The Gospel of Envy - Part 1

I will start this post with the quote that was the inspiration for its title.

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." ~ Winston Churchill

Regardless of their differences, the three men in the image at the top of this post have at least one thing in common. They all gained power by preaching the gospel of envy. They along with their fellow evangelists preached this gospel long and hard until they finally had enough converts to centralize and seize power. Unfortunately these evangelists are often helped along by those who call themselves Christian but instead are deceived false teachers preaching the materialistic gospel of envy.

Lets begin with Marx. Marx's viewed all of history as a struggle between social classes. He believed that the working class needed to rise up and seize the means of production by force. Obviously the ideas of a free market and private property ran contrary to his vision . Since these are the backbone of capitalism we can understand why he despised it. So in Marx's world view, humanities big problem is the repression of one social class by another. The gospel message consists of imperatives generally stating that people should fight against the social injustice. Salvation in his world view is when the struggle for social justice is won and the working class seizes control and abolishes private property etc...

Now lets consider Hitler. His message was nearly identical to that of Marx but it also had an ethnic component to it. Hitler turned his country against the Jews by preaching Marx's gospel of envy. After WW1 the German people were going through some extreme financial hardship. During this time the Jewish population in Germany was doing quite well and had bought many "German" businesses. In this environment the gospel of envy was very potent. Hitler preached the problem as being a struggle between classes with the "greedy capitalist" Jews as the exploiters of the German people. His gospel also consisted of imperatives urging people to fight for social justice. And salvation in Hitlers world view consisted of Germany throwing off its oppressors and creating powerful state that demanded sacrifice of the individual for the good of the collective. Hitler's political party was the National Socialist party... yes that kind of socialism. their party platform consisted of the many of the same planks that you will find in any other socialist party. Here are some samples from their party program:

...The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all.... ...We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens... ...We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries... ...We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries... ...We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare... ...We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses... ...We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, profiteers and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race... ...The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education... ...For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich... etc...

 The German people were no different than us. The potential for that level of wickedness exists within every human and therefore every culture. They simply believed the gospel of envy and it led them down a very dark road. As it has every culture who has believed its message and used its means to strive towards the ends that it presents as salvation.

Now lets consider the religious version of this gospel. The religious version is created when the secular version embeds itself parasitically in a religion and disguises itself by incorporating some of the terminology of the host religion. A clear example of this is what is called Liberation Theology or Christian Socialism. In these false religions, that are no more Christianity than chalk is cheese (Spurgeon's line), the biblical categories for humanities primary problem, the gospel and salvation are replaced with those from the gospel of envy. And thus you basically have Marx's gospel tricked out in some biblical terminology and scriptural distortions consisting of out of context verses. This false Christianity with its false gospel is alive and well in the United States. You can recognize it by what it consistently inserts into the categories of humanities problem, gospel (will consist of imperatives) and salvation. It will differ from the biblical categories which are:

Humanities primary problem - This is the problem that necessitates salvation. The gospel is good news because it addresses this problem. This is why Jesus had to die. (if your theology cant explain why Jesus HAD to to die then you need a different theology) The biblical view of humanities problem is that each individual is a guilty sinner ( Rom 10: 3-18 ). And since we do not meet the standard of perfect Holiness that God being perfectly just demands ( Rom 3: 25-26 ), we are left without hope forever separated from our creator and sure to suffer His wrath at the time of judgement.

The Gospel - This is good news! You, man of unclean lips. You who were without hope, facing sure and deserved wrath. God has made a way where there was no way! God in His infinite grace and love sent His only begotten Son to suffer the punishment for your sin. His name was Jesus. He was born of a virgin. He lived a perfect life fulfilling every requirement of the law. His perfect life made Him a perfect sacrifice for your sin. He willingly laid His life down and was crucified as a payment for your sin. On the cross, the wrath that God had stored up for those that would be saved was poured out on Jesus. He was dead and in the grave for three days and then God raised Him from the dead defeating Hell and the grave. He did all of this to make a way of salvation for you. All that is required of you is to humble yourself, repent and believe.

Salvation - Is being brought into right standing with your creator. It is the complete nullification of the problem I outlined earlier. It is having Christ's perfect righteousness imputed to you. It is eternal life rather than eternal damnation.

When you know and understand what the biblical answers to these questions are it isn't hard to spot the counterfeits.

Ran out of time, so I will pick up here on part two.

"Our business is to present that which is timeless, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, in the particular language of our own age, the bad preacher does exactly the opposite: he takes the ideas of our own age and tricks them out in the traditional language of Christianity.” ~ CS Lewis