When Marx said that “religion is the opiate of the people” what he was getting at is that religion becomes that means by which oppressed people put up and live with their oppression. They continue going on being oppressed because their religion somehow tells them that their oppression is a good thing and that God is pleased with their oppression and that if they are just patient God will sort it all out. This religion Marx saw as creating passivity in people against injustice.
However, you can see from Marx’s teaching how this idea of religion as the opiate of the people once removed would work in people in such a way as to create a revolutionary uprising. If you can convince perverts, feminists, and minorities that they have been oppressed by Christianity (and Christianity should always oppress wickedness) then naturally perverts, feminists, and minorities are going to want to overthrow the religion that is Christianity.
What I can’t figure out though is why the church wants to make friends with those that want to destroy them. The only way to evangelize these people is to defeat them in the public square. We will not win them to Jesus by surrendering to them our principles or way of thinking. They must understand that Christianity offers to them as in the public square either more oppression given their ongoing wickedness or a rescuing from their wicked lifestyle that is destroying them. No in-between.
Our enemies understand this better than we do. Our enemies understand, that in terms of the public square that they have to completely defeat us. This is the whole idea behind cancel culture. They are not interested in “friendship evangelism,” in the sense that they hope that if they are just nice enough to us by bringing cookies over and watching the house when we are gone they will convert us to their way of thinking. No, they understand that Biblical Christians must be defeated if they are going to be able to freely pursue their perverted polymorphism. As such, they go on economic purges to destroy their enemy.
Most Christians are not going to agree with me but Christians must come to this same understanding. We must defeat the enemies of Christ in the public square lest they succeed in rolling Jesus Christ off His throne. Oh, we can continue to seek to show kindness to them in the more personal and private realms. We can lookout for them and care for them when they are sick. We can try to help their children. We can shovel the snow off their sidewalk. However, as it pertains to the public square, we must defeat them. We must thoroughly dismantle their worldview by breaking up their worldview furniture. We must push them back into the societal closets so that it is not our Christian children who are forced into the closets they once inhabited. We must make their “love” to be once again the love that dare not speak its name.
However, I think this is all quite unlikely for now because Christians do not yet understand that they are now in the fight for their lives. We are still too interested in being seen as various versions of Rev. LoveJoy from the Simpsons. We no longer have the grit in us of a Charlemagne or a Sobieski. Because of that we will continue to see Christian civilization sink into the abyss all the while embracing Christianity as an opiate as an excuse not to fight back.
The lack of fight you point out is very frustrating and discouraging at times. I wonder if the way to fire up these emogelicals is to ask a pastor what they think about being discouraging to the flock by their inoffensiveness. That way, I would be approaching them about victim feelings, an area that makes them very comfortable.
Kurt,
Hilarious!
Give that a try and let me know.