The Intersection of the Gospel and Politics: Key Points II
Posted: Mon Apr 01, 2013 4:32 pm
2. Those places where political ideology and the gospel conflict as to matters of first principles, or where acceptance of one essentially precludes the other’s principles, values and implications.
Within a Latter Day Saint context, This, in my view, means an inexorable and clear distancing and ultimate rejection of all forms of political ideology, philosophy, and movement politics that are broadly understood to be aspects of what has come to be known as the “Left” in the philosophical and political realm. Leftist political ideologies and the policies that flow logically and conceptually from them exist in substantial tension and conflict with the Church and its teachings, and much of what we understand as “leftist” or "progressive" beliefs, assumptions, perspectives, and philosophy are, indeed, in a position of polar opposition. This does not mean, however, that any and all beliefs held by conservatives or libertarians, of various schools of thought, just because they are non-leftist, are, because of this, in harmony with the teachings of the gospel.
All forms of leftist ideological thought, including social, economic, and political theory (whether this Marxian/utopian revolutionary socialism, National Socialism, cultural Marxism, Fascism, democratic socialism, critical theory (academic cultural Marxism), a Comtean scientifically controlled hive society, Rousseauian collectivist democracy, or a Skinnerian society of pervasive social conditioning by experts in behavior science) conflict directly and severely with the gospel across a number of dimensions, but especially those of free agency and accountability for behavior, the sacredness and importance of the individual and his/her right to determine the character and course of life, and ultimately, the possibility that the gospel choice of life will even be present in any such society at all.
3. In connection with the above we should add the gospel and politics intersect the point at which a political ideology colonizes, displaces and becomes an alternative religion to the gospel itself. Virtually any of the above ideologies (and most especially the forms or schools of transformational or revolutionary socialism, including a number of ideas falling under the general rubric of contemporary “progressive” politics in America) contain this element as a fundamental aspect of their appeal, especially among many within the elite western intelligentsia traditionally alienated from and hostile to traditional religion. Marxism and its derivatives (and especially its most successful sect or school, cultural Marxism (the application of Marxian “critical theory” to virtually every aspect of the human condition, including economics but involving all aspects of culture and society including art, media, communications, education, the family, race, class and gender etc. and which, for all intents, can by used synonymously with “political correctness” to describe the same fundamental ideological movement, or set of movements and cast of mind) has been the most overt in its pretensions to a kind of messianic religion of human redemption, salvation and perfection that displaces traditional religion but fulfills its essential functions. Certain appendages of this movement, such as modern environmentalism, contain these elements in profusion.
This then, is a beginning with which we can explore the intersection, or overlapping areas, within which the gospel of Jesus Christ finds living application to contemporary societal and cultural – and hence political – conditions.
Within a Latter Day Saint context, This, in my view, means an inexorable and clear distancing and ultimate rejection of all forms of political ideology, philosophy, and movement politics that are broadly understood to be aspects of what has come to be known as the “Left” in the philosophical and political realm. Leftist political ideologies and the policies that flow logically and conceptually from them exist in substantial tension and conflict with the Church and its teachings, and much of what we understand as “leftist” or "progressive" beliefs, assumptions, perspectives, and philosophy are, indeed, in a position of polar opposition. This does not mean, however, that any and all beliefs held by conservatives or libertarians, of various schools of thought, just because they are non-leftist, are, because of this, in harmony with the teachings of the gospel.
All forms of leftist ideological thought, including social, economic, and political theory (whether this Marxian/utopian revolutionary socialism, National Socialism, cultural Marxism, Fascism, democratic socialism, critical theory (academic cultural Marxism), a Comtean scientifically controlled hive society, Rousseauian collectivist democracy, or a Skinnerian society of pervasive social conditioning by experts in behavior science) conflict directly and severely with the gospel across a number of dimensions, but especially those of free agency and accountability for behavior, the sacredness and importance of the individual and his/her right to determine the character and course of life, and ultimately, the possibility that the gospel choice of life will even be present in any such society at all.
3. In connection with the above we should add the gospel and politics intersect the point at which a political ideology colonizes, displaces and becomes an alternative religion to the gospel itself. Virtually any of the above ideologies (and most especially the forms or schools of transformational or revolutionary socialism, including a number of ideas falling under the general rubric of contemporary “progressive” politics in America) contain this element as a fundamental aspect of their appeal, especially among many within the elite western intelligentsia traditionally alienated from and hostile to traditional religion. Marxism and its derivatives (and especially its most successful sect or school, cultural Marxism (the application of Marxian “critical theory” to virtually every aspect of the human condition, including economics but involving all aspects of culture and society including art, media, communications, education, the family, race, class and gender etc. and which, for all intents, can by used synonymously with “political correctness” to describe the same fundamental ideological movement, or set of movements and cast of mind) has been the most overt in its pretensions to a kind of messianic religion of human redemption, salvation and perfection that displaces traditional religion but fulfills its essential functions. Certain appendages of this movement, such as modern environmentalism, contain these elements in profusion.
This then, is a beginning with which we can explore the intersection, or overlapping areas, within which the gospel of Jesus Christ finds living application to contemporary societal and cultural – and hence political – conditions.
