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RP’s 10-day screen-fast challenge is going nationwide July 21-30

If you want to register for the July 21-30 nationwide challenge click here. If you want to learn more about why you should consider it, including some tips on how to go screen-free for 10 days, read on!

***** 

How many times are you scrolling on your phone or tablet each day? Do you have any idea? What pulls in your children most: books, games, physical activity, or a screen?

Christian homes, including seniors, aren’t immune from the addictive nature of screens. Although screens and digital technology can be a great blessing, we have a very hard time keeping them in their proper place. But we want what should be our priorities – family, friends, and faith – to remain our priorities, don’t we?

So enough talk. It’s time to act!

The challenge

Are you, or is your family, willing to go 10 days without screens and/or social media? Do you have the ability to function without them? It is one thing to say so, and another to do it.

A 10-day social media and screen fast will open your eyes to the power that our devices have on our lives, and on our family’s lives. It will provide a window of time to experience what life is like without them. This break can also provide a fresh opportunity to very deliberately decide how you and your family will utilize these devices moving forward.

It may be fun to invite another person or family to do this with you. If you are willing to give this a try, encourage your friends, care group, or others to do the same.

Nationwide July 21-30

You can start any time you like, and there's no better time than now. But we're also trying to generate some positive peer pressure by having a nation-wide screen-free challenge for July 21-30. We can all do this together at the same time!

Some generous supporters have recognized how important this issue is, so for the July challenge they are offering up a little extra motivation for us all. They have pledged to donate $10 per day for every day you manage to go screen from from July 21-30. The money will be split between two fantastic kingdom causes – Reformed Perspective and Word & Deed –  to a maximum of $20,000 split between both causes. Go all 10 days, and that'll be $100 donated. Go just 8, and it will still be $80. If you manage just 1 or 2 days that will still be $10 or $20 donated... and a hard lesson learned on dependency. How long can you go? If you don't think you can, isn't that the best reason to try?

A few tips

  1. Commit. Don’t allow yourself to make easy exceptions, even if you are having a hard day. For example, just because you are at someone else’s home doesn’t mean you can enjoy screens again.
  2. If your fast includes screens, but you still need screens for basic functions that are essential, ensure that you are only using your tablet and phone for those functions. For example, if you need a phone for directions, don’t take the opportunity to scroll the news. If you need a computer at work, or to write a report for a committee you are on, don’t let yourself go to other websites or play an online game.
  3. Turn your devices off and hide them. Take the TV off the wall. Make them difficult to access.
  4. Log out of your social media accounts so that it isn’t easy to open them.
  5. Move the icons of your apps so that the social media apps (including YouTube) are hidden.
  6. Come up with a plan: whenever you find yourself wanting to reach for a screen or open your social media, what will you do instead? It doesn’t have to be hard. Perhaps say a prayer, take a drink of water, try to memorize a verse (keep some verses on a piece of paper in your pocket), do a set of 10 jumping jacks, or read a couple of pages of a book you’ve been meaning to get to.
  7. Have alternatives waiting and ready for you and your children: books, magazines, art supplies, a soccer ball, a walk to the park, etc.
  8. Invite accountability: let loved ones know what you are doing, and ask them to check in on you regularly to see how it is going. Tell them not to let you off the hook!
  9. Don’t read this and conclude a screen-fast challenge is only important for youth or young adults.
  10. Be sure to check out our article "What can I do anyways? 35 screen-free alternatives."

You can register for the July 21-30 nationwide challenge here.

The results

We would love to hear how this goes for you and what impact it had on you and your family. Please send the editor a note.

Or send us a good ol’ fashioned letter via

Reformed Perspective
Box 3609
Smithers, BC
V0J 2N0

We look forward to hearing from y’all, and sharing the results!



News

Saturday Selections – July 12, 2025

Josiah Queen's "A Garden in Manhattan"

On the crowded streets,
all the people that I see
Want them to know the Jesus that I know
If I'm the closest thing to a Bible that they read
Let the words they read be what You wrote
Father, help me to go

I'll be a garden in Manhattan,
be a river where it's dry
When my friends can't find the road,
I'll be a roadside welcome sign
Sunshine in Seattle,
be a cool breeze in July
Light in the darkness
I'll be a garden, a garden in Manhattan

Florida after dark,
I know it ain't quite Central Park
There's souls in my hometown You wanna reach
Oh, God, use me where You have me...

Climate hypocrisy tells us what the elites really believe

When global warming proponents like Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos all jet off to an exotic locale to celebrate a wedding, you can know they aren't really worried about CO2 hurting the planet... or they wouldn't fly a hundred jets to a party. And as this article explains, EV cars are another hypocrisy gauge. They might make sense in some instances, but if they are being pushed whether they help lower CO2 emissions or not, then you know this is about show, not substance. As Bjorn Lomborg writes:

"In some parts of the world, like India, so much of the power comes from coal that electric cars end up emitting more CO₂ than gasoline cars...."

Now, to be fair, Lomborg himself is worried about global warming. But, as he highlights, the actions most governments take are not what would be needed to solve the issue if it did exist.

Parks Canada staff privately doubted Kamloops "graves" claim

“$12M spent by @GcIndigenous to find purported 215 children's graves at Indian Residential School was instead spent on publicists & consultants with no graves found to date...”

The legacy media is betraying Canada (10 min. read)

Soviet Union President Nikita Khrushchev is credited with saying, "The press is our chief ideological weapon." In contrast, US President George H.W. Bush is said to have said, "We need an independent media to hold people like me to account.” The dictator wanted to own the press so the government could use it to direct public opinion, while the US president touted the need for a press independent of government so it could hold those in power to account.

Our Canadian government spends massive amounts of money funding the country's largest media outlets, and these outlets not only don't denounce the proposition, but take the money. That tells you a lot about which direction our media is heading.

While readers likely won't mind this article's anti-Liberal Party bias, some might be put off by just how loud it is. But read it anyways for the money trail.

The Scopes Monkey Trial is 100 years old!

In 1925, a Dayton, Tennessee high school teacher named John Scopes was put on trial for violating a state law that forbade teaching evolution. The case made big news then – across both the US and into Canada – and made big news again in 1960 when a movie version called Inherit the Wind was made, which portrayed the town of Dayton as a bunch of creationist hicks who wanted to storm the jail to get Scopes. That film was then shown in classrooms across the US for generations, convincing many students that only idiots like those onscreen could ever believe Genesis is literal.

But the truth is, the whole town was in on it – they challenged the law to get some attention for their hometown, and recruited Scopes, who agreed to be charged, and in an ironic twist, he probably never even taught evolution in his classroom. In another ironic twist, as this article lays out, much of the scientific evidence marshaled for evolution during the trial has been overturned since (ex. vestigial organs, similar embryonic development). So, even if it had been a bunch of dumb hicks, dumb hicks siding with God are a lot smarter than a gaggle of reporters and scientists siding against Him.

Is Trump doing good or is he doing bad? Yes.

Jeffrey Epstein was a sex trafficker with ties to many of the most powerful people in the world. This, then, was a man who could name names, and topple empires... and then he died mysteriously in his jail cell – a purported suicide but one that happened when his cell's video cameras were broken. The country's reaction was telling. No one was buying the coincidence. This past week, Epstein's client list was supposed to be released and the news now is that there was no client list. As the video below details, this has a lot of conservatives, Christians among them, feeling crushed. They don't believe it, and want to know where the justice is.

Part of the disappointment comes from the tendency we have of making politicians our dividing lines. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were monsters... so we should love Trump? That doesn't follow. Canadian prime ministers Trudeau and Carney have a litany of sins, most recently trying to push murder as a treatment for mental illness. But does that mean we have to look past the shortcomings of Pierre Poilievre? Christians don't have to. Our dividing line is not a Trudeau or Trump, because our unswerving loyalty lies only with God (Josh. 5:13-14). So, yes, Trump continues to stand strong against gender nonsense, but the missing Epstein list has people wondering if the swamp can ever be drained, and as Mindy Belz (sister-in-law of WORLD magazine founder Joel Belz) highlights, his results-now approach has undercut processes that protect everyone from government overreach.


Today's Devotional

July 15 - A new creation

“And you know that He was manifest to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.” - 1 John 3:5 

Scripture reading: 1 John 3:4-9; 2 Corinthians 5:12-20

John uses some pretty strong statements in our passage today.  He says that, "Whoever abides in Him does not sin” (v.6) and “Whoever has been born of God does not sin” (v.9).  John >

Today's Manna Podcast

Manna Podcast banner: Manna Daily Scripture Meditations and open Bible with jar logo

The Great Healer

Serving #904 of Manna, prepared by Rev. Richard Aasman, is called "The Great Healer" and is based on John 9:1-3.











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Christian education - Sports, Theology

God and the 2014-15 Seattle Seahawks

All about God’s sovereignty, Man’s free will, and American football ***** When the editor suggested I write a piece about American Football, I was a little taken aback. Firstly, this did seem like an odd subject for a magazine like Reformed Perspective. “But still,” I thought, “I suppose we can hardly claim on the one hand that Christ is Lord over all of life, then on the other hand rule American Football as being off-limits.” The second reason was even more fundamental. I’m a Brit. And not a Brit that has any love, let alone knowledge of American Football. In fact, I’ll put my cards on the table right now: the game has about as much fascination for me as the game of cricket probably has to the average US Football fan – that is to say none whatsoever. So I was relieved as I read through the editor’s request to find that the American Football bit was somewhat incidental, and I was not being asked to spend hours watching old Giants vs. 49ers games on YouTube. Rather, the request was to try and make some sort of sense of comments made by Russell Wilson, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback, after his side’s victory over the Green Bay Packers in January (2015), which sent Seattle to the Superbowl. The most improbable of comebacks For those not familiar with what happened, with less than four minutes left in the game and trailing 19-7, the Seahawks staged a dramatic recovery, tying the game to take it into overtime, before going on to win 28-22. What was especially amazing was that the Seahawks’ quarterback, Russell Wilson, went from playing one of the worst games of his life, throwing four interceptions, to scoring three touchdowns in the game’s final 6 minutes. Wilson then caused a stir with his post-match comments when he was asked to explain how his team has gone from being down and out without any hope to being victorious a few minutes later: "That's God setting it up, to make it so dramatic, so rewarding, so special." Of course, this set the whole Twittersphere afluttering with many ridiculing his claim. It also set off a series of articles on the web with titles like, “Does God play a role in picking the winning team?” What are our options? So what should we make of Wilson’s comments? I think we have to break our answer into two parts, one of which deals with the general question of God’s relationship with His creation, and the other which deals with the more specific question of whether He intervened in this particular instance. The first and more general question is basically a question about the nature of God’s sovereignty, and I think the best way to look at this is to examine all the other possible answers that could have been given as to whether God really did intervene to make the match so dramatic. These positions are: God has nothing to do with Seattle Seahawks games because there is no God. God has nothing to do with Seattle Seahawks games because He does not deal directly with the created order. Although God is sovereign, He has nothing to do with Seattle Seahawks games because He could care less about US Football. God has everything to do with Seattle Seahawks games, foreordaining their results, and so when Wilson threw his interceptions, that was because of God’s direct “interception.” God has everything to do with Seattle Seahawks games, foreordaining their results, yet he does so in such a way that does not involve the kind of direct intervention Wilson suggests We can further categorize these positions as follows: God is in control of nothing because he is not there (Atheistic). God created the universe, winding it up like a watch, and then left it to its own devices (Deistic) God has created the universe, but He is only interested in “spiritual things” (Pietistic) God is sovereign and controls everything that happens, to the extent that no-one has free will (Ultra Sovereignty) God is sovereign and is involved in everything, yet in such a way that man has liberty to act and to make choices (Sovereignty) Narrowing it down I trust that readers of Reformed Perspective can see that both the first two positions are highly illogical, not to mention unbiblical. It is highly illogical to believe that something came from nothing – and by that I really mean nothing: no time, no space, no matter – not to mention also believing that the something was then capable of organizing and sustaining itself into an amazingly complex order. It is also highly irrational to believe that a creator would go to the trouble of creating an amazingly complex order, only to walk away with total disinterest, leaving it to itself. What of position three? It actually turns out to be quite odd, since it refutes the very claim it makes. Those who hold to this position tend to be loud about the “sovereignty of God,” yet they then extend this sovereignty to include about 0.000000001% of the universe that God created. Well, if God is sovereign, He is sovereign over all creation and so the idea that He cares nothing for certain parts of His creation – especially “physical things” – is a denial of His sovereignty. What of positions four and five? They actually share many things in common. Both agree that God is sovereign over all things, including Seattle Seahawks games. Both agree that God foreordains the results of Seahawks games. Both agree that God upholds all the players involved and without this the game could not have been played, let alone played out so dramatically. Yet the difference is that whilst the fourth point understands this to mean that God controls everything, down to the last interception, and so basically micromanages His creation, which seems to me to be closer to Greek fatalism than biblical Christianity, the fifth view understands this in a way that retains God’s sovereignty, but also insists on man’s “free will.” Personally I take the fifth view to be the correct one. Free will?!? I realize that this might spook some readers. “We don’t have free will,” some might say, “as we lost it in the Fall.” My response is as follows. What we lost when Adam sinned was communion with God, righteousness, holiness and spiritual life, so that we need to be saved, and have no free will to choose salvation. We are by nature dead in trespasses and sins – as dead spiritually as Lazarus in the grave was physically – and as you know, dead people can’t bring themselves to life. However, this is not the same as saying that we lost our ability to make choices in all other areas of life, though of course those choices will be dictated by our sinful hearts. So as I sit here typing, did God foreordain it? Yes. Am I doing it out of free will? Yes. This seems impossible and counter-intuitive, but then He is an "impossible and counter-intuitive" God. Here is how chapter three of the Westminster Confession puts it: "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." This is a grand and frankly amazing statement. The God it presents is infinitely bigger than our imaginations can grasp. Look at it like this. Can you imagine a God who sets up the world and then gives perfect free will to his creatures so that He doesn’t know what is going to happen next and can’t control it? Yes, I can easily imagine Him. What about a God who unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, and does so by micro-managing every single detail to the nth degree? Yep, I can get my head around Him too. But what about a God who unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, yet does so without infringing on the liberty of His creatures to make choices of their own “free will”? I must confess that I am unable to comprehend such a God, or to understand how this is possible, but then again I have no understanding of how a universe can be spoken into existence either, or how the eternal Son of God can become a baby. Such things are too high for me, and I accept them by faith. What I am suggesting is that God is neither a deist God who is uninvolved in His creation, nor a pietistic God who is sovereign over a tiny portion of His creation, nor is He a micromanager who manages every aspect of it in the kind of minute details we understand by micromanaging. Rather, He is in sovereign control, upholds everything by the Word of His mouth, foreordains all things, yet does so in such a way that He is not in the business of micromanaging Russell Wilson’s passes. Conclusion But moving on to the second question, couldn’t He do that if He wanted? Doesn’t God intervene in His creation? Of course He does, and the Bible is full of instances of His interventions in human affairs. But the question is not whether He can intervene, but rather did He intervene in this specific instance? The question here hinges to a large extent on just how much priority God puts on the results of American Football games. Now as someone who upholds the sovereignty of God in everything, and the Lordship of Christ over everything, I understand that God cares about all of His creation and this includes American Football. But is this the same as saying that He cares about it to the extent that He is prepared to intervene to “change the result” and give the watching audience a good time? Emphatically no. Pietists (number three in the positions mentioned above) often want to reduce the things God cares about to “spiritual things” such as salvation, worship, prayer and Bible-reading, with everything else reduced to nought. Then over in the other ditch, there are others who want to flatten everything to make out that God cares for all things equally. This is not so. Just as we hierarchies of importance in our lives, it is fairly clear from the Bible that God has hierarchies of interest and importance. Yes, He is interested in American Football, in that He created the players, gave them the ability to play what is essentially a perfectly okay game (well cricket is better of course), and in that He calls on man to do things with all their might and for the glory of God. However, this is not the same as saying that He is interested enough in it to intervene in a game to make the game more exciting and give everyone a good time (except of course for Green Bay fans). In conclusion, though God cares about His entire creation, and though He ordained the surprising events and the result in the match between the Seahawks and Green Bay Packers, I think Russell Wilson would have a hard time making a Scriptural case that God intervenes directly in such matters. This was originally published in the March 2015 issue under the title "God and the Seahawks."...





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News

Saturday Selections - January 2, 2021

Faster, faster! (5 min) Two friends race down a marble maze - it's some innocent fun for the kids. These buddies also appear in "Don't smash." Top 10 biblical archeological finds of 2020 Even as many and maybe most of the people doing the digging don't believe the Bible is the Word of God, the places, names, and details they uncover often show the Bible to be accurate history. 10 ways to foster gratitude in our kids' hearts Some great tips here for all parents...and to apply to ourselves as well. Seattle considers making it permissible to steal...if you really need to The intent behind the law is to help the desperate. but this should bring to mind the proverb that "the compassion of the wicked is cruel" (Prov. 12:10b). This will drive businesses out of the poorest districts if they can't afford the extra losses, or the cost of extra security, that would come with such a law. Their exist would means a loss of employment, and higher security would mean higher costs for goods for those who can least afford it. Good intentions, without good sense (Prov. 27:14), are not good. Rearrange, Remove, and Ruin – Evolution that isn't evolution at all  This is a fun one, something that mom or dad can read, and then use the illustrations to give their kids an easy-to-understand explanation of evolution's shortcomings. The 7 habits in 7 minutes (some discernment required) Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a very popular self-help book, and like many books of this type, there's a lot of common sense to it. And, as you might expect from a Mormon author who operates from a largely Judeo-Christian worldview, much of what he write lines up with Scripture, particularly what's captured in this 7-minute summary. This summary is actually better than the book, because in the book there's more of a specifically Mormon theology discernible. That's a long way of saying, there's common sense captured in this video that is well worth pondering...but it is valuable only in as far as it does line up with Scripture. ...





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News

Saturday Selections - November 28, 2020

Lockdowns: if it saves one life? (3 min) It's not simply lives vs. money. Some lives are being endangered by the lockdowns to the extent that, worldwide, 150 million people could be thrown into extreme poverty this year. It's not as extreme in the West, but there are crucial surgeries and diagnostic doctor visits being postponed, as well as an increase in mental health issues caused by the business closures and enforced isolation. There are no solutions, only trade-offs, so we need to count the actual cost. Free book: Randy Alcorn's Pro-choice or Pro-life This short, fantastic e-book ably dismantles 15 pro-choice arguments. The only flaw: this is largely a secular presentation. The end result is that even as author Randy Alcorn can show the pro-choice position to be unreasonable, contradictory, or inconsistent, readers aren't confronted with the clear contrast that exists between the pro-choice position and the Christian position...or at least not until chapter 15. The book remains valuable because the arguments can be improved simply by stacking them on the foundation of God's Truth. So, for example, that the unborn aren't all that different than the newborn is a good point, but unless it is rooted in the biblical truth that all of us are made in God's Image, that argument could be turned around and used as a reason to "abort" newborns...as has been done! It is by arguing as Christians – by stacking our arguments on God's Word and His Truth – that we can be sure we have a solid foundation. Happily married? A 10-step relationship assessment While the article doesn't contain anything we haven't heard before, this 10-item list is a good encouragement to invest energy and effort into our spouse and marriage. A creationist take on global warming (30-minute read) It's a long piece, matching its importance. There's no such thing as "safe sex" for kids The lie about government sex-ed is the presumption that sex outside of marriage can be safe. It leaves kids open to heartbreak and disease, and is an act of rebellion against a holy, righteous God. Quite the lie indeed, to call that safe. A call to divine obedience over civil obedience (10-minute read) This is a strong stand against the latest state-imposed limitations on worship services. In that it is a strong stand, it is controversial too: most everyone could find at least a point or two of disagreement. My own disagreement is with a concession that author Aaron Rock didn't explicitly make. He notes how churches aren't getting treated as well as schools. That is a good point: a government that treats worship as less important than school has gotten things backwards. But if and when churches are treated no different than schools, movie theaters, bars, and businesses, that shouldn't satisfy us. To our government, congregational worship is just another service provided, or another entertainment option. While it's understandable that they think so, that doesn't make them any less wrong. Shuttering God's Church is a big deal in a way that shuttering Ciniplex Odean just isn't. We don't want the worship of God to be given equal treatment; we want the government to understand that shutting a church should be the last thing they'd consider doing. The Marxist Trojan Horse (15 minutes) Larry Alex Taunton on "the Marxist Agenda in America...and how it relates to Black Lives Matter, Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and White Privilege." This is a longer video, at 15 minutes, but worth the time invested. ...

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History

Karl Marx: preaching a different gospel

To mark the 100th anniversary this month, of the Communist Revolution in Russia, we're sharing Piet Jongeling's brief biography of Karl Marx, first published 34 years ago.  **** Karl Marx was both an economist and a politician, but in fact he was much more than that. He was the founder of a new atheistic political religion, the prophet of a new world-to-come in which righteousness would dwell. Man in his own strength would bring this about. Marx proclaimed the coming of a new messiah, the proletariat, which through suffering and struggling would eventually bring salvation to the world. His message has had great influence, not only before his death, but especially after it. At present one third of the world's population lives under a political and economical system that can be called "Marxist" . This indication as "Marxist" is valid, even though there may be many differences between Marx's theoretical concepts and the practical application which the communist countries have made of them. Life story Karl Marx was born on May 2, 1818, at Trier, Germany. He descended from a long lineage of rabbis. His father was the first to break with that tradition. Instead of becoming a rabbi, he studied law and he broke with the Jewish religion. His mother was Dutch. When young Karl was six years old, he was baptized together with the other members of the family. That baptism, being a social affair, had little religious significance. It served only as evidence that the Marx family belonged to those modern Jews who favored assimilation and who desired to eradicate their cultural and religious heritage. Baptism functioned as a ticket of admission to European civilization. That could — as it did in this case — coexist with atheism in practical life. Marx Junior was uncommonly intelligent. He studied law and the history of philosophy in Bonn and in Berlin, and he received his Ph.D. degree in 1841 at Jena. After he was awarded his doctorate, Karl Marx became a journalist. Soon it became apparent that he espoused some very radical social and economic ideals. His paper, accused of inciting rebellion, was closed up. Karl Marx married a woman from an outstanding German family. Shortly after his wedding he fled to Paris. There he studied the history of the French Revolution. He got to know the French laborers in their often bitter poverty and in their just as bitter revolutionary zeal. Sometimes he lived in poverty himself, so as to gain deeper insight into, and firsthand experience in, the painful inequality and the depth of the social injustice of those days. When France also expelled him a few times, he fled back to one of the German states (the federal German state was not in existence yet). In 1849 he departed for London, where he remained living and working until his death in 1883. Turn socialism into a system Marx perceived very clearly that the society of his days was distinctively a class society, in which the working class was badly abused. He even invented a new name for this class: "the proletariat," people who have no possessions except their "proles" – that is, their children. It was Marx's intention to come to the aid of this oppressed bottom layer of society. He believed that socialism was the solution. But the socialism of his days was more of a golden pipe dream of the future than a usable doctrine and practice based on a principled structure. The road towards the ideal state had not been charted in a system that was methodically and logically acceptable. This bothered the intellectual in Marx. Rejecting this socialist romanticism as "Utopian Socialism," he developed a well-thought-out system himself in which he delivered the "proof" that the prevailing economic system, which he gave the name "Capitalism," was itself instrumental in unleashing the powers that would inevitably bring about the downfall of Capitalism and the victory of a new and superior system: Communism. The Communist Manifesto and Das Capital In 1847 Karl Marx and his German friend and spiritual brother, Friedrich Engels, drafted the Communist Manifesto. Published in 1848, it contained three main points: 1. Communism is a historically determined direction of society, a development which will unstoppably continue and whose eventual victory cannot be held back by anything. 2. The road toward that victory is marked by the class struggle, which, after an ocean of misery, shall lead to the great showdown. Capital and the means of production will accumulate in the hands of ever fewer owners. The proletariat shall encompass ever greater numbers, suffer more and more poverty, and so be better prepared and determined for the great battle. Eventually the proletariat will rob the last of the supercapitalists of their possessions. After the great expropriation for the benefit of all, the conflicts between the classes will disappear. 3. The proletariat must be well-organized in national and international societies, accept proper leadership, discipline, and order, and be able to act as one man. The Communist Manifesto thereby condemns the revolutionary movement of the anarchists which had a much greater individualistic character and would not accept a strict organization, a systematic approach to the problems, or subjection to a leadership. The Communist Manifesto was probably written mainly by Friedrich Engels, the son of a rich merchant and manufacturer. Marx and Engels were both gifted students of Hegel, the German philosopher. The two worked together for many years, and during this partnership, Karl Marx became more and more prominent. When the year 1848 did not bring the expected and hoped for breakthrough of Communism, Marx went back to elaborate on the thoughts developed in the Communist Manifesto. He attempted to place the Manifesto on a scientific footing in his trilogy Das Capital. The first volume came out in 1867. The second and third volumes were published after his death by Engels, in 1885 and 1894. Communism in theory and practice Now, this column is not the place for a detailed analysis of the Marxist political dogmas so a few broad outlines will have to suffice. Karl Marx has attempted to construct his study in a scientific manner and to base his conclusions on irrefutable evidence. This impressed a great number of people. The evidence that the communist victory was inevitable was backed up by a mathematical formula! Nothing and nobody could avert that triumph. Later thinkers have undermined this foundation of scientific irrefutability. They pointed at errors in the line of theoretic reasoning. But history has done greater damage to the system than the critics. Many of Karl Marx's predictions never came true. 1. The Soviet Union has had sixty-five years of experience with its "new" system. But although Karl Marx predicted that after a short transition period the state would wither away, the reality was that anywhere Communism took power, the state became stronger, harder, mightier, and more brutal: an all-oppressive dictatorship! Communism is nothing short of state Capitalism! 2. During this transition period, mentioned above, the dictatorship of the proletariat would have to be established to do its task of destroying the capitalist structures, until, after the last remnants of Capitalism had been eradicated, it itself would disappear. But in reality it was a dictatorship not of the proletariat but over the proletariat. And that dictatorship did not disappear. It is bent on self perpetuation. 3. Also in the countries where free enterprise prevailed (called Capitalism by Marx), things went clearly different from what Mr. Marx had predicted. In the previous century, during Marx's lifetime, there were admittedly very serious dark sides to the free enterprise system. However, social laws, social actions, and mutual consultation have brought about great improvements. That does not mean that the world has become a paradise. Sin keeps doing its work. There is much social injustice even now; violations are committed by employers and employees alike. But looking back at the past we must admit: the improvements are enormous. The material welfare of those whom Marx called "the laboring classes" is much greater than in the previous century. The "proletarians" are no longer the dispossessed. The wealth of the working people in the capitalistic West is considerably greater than is the case in the communistic East. And, more importantly, the Western people enjoy a relative freedom, while the Communist system of servitude takes away spiritual freedom, oppresses the church and church members, and places callous atheism high on the throne. A different gospel What the Red Revolution delivered was the opposite of what it promised. It is terror instead of freedom, serfdom under masters instead of equality, brutal force instead of brotherhood, and above all, the dread of the secret police. How could Karl Marx's doctrine then be so successful? It must be admitted that Marxism achieved great victories. One third of the world's population today lives under a political and social-economic system that is named after Marx. The reason is that Marx came to the world with a new gospel! It was the doctrine of self-redemption which he dressed in the shining apparel of scientific certainty. Marx, the man of Jewish descent, may have broken with the religion of Israel, but he was very well versed in it. His rich and impressive writing style betrayed the influence of the Old Testament. In his writings he has the grand manners of the prophet who proclaims to the people the glad tidings of forthcoming deliverance. The Jews had refused to apply Isaiah's prophecy of the suffering servant of God to Jesus Christ, the Savior. The rabbis applied this prophecy to the suffering people of Israel itself, so that its nation, through suffering, would gain deliverance for itself and so also for the world that surrounded its people. Israel was its own messiah! Marx adopted this model in a secularized format. For him the messiah is the proletariat. Through struggles and sufferings the proletariat shall redeem itself and the world and so bring into the world the eternal "peaceable kingdom." This alternate gospel with its false-religious message, with its inversion of Christendom, has cast its spell on many millions of people. It was not an unstoppable historic determinism that brought the victory to Communism. It was not an automatic, inevitable course of world events that led to the Red welfare state. Wherever Communism gained control it was always a power grab by a minority which used the confusion of wartime or national unrest to its own advantage. And once in power, it could only stay that way by keeping its weapons trained on the oppressed people. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany — there are many examples to illustrate this fact. Marx's style of writing is eschatological. He prophecies of a new earth, created and cleansed by man. From that time on, the history of mankind will find rest, because the final destination, the eternal wellbeing of mankind, has been reached. It was that prophetic zeal that attracted so many. Conclusion But how different was the reality! Sixty-five years have passed since the Red Revolution, and still the shining final destiny is far out of reach. This image of the glorious future is a fata morgana – an illusory reflection that recedes as one approaches it and finally dissolves into thin air. According to eyewitnesses, one finds very few genuinely committed communists in the East Bloc countries — percentage-wise, certainly far less than in the Western nations. There is little more than an outward conformation to save one's hide. Open protests will only pave the way to concentration camps, prisons, or, more recently, psychiatric institutions. The Red Bloc, with the Soviet Union as its core, has grown into a superpower, which, armed to the teeth, has become a constant threat to world peace. It is to be hoped that those people who are still free may find the fortitude to oppose that threat. The continuing de-Christianization has robbed the Western nations of their spiritual strength in the face of Marxism, or, at least, has seriously impaired it. If Marx could witness the reality of today, he would very likely be appalled by the manner in which his prophecies of the glorious future have been fulfilled in the drab present. But the negative forces which he has helped to unleash are continuing to have their impact, even now, a hundred years after his death. Piet Jongeling (1909-1985)  was a politician, journalist, and children's fiction author, and it is in this latter role that he might be best known to our readership, though under his pen name, Piet Prins. This article first appeared in the May 1983 edition....

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Economics

The rich keep getting richer… and they're not the only ones

Capitalism helps everyone. That might be hard to believe right now, with the worldwide economy in the doldrums, and with many fingering capitalism as the culprit. But before we jump on the anti-capitalist bandwagon, and before we ask the government to take over larger areas of the economy, it would be a good idea to look back and get a proper understanding of the good capitalism has done. The fact is, capitalism is responsible for lifting billions of people out of poverty and creating improved standards of living that previous generations couldn’t have dreamed of. Swedish scholar Johan Norberg has written a brief overview of this phenomenon in The Wealth of Generations: Capitalism and the Belief in the Future. Marx got it half right It’s likely that Karl Marx, the originator of Marxism, developed the sharpest anti-capitalist theory. According to Norberg, Marx believed “that capitalism would make the rich richer and the poor poorer.” If someone was making money in a free market situation, it must be at the expense of someone else. That is, somebody was losing money if another was gaining money. Thus over time the upper class would accumulate more wealth at the expense of the middle class and lower class. The middle class would be pushed into the lower class, and the original lower class would basically starve. Marx made this prediction during the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century. Despite its undeserved bad reputation, the Industrial Revolution resulted in a dramatic rise in living standards. “When Marx died in 1883, the average Englishman was three times richer than he was when Marx was born, in 1818.” Since that time capitalism has continued to raise living standards to the point that “the poor in Western societies today live longer, with better access to goods and technologies, and with bigger opportunities than the kings in Marx’s days.” Lenin got it all wrong Marx’s original theory was obviously a failure; standards of living rose rapidly for all classes due to capitalism. So Marx’s disciple, and Russian revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin had to rework the theory to explain how workers in Western countries were doing so well economically. Lenin argued that the capitalist class of the Western countries looted the poor, undeveloped countries, and gave a portion of the loot to the workers in their own countries. The rich countries were made richer because the poor countries were made poorer. Quite simply, the rich countries took the wealth of the poor countries. But like Marx’s theory, Lenin’s theory contradicts the facts. As Norberg explains, the problem with Lenin’s view is: “all continents became wealthier, albeit at different speeds. Sure, the average Western European or American is 19 times richer than in 1820, but a Latin American is 9 times richer, an Asian 6 times richer, and an African about 3 times richer. So from whom was the wealth stolen?” Capitalism benefits every class, every sector of society, and not just one special group or certain exploitive nations. In fact, Norberg describes the success of capitalism in alleviating poverty in the last three decades or so as “the greatest untold story ever.” As Norberg writes, the proportion in absolute poverty in developing countries has been reduced from: “40 to 21% since 1981. Almost 400 million people have left poverty – the biggest poverty reduction in mankind’s history. In the last 30 years chronic hunger has been halved, and so has the extent of child labor. Since 1950 illiteracy has been reduced from 70 to 23% and infant mortality has been reduced by two-thirds.” This has occurred during a period where many countries around the world have shifted away from socialism and socialistic policies towards capitalism and free market policies. Using creativity to create wealth It’s common to think of creative people as being writers, painters, musicians, and others in the fine arts. But some of the most creative people in the world are entrepreneurs. These are people who use their creative abilities to provide products and services in new and innovative ways. By doing so they create new jobs for countless people and generate wealth where previously none existed. Capitalism allows the greatest freedom and opportunities to people whose creative talents are in the economic sphere. This is a key reason (perhaps the key reason) for the success of capitalism. A thriving economy requires entrepreneurs but socialism stifles and punishes entrepreneurs. Generally speaking, socialists consider businessmen to be the exploiters of workers, therefore these “exploiters” must be heavily regulated and controlled. Capitalism, on the other hand, unleashes the creative powers of entrepreneurial businessmen, and thus becomes a driving force for generating new wealth and economic development. As economic history clearly demonstrates, capitalism is the only system that leads to prosperity. Yes, the rich do get richer under capitalism but so do the poor! Dr. Michael Wagner is the author many books, and is a regular contributor to Reformed Perspective. This article first appeared in the January 2009 issue under the title "The rich keep getting richer...and that's a good thing!"...