“Man’s theology determines his philosophy of man, which in turn produces his political philosophy. Out of this develops a nation’s policies, from which evolves the economic system…. The natural outgrowth of the humanist viewpoint of man can only be a controlled, and regimented society: socialism, fascism, communism or the welfare state, which is different not in essence but only in degree.”
Thomas Rose
Retired Economist — Grove City College
In this quote Dr. Rose connects the dots between theology and tyrannical political and economic systems and so clarifies for us the relationship between Christianity and the deliverance from Spiritual bondage that it alone can bring and political and economic systems that are characterized by freedom and so are manifestations of a people who have been delivered from the tyranny of the devil.
Political and economic systems of bondage, such as all expressions of Marxism (Cultural Marxism, National Socialism, International Socialism, Democratic Socialism, Fabian Socialism, Fascism, Islamic Fascism, Neo-conservative Republicanism, Liberalism, Progressivism and the American Democratic party) are simply the natural and inevitable fruit of a people who hate the God of the Bible. Christians, who are redeemed and freed by Christ and who understand the vast implications of that redemption will never build or tolerate political and economic systems that put them and their children into bondage.
How does one clearly communicate this?
Spiritual realities incarnate themselves in to corresponding corporeal instantiations. People who are spiritual in bondage to the devil will build cultures that reflect that bondage. People who have been set free by Christ from the bondage of the devil will build cultures that reflect that freedom. Now what is interesting is that people who remain in bondage to the devil and who live in a increasingly Christian culture that offers increasing freedom will complain that that very culture they are living in is a culture of bondage and they will diligently work to overthrow that freedom all the while insisting that the bondage they are pursuing is in reality freedom. This explains a great deal as to why Christianity is constantly accused of being narrow, judgmental, and restrictive. The people making these charges are people who are in bondage and as such they can only see freedom as bondage. Remember, God-haters live in an upside down world that calls evil “good” and good “evil.”
This is one aspect of what is wrong with the mono-cultural attempt at multiculturalism and rabid pluralism. Multiculturalism or rabid pluralism is the putative attempt to combine various cultures of bondage that reflect people being in bondage to the devil with the culture of Christianity that is a culture of freedom and which reflects a people who have been set free by Christ from their sins. This is why Christians must hate multiculturalism and rabid pluralism because to accept the premise of multiculturalism and rabid pluralism is to accept the premise of a hatred for the Christ who sets men free.
Now, what explains the bondage of individuals building cultures of bondage is the reality that part of what it means to be in bondage is to be a slave to self. In other words bondage to the devil begins with individuals putting themselves at the center of all reality. Once enslaved individuals do this they begin to construct political and economic cultures that will support first their egocentric prioritization and secondly will support their ethnocentric prioritization. In pursuit of the priority of the self people in bondage will seek to put other people in bondage so as to serve their selfishness. This explains cultures of bondage where institutions (especially the State) are used to extract from others the fruit of their labor so that it might be redistributed to the selfish in power. This explains not only variants of Marxism but also evolutionary capitalism where God hating capitalists, in their selfishness and covetousness, use the state to make laws that will insulate them from true competition. All of this is a pursuit of institutional slavery.
Cultures of bondage make several assumptions. First, they assume conflict of interest. Where selfishness reigns each man or group is out for to enslave those they are forced into some relationship with. What this means, pragmatically speaking, is that employers and employees are in a adversarial relationship where each seeks to enslave the other for their egocentric ends. What this means, pragmatically speaking, is that politics becomes the be all end all, as people seek, by means of politics, to control the apparatus of the State in order to use it to enslave the rest of the population in favor of their selfish and covetous interest. What this means is a State that seeks to enslave its population by means of economic policy. Second, cultures of bondage assume the necessity of propaganda. In the end cultures of bondage can only be held together by force but this force is covered by the velvet glove of propaganda. This propaganda is characterized by a flurry of euphemisms and information outlets giving just enough truth to make propaganda falsehoods plausible. This propaganda is characterized by wall to wall messaging and cradle to grave revisionism. In order to keep people in bondage people must be constantly given the propaganda that convinces them they are free. This explains why our culture is characterized by public schools. Third, cultures of bondage assume the necessity of some religious structure in order to proclaim that the bondage is really freedom and is approved by God. In cultures of bondage the altar that supports the crown can be anything from Islam to Hinduism to a corrupted Christianity as currently exists in these United States.
All of this explains why political or economic freedom can not be exported to peoples who are not Christian. One can not expect the fruit of freedom where the root of freedom does not exist. All of this also explains that any hope for renewal in the West must begin with Reformation for the West has become a culture of bondage.
All of this also explains my rabid opposition to R2K theology. Radical two Kingdom theology desires to cut the animating nerve between spiritual freedom and how that spiritual freedom incarnates itself in human cultures and institutions. In short R2K makes the opposite error of those who believe that social, political, and economic freedom can be had where people remain in bondage to their sin. R2K teaches that there should be no expectation of a eventual correspondence between a proliferating of spiritual freedom and the fruit that such spiritual freedom brings. The former error wants the fruit of freedom without its root being in place while R2K is satisfied with the root of freedom that does not produce its corresponding fruit.
