Christians in the U.S. may well wonder what future exists for their chosen religion in the highly-politicized state America seems doomed to become. As socialism becomes more and more accepted by U.S. youth, and the clarion calls for the “progressive state-endorsement” of opinion and belief are heralded in the halls of power, it seems fair to ask: What shape will Christianity be allowed under the banner of Democratic Socialism?
Those who suggest that religion will be outright denied are mere scaremongers. As proven by the failure of Stalin to eradicate religious leaning, religious expression finds a way even under the most heinous of persecution. We could look at the Holocaust and see that far from making Jews lose their faith, in many cases it emboldened them to embrace Judaism even further.
No, the goal will never be to eradicate religion entirely … but that doesn’t mean it cannot be sculpted to the will of a powerful and callous state. We need only look to China for a glimpse into the future.
An Acceptable Form?
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, famed writer of The Gulag Archipelago, said “Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy. It is not a side effect, but the central pivot.” But throughout history, religious subjugation has failed and failed again. The ruling Communist Party in China has perhaps found a way around this.
In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been promoting a policy of Sinisization in all things cultural. This enforced approach to making all things within the state be primarily China-focused in fact hides the real agenda. It is not to make institutions and belief systems that exist within China more Chinese, it is to make them more communist.
Churches of every faith are being shut down, non-approved bibles are being burned, and images of Jesus are being replaced with those of President Xi Jinping. It is only state-approved versions of the Bible that pass muster.
Children are not allowed to be taken to church services, instead, they will be exposed to religion only though state apparatus, that naturally places more importance on the state itself. And this is how the Chinese children will come to view religion: Through the prism of the ruling party.
And America?
We have all seen how the left has gained influence and control over learning institutions and media in the United States. And we have heard prominent voices suggest that it is backward folk who cling to their bibles. Yet these are not fools; they are sophisticated and have learned the lessons of history, and they will not make the mistake of trying to eradicate a religion … that way breeds martyrs.
Instead, using the tools of hate speech and intolerance, the socialists of America will seek to politicize the teachings of the church; an edit here, a concern of intolerance there, and soon there will only be sanitized for liberal consumption teachings permitted.
In the not too distant future, it will become frowned upon to take your children to church services; the criticism wrapped in a veil of concern for the child’s right to choose their own religious path. And slowly but surely, the youth of tomorrow will come to see religion through naught but the window of the state.
“Nonsense and Paranoia!” you may well cry. But these things do happen. They are happening in China today, they happened in the past, and they will happen here in the United States of America.
Picture Chinese people, towns, and cities, where their churches are gone, their religion reduced to little more than a state propaganda tool, and their bibles sanitized for the good of the government. Ask yourself: Have they given in? Or are people meeting in secret to discuss their beliefs? Are they right now meeting in huddled masses to discuss ideas and thoughts that are no longer politically correct or proscribed by the state?
And finally, ask yourself: How free are you?
