Targeting Religious Faith

We need to know the stakes, and take them seriously. These are the days. Some 20 years ago, in a speech entitled “Men Have Forgotten God,” Alexander Solzhenitsyn – great escapee of Soviet oppression – suggested those who fear Christianity will attack it, and seek to oppress it. If George Orwell wrote fiction – Animal Farm, 1984 – Solzhenitsyn explained the reality. Are we there?

Wrote Solzhenitsyn: “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.” In other words, communism reflects a deep antipathy, government distrust, and jealousy of God.

He continued: “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 the destruction of faith and nationhood.”

The State has to frighten people away from religion, mock it then put them in fear, cause them to fear the State more than they love God, and separate people from faith. 

Finally, he reminded us to see the obvious, not look away from it. “Communists proclaim both of these objectives openly, and just as openly go about carrying them out.” What Solzhenitsyn offered was a warning: This can happen here.

Now, we come to today. What do we see? We have seen ten years of rising political conflict in this country, one faction quick to mock those they call “deplorables,” who “cling to their guns and religion,” downing the First and Second Amendments.

That side sees people of faith – any religion – as somehow primitive, antagonistic to enlightened government dictates, and centralized power, opposed to transforming America into what neo-Marxists want, a powerful, progressive, one-party state.

Of course, that side of the argument is right – about the other side’s deep resistance to neo-communist ideas, abiding faith in a loving God, and view of right and wrong.

The more “progressive” – that is, politically Marxist, power-centric, overtly anti-religious – faction is right that the other side loves America’s history, traditions, liberty, limited government, and also just distrusts concentrated power.

But now comes a frightening twist. The progressive side – which currently controls the Executive branch, including Justice – is starting to act in ways that echo Orwell’s fiction and Solzhenitsyn’s warnings.

What are you seeing, or not seeing, but should be? More than a year ago, the Wall Street Journal condemned “Biden’s Ministry of Truth,” a “partisan …Disinformation Governance Board” formed to suppress certain views. 

Next, the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and Fox News discovered and condemned government collusion with “high tech” companies to silence conservative religious and political voices. 

The suppression of anti-conservative, anti-religious, anti-traditional voices – attacks on churches, parents, speech, worship, and gun rights – were paired with surveillance, arrests, and charges against peaceful anti-abortion protestors and peaceful parents at school board meetings, both as “terrorists.” 

Now, comes a monstrous development, one readers will wish to dismiss, downplay, look away from, or minimize. But it is true. Minimizing does not make it go away.

The Biden FBI has allowed, on a nationwide basis, investigation of Catholic churches as “radical,” possible sources of “domestic terrorism.”

Why are Catholics considered per se “radical?” They are traditionalist, place faith in God above government, raise self-reliant families, and know right from wrong.

These “radical Catholics” – who knows, soon “radical” Baptists, Orthodox, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, for that matter liberty-loving Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, maybe Rotarians. Lions, and Boy Scouts – are suspect.

Why? Because they teach honor, life, and individuality, how to respect the Bible and morality, and dare to “hold these truths self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” They take personal responsibility, faith, and freedom seriously.

Let’s get real, and imagine where this leads. Fully 74 million Americans consider themselves Catholic, another 160 million Christian, and millions religious. This kind of targeting – with FBI surveillance inside churches – will not end well.

What is likely to happen? One of two things.

In the next election, this pre-Bolshevik surveilling, suspecting, targeting, and instilling fear will end, leftists turned out. Or they will solidify their power, and ramp up persecution of faith, particularly against those who are conservative and traditionalist, who love our nation’s faith-based history, ideals, freedom, and God.

So, what happens? Can we skip to the last chapter, just to see if things end well or if the Orwellian pigs and hens – all of us – get marginalized, persecuted, and killed? Nope.

That chapter is on us, you and me. Orwell and Solzhenitsyn warned us. Either “Men Have Forgotten God” and get their liberties eclipsed, or we think harder about who will protect those liberties, and vote that way. We need to know the stakes and take them seriously. These are the days.

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.