"Letter Page"

 May 2004  _The Long March Through Christendom:

Evidences of Cultural Marxist Methodology in Evangelic Christianity.

 Larry Dozier 

Nothing could seem more American than a wholesome afternoon spent at church, fellowshipping with those who share a common belief of God. Next to mom, apple pie and baseball, church is an institution in American society. To suggest that most evangelical Christian churches had been infiltrated by Marxism might sound ludicrous. To propose that many churches are using Marxist methodology to achieve their goals might sound almost insane.  Nevertheless, this is the case. 

Prior to 1987, there was a clearly accepted delineation between two opposing worlds. East of the Berlin Wall was the world of soviet Marxism. West of the wall was capitalism. The wall existed, not only as a simple geographic boundary, but as a philosophic demarcation as well. 

When the wall fell, a collective sigh of relief was heard coming from the west. No longer would the theories of Marx and Engels threaten the free and open society of capitalism. The enemy had fallen, and Marxism was, undeniably, dead.   Unbeknownst to many, Marxism was still alive and healthy. Soviet style Marxism may have collapsed. Cultural Marxism, however, was doing very well.  Cultural Marxism began in 1899 when Eduard Bernstein published 'Evolutionary Socialism', a treatise advocating an evolution into communism, as opposed to revolution. A schism soon arose between the classic Marxists, who believed that violent revolution was necessary to effect societal change, and the Social Democrats, who favored more peaceful means.   An early Hegelian Marxist who agreed with Bernstein was Antonio Gramsci.  Antonio Gramsci was the founder of the Italian Communist Party, and one of the most prominent Marxist writers of the early 1900's. 

Gramsci believed that a frontal attack on modern industrial democracies would be futile. He observed that modern industrial societies were governed by the consent of the populace, and argued that consent was produced by the cultural institutions of a society, such as schools, churches, newspapers, arts and entertainment. Gramsci believed that control of a country could be achieved by gaining control of its culture. Social change, he believed, was best accomplished by "the long march through the institutions." To achieve this, Gramsci proposed a 3 step plan:  First, existing institutions, values and norms must be de-legitimized. Second, the institutions of a society must be infiltrated and controlled. Third, alternative institutions and values were to be created.  Gramsci was heavily influenced by Hegel, a German philosopher, who believed that change occurred when there was conflict between opposing views. In Hegel's opinion, change could be brought about when a thesis and an antithesis collided, producing a synthesis.

Frank Schallow describes the dialectic like this:  "From its inception, Hegel's dialectic has continually been the brunt of attempts to modify, improve, and revamp it. These revisions began with Marx's dialectical materialism and later gathered momentum through the efforts of critical theorists who adjust for the initial "materialist" slant, compensating for the overcompensation...

In its elemental form, the dialectic instills patterns of organization within the chaos of experience, channeling the creative forces into higher levels of development and ultimately capturing them within a circuit of mediation. In radically siding with otherness, imagination does not introduce another stance of identity, which can in turn be negated at a subsequent stage of the dialectic. Rather, imagination stands as the most extreme emissary of otherness, occupying a place prior to the inception of dialectic in its effort to mediate opposites within the unity of the Absolute. ¹

 A simplistic example of this is to imagine two boys walking into a pet store. They have only enough money to buy one puppy, which they will share between them. The first boy is absolutely convinced that a German Shepard would be the best breed to purchase. This is his thesis. The second boy, however, introduces an antithesis by strongly favoring the purchase of a beagle. Stress is introduced to the relationship due to the opposing viewpoints, and a vigorous debate follows. Because the boys are strongly motivated to retain some harmony in their relationship, they eventually come to a synthesis of opinion, and walk out of the store with a beautiful Labrador retriever, each boy convinced that they purchased the best puppy in the store. 

Gramsci believed that Hegel’s dialectic could be put into practice in order to bring about social change.² Gramsci coined the term "Praxis", which he explained as being a combination of social theory and practice.  Building on Gramsci's work was the Institute for Social Research.

 The Institute for Social Research, also known as The Frankfurt School, was founded in 1924 to provide a forum for discussing communism which was outside of the control of the Communist Party.  The Institute’s members, Herbert Marcuse, Eric Fromm, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Wilhelm Reich, and others, believed that they could combine Marxism and psychology in a way which would cause social change.³

"Historically, Antonio Gramsci's thought shares features with other writers who are classified as "Hegelian Marxists" -- the Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukacs, the German thinker Karl Korsch, and members of the "Frankfurt School" (e.g., Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse), a group of theorists associated with the Institute for Social Research founded in Frankfurt, Germany in the 1920s, some of whom attempted to synthesize the thinking of Marx and Freud. All emphasized that the decisive struggle to overthrow the bourgeois regime (that is, middle-class liberal democracy) would be fought out at the level of consciousness. That is, the old order had to be rejected by its citizens intellectually and morally before any real transfer of power to the subordinate groups could be achieved.“⁴

In 1933, when Hitler came to power, the members of the institute fled to the United States, and the Institute was re-created in New York.   Jay Martin, in his book, describes how the relocation came about:

"Over the years, the Institut had made several contacts with prominent figures — in the American academic world, such as Charles Beard, Robert MacIver, Wesley Mitchell, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Robert Lynd, all of whom were at Columbia University. Thus when Horkheimer made his first trip to the United States in May, 1934, he was able to gain access to Columbia's patriarchal president, Nicholas Murray Butler. Much to his surprise, Butler offered the Institut about affiliation with the university and a home in one of its buildings, at 9 West 117th Street. Horkheimer, fearing he had misunderstood Butler because of his limited command of English, wrote a four-page letter asking him to confirm and clarify his offer. Butler's response was a laconic "You have understood me perfectly!" And so the International Institute for Social Research, as revolutionary and Marxist as it had appeared in Frankfurt in the twenties, came to settle in the center of the capitalist world, New York City." ⁵

The members of the Institute found a warm welcome in American academia, and many went on to hold prominent university positions.

Eric Fromm, the internationally renowned psychologist and humanistic philosopher, began his teaching career at Columbia University soon after fleeing from Germany. Fromm had a significant impact on modern psychology. His philosophical writings were largely critical of authoritarian value systems.

 Herbert Marcuse, after a short stint with the OSS, also taught at Columbia University, as well as Harvard during the 1950's. In 1958, he began teaching at Brandeis University, where he was professor of philosophy and politics. Marcuse was credited with coining the phrase 'Make love, not war' during the Vietnam War. In 1965 He accepted a position with the University of California San Diego. Marcuse's critiques of capitalist society were popular with the leftist student movement of the sixties, and he became known as the "father of the new left". Throughout his life, Marcuse identified himself as a socialist, a Marxist, and a Hegelian. Kurt Lewin and Abraham Maslow became famous for their work in group dynamics.  Lewin, dubbed 'the father of sensitivity training’, taught first at the Cornell School of Home Economics, then at the University of Iowa. While teaching at the University of Iowa, he undertook research for the US Military related to troop Morale, and changing the eating habits of civilians away from foods in short supply. During his research, Lewin found that housewives could be more effectively persuaded to purchase certain foods when placed in small discussion groups than when lectured to.

 Lewin believed that it was the strong psychological motivation to belong to the group which accounted for the dramatic change brought about in these housewives. Lewin’s Field Theory proposed that "human behavior is the function of both the person and the environment: expressed in symbolic terms, B = f (P, E)".⁶ By changing the environment of a group setting, you could change the behavior of individual members. The bulk of Lewin's research involved practical experimentation in effecting change through small groups. 

Lewin later founded National Training Laboratories, where he perfected Group Dynamics, using T-Groups. His experience with T-groups showed him that after a group had been brought to a new level of change, the group would slowly settle back to its initial level. To prevent this, he developed a three step technique which is eerily parallel to Gramsci's three step formula for cultural subjugation. 

"A successful change includes therefore three aspects: unfreezing (if necessary) the present level . . . moving to the new level . . . and freezing group life on the new level." ⁷

In essence, group dynamics is peer pressure on steroids. Small groups are led dialectically by a facilitator who manipulates the environment of the group to achieve a predetermined goal. This is accomplished by introducing tension, or conflict, into the group, and allowing the group to dialogue toward a reconciliation, or synthesis, of the conflict. Using the inherent desire of individuals to 'belong', a skilled facilitator can achieve incredible change in an individual’s behavior. Because the group member believes that he was intimately involved in the group's progress, he is more likely to embrace the group consensus and exhibit behavioral and attitudinal change. Resistance to change is broken down by an individual’s fear of being ostracized by the group. 

"If the individual should try to diverge “too much” from group standards, he would find himself in increasing difficulties. He would be ridiculed, treated severely and finally ousted from the group. Most individuals, therefore, stay pretty close to the standard of the groups they belong to or wish to belong to. In other words, the group level itself acquires value. It becomes a positive valence corresponding to a central force field with the... [forces] keeping the individual in line with the standards of the group." ⁸

 Lewin, who died in 1947, had a profound effect on modern psychology's understanding of how to effect change in individuals through the use of groups. 

"It is difficult to assess fully the great impact that, Lewin's work had on social psychology; Lewis Coser observed that, in less than a decade at the University of Iowa, Lewin "raised a whole generation of social psychologists who were to dominate the field for several decades" (Coser, 1984, p. 25)." ⁹

Lewin's methods and techniques have found their way into many facets of American life. Social psychology, group therapy, sensitivity training, conflict resolution, Total Quality management and Outcome Based Education are all built upon the foundation laid by Lewin's Group Dynamics, and all use some flavor of the dialectic process. 

Surprisingly, the dialectic process, developed and refined in a steady progression from Hegel to Lewin, has found its way into much of the Christian world.  It first surfaced with theologians like Paul Tillich, who sought to redefine theology as a fusion of culture and religion. Tillich say's

"It is therefore the task of theology, working from a concrete standpoint, to draw up a normative system of religion based on the categories of philosophy of religion, with the individual standpoint being related to the standpoint of the respective confession, the universal history of religion, and the cultural-historical standpoint in general. This is no hidden rationalism, for it recognizes the concrete religious standpoint. Nor is it hidden supernaturalism, such as may still be found even in our historical-critical school of thought, for it is the breaking down of all the authoritarian limitations upon the individual standpoint by means of a philosophy of history. It is oriented to Nietzsche’s notion of the "creative" on the basis of Hegel’s concept of "objective-historical spirit" ¹⁰

 The dialectic may also be seen at work in "Christian Psychology", which often embraces the social psychology of Lewin. It is common to find small encounter groups in many churches which address any number of issues, from divorce to addiction. The focus is placed upon the therapeutic value of shared feelings. In many ways, the church has come to see psychology as a competitor for providing salve to wounded souls, and strategically pre-empted the social psychology industry by adopting group therapy techniques and counseling.

David Fitch observes: 

"In the past, Evangelical Christians have gone to the 'preaching of God's word for conviction, correction, repentance, direction and change. Preaching is 'good for the soul'. But now it appears that counseling has taken over many of these functions. It is in counseling that we locate, understand and take responsibility for our dysfunctions and make commitments to change. In some sense, then psychology and preaching are engaged in a turf war in the American Christian church." ¹¹

Christian psychologists argue that by fusing scripture with psychology and its methodology, you develop a tool which is more powerful than biblical preaching alone. The problem with this is that psychology and Christianity espouse diametrically opposing views, and cannot be combined except through a Hegelian synthesis. Psychology begins with the premise that an individual is basically good, marred only by external factors, while Christianity teaches that man is, in his natural state, and depraved whose only hope of goodness comes from a transforming encounter with Jesus Christ.  In order to employ these opposing views, they must be dialectically synthesized to resolve the two, resulting in something which isn't quite psychology, and isn't quite Christian. 

Psychology has also made its way behind the pulpit, with sermons becoming a strange mixture of scripture and psychology. Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, a 'mega-church' in Chicago, and a leader of the Church Growth Movement, states that "a significant amount of weekend message content comes from psychology". ¹²

 Willow Creek has long been a proponent of using small groups for evangelism. Gary Poole, the Director of evangelism at Willow Creek, wrote a book entitled Seeker Small Groups detailing the advantages and methodology of small group evangelism. While his zeal for evangelism is laudable, his methods correspond directly to Lewin's Group Dynamics.  Social psychologists stress the need for a 'safe and no-threatening' environment for groups to meet in, an environment where individuals are more likely to risk vulnerability. Poole agrees: 

"The first distinct advantage of a seeker small group is that it's a very safe place. Seekers can investigate the claims of Christianity at their own pace. They are accepted no matter where they are in their spiritual journeys. There is no judgment, only a spirit of acceptance...The goal of this safe place is to provide an invitation, opportunity, and environment for seekers to openly express their thoughts and feelings, to voice their observations and questions, and even to go so far as to assert their objections - all without inhibition or any fear of criticism." ¹³ 

Lewin's unfreezing stage often consists of icebreakers where the individual begins to lose their individuality and join the group. Poole also suggests beginning with an icebreaker:

"Next comes a pivotal transition in your group discussion, when you should move your group from light-hearted interaction to one of greater significance. This can be accomplished with what I call a 'transition icebreaker...It's a tool to assist you in turning the corner with your group and getting more focused on the topic you want to discuss." ¹⁴

Poole's unfreezing 'ice breaker' allows all of the participants to establish a personal thesis by asking them "If you could ask God one question you knew he could answer right, what would it be?” ¹⁵ While this sounds innocent enough, Poole is actually drawing out the participants, and subtly inviting them to voice their objections to the concept of God.  Next in the Lewinian model is the 'moving to the new level' phase, which is accomplished by introducing tension into the group. Poole is right on time with this phase: 

"Inform the group that before you wrap things up, you'd like to get their knee-jerk reaction to some verses you read aloud from the Bible." ¹⁶

 By introducing scripture to a group of non-believers, Poole has just introduced an antithesis, and created stress in the group dynamic. The individual members, who are either ambivalent to, ignorant of, or critical of the Bible, now have a conflict to wrestle with. As a skilled facilitator, Poole leads them into a group dialogue:

 "After they hear the passage, ask them what it means to them or what stood out or how it impacts them. Again, there are no 'wrong' responses here." ¹⁷

 Finally, Poole 'freezes' the group at its new level by asking the group to decide if they wish to meet again and if so, to commit to a certain number of meetings. Poole explains the rational of this exercise: 

"This is a very important exercise for the group, because it transfers ownership from you to them...you have given them greater ownership, and their commitment to the group will be much stronger. High ownership is crucial to the successful launch of your group..." ¹⁸

Throughout the process, Poole refuses to teach, lecture, or answer questions directly, forcing the group members to learn through the dialectic process.  Willow Creek is not the only mega-church to use small, dialectic groups.   Rick Warren's Saddleback Community Church in Los Angeles has a weekly attendance of over 15,000 people. Warren encourages his parishioners to join one of the thousands of small groups hosted by the church. Warren explains the rationale for using small groups as being "the most effective way of closing the back door"¹⁹ of the church by entangling parishioners in relationships they would hesitate to leave. While this may happen naturally in many churches, at Saddleback it is a calculated manipulation technique using the group dynamics explained by Lewin.  Many of the groups at saddleback take on a distinct group therapy flavor:

"Many of our support groups are related to providing support for and fellowship during a specific stage of life, such as new parents, college students, or empty nesters. Others deal with healing specific hurts encountered by those who have lost a mate by death or divorce. We also have a full menu of recovery groups." ²⁰

 The smorgasbord of support groups found at Saddleback and other mega-churches was enough to prompt The Economist, in an article tellingly entitled Therapy of the masses, to state that "American churches are therapeutic, not judgmental. They stress "soft" qualities such as guidance and mutual help, not "hard" ones like sin and damnation".²¹

If American pastors are using the Hegelian dialectic process on their parishioners, perhaps it's because they learned it while attending a seminar, like the 'Interactive team-building seminar' held in Fort Worth, Texas, and led by Keith Kline, director of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's Center for Leadership Development, and Christian futurist Leonard Sweet: 

"Leadership development of the future will be conversation-based, not [based] on people attending conferences," Sweet said in an interview. "With this interactive team-building seminar, Southwestern is on the cutting edge of this new learning strategy." Sweet told the group that people's method of learning is being rewired. Just as people no longer watch TV the same way they did in the days of "Father Knows Best," the style of learning also is changing, and seminars need to change in order to reach the postmodern world. "Seminars must change from the seminars in the past where the style was, 'Come and hear a lecture,' to a more relational style of, 'Come and be a participant and a team-builder,'" Sweet said. ²²

 Clearly, the Hegelian dialectic has infiltrated Evangelic Christianity at all levels under the guise of social psychology, group therapy, team building, sensitivity, compassion and tolerance.  Although it can be shown that the dialectic process was developed by an unbroken procession of Marxists who harbored ill intent toward democratic institutions - the question arises as to whether it is harmful or beneficial to Christianity. One might argue that, regardless of its roots, group therapy seems very helpful to many people. Shouldn't the church, therefore, embrace it?  When used in the context of ministry, the dialectic process, by it's very nature, is in direct contradiction to the basic tenets of Christianity.  Christianity puts forward the concept of an all-knowing Creator who exists outside of time and space and who communicated certain absolute truths to his creation which are preserved in scripture. A foundational principle of Judeo-Christian thought is that man is not, and will never be, equal to God. Where man is finite, God is infinite. While man must struggle to acquire knowledge, God is all-knowing, and has always been so. 

In the dialectic, the antithesis is considered to be equal to the thesis. When the dialectic process is applied to Christianity, the antithesis (our beliefs) is given parity with God's truth (the thesis), thus negating God's superiority, and destroying a cornerstone of Christian theology.  In his article, What's Wrong with the 21st Century Church?, Dr. Robert Klenck explains why the dialectic process will always lead to a dilution of the Christian message:

 "When the Word of God is dialogued (as opposed to being taught didactically) between believers and unbelievers, with multiple Bible versions utilized...and consensus is reached...then the message of the Word of God has been watered down ever so slightly, and the participants have been conditioned to accept (and even celebrate) their compromise (synthesis)."  ²³ 

The world's most respected authority on Christianity - Jesus Christ - did not seem to favor subjecting his relationship with His Father to a dialectical discussion. When tempting Jesus in the wilderness, Satan appears to offer several antitheses in an effort to bring about an attitudinal change in Jesus. Jesus, however, doesn't take the bait, and holds to his didactic thesis of God's word being the absolute authority in a believer's life:

"But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God".²⁴

 Jesus, most obviously, would not get along well in most evangelic Christian support groups.

Work Cited

1. TEXTUALITY AND IMAGINATION: THE REFRACTED IMAGE OF HEGELIAN DIALECTIC ,

 By: Schalow, Frank, Research in Phenomenology, 00855553, 1996, Vol. 26 

2. CIVIL SOCIETY AND ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY ,

By: Kharkhordin, Oleg, Europe-Asia Studies, 09668136, Sep98, Vol. 50, Issue 6 

3. THE PROJECT OF THE FRANKFURT SCHOOL , 

By: Morgan, Ben, Telos, 00906514, Spring2001, Issue 119

4. WHY THERE IS A CULTURE WAR , 

By: Fonte, John, Policy Review, 01465945, Dec2000-Jan2001, Issue 104 

5. Jay, Martin, "The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950," University of California Press, 1973.

 6. Deaux, K. & Wrightsman, L S. (1988) . Social Psychology. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing.

 7. Kurt Lewin, Group Decision and Social Change, In Readings in Social Psychology by Theodore M. Neweomb and Eugene L. Hartley, Co-Chairmen of Editorial Committee, Henry Holt and Co., 1947, pp. 340-44)

 8. ibid.

9. THE LEGACY OF MAX WERTHEIMER AND GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY, 

By: King, D. Brett, Wertheimer, Michael, Social Research, 0037783X, Winter94, Vol. 61, Issue 4 

10. Paul Tillich, On the Idea of a Theology of Culture

Religionsphilosophie der Kultur, (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1919)

11. The Need for More Preaching in the Psychologist's Office or “Why Therapy Never Should Have Left the Church in the First Place”

By: David E. Fitch, Pastoral Psychology; Jan 2000, Vol. 48 Issue 3, p197, 13p

12. Pritchard, G.A. Willow Creek Seeker Services, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2001, p.274.

13. Gary Poole, Seeker Small Groups, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2003, p. 43

14. ibid p. 104 

15. ibid, p. 105

16.  ibid p. 107 

17. ibid 

18. ibid, p. 108

19. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1995, p. 327 

20. ibid, p. 146 

21. Therapy of the masses, Economist, 00130613, 11/8/2003, Vol. 369, Issue 8349 

22. 'Interactive team-building seminar' called cutting-edge way of learning

Nov 6, 2002  By Richard D. McCormack  BP News

http://www.baptistpress.com/bpnews.asp?ID=14603 

23. What's Wrong with the 21st Century Church?  By: Dr. Robert Klenck

http://www.crossroad.to/News/Church/Klenck2.html

24. Jesus Christ, Sermon on the Mount,

King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 4:4 

Background Sources: 

What is the Frankfurt School?

by Dr. Gerald L. Atkinson CDR USN (Ret.)

http://www.newtotalitarians.com/FrankfurtSchool.html