COMMUNISM IS NOT A POLITICAL ISSUE

Ministers of the gospel who actively oppose the international communist conspiracy, and try to bring to light the facts about its operations, receive complaints periodically concerning their activities on the ground that they are meddling in politics. We have received numerous such complaints verbally and in writing during the years of our fight against this satanic conspiracy to destroy our nation. Many Christian pastors and laymen have been convinced that it is wrong for Christians to expose or oppose the communist conspiracy in any way.

People who oppose opposition to communism in churches have been deceived into considering the communist conspiracy as a political issue. This is wrong. Communism is a moral issue, not a political issue. Communism denies the truth of God and deprives man of freedom. These facts alone make it a moral problem which needs to be opposed on moral grounds. Informed Christians make the best opponents of this ruthless enemy of mankind.

As we have pointed out earlier in this book, millions of Christians have been murdered, persecuted, and condemned to the unbelievable miseries of communist slave labor camps.

If there are any human beings left on this earth who need prayers and the attention of thinking Christians, they are the victims of this cruel, inhuman, satanic conspiracy known as communism. This asinine theory of communism, being in the realm of a political issue, is carried to such extremes in many of America's churches that no prayers are offered for the unfortunate victims of the communist conspiracy.

Essentially, church people who say Christian pastors should not expose the facts about communism or oppose this conspiracy are contending that we should not exalt the truth of God above the materialistic errors of man. Essentially, they are arguing that we should not exalt freedom above slavery. Ample reasons for Christian clergymen to engage in realistic opposition to the communist conspiracy have been given in the testimony of a number of refugee pastors from communist enslaved lands. For example, the testimony of four refugee pastors from Red China and a Korean Presbyterian layman before the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives on March 26, 1959, was filled with compelling reasons for Christians to oppose this satanic conspiracy. In chapter 7 of our book we quoted briefly from the testimony of Rev. Peter Chu Pong describing what happened to true Christians in China.

Persuasive reasons why Christians should oppose the international communist conspiracy and reveal the facts about it in every way possible were brought out in the testimony of Kyung Rai Kim, Presbyterian layman from Seoul, Korea, before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Here in part is what Mr. Kim said:

“More than 95 per cent of the Christians in Northern Korea have escaped to Southern Korea since the Korean War. Before the liberation in 1945, Northern Korea had 1,500 Protestant churches, but there is none there now. There are 116 church buildings remaining, but they are not Christian churches. In 1945 in Southern Korea there were only 1,200 Protestant churches. Today there are 4,200. During the Korean War the Communists killed 1,650 ministers and shot more than 1,600,000 Northern people including 125,000 Christians... There are no true Christian churches in Northern Korea since the 1945 liberation... There are churches, but they are Communist-run churches... In Pyongyang, in 1946, an educational ministry was developed to do away with the Christian churches. The educational ministry sent secret police during worship services to hear the ministers preach. The ministers who preached the gospel of Christ were accused of being against the government. Later they were shot. The government made public examples of the ministers by torturing them. An evangelist friend of mine, Lee Chang Whan, was killed ... In the winter of 1948, he was killed by the Communists, because he was going to print the Bible. He was trying to publish the Bible in secret because there was no freedom for Bible publishing under the puppet regime. The Red police stripped him naked, bound him, and put him into an empty water pool. It was 17 degrees below zero that day. They filled the pool solid. My friend froze to death in 30 minutes. Then the police exhibited his body to the people.

“A lady evangelist, Kim Keum Sun, was tied between two horses. Then the horses were sent running in different directions. This happened in 1951. Through terrible persecutions such as these, the Communists made the people afraid to be Christians and to go to church. Kim Keum Sun was guilty of not letting a portrait of the chief of Northern Korea be placed in her church.

“In January 1951, 250 pastors were killed by the Communists on the same day in the same place in Hong Jai Dong, Seoul, Korea. The Red police made holes through the pastors' hands with an ax and bound them hand to hand with an iron thread, and they shot them. In February 1951, at Won Dang Church, Chen Ra Nam Do Province, Red soldiers burned 83 Christians with gasoline ... We Korean people in the Korean churches know what communism is. Many American Christian leaders do not know what communism really is... ”

How can any thinking Christian suggest that fellow Christians should ignore the communist problem when Christians in other lands have suffered such terrible persecution and torture at the hands of the international communist conspiracy. There are many examples of such persecutions in addition to those given in this book. Furthermore, there have been similar persecutions of people from other religious faiths. The communists intend literally to eliminate God from His throne in Heaven. Let Christian Americans remember the cold, brutal fact that communism is not a political movement but it is organized atheism on the march. Communism is a criminal conspiracy aiming at the overthrow of our government by force and violence. The only alternative to this in the communist mind is if we surrender to their tyranny peacefully.

Rev. Paul C. Neipp, pastor of Our Saviours Lutheran Church, Ridgecrest California, summarized the situation very vividly as follows: “Let this then be clearly understood by every Christian and every dedicated American. Communism is treason. Communism is slavery! Communism is total tyranny! Communism is revolution! Communism is atheism on the march! And every pastor throughout our land should not hesitate to preach against communism from the pulpit. In fact, not to do so at a time like this is being guilty of a serious sin of omission.”

Apparently, hardened communist conspirators can commit atrocities such as we have described without their consciences being unduly disturbed. The reasoning behind such atrocities go back to the communist concept of morality which we explained in chapter 1. We explained the depths of evil to which the communists sink and still consider themselves acting morally. Their concept of morality is that anything is moral as long as it helps the cause of communism.

As we pointed out in chapter 1, Karl Marx went so far in the Communist Manifesto as to call for abolition of the family. From this point he went on to say, “On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain . The bourgeois family will vanish... with the vanishing of capital. Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty...” Here again is another overwhelming reason why Christians should oppose the communist conspiracy actively and vigorously. As a step on the way to wiping God out of the heavens, the communists plan to destroy the institution of the family which was started by God at the beginning of life on earth.

The fact that the communist conspirators have gone within the churches to work for destruction of the churches adds much more weight to our position that clergymen have a duty to expose and oppose this satanic conspiracy. In the Soviet Union, churches are controlled by the Soviet Secret Police. If they do not serve their communist masters, they are put out of business. Certainly this is a deception of Satan which should be explained to church people by their clergymen. American church members should know that the communist agents sent from communist enslaved lands disguised in clergymen's robes are not really Christian pastors but are communist agents. It is the duty of their clergymen to so inform them and doing this is not “meddling in politics. Those clergymen and radio preachers who refuse to inform themselves of the documented facts on this important matter, and in turn to pass these facts on to their church members and radio audiences, are neglecting an extremely important duty. Through such neglect they allow their people to be deceived by one of the great satanic delusions of history.

During this strange era in American history there have actually been preachers of the gospel who claim that Christianity and communism have points of similarity. Of course, this is absolutely false. Communism and Christianity are direct opposites. They have nothing in common. Their basic objectives and ideology are entirely at odds. Christian pastors who claim otherwise are betraying the Christian faith. Christian pastors who know better but do not so inform their congregations are equally guilty of betraying the Christian faith.

Communism offers gullible human beings an animal Utopia on earth provided they give up their freedom and submit to what the communists call “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” The communists promise to give something to people from the production of others. Of course, most of these gifts and the promised Utopia never come. Communism always turns out to be a tyranny in which the masses of the people live in abject poverty which their communist slave masters live in luxury.

On the contrary, Christianity exalts the individual. Each person has the freedom to choose for himself or herself. They can accept or reject the gift of salvation from God. Under a government based on Christian principles people can fail of succeed according to their own initiative and ability. Christianity stresses charity from the individual through his own good will and compassion for his less fortunate fellow man. Communism would have this done by government force. However, as we have pointed out in this chapter and throughout the book, the charity never comes. In its place comes the most terrible tyranny ever known to mankind. Everything of material value goes to communist leaders and a few favored Communist Party members.

Christian clergymen owe their congregations a duty to point out these basic facts of comparison between communism and Christianity. Clergymen owe a duty to God and to the people who depend upon them for guidance to point out to the people the tremendous deception involved in communist and socialist materialistic promises. Even if such promises were fulfilled, which they are not, this deceptive ideology of getting something for nothing from your fellow citizens is a delusion and a snare.

The Ten Commandments direct Christians “Thou shalt not Steal” (Exodus 20:15). If a person places a gun in the ribs of another person and forces him to turn over his money, this is stealing. If a person hires someone else to hold up another person and take this person's belongings for the benefit of the one doing the hiring, this is also stealing. However, people can vote for unscrupulous politicians who go into office on the promise to give people something by taking from their fellow taxpayers through government coercion and this is considered perfectly honest. In this age of a declining America, there is a desperate need for courageous clergymen who will inform themselves and in turn

inform their congregations of the potential evil inherent in following the philosophy of getting all you can out of government. Government has no source of funds. That which is promised to you by unscrupulous politicians has to come from your fellow taxpayers and the government can take it only by the implied threat of force. If anyone thinks force is not involved, just let him or her try to avoid paying their income tax because of the wasteful use to which much of their tax money is put. They will soon find out that force is involved.

One of the accusations often heard against us Christian ministers who oppose communism is that we are negative. In order to be “positive” we are supposed to offer suitable alternatives to communism. We are told that we are always against things and should be for something instead. This positive-negative idea is one of the most deceiving lines of generalized thinking which is loose in the minds of Americans today.

In the first place, who determines what is positive and what is negative? If you are against wasteful big government spending and socialistic controls over the lives of the American people, you are classed negative by left-wing thinkers. Conservative minded people consider a man positive if he stands up for the American constitution and against these socialistic encroachments. If a person is for controls over the subversive activities of communist conspirators, left-wingers consider him negative. We consider that to be positive.

If you favor a realistic view toward the enslaved victims of communist tyranny, you are negative according to the left-wing standard. However, by the standard of the informed anti-communist this is being positive. Our nation's constitution promotes a positive program of freedom through a program of limiting the power of the Federal Government. In many quarters this would be considered negative today. Left-wing liberals, who have been busy

for years tearing down the freedoms left us through our constitution, are negative according to my way of thinking. However, they would consider as negative thinkers those of us who believe in the letter of the constitution left us by our founding fathers.

Consider the Ten Commandments. Read them over and you will find that they forbid mankind from engaging in sinful activities. According to the left-wing liberal standard of today this is negative. Let us not be deceived by this talk of positive and negative. What is positive to one person will be negative to another and vice versa. Whatever its origin may be, this positive-negative line of argument tends to eliminate or hamper opposition to the communists and other forces which are gnawing away at the foundations of American freedom.

In our Holy Bible, Jude exhorts us to “earnestly contend for the faith, which was once delivered unto the Saints.” An important aspect of contending for the faith is warning church people of the evil forces which are working diligently to destroy the faith, to destroy all freedom, and to place them under the same brutal tyranny which grips many Christians today. To contend for the faith means to strive for it, in other words, to fight for the faith once delivered unto the Saints. It is hard to see how any Christian minister could contend that laymen and pastors should ignore the largest, strongest, and most evil force which seeks to destroy the Christian faith.

On a number of occasions people behind the iron curtain have pleaded to Americans to consider seriously their plight. In an eye-witness report on the Hungarian bid for freedom during 1956, newspaper correspondent Edward C. Burkes told about several people in Budapest running out to the car in which he was riding with their hands held up in praying gesture. One of them fell to his knees in a fervent appeal for help for his suffering nation. A tragic warning from behind the iron curtain was revealed in an article entitled “Behind The Iron Curtain," in the July 1954 American Mercury magazine. In this article the author, Mr. Alan Set, printed a translation of a letter smuggled out from Poland. The letter was written by a 48 year-old widow who taught history in high school before World War II. The letter was addressed to her brother, a former officer in General Anders' army.

In this pitiful letter the lady described to her brother the terrible agony of living under communist slavery. After describing the fate of her two daughters, one of whom the communists killed and the other who was taken over by the Soviet Secret Police, this distressed mother wrote: “Why am I writing you this? Because, for heaven's sake, in the name of Jesus Christ, don't you people abroad realize that something horrible is happening, something which did not happen ever before! Human soul is being murdered, slowly, day by day, month after month, year after year--until one day there will be no human soul left, only soulless bodies ready to go on murdering and murdering, just for murder's sake. “What are they waiting for, your Churchills and Eisenhowers? Do they really believe, as the B.B.C. was saying the other night, that some sort of co-operation, or as they call it *coexistence,' might be established between your world and the world of the murderers in the Kremlin? Do they believe that those murderers, once they feel strong enough, will hesitate for one moment before pulverizing your cities and industries with the H-bomb (which you have been foolish enough to let them steal from you), and then to unleash their millions of soulless hordes to accomplish their only goal—the conquest of the world! For heavens sake, have you gone mad? Are all of you completely asleep? Do you not realize that every passing hour brings us closer to the end?”

The appeal of this Polish mother, of the Hungarians, and of other suffering people behind the iron curtain should be pounded into the minds of unthinking Christians who contend that communism is a political issue which should be ignored or dealt with frivolously in so called positive programs. Christians have a duty to disseminate the facts about communism whether doing so is called positive or negative. Neglect on our part has helped bring about the plight of many of the millions suffering under communism. Let all Christians pray daily for the unfortunate victims of communism and do all we can to get the truth out to a sleeping, brainwashed America so that this land of ours, the last bastion of evangelical Christianity, can remain free as a base for sending the gospel around the earth until our Lord Jesus Christ returns.