Alinsky and Communism

That Alinsky chose to start his "Rules for Radicals" hailing Lucifer like he was the opening act for Black Sabbath hasn't endeared him to reactionary Christians everywhere.

Evidence of how freaked certain quarters of the Jesus world are by Mr. Alinsky can be found by engaging in a quick visit the website of the Rev. Jack Van Impe. Yes, that Jack Van Impe. In the event you've not experienced the Jackster, he's the late-night teevee pastor whose been pitching out imminent apocalypse predictions since I was in high school. On his show, he and his awesomely be-haired wife Rexella go over the new items of the day, all of which are a Certain Sign that Things Are Coming To An End.

JVI Ministries is pitching out a little bit of end-times hysteria that prominently features the influence of Alinsky. They are also the media shop responsible for all of the Left Behind movies, which rank as some of the most impossibly mediocre cinema ever to blight the reputation of Christianity.

Interestingly, though, the issue with Alinsky isn't that he lionizes the Prince of the Air. Like most other conservatives, The Rev. Dr. Van Impe is still a tiny bit fixated on the creeping Red Menace. This fear seems unaffected by the complete collapse of communism as a global movement, but hey, fear is irrational. His website is pitching out the idea that Alinsky was a commie, and that by extension, so is the current administration. Which means the end times are at hand. Or something like that.

That's pretty much the same line you'll hear about Alinsky from Glenn Beck. And from Rush Limbaugh. Alinsky is an "America-hating radical." He's a Red! He's a Socialist! That means Obama must be as well! Take to the hills! Wooolveriiiines!

Problem is, the Alinsky you encounter in "Rules for Radicals" is really nothing of the sort. He says as much. Communism isn't revolutionary enough for him. If anything, he finds more inspiration in the revolutionary fervor of the American founding fathers. Being an astute observer of the real, he more often than not describes communism as stultifying and oppressive in both rhetoric and practice. He chides those who support or apologize for global communism, noting that the ability to speak freely about change in the system can be done freely in America, while in the communist countries of his time, such talk means there's a knock on the door at 3 AM, and you suddenly and permanently disappear.

He ain't a commie. A progressive? Sure. A leftist? Sort of, but more Trotsky than Stalin.

The Only Real Christians Live In Denmark

I've just done a fascinating bit of reading over at Public Discourse, a conservative web journal. The article I'd commend to your attention is written by W. Bradford Wilcox, a University of Virginia sociologist. He opines at totally manageable length about the impact of social democracy on faith, drawing from a recent 33 nation study by two University of Washington sociologists. That study confirmed something many folks have noticed anecdotally: that nations that provide cradle-to-grave care for their citizens tend to be less religious.

For Dr. Wilcox, this reality poses grave concerns for the landscape of American faith during an Obama administration. Given this administration's focus on providing health care, a functioning infrastructure, and an educational system, things could get particularly ugly for the church if all of those things are successfully provided. Why? The answer is simple, says the good doctor:

"The bottom line: as government grows, people’s reliance on God seems to diminish."

Why is this? It isn't that folks aren't religious in countries like Norway and Denmark. There are Christians...just not as many of them. Why? In his review of the 33 nation study, Dr. Wilcox pulls out the core finding:

How do we account for the inverse relationship between government size and religious vitality? As Gill and Lundsgaarde point out, some individuals have strong spiritual needs that can only be met by religion. This portion of the population remains faithful, come what may. But other individuals only turn to churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques when their needs for social or material security are not being met by the market or state. In an environment characterized by ordinary levels of social or economic insecurity, many of these individuals will turn to local congregations for..support.

So let's make the shift from sociology to theology. What does this mean theologically?

It means, if we're attending to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, that the "success" of American Christianity only comes because most American Christians don't have a clue what Jesus actually taught. The findings tell us that we turn to God when we are seeking material well-being. We turn to Christ seeking physical security.

What we do not appear to be seeking is the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. We're as confused as the Samaritan woman at the well, who had trouble grasping the difference between water and Living Water. We come to Jesus not because we feel the yearning to be conformed to the will of God and transformed by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Instead, it's because we got us a jones for some a dat schweet, schweet Mammon, and we expect that Jesus in his infinitely beneficent blingitude will supernaturally serve it up if we ask real nice.

Perhaps, to flip Dr. Wilcox and his conclusions on their head, what a welfare state actually does is help separate the wheat from the chaff, the True Kirk from the Church of the World, the Heavenly City from the Earthly City. Those who would otherwise go to church seeking first their own interests and their own comfort find what they seek in the state, and fall away.

Those who recognize that there is more to our purpose life than material possessions and security...well, they keep seeking the Holy until they find it.