Guarding Against Marxism
This past Thursday, Mr. Michael Brown, a minister serving eight congregations in Canada and North Dakota, presented the Living Education forum. He warned of the dangers in our world today, especially regarding media and entertainment.
Mr. Brown shared how the ideology of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, the third best-selling textbook in the Western world, has infiltrated our society. He showed how Marxist beliefs are the basis for why we should examine the present dangers in our world. He quoted Mr. Armstrong, who said the Soviet Union first started World War III by attacking our minds and spirit. We were questioned, if that was the case many years ago, how would it affect us decades later? Mr. Brown quoted Mr. Weston from a recent article that shows us how insidious these beliefs are in our current culture, “It is from Hollywood that the love of communism and the seed of hatred for good came.”
Mr. Brown encouraged us to push back on what is constantly forced down our throats and instead focus on what is good and true. Always be on guard because Satan is the god of this world and is said to come as the angel of light. He makes what is evil seem good and what is holy seem bad. We can see in Proverbs fourteen that the simple believe every word, but the prudent consider all. Mr. Brown said we need to be highly cautious of two main things in the world today: the media and Hollywood.
Media
Mr. Brown asked us how many had heard Google saying China had rigid censoring. But this is only one side of the argument. A quote from a Chinese journal explained that Google left China because of censorship. But what China censored was pornography and pro-LGBT propaganda; Google report left out this information. He asked, “Are we any better here in the West?” Tomorrow’s World Programs get censored because they are considered offensive to Western ideology. Censoring to impose cultural ideology is just a systemic issue, and we need not have an emotional reaction to it.
Hollywood
Mr. Brown encouraged us to avoid exposing ourselves to entertainment that overly normalizes sinful behaviors. When looking at Hollywood productions, our sympathy is intentionally directed toward individuals who commit sinful behavior. Movies and shows attempt to challenge any good Christian values. Even the original Star Wars trilogy gave good values, such as order and discipline, to the “evil” Empire and negative values, such as disheveledness and poor leadership, to the “good” Rebels. Intentionally flipping right and wrong puts us in moral predicaments, demanding us to bend our beliefs.
Mr. Brown concluded his forum by challenging us to fill our minds with real things about this world instead of the virtual. He encouraged us to learn physical skills from real people. Real people have their own interesting stories. It takes time to extract these fascinating stories, but it is well worth it. We left the forum better aware of Satan’s presence trying to pull us away and more appreciative of the situation we are in at Living Education to learn from so many people here.