Responding to the World of Cultural Marxism

Peter Jones, founder and director of the apologetic ministry truthXchange, and scholar at Westminster Seminary at Escondido, California spoke at the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology on April 27 concerning the cultural Marxism that pervades American society today and how Christians should respond. Jones said that “many people are seeing the dark ages to come.” The background of this foreboding is the rejection of Christianity by large numbers of people in the early twenty-first century. In the last 15 years in particular, Jones said, many people have left the Christian faith, and church attendance in recent decades has fallen from about 40 percent to 30 percent. Marxism has now had a deep impact on American culture, obliging him to talk about it when presenting the Gospel. Marxism is particularly prominent in schools of education, and thus will reasonably have a real impact on future generations, especially the leadership class.

Jones said that when he came to America in 1964, he was impressed with how Christian American society was relative to Great Britain and Europe. But this was also the time that the “60s Revolution” was beginning. This was in part Marxist, particularly in its repudiation of traditional authorities, but also strongly influenced by philosophical ideas from South and East Asia, particularly Hindu monism, especially Advaita. Many Americans thus have a markedly different spirituality than the past, and in particular, a markedly different view of sexuality, which is now non-dualistic. Jones and others have identified overall movement coming from the 1960s as “the new Gnosticism.” He remarked on the North Korean refugee Yeonumi Park, who attended Columbia University and found it to be teaching the same Marxism as she was taught in North Korea. She was also cancelled from speaking at a Texas university “because of her political opinions.”

Jones observed that currently 82% of college faculty are leftists, 16% are moderate, and 1.4% are conservative. This professoriate is erasing cultural memory. What history there is can easily be revisionist, particularly Howard Zinn’s “Peoples’ History of the United States,” which “was a major source for students studying history in high school.’ He reviewed the Marxists connected with former President Barack Obama. The ideological takeover of America has been well documented, Jones said, by Christopher Rufo in his book “America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.” The strategy for achieving a classless society is no longer a worker’s revolution, but the transformation of all social relations via sexual politics, as outlined by Herbert Marcuse in “Eros and Civilization.” Marcuse also saw racial conflict as “a new axis for revolution.”

Jones calls the philosophy of the post-Christian culture of our day “oneism,” because it holds that all reality is one, and effectively worships creation. A theistic view he calls “twoism,” because it holds that there is an ontological difference between the creator and creation and directs worship to the creator. He noted Marx’s assertion that “the highest divinity” is “the human self.”

This then leads to the attempt to construct truth based on the self. The extent of this is shown in a survey result that shows 56% of American voters thinking the term “woke” is something positive, while 39% think it is negative. Students at American universities are often obliged to take at least one course on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). DEI reigns in many corporations, required by investment giants BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street. He said that the woke revolution has been compared to Constantine’s conversion to Christianity, which led to “a massive cultural conversion.”

Christian Witness in a Pagan Culture

In a subsequent lecture, Jones discussed what Christian witness should be in the leftist culture in which Americans now live. It must announce that rather than worshipping creation, as Marxism does, we should worship the creator. While many conservative Christians do not want to talk about deviant sexuality “in anything but nice terms,” it nevertheless is “opposition to God the creator, as described by Paul.” He noted that deviant sexuality is certainly not a modern phenomenon but was present in ancient pagan religions. In the modern world, the nondualist, androgynous sexuality of the sexual revolution is an attempt to recover the “lost unity” of the reality which monism asserts.

Jones said that the Biblical doctrine of God’s creation of male and female, and the unity of Christ and the church shows that unity and distinction are fundamental to a Biblical, metaphysically dualist worldview. He proposed eleven points in response to the Marxist monism that Christians face today. They are:

1. Christianity has “a better view of God.” Marxists have none, but modern cosmology shows that there must have been a beginning.
2. It has “a better view of human beings.” The rationality, intelligence and uniqueness of human beings reasonably shows that there must be an intelligent God behind human beings. The rationality of the universe is indicative of a rational God. The postmodern attack on rationality is part of the attack on God. But irrationality is not a livable commitment. Most people will not want to fly on a plane directed by a “mind-fleeing pilot.”
3. “A better account of morality.” Morality is objective, not merely an exercise of power, as it is in wokism, and Marxism generally. Only the view of those held to be oppressed (or who speak for them) counts in Marxism, and so one human opinion is put above criticism.
4. Christianity has “a realistic view of human depravity.” Other religions have no explanation for evil, even denying it. But in a Biblical worldview, human beings are “attempting to be like God, which they never can be … In the Scriptures, evil has a real beginning, but it will not have the last word.”
5. Christian theism “has a better view of revelation.” It gives us a word from outside the world.
6. The Bible offers “a better view of history.” According to the Bible, history is teleological, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is not “an endless series of irrational, impersonal, material events. History is not an everlasting cycle.”
7. “We have a better view of sexuality.” A view that conforms with reality, or indeed, a view that is even intelligible is necessary, as the subjective sexuality of the contemporary world has no public meaning. Important in this regard is that Marxism is seeking to destroy the family to make way for the unlimited power of the state.
8. Christian theism gives “a deeply satisfying spirituality.” Jones said that Gnostic meditation ultimately worships creation. Biblical meditation on the other hand meditates on God and his work in creation. We sing praises to God, not to ourselves.
9. Christianity offers a savior. Marxism or any kind of monism can offer no real saviors. Any saviors or claims to salvation must be of this world, and therefore flawed. Jones noted that the Buddha “abandoned his family, Gandhi abused young women, Mohammed was violent and cruel, Marx was a failure as a father.” Christ on the other hand “was the image of the invisible God.”
10. Christianity has “a unique story of redemption, as the only effective solution” to the gap between the infinite creator and finite reality. Only Jesus Christ offers “divinely granted forgiveness.”
11. Christianity can speak about the Gospel without depending on “narcissistic feelings.” It is based on a revelation external to ourselves. In this regard, Christians must resist growing pressure not to speak about sex from a Biblical viewpoint.

Jones said that in addressing the world today, which is increasingly pervaded by cultural Marxism, we need “a blend of Gospel declaration and cultural apologetics.” A dualist doctrine of human sexuality, in which male and female are real categories, must be emphasized to young people. He referred to II Cor 4:6: “for God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts, to give the glory of the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Thus, by bringing together the infinite and the finite, the Christian doctrine of Jesus as both creator and redeemer is an incomparable gospel of eternal truth for the world.