Marxist Ideology In America And What To Do About It – With George Barna: Do people really understand what socialism is? Do they recognize when they are embracing Marxist beliefs? How did certain ideologies become popular? Do Americans have no memory of Joseph Stalin? What is a Christian’s responsibility in terms of understanding Biblical principles and putting them into practice? While current ideological trends may be depressing, George Barna explains why there is still hope to solve the root issues of the major problems in America!

Air Date: 11/30/2021

Guest: George Barna

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. We are talking about the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Excited to have George Barna with us later in the program.

But for now, folks, I just want to send you to the website, wallbuilderslive.com, a wealth of information. Both at wallbuilderslive.com and wallbuilders.com, go to either one first, you can link over to the other. But bottom line is a lot of great tools, a lot of great information, not just education. 

I mean, education sounds boring when you just say education. It’s literally empowerment. It’s entertaining when you watch and listen to the programs available there. But it gives you information you’ve never heard before. It confirms what you knew in your gut that America was a great nation. It confirms in your gut that biblical values work when they’re applied.

All of that education confirms that which gives you hope for the future. Because the other thing we do is we constantly give you action steps, things you can do to be the catalyst for restoring biblical principles in your community, for restoring constitutional principles. You can be a part of that solution. Every time you go to wallbuilderslive.com and you listen to one of these programs, you get that education, that empowerment, that entertainment, all of that at once. 

But then every time you share with others, you’re actually helping to solve the problem, you’re actually helping to move us from civic ignorance to civic literacy. And that’s really the heart of most of the things we talked about here. The petri dish for tyrannical government, the petri dish where bad government grows is civic ignorance.

When we don’t know the truth, when we don’t know where we came from, or what we’ve been about, when we don’t know what we actually did, as Reagan said, we’ll forget who we are. That’s exactly what’s happened in America. So here at WallBuilders, we are constantly educating, equipping, empowering, and you can be a part of making that happen. 

We really do encourage you not only to listen but to share with your friends and family. Be a force multiplier, we like to call it around here. That’s where you actually take this information and multiply the number of people that are learning. So we challenge you to do that today.

Special Guest

By the way, my name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And I have the privilege of working alongside Tim Barton and David Barton. Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor, he’s president of WallBuilders. He’s a fantastic speaker. 

You need to get him into your group. Go to wallbuilders.com, have him come speak at your church or some organization in your community that can host an amazing event that will again, empower, equip, educate, it’ll get people fired up to get involved and make a difference. David Barton is also with us. 

He’s America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. This guy’s read more of the Founding Fathers than anybody alive today. The incredible library that David and Tim have, it’s a phenomenal way to learn and to study the Founders. So we’re just glad to bring that truth to you today on WallBuilders Live.

Alright, David, and Tim, we’ve got George Barna back with us later in the program. They’re continually doing research on a daily basis and discovering some pretty well in some ways, some doubters, man, I mean, I’m shocked at how many people are embracing Marxist ideology. We’ll be talking to George about that. 

But I guess, first question for you guys help me stay up, right, stay positive and realize no matter when we see data like that, the solutions haven’t changed, God’s principles continue to work, we just have to apply on, right?

Tim:

There’s no doubt. And this is also something too, guys, reflective of the fact that there’s a reason that homeschooling is improving and growing right now. There’s a reason that parents are getting involved at school boards right now. It’s because we are seeing the inner workings like the belly of the beast. 

When parents are seeing what is being taught to kids on so many levels, there’s a reason that parents get fired up, they want to show up at school board meetings that parents are running for school board members themselves, that parents are winning the school board races. There’s a reason that kids are being pulled out to homeschool because of this nonsense being taught.

Do Americans Recognize the Dangers?

So even though it is sad, even though it’s disappointing, it’s really not surprising for us because we know that you reap what you sow. The crop that you plant over time, you will grow that crop. And we have seen that you can go back to the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, when you saw some of these ideas being really manifested at the university level. And of course, even back then, when you had Reagan who was speaking out against some of the Soviet Union, who spoke out against some of this Marxist ideology, there was some people in America who recognized and actually, probably the majority of Americans recognize the danger of this ideology.

However, you had your woke people. And this was where you can go back and look at the 1980s some of these professors, I mean, you guys like Howard Zinn from Boston College, who did the history of the American people and America is evil, and it’s awful. And well, if America is evil and awful, what nations you’re going to point to is the good nations? 

And this gave room for some people to come in and argue in favor of some of these other socialist communists or Marxist nations. So it’s not surprising seeing the fact that we have this ideology being embraced by many young people in America or by many Americans in general. It is a reflection of the cultural battle we’re in.

But the good news is that’s one of the many reasons that parents are getting involved because they’re beginning to see the nonsense being taught to their kids. And there is hope that we can turn some things around. Nonetheless, there’s no doubt there’s some problems and nonsense being taught to rising generations.

David:

And as Tim said, they’re rejecting philosophy behind it, and a lot of them, they didn’t know what the philosophy was. I mean, it turns out there are titles and names for some of these philosophies have been out there for a while. And people have kind of inherently rejected those titles, they just didn’t know what they really represented. 

And so one of the interesting things that Barna does is he’ll take words that people respond to, I know we talked before on the program of how that George Barna and looking nationally said that 42% of Americans said they supported  socialism.

Understanding Socialism

So Barna started pulling those 42% that said they supported socialism, and ask them questions like, do you support greater government ownership of private property, which is socialism? Do you support greater government regulation of private business, which is socialism? And at the end, only 2% actually supported what socialism was. 

They didn’t know that it was all those things. And he didn’t use the term socialism. He just described it to them, found that they really didn’t like it. They thought they liked the term, but they didn’t like what it was.

And this is one of the things we see today. It’s so common to throw out terms and think they know what that mean is. Sometimes people throw out terms, and they have a tone with it and so they reject that. I know for us at WallBuilders and in particularly for me in particular, I mean, so many articles been written about the fact that I’m a Reconstructionist. 

And so I will get asked by pastors at places, hey, I saw that are you really a Reconstructionist? And I’ll ask them, do you know what a Reconstructionist is? And they go, no, not really. But I see that they accuse you that… Well, you don’t even know what it is and you’re asking me if this is a bad deal that I am one. And so there’s so many things like that.

And by the way, even the people who make the accusation don’t even know what it is. It’s a theological term that deals with eschatology. And those guys aren’t even religious enough to know what part of the book has eschatology or what eschatology is. 

And the critics who make that charge that I’m a Reconstructionist. I have not seen a single one of them that has any basic knowledge of the Bible to even know what they’re talking about. And it is a term that deals with eschatology. And when you get an eschatology, you can be all sorts of things.

And so the question is, are you pre-millennial or post-millennial, you’re pan-millennial? Are you pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, pan-trib. That’s something those guys don’t even talk about. But they have found a term that they throw out there, and so people react negatively toward me about the term not even knowing what it means. 

And so that’s what we’re seeing so often in the culture as people will throw out terms, and we get to where we don’t like the term, but we don’t know what it is. Like socialism, well, we do like that, but then when you find out what it is, no, I don’t like that. And so Georgia is so good about going beyond just the superficial and trying to dig down in.

And one of the things that we have definitely seen over the last year is the rise of Marxism. Now I call it the rise of Marxism, it’s been tried to come into America for more than a century. But this is the first time it’s really made progress, really made grounds. So how did it do that? 

Marxism

What were the ideas that led Marxism to become as popular as it is now in academia, in government, so many other power centers? How did it become popular when basically most of the people still don’t like Marxism? But here it is among us, and it’s full-fledged and full-faced. And what do we do with it? And so that’s one of the things that George has done is he’s dug back into this thing of Marxism, but not necessarily by the term only, but also by the philosophies and ideas that are Marxism, which most Americans cannot recognize today.

Rick:

George Barna to dive deeper into these questions when we return on WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN HISTORY

This is Tim Barton from Wallbuilders with another moment from American history. Founding Fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson originally worked closely together, but later became ardent opponents. This troubled Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration, who knew both of them very well.

In the Bible, 2nd Corinthians 5:18 tells us that God has given each of us the ministry of reconciliation. Dr. Rush believed this and set out to bring the two back together. It took a while but Adams and Jefferson once again became close friends. And looking back on his role in helping bring about this reconciliation, Dr. Rush stated “It will give me pleasure as long as I live to reflect that I have been in any degree instrumental and effectiveness for union of two souls destined to be dear to each other and motivated with the same dispositions to serve their country though in different ways.”

For more information about Dr. Benjamin Rush and his other remarkable achievements, go to wallbuilders.com

Rick:

Welcome back to Wallbuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Always good to have George Barna with us. George, thanks for some time today.

George:

Good to be you, Rick.

Current Trends

Rick:

Hey man, you guys are constantly polling, constantly looking at the hearts and minds of Americans and where the trends are going. Some of these trends do not look good. You’ve got some research out recently just on the basic elements of Marxism literally being embraced by Americans now. I mean, who would have thought this 50 years ago, but man, it’s right in front of us at this point

George:

Well, of course, Rick, the thing we have to remember is that if you ask people if they are Marxist, or if they think like a Marxist, their answer will be no. But when you then start looking at what they believe, and their overall philosophy of life, their worldview, what you find out is that they’ve, in many ways, unknowingly embraced a number of the platforms or foundations of Marxist thought. 

And so what that does is that kind of prepares the way for Marxism to get a deeper and deeper foothold in American culture without people even realizing it socialism, you know, they’ve heard that word they know about it. With millennials, we know 48% of them now want to go socialist. 

So there’s some elements of it that people are aware of. But there’s so much that Marxism pushes that people say, that’s not a bad idea, and they don’t realize the bigger perspective that it’s tied to.

Rick:

It’s interesting that the label itself they still realize is a bad thing. Like somewhere deep in the recesses of their brain, they may not be able to say yet killed 100 million people last century, or any of the things that Marxism has done that’s evil, but they kind of recognize the name as being evil. But yet, when you go into the policies themselves, they’re embracing. 

Now it sounds like just bright back to that same thing of civic ignorance, we just don’t know what these policies truly produce as a result of… The history teaches us that. I mean, if we knew the history, we would know how bad they were. So is that part of it? It sounds good, right? 

Do They Know Who Stalin Is?

The Marxist policy might sound good to them, it’s like you’re being nice to the neighbor because you’re taking care of them or whatever it might be, but they just don’t know what the results of the socialist ideas will actually have on them and their families.

George:

It’s a huge part of the problem, Rick. And we find that basically, people do not connect their spiritual or biblical ideas with policy implications. And so, they’re thinking, yeah, I got to be good to my neighbor, I got to take care of people, I got to bless others. How can I do that? Ooh, the government has a program. 

Yeah. I’m all for it. And so they don’t think about all the implications. I had the privilege of being interviewed by one of the big Russian television networks about a week ago. And they read this research, and they call up, they were alarmed. 

They said we need to interview Mr. Barna. He said, what is it with you Americans, have you no memory of Joseph Stalin? What do I say? I mean, the people who have the graves outside the window there. 

So yeah, I mean, we really need to understand how all of these things fit together, and what a Christian’s responsibility is in terms of understanding biblical principles, and what they look like in practice.

Rick:

What would be a couple of examples of Marxist ideology and policies that even Christians are embracing unknowingly?

George:

Well, things like believing that allowing people to own property facilitates economic and justice. Things like buying into the idea that individual property ownership is bad for society. Things like believing that success is best described as living a healthy and productive life that’s unencumbered by economic impression. 

Things like saying that traditional marriage is bad for society, you’re better off just having sexual relations with people that you like, and moving on. Things like saying that human life has no inherent value.

CRT

So, I mean, we’ve got a whole list of these things that Marxism proposes, and more and more Americans are feeling comfortable. And then you take things like critical race theory. 

And there, for instance, one of the elements we see. 41% of American adults believe that race is used by white people in America to advance their own economic and political interests at the expense of people of color.

Rick:

Not that they believe that happened in history. They believe it’s happening today.

George:

That best describes America today. That’s happening right at this moment. Yeah. So there’s ample evidence that the media with their twisted media reports are twisting the minds and the hearts and the lifestyles of Americans at the same time.

Rick:

Yeah. And those things that you listed strike at the very core of our American way of life and our freedom. I mean, without private property, you cannot have free society. One of the other ones you mentioned is essentially the destruction of the family and no valuing that core element of the family. I mean, you can’t have our Constitution and our way of life if you lose these things.

George:

Absolutely. And then you add on to that the idea that there is no living transcendent, Holy God. And when we’re down to only half of Americans even believing that God exists, the fastest growing faith group in America today, the don’ts, those who don’t know if God exists, don’t care if he exists, don’t believe that he exists. 

And with millennials, that number is approaching half of the generation. So looking at the fact that they’re now taking over positions of power and authority in government and business and families, I mean, all around our country, education and so forth, I mean, that’s a scary reality.

Propaganda

Rick:

I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to go this far in the in the research, but I mean, all of this stuff, of course, is based on lies. I mean, all of this is built on a house of cards, and the propaganda and literally living in a fantasy land. 

How have you seen anything that would indicate that when they get truth, when they actually are able to look at the facts and the data and the truth, when you have civic literacy, instead of civic ignorance, do they change their mind? Or is this like a religion where they’ve bought into it and truth just bounces off?

George:

Yeah, great question. And the way that I would respond to that is we see a humongous difference, let’s say, between people with a biblical worldview, and people who are drawing heavily from Marxism, or post-modernism, or secular humanism. 

Take any of the alternative worldviews, compare it to people who have a biblical worldview, and the magnitude of difference is unlike almost anything else that I see in the research that we do. So yes, clearly, embracing biblical principles and having a biblical worldview, which means not only believing it but living it, yes, that’s a completely different life.

Rick:

And it is the cure almost, right? I mean, that that is the medicine that is needed to cure this disease of tyranny. Well, when I say tyranny, they’re not saying they want tyranny. They don’t realize that the policies lead to tyranny. 

So I guess the cure to the disease of false impressions about Marxism it is biblical truth when they see biblical truth, and walk out biblical truth, and they cannot embrace those Marxist ideas. Is that a fair assumption?

George:

Absolutely so. You know, it’s not that people are saying, we want a Marxist revolution, what they’re saying is we want to be happy, we want to be comfortable, we want to be taken care of. 

And so you know, right embedded within there where you’re rejecting core biblical principles, just to say those simple things, that tells us that you know what, if we look at all the crises in America today, political, economic, educational, familial, doesn’t matter what crisis you talk about, strip it all away, the root is a worldview crisis. And so if we were to solve the worldview issue in America today, most of our major issues will dissolve.

Accept Responsibility

Rick:

Yeah, I mean, even like what you were mentioning, in terms of private property, or the family unit, I mean, if you just go to the teachings of Christ, you look at some of the parables, you start living out those biblical principles, then you have to respect other people’s property, you have to accept responsibility with the talents that you’ve been given. I mean, all of those things, it’s all interwoven in that biblical worldview to our daily lives, if we’ll just teach it. 

So, I guess it really does come back to the church. I mean, we are the church. I’m not blaming particular pastors. I’m just saying, we as the church, if we do our job studying God’s word, teaching our kids that, teaching the other people in the church, and just living that out, we’ll find the political solutions, at the end of downstream from that. Is that where we need to start?

George:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, really, it started from the family because it’s the parents’ responsibility, biblically, to be preparing their kids to go out into the world with a worldview that represents the ways of God. If parents aren’t doing it, they’re not doing it to some extent because churches aren’t equipping them to do it. You can’t give what you don’t have. Most parents don’t have that kind of perspective.

 And so, right off the bat, the parents and churches not doing their job, training up children in the way they should go. Because a worldview develops between 15 months of age and 13 years of age, after that, it changes very little. So we’ve got to get to children, young. 

I mean, it’s why thinking back to my interview with Russians, Lenin himself said, “Give me a child till he’s seven, I have him for life.” They understand that that’s where it’s all developed. So, yeah, we’ve got to get busy.

Rick:

Man. Hey, thanks a lot, man, you just shifted the burden to us. Now we’re responsible, right? I mean, that’s really what I’m hearing is we love to blame the universities and blame the politicians and everything else and you have real problems there. But they’re not at university at 13. They’re not at university at 7. 

They’re in our homes. Are we doing our job at home? Man, that’s a good word brother. Man, the responsibility is ours. If we’ll do our job at home, and then in our communities, being salt and light we can turn this thing around.

George Barna, always a blessing. Man, thanks for all that you guys are doing. Best place for folks to follow you and be able to get notices when you have some new research coming out?

CulturalResearchCenter.com

George:

At Arizona Christian University, we have something called the Cultural Research Center. So if they go to culturalresearchcenter.com, all the research is there. It’s free. You can download it. You can send it out. You can sign up to get alerts when we have a new report that comes out, which is about every two weeks.

Rick:

Culturalresearchcenter.com.

George:

You got it.

Rick:

Culturalresearchcenter.com. And as you mentioned, it’s at Arizona Christian University. We just had President Len Munsil a couple of weeks ago. you know, I was dissing on the universities a few minutes ago. There are a handful, not many, I mean, literally a handful, I think maybe less than 10, but for sure, less than 15 universities where you can send your kid to and feel good about the philosophy that is going to back up what you’ve been teaching at home, and of course, ACU where you’re at with this program, George Barna is in one of those places. God bless you, brother, thanks for coming on today.

George:

Thanks so much, Rick.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks. We’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

THIS PRECARIOUS MOMENT

Hi, this is David Barton. I want to let you know about a brand new book we have out called “This Precarious Moment: Six Urgent Steps that Will Save You, Your Family, and Our Country”. Jim Garlow and I have co-authored this book. 

And we take six issues that are hot in the culture right now, issues that we’re dealing with, issues such as immigration, and race relations, and our relationship with Israel and the rising generation millennials and the absence of the church and the culture wars, and where American heritage is our godly heritage.

We look at all six of those issues right now that are under attack and we give you both biblical and historical perspective on those issues that provide solutions on what each of us can do right now to make a difference. These are all problems that are solvable if we’ll get involved. So you can grab the book, “This Precarious Moment” and find out what you can do to make a difference. “This Precarious Moment” is available at wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WalBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks again to George Barna, always good to have him on the program. And so, guys, I mean, it does sound like definite solutions here. One thing to do is just define the terms. Like you were talking about earlier, David, I mean, when people realize the policy they’re talking about is a communist policy and communism did result in 100 million deaths last century and all of those things. When they learn all those things, they tend to understand wait a minute, maybe that policy is not what I’m after.

Tim:

And I think too, Rick, as you’re saying help people learn the truth and define the terms. I think one of the things that is a good way to help define the terms, one of the strategies we’ve talked about many times in this program is asking questions. Just like where George Barna would ask somebody about socialism, well, do you support the government controlling private property or controlling private businesses? 

Well, no, I don’t think the government should control those things. At least that’s the way they used to answer that question. Some people might not answer that very well anymore.

Connecting the Dangers

With that being said, if we looked at some of these ideas of Marxism, and you could ask some pretty basic questions, like do you think the government should be able to come in and imprison people they don’t like or execute people they disagree with? Well, if you are logical and say, no, that’s a terrible thing, oh, well, that’s actually one of the powers under a Marxist government. You start asking some basic questions about Marxism.

And as George pointed out, some people, there are basic tenants of Marxism that they think maybe are acceptable, that individuals owning property, maybe that’s bad for equity and is bad for justice or that human life has no value, there is no God. There are some things that people do identify with that are basic tenets, basic values of Marxism. 

And yet, Rick, as you identified in the interview, there still are some big picture things that most people somewhere innate inside them, they go, you know, Marxism really isn’t good, though. There’s something they know as bad about it. And I think we have to ask questions to help connect the dots for them of the dangers and the evil really of Marxism.

David:

You know, we’re in a culture right now that seems to be pushing for vaccinations. And we’ve seen this particularly from the Biden administration, others pushing for vaccinations in schools are jumping on board, and schools are now pushing for elementary kids to be vaccinated. Okay. If you think vaccinations is a solution, here’s a great vaccination you should be pushing for.

The only effective vaccination against Marxism or socialism or anything else is a biblical worldview. And if you want to get rid of this out of the culture, you need to get vaccinated with a knowledge of the Bible and biblical teachings because that’s what keeps the disease of Marxism and all of its tentacles and socialism and all of its tentacles from coming in and taking over your life and your thinking in your country. And so that’s the way to get rid of this.

And I thought that was a great question you asked George at the end is, how do you stop this? What has been effected that he’s seen in stopping this? And the answer is a knowledge of the Bible. So we’ve seen a knowledge of the Bible decline in recent years, people have to get serious about going back to it, not as a religious book. 

And I think people are tired of church and religion. They need to go back to the Bible, not as a churchy kind of a book, but as a book that is a guide book written by the creator of the universe to tell you how all these things work, whether it’s economics or government or family or whatever, that’s the greatest vaccination we can have against this bad stuff.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. We are talking about the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. Excited to have George Barna with us later in the program.

But for now, folks, I just want to send you to the website, wallbuilderslive.com, a wealth of information. Both at wallbuilderslive.com and wallbuilders.com, go to either one first, you can link over to the other. But bottom line is a lot of great tools, a lot of great information, not just education. 

I mean, education sounds boring when you just say education. It’s literally empowerment. It’s entertaining when you watch and listen to the programs available there. But it gives you information you’ve never heard before. It confirms what you knew in your gut that America was a great nation. It confirms in your gut that biblical values work when they’re applied.

All of that education confirms that which gives you hope for the future. Because the other thing we do is we constantly give you action steps, things you can do to be the catalyst for restoring biblical principles in your community, for restoring constitutional principles. You can be a part of that solution. Every time you go to wallbuilderslive.com and you listen to one of these programs, you get that education, that empowerment, that entertainment, all of that at once. 

But then every time you share with others, you’re actually helping to solve the problem, you’re actually helping to move us from civic ignorance to civic literacy. And that’s really the heart of most of the things we talked about here. The petri dish for tyrannical government, the petri dish where bad government grows is civic ignorance.

When we don’t know the truth, when we don’t know where we came from, or what we’ve been about, when we don’t know what we actually did, as Reagan said, we’ll forget who we are. That’s exactly what’s happened in America. So here at WallBuilders, we are constantly educating, equipping, empowering, and you can be a part of making that happen. 

We really do encourage you not only to listen but to share with your friends and family. Be a force multiplier, we like to call it around here. That’s where you actually take this information and multiply the number of people that are learning. So we challenge you to do that today.

Special Guest

By the way, my name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And I have the privilege of working alongside Tim Barton and David Barton. Tim Barton is a national speaker and pastor, he’s president of WallBuilders. He’s a fantastic speaker. 

You need to get him into your group. Go to wallbuilders.com, have him come speak at your church or some organization in your community that can host an amazing event that will again, empower, equip, educate, it’ll get people fired up to get involved and make a difference. David Barton is also with us. 

He’s America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders. This guy’s read more of the Founding Fathers than anybody alive today. The incredible library that David and Tim have, it’s a phenomenal way to learn and to study the Founders. So we’re just glad to bring that truth to you today on WallBuilders Live.

Alright, David, and Tim, we’ve got George Barna back with us later in the program. They’re continually doing research on a daily basis and discovering some pretty well in some ways, some doubters, man, I mean, I’m shocked at how many people are embracing Marxist ideology. We’ll be talking to George about that. 

But I guess, first question for you guys help me stay up, right, stay positive and realize no matter when we see data like that, the solutions haven’t changed, God’s principles continue to work, we just have to apply on, right?

Tim:

There’s no doubt. And this is also something too, guys, reflective of the fact that there’s a reason that homeschooling is improving and growing right now. There’s a reason that parents are getting involved at school boards right now. It’s because we are seeing the inner workings like the belly of the beast. 

When parents are seeing what is being taught to kids on so many levels, there’s a reason that parents get fired up, they want to show up at school board meetings that parents are running for school board members themselves, that parents are winning the school board races. There’s a reason that kids are being pulled out to homeschool because of this nonsense being taught.

Do Americans Recognize the Dangers?

So even though it is sad, even though it’s disappointing, it’s really not surprising for us because we know that you reap what you sow. The crop that you plant over time, you will grow that crop. And we have seen that you can go back to the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, when you saw some of these ideas being really manifested at the university level. And of course, even back then, when you had Reagan who was speaking out against some of the Soviet Union, who spoke out against some of this Marxist ideology, there was some people in America who recognized and actually, probably the majority of Americans recognize the danger of this ideology.

However, you had your woke people. And this was where you can go back and look at the 1980s some of these professors, I mean, you guys like Howard Zinn from Boston College, who did the history of the American people and America is evil, and it’s awful. And well, if America is evil and awful, what nations you’re going to point to is the good nations? 

And this gave room for some people to come in and argue in favor of some of these other socialist communists or Marxist nations. So it’s not surprising seeing the fact that we have this ideology being embraced by many young people in America or by many Americans in general. It is a reflection of the cultural battle we’re in.

But the good news is that’s one of the many reasons that parents are getting involved because they’re beginning to see the nonsense being taught to their kids. And there is hope that we can turn some things around. Nonetheless, there’s no doubt there’s some problems and nonsense being taught to rising generations.

David:

And as Tim said, they’re rejecting philosophy behind it, and a lot of them, they didn’t know what the philosophy was. I mean, it turns out there are titles and names for some of these philosophies have been out there for a while. And people have kind of inherently rejected those titles, they just didn’t know what they really represented. 

And so one of the interesting things that Barna does is he’ll take words that people respond to, I know we talked before on the program of how that George Barna and looking nationally said that 42% of Americans said they supported  socialism.

Understanding Socialism

So Barna started pulling those 42% that said they supported socialism, and ask them questions like, do you support greater government ownership of private property, which is socialism? Do you support greater government regulation of private business, which is socialism? And at the end, only 2% actually supported what socialism was. 

They didn’t know that it was all those things. And he didn’t use the term socialism. He just described it to them, found that they really didn’t like it. They thought they liked the term, but they didn’t like what it was.

And this is one of the things we see today. It’s so common to throw out terms and think they know what that mean is. Sometimes people throw out terms, and they have a tone with it and so they reject that. I know for us at WallBuilders and in particularly for me in particular, I mean, so many articles been written about the fact that I’m a Reconstructionist. 

And so I will get asked by pastors at places, hey, I saw that are you really a Reconstructionist? And I’ll ask them, do you know what a Reconstructionist is? And they go, no, not really. But I see that they accuse you that… Well, you don’t even know what it is and you’re asking me if this is a bad deal that I am one. And so there’s so many things like that.

And by the way, even the people who make the accusation don’t even know what it is. It’s a theological term that deals with eschatology. And those guys aren’t even religious enough to know what part of the book has eschatology or what eschatology is. 

And the critics who make that charge that I’m a Reconstructionist. I have not seen a single one of them that has any basic knowledge of the Bible to even know what they’re talking about. And it is a term that deals with eschatology. And when you get an eschatology, you can be all sorts of things.

And so the question is, are you pre-millennial or post-millennial, you’re pan-millennial? Are you pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, pan-trib. That’s something those guys don’t even talk about. But they have found a term that they throw out there, and so people react negatively toward me about the term not even knowing what it means. 

And so that’s what we’re seeing so often in the culture as people will throw out terms, and we get to where we don’t like the term, but we don’t know what it is. Like socialism, well, we do like that, but then when you find out what it is, no, I don’t like that. And so Georgia is so good about going beyond just the superficial and trying to dig down in.

And one of the things that we have definitely seen over the last year is the rise of Marxism. Now I call it the rise of Marxism, it’s been tried to come into America for more than a century. But this is the first time it’s really made progress, really made grounds. So how did it do that? 

Marxism

What were the ideas that led Marxism to become as popular as it is now in academia, in government, so many other power centers? How did it become popular when basically most of the people still don’t like Marxism? But here it is among us, and it’s full-fledged and full-faced. And what do we do with it? And so that’s one of the things that George has done is he’s dug back into this thing of Marxism, but not necessarily by the term only, but also by the philosophies and ideas that are Marxism, which most Americans cannot recognize today.

Rick:

George Barna to dive deeper into these questions when we return on WallBuilders Live.

AMERICAN HISTORY

This is Tim Barton from Wallbuilders with another moment from American history. Founding Fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson originally worked closely together, but later became ardent opponents. This troubled Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration, who knew both of them very well.

In the Bible, 2nd Corinthians 5:18 tells us that God has given each of us the ministry of reconciliation. Dr. Rush believed this and set out to bring the two back together. It took a while but Adams and Jefferson once again became close friends. And looking back on his role in helping bring about this reconciliation, Dr. Rush stated “It will give me pleasure as long as I live to reflect that I have been in any degree instrumental and effectiveness for union of two souls destined to be dear to each other and motivated with the same dispositions to serve their country though in different ways.”

For more information about Dr. Benjamin Rush and his other remarkable achievements, go to wallbuilders.com

Rick:

Welcome back to Wallbuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Always good to have George Barna with us. George, thanks for some time today.

George:

Good to be you, Rick.

Current Trends

Rick:

Hey man, you guys are constantly polling, constantly looking at the hearts and minds of Americans and where the trends are going. Some of these trends do not look good. You’ve got some research out recently just on the basic elements of Marxism literally being embraced by Americans now. I mean, who would have thought this 50 years ago, but man, it’s right in front of us at this point

George:

Well, of course, Rick, the thing we have to remember is that if you ask people if they are Marxist, or if they think like a Marxist, their answer will be no. But when you then start looking at what they believe, and their overall philosophy of life, their worldview, what you find out is that they’ve, in many ways, unknowingly embraced a number of the platforms or foundations of Marxist thought. 

And so what that does is that kind of prepares the way for Marxism to get a deeper and deeper foothold in American culture without people even realizing it socialism, you know, they’ve heard that word they know about it. With millennials, we know 48% of them now want to go socialist. 

So there’s some elements of it that people are aware of. But there’s so much that Marxism pushes that people say, that’s not a bad idea, and they don’t realize the bigger perspective that it’s tied to.

Rick:

It’s interesting that the label itself they still realize is a bad thing. Like somewhere deep in the recesses of their brain, they may not be able to say yet killed 100 million people last century, or any of the things that Marxism has done that’s evil, but they kind of recognize the name as being evil. But yet, when you go into the policies themselves, they’re embracing. 

Now it sounds like just bright back to that same thing of civic ignorance, we just don’t know what these policies truly produce as a result of… The history teaches us that. I mean, if we knew the history, we would know how bad they were. So is that part of it? It sounds good, right? 

Do They Know Who Stalin Is?

The Marxist policy might sound good to them, it’s like you’re being nice to the neighbor because you’re taking care of them or whatever it might be, but they just don’t know what the results of the socialist ideas will actually have on them and their families.

George:

It’s a huge part of the problem, Rick. And we find that basically, people do not connect their spiritual or biblical ideas with policy implications. And so, they’re thinking, yeah, I got to be good to my neighbor, I got to take care of people, I got to bless others. How can I do that? Ooh, the government has a program. 

Yeah. I’m all for it. And so they don’t think about all the implications. I had the privilege of being interviewed by one of the big Russian television networks about a week ago. And they read this research, and they call up, they were alarmed. 

They said we need to interview Mr. Barna. He said, what is it with you Americans, have you no memory of Joseph Stalin? What do I say? I mean, the people who have the graves outside the window there. 

So yeah, I mean, we really need to understand how all of these things fit together, and what a Christian’s responsibility is in terms of understanding biblical principles, and what they look like in practice.

Rick:

What would be a couple of examples of Marxist ideology and policies that even Christians are embracing unknowingly?

George:

Well, things like believing that allowing people to own property facilitates economic and justice. Things like buying into the idea that individual property ownership is bad for society. Things like believing that success is best described as living a healthy and productive life that’s unencumbered by economic impression. 

Things like saying that traditional marriage is bad for society, you’re better off just having sexual relations with people that you like, and moving on. Things like saying that human life has no inherent value.

CRT

So, I mean, we’ve got a whole list of these things that Marxism proposes, and more and more Americans are feeling comfortable. And then you take things like critical race theory. 

And there, for instance, one of the elements we see. 41% of American adults believe that race is used by white people in America to advance their own economic and political interests at the expense of people of color.

Rick:

Not that they believe that happened in history. They believe it’s happening today.

George:

That best describes America today. That’s happening right at this moment. Yeah. So there’s ample evidence that the media with their twisted media reports are twisting the minds and the hearts and the lifestyles of Americans at the same time.

Rick:

Yeah. And those things that you listed strike at the very core of our American way of life and our freedom. I mean, without private property, you cannot have free society. One of the other ones you mentioned is essentially the destruction of the family and no valuing that core element of the family. I mean, you can’t have our Constitution and our way of life if you lose these things.

George:

Absolutely. And then you add on to that the idea that there is no living transcendent, Holy God. And when we’re down to only half of Americans even believing that God exists, the fastest growing faith group in America today, the don’ts, those who don’t know if God exists, don’t care if he exists, don’t believe that he exists. 

And with millennials, that number is approaching half of the generation. So looking at the fact that they’re now taking over positions of power and authority in government and business and families, I mean, all around our country, education and so forth, I mean, that’s a scary reality.

Propaganda

Rick:

I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to go this far in the in the research, but I mean, all of this stuff, of course, is based on lies. I mean, all of this is built on a house of cards, and the propaganda and literally living in a fantasy land. 

How have you seen anything that would indicate that when they get truth, when they actually are able to look at the facts and the data and the truth, when you have civic literacy, instead of civic ignorance, do they change their mind? Or is this like a religion where they’ve bought into it and truth just bounces off?

George:

Yeah, great question. And the way that I would respond to that is we see a humongous difference, let’s say, between people with a biblical worldview, and people who are drawing heavily from Marxism, or post-modernism, or secular humanism. 

Take any of the alternative worldviews, compare it to people who have a biblical worldview, and the magnitude of difference is unlike almost anything else that I see in the research that we do. So yes, clearly, embracing biblical principles and having a biblical worldview, which means not only believing it but living it, yes, that’s a completely different life.

Rick:

And it is the cure almost, right? I mean, that that is the medicine that is needed to cure this disease of tyranny. Well, when I say tyranny, they’re not saying they want tyranny. They don’t realize that the policies lead to tyranny. 

So I guess the cure to the disease of false impressions about Marxism it is biblical truth when they see biblical truth, and walk out biblical truth, and they cannot embrace those Marxist ideas. Is that a fair assumption?

George:

Absolutely so. You know, it’s not that people are saying, we want a Marxist revolution, what they’re saying is we want to be happy, we want to be comfortable, we want to be taken care of. 

And so you know, right embedded within there where you’re rejecting core biblical principles, just to say those simple things, that tells us that you know what, if we look at all the crises in America today, political, economic, educational, familial, doesn’t matter what crisis you talk about, strip it all away, the root is a worldview crisis. And so if we were to solve the worldview issue in America today, most of our major issues will dissolve.

Accept Responsibility

Rick:

Yeah, I mean, even like what you were mentioning, in terms of private property, or the family unit, I mean, if you just go to the teachings of Christ, you look at some of the parables, you start living out those biblical principles, then you have to respect other people’s property, you have to accept responsibility with the talents that you’ve been given. I mean, all of those things, it’s all interwoven in that biblical worldview to our daily lives, if we’ll just teach it. 

So, I guess it really does come back to the church. I mean, we are the church. I’m not blaming particular pastors. I’m just saying, we as the church, if we do our job studying God’s word, teaching our kids that, teaching the other people in the church, and just living that out, we’ll find the political solutions, at the end of downstream from that. Is that where we need to start?

George:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, really, it started from the family because it’s the parents’ responsibility, biblically, to be preparing their kids to go out into the world with a worldview that represents the ways of God. If parents aren’t doing it, they’re not doing it to some extent because churches aren’t equipping them to do it. You can’t give what you don’t have. Most parents don’t have that kind of perspective.

 And so, right off the bat, the parents and churches not doing their job, training up children in the way they should go. Because a worldview develops between 15 months of age and 13 years of age, after that, it changes very little. So we’ve got to get to children, young. 

I mean, it’s why thinking back to my interview with Russians, Lenin himself said, “Give me a child till he’s seven, I have him for life.” They understand that that’s where it’s all developed. So, yeah, we’ve got to get busy.

Rick:

Man. Hey, thanks a lot, man, you just shifted the burden to us. Now we’re responsible, right? I mean, that’s really what I’m hearing is we love to blame the universities and blame the politicians and everything else and you have real problems there. But they’re not at university at 13. They’re not at university at 7. 

They’re in our homes. Are we doing our job at home? Man, that’s a good word brother. Man, the responsibility is ours. If we’ll do our job at home, and then in our communities, being salt and light we can turn this thing around.

George Barna, always a blessing. Man, thanks for all that you guys are doing. Best place for folks to follow you and be able to get notices when you have some new research coming out?

CulturalResearchCenter.com

George:

At Arizona Christian University, we have something called the Cultural Research Center. So if they go to culturalresearchcenter.com, all the research is there. It’s free. You can download it. You can send it out. You can sign up to get alerts when we have a new report that comes out, which is about every two weeks.

Rick:

Culturalresearchcenter.com.

George:

You got it.

Rick:

Culturalresearchcenter.com. And as you mentioned, it’s at Arizona Christian University. We just had President Len Munsil a couple of weeks ago. you know, I was dissing on the universities a few minutes ago. There are a handful, not many, I mean, literally a handful, I think maybe less than 10, but for sure, less than 15 universities where you can send your kid to and feel good about the philosophy that is going to back up what you’ve been teaching at home, and of course, ACU where you’re at with this program, George Barna is in one of those places. God bless you, brother, thanks for coming on today.

George:

Thanks so much, Rick.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks. We’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

THIS PRECARIOUS MOMENT

Hi, this is David Barton. I want to let you know about a brand new book we have out called “This Precarious Moment: Six Urgent Steps that Will Save You, Your Family, and Our Country”. Jim Garlow and I have co-authored this book. 

And we take six issues that are hot in the culture right now, issues that we’re dealing with, issues such as immigration, and race relations, and our relationship with Israel and the rising generation millennials and the absence of the church and the culture wars, and where American heritage is our godly heritage.

We look at all six of those issues right now that are under attack and we give you both biblical and historical perspective on those issues that provide solutions on what each of us can do right now to make a difference. These are all problems that are solvable if we’ll get involved. So you can grab the book, “This Precarious Moment” and find out what you can do to make a difference. “This Precarious Moment” is available at wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WalBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. Thanks again to George Barna, always good to have him on the program. And so, guys, I mean, it does sound like definite solutions here. One thing to do is just define the terms. Like you were talking about earlier, David, I mean, when people realize the policy they’re talking about is a communist policy and communism did result in 100 million deaths last century and all of those things. When they learn all those things, they tend to understand wait a minute, maybe that policy is not what I’m after.

Tim:

And I think too, Rick, as you’re saying help people learn the truth and define the terms. I think one of the things that is a good way to help define the terms, one of the strategies we’ve talked about many times in this program is asking questions. Just like where George Barna would ask somebody about socialism, well, do you support the government controlling private property or controlling private businesses? 

Well, no, I don’t think the government should control those things. At least that’s the way they used to answer that question. Some people might not answer that very well anymore.

Connecting the Dangers

With that being said, if we looked at some of these ideas of Marxism, and you could ask some pretty basic questions, like do you think the government should be able to come in and imprison people they don’t like or execute people they disagree with? Well, if you are logical and say, no, that’s a terrible thing, oh, well, that’s actually one of the powers under a Marxist government. You start asking some basic questions about Marxism.

And as George pointed out, some people, there are basic tenants of Marxism that they think maybe are acceptable, that individuals owning property, maybe that’s bad for equity and is bad for justice or that human life has no value, there is no God. There are some things that people do identify with that are basic tenets, basic values of Marxism. 

And yet, Rick, as you identified in the interview, there still are some big picture things that most people somewhere innate inside them, they go, you know, Marxism really isn’t good, though. There’s something they know as bad about it. And I think we have to ask questions to help connect the dots for them of the dangers and the evil really of Marxism.

David:

You know, we’re in a culture right now that seems to be pushing for vaccinations. And we’ve seen this particularly from the Biden administration, others pushing for vaccinations in schools are jumping on board, and schools are now pushing for elementary kids to be vaccinated. Okay. If you think vaccinations is a solution, here’s a great vaccination you should be pushing for.

The only effective vaccination against Marxism or socialism or anything else is a biblical worldview. And if you want to get rid of this out of the culture, you need to get vaccinated with a knowledge of the Bible and biblical teachings because that’s what keeps the disease of Marxism and all of its tentacles and socialism and all of its tentacles from coming in and taking over your life and your thinking in your country. And so that’s the way to get rid of this.

And I thought that was a great question you asked George at the end is, how do you stop this? What has been effected that he’s seen in stopping this? And the answer is a knowledge of the Bible. So we’ve seen a knowledge of the Bible decline in recent years, people have to get serious about going back to it, not as a religious book. 

And I think people are tired of church and religion. They need to go back to the Bible, not as a churchy kind of a book, but as a book that is a guide book written by the creator of the universe to tell you how all these things work, whether it’s economics or government or family or whatever, that’s the greatest vaccination we can have against this bad stuff.

Marxist Ideology In America And What To Do About It – With George Barna

Tim:

And the reality is the societies that function the best are the societies who do the best job following basic biblical principles. If you don’t believe there’s a God and the basic tenets of the declaration, that there’s a divine crater and he gave man rights, that government’s job is protect those rights, everything America was built and founded on goes away. 

But also, the basic idea is that we can function together in human society, that you should treat other people the way you want to be treated, you should love your neighbors yourself, that we shouldn’t murder, we shouldn’t steal, we shouldn’t commit adultery. The basic biblical values that have allowed people who function and really thrive in society would all be removed under Marxism.

And this is where you have someone controlling you externally because there is no belief in a god or the innate value of the individual life. And so, therefore, if the government wants to come and kill you if the government wants to come and imprison you, they are able to because your life isn’t that valuable because there’s not a God and you weren’t made in His image, etc. That’s the position they take.

And so this is where, again, understanding what helps society to function the best, and the societies that have functioned the best were the ones who followed basic biblical principles, and that includes societies who maybe didn’t even know they were following biblical principles, right, maybe they weren’t trying to be the most Christian. 

But when you follow basic biblical principles and guidelines, whether you’re a Christian or not, when you do things God’s way, God’s ways work the best. And that’s certainly why this Marxist ideology, which is the very antonym of God’s way, which is evil ideology has been destructive every time it’s been applied.

Rick:

Alright, friends, we are out of time for today. Be sure to check out wallbuilderslive.com for some more great interviews and great information and share it with your friends and family. So important for you to be a force multiplier. You can do that by sharing the program on social media, email out it to folks are just encouraging them to go to the website. We sure appreciate you listening today. Thanks for listening to WallBuilders Live.