‘You ask, what is our policy? I will say; It is to wage war . . . . . with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.’
***
The nature of a Vacuum is that it seeks to be filled with something. The ‘something’ that is filling the Vacuum in western society left by the decline of Christianity is a Spiritual Virus, ‘That Hideous Strength’ used as the title of a book by C. S Lewis. The term is taken from a poem by the 16th century Scottish poet David Lyndsay in 1555, a line of which (in modernised English) reads “The shadow of that Hideous Strength, six miles and more it is of length”, refers to the long shadow cast over society by the Tower of Babel in Genesis Chapter 11:1-9.
The Babel story tells how God will ultimately respond to a society that ignores God, puts its trust in its own abilities and ‘advanced’ technology, and seeks to establish its own security based on these things.
The quote at the head of this chapter is part of a rallying cry issued by the great British wartime leader Winston Churchill in the early stages of the second World War when Britain stood alone against the might of Hitler’s Nazi army that had steam-rolled its way across, and subjugated most of, Europe.
A similar cry with equal passion ought to be heard from the Christian leaders and pulpits of our time, for western Christians in particular are fighting another War, against another enemy, another ‘Monstrous Tyranny’. However, you wouldn’t believe it attending most church services where a benign, comfortable, mission-stifling Christianity reigns supreme. The Church’s ‘Monstrous Tyranny’ is not that of the Nazis of the 20th century (although the growing Covid-encouraged, totalitarian tendencies of western governments have some similar characteristics) but that of Lyndsay’s Hideous Strength.
***
Many Christians will listen to sermons, or attend Bible studies, on Ephesians 6:12, and hear about ‘the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world, and the spiritual forces of evil’ that the Apostle Paul warns the Church about, yet remain seemingly unaware of, or choose to ignore, the battle that the Church is in. However, the fact is that this is a real battle, the evidence for which is all around us, and the western Church losing badly.
The Enemy
The Enemy we face is described by Anglican Minister Melvin Tinker, author of ‘That Hideous Strength-How the West Was Lost’, in these words-
‘This ‘Hideous Strength’ is far more fearsome and all-embracing than Lewis envisaged over 70 years ago. The technology available is far more potent and far reaching in its ability to capture imaginations and minds than at any point in the world’s history. The political will of the opponents of Christianity is strong and unrelenting. The Church by and large appears confused and compromising. The stakes are incredibly high; nothing less than the survival of a civilization and the eternal well-being of countless souls.’
Rod Dreher, (author of the ‘Benedict Option’) emphasises the same point when he writes that –
‘The spiritual crisis which is engulfing the West is the worst since the end of the fifth century.’
Again, you would have little idea of this if you attended almost any Sunday church service.
I have addressed this issue in my book, Quantum Mission, arguing that we are at a seemingly little recognized hinge point in history, a time such as the western Church has not faced since the time of the 5th and 6th century Celtic mission to northern Europe. Yet most church members are just ignorant of, or at least ill-informed about, the Crisis facing the Church, not least because pulpits are generally silent on these issues.
Further, with a few praiseworthy exceptions, church leaderships appear, through ignorance (although that’s hard to believe), complacency or even incompetence, to just continue with more of the same as if the Crisis didn’t exist.
As we face this Crisis however, it is vital that we do not forget the lesson of Genesis 3:1 where we are told that Satan is more cunning, or more subtle, than all the other creatures God has made, and that includes humans. This cunning has achieved a major victory when seemingly he has convinced most Christians and Christian leaders in the West that he either doesn’t exist, or even if He does, we don’t need to bother too much about him.
Know Your Enemy
A famous maxim regarding war states that a primary principle for a successful campaign is to ‘Know your enemy’. Tragically however, not only are most western Christians ignorant of, or indifferent to, the Enemy, but they run their churches and live their lives as if he doesn’t exist. However, Jesus made it very clear that he most certainly does! e.g., Mark 1:13.
What then is the evidence of his activity in our society? How does this Hideous Strength, the Serpent of the Garden of Eden, manifest himself? Among other ways, He does so in the guise of what might be called a form of Cultural Marxism that has very subtly taken over our institutions; the schools and universities that our young people go to and are being indoctrinated in; as well as governments and corporations.
It is important at this point to emphasise that the Marxist world view is the very opposite of the Biblical one; obviously because for one God exists and for the other He doesn’t. It also is probably necessary here to make a brief mention of what the original political philosophy of Karl Marx was.
When I was in high school in England it was the period of the ‘Cold War’, and one of the chilling realities of the time was the threat of nuclear extinction from the Marxist Soviet Union that we woke up to every day. The issue of Marxism was one of regular discussion, including in school-organized debates – one of which I remember was on the topic ‘Better Red (Marxist/Communist) than Dead’. The point being, was it better to kowtow to the nuclear superpower of the time rather than being nuked or irradiated out of existence. This was a serious discussion, even with high school students.
The reason I raise this is the fact that, in contrast to those raised in the 1960s and 70s, current generations are ignorant of, or oblivious to, the cultural Marxism that now has its hands on the levers controlling our society. The dangerous tragedy is that, given the state of our education system for now several decades, Marxism and the toll of human suffering it has wrought over the last century or so, and will so do again, is something few people under fifty years old or so know much about. For example, the 20 million of his own people killed under the Marxist Soviet Russian regime of President Stalin, or the millions killed by the Marxist Mau Tze Dung of China and Pol Pot in Cambodia. This ignorance of Marxism in practice and its mistakes means that they are likely doomed to be repeated. Worse, surveys indicate that in their ignorance many history-challenged younger people think it might be worth a try!
So here is a brief list of some of the main characteristics of Marxism, most of which can be seen in George Orwell’s book, ‘1984’, but also, for those who have eyes to see, in our own society. This, and perhaps Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, should be compulsory reading for every school child (good luck with that!) and every adult who has not read them. Even if we have, we should do so again to help us understand our times.
1. Marxism is officially Atheistic
That is, it declares that God doesn’t exist, and so the Bible is a fiction. This is the most important characteristic of Marxism that makes it a tool of the Enemy, and poisonous to society.
Marx himself described religion as-
‘The opium of the people’ and said that ‘The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness‘
A point to note is that the Marxist idea of owning nothing but being really happy is currently also promoted by the World Economic Forum, a contemporary organization that has heavily influenced many of today’s political leaders, such as Canada’s Pierre Trudeau and the former prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinta Ardern.
Also worth noting is the phrase ‘the abolition of religion’. This essential tenet of Marxism is reflected in our own times as we see God kicked out of schools, parliaments, universities, institutions, corporations and most of the media, as well as being little present in most families. Further, we see the ‘fruits’ of the Hideous Strength in the fall in active church membership, attendance and ministry, the declining proportion of youth in and the rising average age of, congregations, and in the rapid decline in even nominal Christian affiliation.
2. Marxism is Intentionally Divisive.
The fundamental model for God’s plan for (made in God’s Image) human relationships, is the Trinity. That is, one characterized by mutual support and harmony bound together by Love. Contrast this with an essential characteristic of Marxism which is that it intentionally fractures society. It does this by dividing it into those who are oppressed and those who do the oppressing. Originally this was on an economic basis, the division being between the ‘workers’ who produce and the controllers/owners of the means of production ‘the ‘Bosses’, as in the Soviet Union of the last century. Today’s Cultural Marxism is in its essence tribalist, the primary division now being between a lumped-together collection of minority groups (the oppressed) and western (particularly) white people, especially Christians, (the oppressors). Even that ‘lump’ is itself divided into tribes between which there is now increasing conflict.
This modern divisive, and destructive, tribalism is straight out of the Marxist playbook and is totally counter to God’s desire for human society which is for the removal of divisions; for the establishment of harmony; and through Christ, for the creation of One Humanity- Ephesians 2:15.
3. Marxism Controls by Censorship of Speech and Thought
Not long ago in England, a man named Harry Miller answered a knock on his front door to be greeted by a policeman with the statement ‘I have come to check your thinking’. This frightening experience was the result of Millar’s retweet of a post about a transgender woman by someone else. His action was considered to have fallen foul of the British police guidelines on ‘Hate’ crimes.
These guidelines define a hate incident as-
‘any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender’.
The concept of a ‘non-crime incident’ requiring police attention is truly worthy of George Orwell himself! An example of ‘thought crime’ or ‘wrong think’! That is one of the characteristics of both 20th century Marxism and today’s Cultural Marxism which is the ‘check your thinking’ attempt to control, and police, what can be said and even thought, i.e., mind control. Of particular concern is the fact that this attempted control of speech and thought now extends to the Bible and Christian beliefs. Various recent examples serve to make the point.
One is in the recent prosecution of John Dunn, a street preacher in England. The government prosecution service argued that parts of the Bible are ‘offensive’ and ‘no longer appropriate to be spoken publicly in modern society’. Another example is the recent case of the twenty-four-year-old Christian schoolteacher in Ohio who, after telling the school principal that using students’ preferred pronouns violated her religion, was forced to resign.
Another important aspect of today’s ‘speech control’ is what comes under the banner of Political Correctness (PC). That is, people are only free to say what is acceptable to the spirit of the age (now increasingly Marxist), not what they really think, indeed increasing numbers of people are afraid to do so.
What is known as ‘Cancel Culture’, while a relatively modern term, is a further characteristic of Marxist control. One example of ‘Cancel Culture’ is that it is now not uncommon for people to lose their jobs for saying or believing, or even being associated with, something that even ten years ago would have been considered quite normal. A recent case is that of Andrew Thorburn, a Christian man who lost his (fleeting) job as chief executive of an Australian Rules football club in Melbourne simply because he belonged to a church that held mainstream biblical views, whether he personally agreed with them or not.
Other examples are the ‘cancelling’ of speakers at universities because they hold the ‘wrong’ views, or Christian groups being banned from using venues for meetings because their views ‘don’t align’ with those of the venue owner.
4. The State is ‘God’
Marxism effectively makes the state an obligatory object of ‘worship’ in that it is the supreme authority overall, as Caesar was in Roman times. That of course is what Christians then, as now, could not accept. This affects how children are raised and means that parents lose their God-appointed primary role for their children’s upbringing, and the state determines how they are raised. This is one of the twin aims of Marxism, namely the destruction of the family (the other being the destruction of the Church). As Melvin Tinker writes, ‘This circumvents the parents’ traditional role in passing on values to the next generation’.
An aspect of this is the indoctrination rather than education of children in schools with a (contra-Biblical) Marxist world view, whether the parents know about it (most don’t), like it or not. This issue is now exacerbated by the now well-established practice of many parents to outsource the care of the very youngest of children to childcare centres in which they will be exposed to Marxist thinking.
If we are a Christian parent/ grandparent, we should be taking a keen and active interest in what is being taught.
5. Marxism Manipulates Truth
It has long been said, and well demonstrated, that ‘Truth is the first casualty of War’, and this is certainly true in the war Christians are fighting against the Marxist world view, which is a tool of the Hideous Strength, that power described by Jesus as the ‘Father of lies’ (John 8:44).
One way we see this manipulation of Truth is in the rewriting of history. The central character in George Orwell’s ‘1984’ is Winston Smith who works in the Ministry of Truth, which should more accurately be called the Ministry of Misinformation, as we saw in the Soviet Union state news outlet ‘Pravda’ (Ironically meaning Truth). Smith’s job was to rewrite history when the current version no longer serves the purpose of ‘Big Brother’ (the ruling group). The ‘Old’, no longer acceptable, history documents were then disposed of by putting them into what was called a Memory Hole where they were incinerated so that they could not be retrieved and used to prove history has been tampered with. Big Brother maintains totalitarian control of society using lies, disinformation and misinformation to scare and deceive the population into being obedient.
We saw examples of this in the 2020-21 Covid outbreak with bureaucratic and cross-media scare campaigns seeking to dragoon people into fear and obedience. Examples are-
1. The totally false and scary warning by public health officials reported in the Sydney Morning Herald (and therefore read by a lot of people) that Covid would kill up to 150,000 Australians, whereas the Truth according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics is that, up to August 31st, 2022, only 11,441 died from or WITH (note) Covid.
2. The constant pressure to get vaccinated against Covid as a community duty because that would prevent us passing on the illness to others. One state premier went so far as to say that she wouldn’t even want to be in a room with unvaccinated people! This was false, because it has been shown that Covid vaccinations do not prevent transmission. Further, the vaccine producers themselves have admitted that they did not even test to see whether their vaccines prevented transmission!
A further piece of distorted ‘Truth’ is the claim that many Pacific Island nations are being drowned by climate-change-induced rising seas, a claim that is used to drive the demand that western countries should give trillions of dollars to such nations to help them overcome the threat.
The Truth is however otherwise, as documented in studies by the University of Auckland and others show that 40% plus of the land areas of these nations have actually grown in size and another 40% plus have remained stable over the last six decades. I should note that there can be no objection to richer countries providing aid to poorer ones, but not on the basis of Marxist wealth-redistribution projects based on lies.
Then there is the example of Truth distortion that appeared in the September 26th, 1988, edition of the Canberra Times (and in other publications) which published a report predicting that rising seas threatened to completely cover the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives by 2018. That’s strange I thought, as over thirty-six years later (in 2024) I read several newspaper adverts for holidays in the Maldives!
Another area where we see a Marxist attempt to distort the ‘Truth’ is in the demonising of white people (the oppressors), especially Christians, regarding the north Atlantic slave trade. This, if you listen to most of the media on this topic, is particularly a white man’s sin, and there are calls for western countries to pay massive amounts of ‘Reparations’ to black people for past wrongs in this area. However, some ‘inconvenient’ facts might help give a broader view.
1. Slave trading and trafficking were common in many parts of Africa in ancient times, long before the white man got there.
2. Black African Kings and Tribal leaders were engaging in the capture, enslavement, and trading of black people from other tribes that they conquered, long before the Europeans arrived. It was those same black Kings and Tribal leaders that sold black people as slaves to the European traders. So when demands for ‘Reparations’ are made of western countries perhaps they should equally be made of West African Nations which sold the slaves in the first place.
I do want to strongly emphasise here however, that nothing excuses the Europeans who did engage in, and profited from the north Atlantic slave trade, and the deaths it caused.
However, there are other facts about the trade that the media seem to leave out. In the early 1800s, it was the campaign waged by Christian members of the British parliament, led by William Wilberforce, which legislated to ban the trade; it was the Christian British Royal Navy (West Africa Squadron) that stamped it out; and it did this at an estimated cost of the lives of around 2000 Christian British Royal Navy sailors.
As in ‘1984’, in Marxism Truth becomes malleable in order to suit the ideology of the time. Again, this is the antithesis of the Bible where Jesus is THE Truth. Truth is singular, there is only one version, and His name is Jesus who is God.
6. Marxism Manipulates Language
Marxism, and today Cultural Marxism, manipulates language to achieve its ideological purposes. An example of this is when it seeks to replace millennia-old and worldwide terms such as ‘Mother and Father’, with terms such as ‘birthing/non-birthing parent’, or ‘breastfeeding’ with ‘chest feeding’. This is in order to weaken the God-designed basic unit of society, i.e., the family. For the same ideological reason, Marxism seeks to blur definitions of terms such as Woman/Man to further a gender-fluidity ideology, and again weaken the family.
Another example of language manipulation is in the ‘Safe schools’ program run in several states in Australia. Its stated aim is to reduce bullying, and after all who could object to that! However, the use of the word ‘Safe’ is deceptive, for the programs in several (not all) states are generally more about the sexual indoctrination of children, particularly in Gender theory. The reality often is that ‘Safe Schools’ is generally anything but ‘Safe’!
7. Marxism Removes Freedoms
A major characteristic of Marxism is the removal of long fought for, and died for, freedoms, whether by the Bishops that forced the English King John to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, the martyrs of the sixteenth century Reformation in Europe, or the millions of men and women who fought Nazi totalitarianism in World War 2. Such freedoms that until ten or so years ago were taken for granted. The removal of them is demonstrated in the attack on free speech as we have already mentioned; and the loss of freedom of movement as we saw in the draconian Lockdowns during the Covid pandemic, and the prosecution of people who spoke out against them; Lockdowns that have now been shown to have caused more damage than they were intended to avoid, especially to children.
***
This is a very brief outline of some aspects of atheistic Marxism and its equally godless offspring, the Cultural Marxism of today that is the tool of the Enemy, the Long Shadow that the Hideous Strength is casting over society and all of its institutions.
Marxism seeks to destroy the family and the Church. In both cases, in the West it is well on the way to achieving both of its goals, yet Christians and more importantly Christian leaders, with honourable exceptions, continue to act as if none of this is happening.
So the question is, how should Christians respond to the Hideous Strength that is filling the spiritual and moral vacuum left by the retreat of the Biblical controlling story (metanarrative) that shaped and directed western society for centuries? We might adopt Churchill’s question and ask “what is our policy”? The answer can only be “to wage war . . . . . with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny”, the tyranny that is destroying western society.
Whatever forms they take, our policies must be ones that-
a. Recognize the reality that committed and active Christians are now reduced to a diminishing ‘Remnant’ in a western society that is now pagan for the first time for 1500 years.
b. Start to educate and equip Christians and their children to be able to discern, understand and oppose the Hideous Strength’s subtle takeover of society. Here is where churches are pretty much silent, a silence that is most certainly not golden!
c. In the power of the Spirit, develop strategies that take on ‘That Hideous Strength’ like guerrilla warfare units that are designed and are deployed to take back the Enemy’s now well-established strongholds in schools, universities, politics, parliaments and other institutions.
d. Develop a Trojan Horse strategy that zealously seeks to infiltrate and to impregnate the neo-pagan ‘dough’ of society with the ‘yeast’ of the gospel.
e. Realize that-
‘The political will of the opponents of Christianity is strong and unrelenting. The Church by and large appears confused and compromising. The stakes are incredibly high; nothing less than the survival of a civilization and the eternal well-being of countless souls.’
So, for those of us claiming to be followers of Jesus, and even more importantly for Christian leaders, the question for each fellowship, house church, simple church, Christian organizations etc., is-
‘What is our aim, policy, strategy to take on ‘That Hideous Strength’? Do we even have one?’
As the Long Shadow of that ‘Hideous Strength’ brings darkness over the erstwhile Christian West, do we truly realize that ‘The stakes are incredibly high; nothing less than the survival of a civilization and the eternal well-being of countless souls.’
