A New 'Gospel', a Different Church a Strange God

Emilio Castro, when General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, taught that: “God works through Marxist revolution in order to bring all men together” and he stressed the need for Christians to participate in revolution. (OMS Outreach 3/81). 

In the 1970’s and 80’s, the World Council of Churches (W.C.C.) gave over $6½ million to terrorist groups – most in Southern Africa (including the Marxist SWAPO, ANC and ZANU). (Ecunews 1985). 

The South African Council of Churches (S.A.C.C.) was linked to brotherhood to the Marxist terrorist organisation, the ANC. (Eloff Report, page 432). 

Dr. Beyers Naudé, when General Secretary of the SACC, claimed that the ANC terrorists who killed themselves whilst throwing hand grenades into a home “died for freedom.” (Ucanews 1985). 

Rev. Canaan Banana, ex-president of Marxist Zimbabwe, declared that “Every time I see a guerrilla, I see Jesus Christ!” (The Herald, 2.11.80). 

Bishop Desmond Tutu hailed the take-over of Mugabe’s Marxist ZANU as “the arrival of the Kingdom of God in Zimbabwe .” (Ecunews 11/1980). 

Dr. Allan Boesak called for prayer for the downfall of the government ( 16 June 1985 ) and preached in front of a huge Russian flag ( 21 July 1985 ). 

Bishop Tutu further stated that “One young man with a stone in his hands can achieve far more than I can with a dozen sermons” (Daily Telegraph), and “If the Russians were to come to South Africa most blacks would welcome them as saviours!” ( St. Paul ’s London ). 

At a “Civil Disobedience Workshop”, a lecturer outlined three phases of active resistance: the first beingconscientious objection – “to undermine the defence of South Africa ” ; the second being civil disobedience – “to make South Africa ungovernable” ; the ripe for the third phase, which would be a just law – “a popular overthrow of the government”. (Civil Disobedience and the Bible). 

The Kairos Document (signed by such church leaders as Dr. Nico Smith, Dr. Beyers Naudè, Dr. Wolfram Kistner, Prof. Charles Villa Vicencio, Prof. John De Gruchy, Rev. Abel Hendricks, Caesar Molebatsi, Margaret Nash and many others) condemned those who want to obey Romans 13 as following ‘State theology’, and worshipping the anti-Christ. It wrote off those Christians who called for“non-violence, reconciliation, peace and justice” as adhering to an abstract “Church theology” which is“inadequate, irrelevant and ineffective”. It claimed that only “Prophetic theology” (a new name for a form of the discredited “Liberation theology” which is based on Marxist analysis) was acceptable. This“theology” requires its adherents to “side with the oppressed”, “participate in the struggle”, “transform all church activities” to promote the struggle, engage in “civil disobedience”, and work under the political organisations of the masses “for a change of government.”

This abomination of hermeneutics becomes all the more disturbing in the light of what Lenin said:“We will find our most fertile field for infiltration by communists within the field of religion because religious people… will swallow anything if it is hidden in religious terms.”

As J. Edgar Hoover, former director of the F.B.I., declared: “The Communists have infiltrated every sphere of activity - youth groups, church, school, the press…The Communist war is not fought with bombs. It is being fought now by subversion through the medium of ideas… in the areas where ideas flourish and thinking patterns are formed.”

We are being offered “a new Gospel”, which is political – not spiritual; it is man-centred – not Christ-centred; it is humanism – not Christianity; it is derived from Marxism – not the Bible. 

Dr. Philip Potter, former Secretary General of the W.C.C., claimed he supported the “liberation movements” in Southern Africa “100%”, that he “may sometimes be more radical than most Marxists” and that had had “learned much from the Marxist analysis of society”. (Wages of Sin – the WCC Unmasked, pg 142). 

Why are these liberal/radical church leaders so preoccupied with politics, so supportive of terrorist movements, and so uncritically receptive to Marxism? And why do they become so silent and uncritical when Marxist regimes siege power? 

Listen to the voice of experience, from one who has suffered in Communist concentration camps: 
“The world has never before known godlessness as organised, militarised and tenaciously malevolent as that preached by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principle driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot. To achieve its diabolical ends, Communism needs to control a population devoid of religious and national feeling, and this entails a destruction of faith and nationhood. Communists proclaim both these objectives openly, and just as openly put them into practice.” (Alexander Solzhenitsyn at Buckingham Palace, May 1983). 

I have seen the effects of Communism. Since 1982 while ministering as a missionary in Mozambique , Zimbabwe and Angola . I witnessed burned churches, a pastor crucified on the front of his church, a whole congregation massacred while they were praying on their knees, whole towns wiped out, people dying of starvation whilst Russian ships took food out of Mozambique , Communist troops confiscating and burning Bibles, summary trials and executions, death and destruction, chaos and fear. I have ministered to refugees who had fled from Communist oppression to freedom and safety. I’ve documented stories of massacred villages, whole congregations herded into churches in Angola and burnt to death, of torture and persecution, hunger, fear and death. (See Holocaust in Rwanda ,In the Killing Fields of Mozambique and Putting Feet to Your Faith.) 

I too have been shot at, arrested and imprisoned in Communist lands for preaching the Gospel. 
From 1917 to 1980, over 60 million Russian were killed, 40% being executed directly by Communist officials. A further 66 million were incarcerated in prisons and concentration camps. At least half these totals were Christians. Even in the 1980’s there were over 10 million people in 1,000 Soviet concentration camps and prisons. (Christian World Encyclopaedia, OUP, 1982). 

When one thinks of the one million Afghans who were killed by the Red army in Afghanistan since the Russian invasion in 1979 (Helsinki Watch Committee, 1985); the 2 million Cambodians butchered by the Marxist Khmer Rouge during Pol Pot’s reign of terror in Kampuchea (CACC, 1983); and the ½ million political and religious prisoners in 160 concentration camps in Communist Viet Nam (Que Me, 1985); and the over 1,800 churches closed by the Marxists in Ethiopia during early 1985 (Open Doors) – then we must ask ourselves some questions: 

How can we respect church leaders who are in love with an atheistic, anti-Christ philosophy like Marxism? 
How can we support a movement that uses consecrated money from church collections to fund Marxist-Leninist terrorists? 
How can we remain deaf to the Bible’s warnings against heresy and apostasy? 
How can we allow our churches to be manipulated by ruthless political elements? 
How can we stand back while our pulpits – which are meant to be sanctified, reserved for the Gospel of Christ alone – are exploited by radicals? 
How dare we keep silent while the Gospel of Christ is perverted to suit the plans of evil men? 
Let us return to the Bible, give ourselves over to Christ in prayer, and seek God for a Holy Spirit Revival to purify our churches. Let us stand up for the truth of God’s Word, speak up against the unbiblical heresies in our midst, and step out in faith to spread the Gospel of Christ throughout our land. 

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the Law of the Lord, and in His Law he meditates day and night.” Psalm 1:1 – 2 

Dr. Peter Hammond 
Frontline Fellowship 
PO Box 74 
Newlands, 7725 
Cape Town , South Africa 
E-mail:  admin@frontline.org.za

This article was written in 1985.

This Article in printable tract form is available for download  here