WHY LIBERALISM HATES CHRISTIANITY

Recently I was having a conversation over the Internet, with a person from Missouri. This individual's politics are very liberal, and, while a decent person, he has little or no religious conviction, and at best, is an agnostic. During the course of our conversation, he spouted the usual, knee-jerk pabulum about the "religious right" being mean spirited, hateful, judgmental, etc., which immediately told me that the only place he got any information was from Dan Rather. I thus asked him the following questions: If everybody in this country would faithfully follow the teachings of Jesus, how many drug pushers would there be? How many cases of AIDS? How many battered wives? How many illegitimate children living in poverty? He was honest enough to answer "none," to which I replied that such is the political goal of the "religious right," though eternal salvation must be the ultimate aim.

Yet, the conversation was instructive in other ways and led me to ponder the question of why liberals hate religion so much. There is no doubt that the reasons vary among individuals, but it is important for us to realize that hatred of religion is inherent in the liberal philosophy simply because of what they view as the results of religion.

Over 200 years ago, the blasphemous French philosopher Voltaire wrote, "Religion is the chief cause of all the sorrows of humanity. Everywhere it has only served to drive men to evil, and plunge them in brutal miseries ...it makes for history an immense tableau of human follies." An influential 19th century American, Benjamin Franklin Underwood, explained further: "To many liberals, Christianity appears an unmitigated evil; a superstition which although it had its origin in innocent ignorance and credulity, has been the greatest obstacle to human progress that mankind has had to encounter." The vile atheist Robert Ingersoll said that the church had, for 1,000 years, "extinguished the torch of progress in the blood of Christ." Unfortunately, there is some truth to this statement; but it is just as unfortunate that most people do not know the difference between New Testament Christianity and the gross perversions and deviations of Catholicism and Protestantism.

But the point in that much os the "left's" obvious hatred of (their understanding of) Christianity in our country today proceeds from their belief that Christianity has been a hindrance to man's progress and has resulted in much evil. Rather than reading their New Testaments and trying to comprehend what the religion of Jesus Christ really is, they prefer to look back in history and recall the cruelties, immoralities, and butcheries done by those who really have no close connection to the truth and label that Christianity. This idea has had a tremendous effect in our country; indeed, it underlies the entire educational system. Dr. John Dewey, who is known as the father of modern American education, was no friend to Christianity. Indeed, he was a very good liberal: "The objection to supernaturalism is that it stands in the way of an effective realization of the sweep and depth of the implications of natural human relations. It stands in the way of using the means that are in our power to make radical changes in these relations." In other words, Christianity is a hindrance to liberal ideas of progressive social relations. It must be removed. This is a cardinal tenet of liberalism today, and thus it is clear why there is no desire among the "left" to promote the Christian faith, why they defend abortion, homosexuality, pre- and extra-marital sex, and almost every other vile crudity that pervades our country: men must be "free," and Christianity is the greatest obstacle to that freedom and does all sorts of evil to prevent people from being "free." In the liberal mind, "freedom" equals "progress," thus Christianity must be eliminated, or at least relegated to a non-influential role in society's affairs.

Beloved, to defeat the enemies of God, we must understand them.