throne and seeks to throw God out of his universe.

Because all of this is true one cannot be both a committed collectivist and a Christian at the same time and anybody who suggests that collectivism is of no moment or matter that it should be addressed by Christian pastors in Christian Churches is at best a fool and at worst an enemy of the Cross.

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. View all posts by jetbrane