“It’s not a culture war, not anymore. There is no common civic ground on which liberals and conservatives meet and hash things out…The debates are over now. The Woke brigades won’t battle your ideas. The marketplace of ideas offends them—you offend them. Now, they have the power of termination…[T]he Revolution is here and you’re in it…They follow the motto of that brilliant manager of men, Joseph Stalin, who reasoned quite soundly: ‘No man, no problem.’”

Roman Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò describes the globalist “Great Reset,” devised by Davos billionaires and powerful politicians, as the work of Satan and “Luciferian Globalists.”[1] Protestant American believers warn that “America is writhing in the grip of a full-scale Marxist political and cultural revolution.”[2] Some conclude that the two movements are deeply related. As responsible citizens, Christians must certainly consider what role the church should play in seeking to hold back the progress of godless political power in their own nation.
It may seem unduly sensationalist to describe progressive current politics as Marxist, but wisdom dictates that we think seriously about how the future could pan out. Slow changes can suddenly speed up, causing us to regret not having seen a movement coming. As Mark Bauerlein, professor at Emory University and senior editor of First Things, states: “One moment you’re a citizen of a well-running republic. The next moment you see that the federal government seems unable to fulfill its most basic responsibilities.”[3]
I continue to be motivated by the serious, yet delicate, challenge of showing believers how their faith and gospel witness must be applied to this changing culture, just as Moses warned Israel when going into Canaan. He warned them to be aware of the dangers of living among people who worship false gods, citing the Lord’s judgment: They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols (Deut 32:21).
When I arrived in America for the first time in 1964, as a naive young European, I was struck at both how “Christian” and how anti-Communist America was. Now recent arrivals from China, like Lily Tang-Williams, and from North Korea, like the youthful and brilliant Yeonomi Park, warn that they see much in America that reminds them of the horrendous cultures they left behind. Ms. Park recently studied at Columbia University and was shocked to see that the Marxist ideology she was taught in North Korea was now being taught in every class at this well-respected American school.[4] As I study Critical Race Theory and the antiracism movements of the day, I realize how ideologically Marxist these movements are; yet they are spreading throughout the culture with relative ease and increasing power—even in the country’s churches. These movements are successfully dividing American culture down the middle, in typical Marxist fashion!
Let’s be clear. The Marxist grab for social power has always sought to divide culture into antagonist segments: the oppressors and the oppressed. In Russia the divide was created between the bourgeois oppressors (land and business owners) and the proletariat oppressed (workers). In China the division was made between the “Black” (professionals) and the “Red” (under-class ) Chinese, whom Mao convinced to murder millions of fellow “Black” Chinese. In Cambodia the divide was between the intellectuals (which included anyone wearing glasses – true!) and the agricultural workers, who were roused by the Khmer Rouge and their cruel leader, Pol Pot, to murder nearly a quarter of the Cambodian population. In our time, Marxist-inspired Critical Race Theory divides Western culture into the oppressors (Whites) and the oppressed (Blacks and other minorities). Some leaders of this movement have clearly stated Marxist goals.
This is not new. According to a first-hand witness, black American Manning Johnson, in his book Color, Communism and Common Sense (1958), describes a vast attempt by Soviet and American communists in 1934–35 to undermine faith in American institutions through a program that would convince the general public that America is deeply racist. Mr. Johnson signed up for this revolutionary program. The goal was to create “a common front against the white oppressors.”[5] Johnson documents that the plot to use “Negroes as the [expendable] spearhead” of the undermining of America was created by Stalin in 1928, ten years after the creation of the Commintern (the World Organization of Communism). This was employed by “the top white communist leaders” hypocritically playing the idea of racial conflict in “a cold-blooded struggle for power” to “advance the cause of Communism” in America.[6] The goal was “to make the white man’s system, the white man’s government, responsible for everything.” He noted: “Smear is a cardinal technique,” seeking to “divide America” that can only be called “a propaganda hoax.”[7] “Black rebellion was what Moscow wanted. Bloody racial conflict would split America. During the confusion, demoralization and panic would set in.”[8] Apparently, the movement had little time for black people. Marx dismissed the black race as much closer to the animal kingdom.[9] Finally understanding his role as a pawn, Manning abandoned the program.
As Black Lives Matter (ironically awarded the Nobel Peace prize of 2021) ultimately shows, the controversy over racism is not so much an attempt at purging real racism as it is a Marxist-driven attempt to divide our culture between the oppressed Blacks and their White oppressors, in order to overthrow civilized Judeo-Christian American culture. The accusation that police brutality is causing black genocide has been shown to be false,[10] but BLM’s self-definition as emerging from Marxism is certain. Using racism as its cover story, Marxism pushes forward with its goal to divide America and to cause a revolution that will “upset the set-up!” An anonymous first-hand ex-participant in BLM (like Manning Johnson, years earlier) states: “I have seen this [racist] ideology up close and seen how it consumes and even destroys people, while dehumanizing anyone who dissents.”[11] In other words, BLM’s Marxism is an essential part of the neo-Marxist revival that seeks to bring an end to traditional Western civilization by the age-old technique of antagonistic cultural division.
Ibram X. Kendi, founder of Boston University’s Center for Antiracism Research was recently given a $10 million “no strings attached” grant by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.[12 ] This is a clear example of “woke capitalism,”[13] by which Dorsey uses his financial power to promote his vision of social justice while silencing opposing views on his Twitter platform, thereby undermining the democratic process. This money will help create a U. S. Department of Antiracism, with the power to overturn any law or policy at any level of government if the department determines that such policies do not contribute vigorously enough to antiracist theory. With the subjective notion of “equity” as the defining term, such a branch of government could, by fiat, redefine public morality. Fallible, omnipotent, moral busybodies will apply inscrutable rules to everyone except themselves. Nothing could be more Marxist! Ironically, Kendi, richly supported by successful businessmen and profiting hugely from the free market system, has announced that he opposes capitalism and free enterprise: “To love racism,” he states, “is to end up loving capitalism.”[14] Equity now determines action, and we will define what it is
Professor Bauerlein understands precisely where we now are.
“It’s not a culture war, not anymore. There is no common civic ground on which liberals and conservatives meet and hash things out…The debates are over now. The Woke brigades won’t battle your ideas. The marketplace of ideas offends them—you offend them. Now, they have the power of termination…[T]he Revolution is here and you’re in it…They follow the motto of that brilliant manager of men, Joseph Stalin, who reasoned quite soundly: ‘No man, no problem.’”[15]
Stalin had many of his dissenting colleagues shot through the head. With cancel culture, it is now, as Bauerlein perceptively observes: “No conservatives, no problem.”[16] Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, and a careful social analyst, says, reflecting on Norway’s recent law declaring illegal speech against transgenderism, even at home:[17] “Free speech in the United States these days is becoming described as a danger that needs to be controlled as opposed to a traditional value that defines this country as a democracy.… [F]ree speech…is under fire and may even be a minority view today.”[18] He refers to President Biden who selected Richard Stengel to take the “team lead” position on the US Agency for Global Media. “Stengel has been one of the most controversial figures calling for censorship and speech controls, a person who rejects the very essence of free speech. He promises the “unity” of a nation silenced by government speech codes and censorship.”[19] He is one of those who knows what equity is.
If this is true, we may be increasingly close to the situation of the German church in the 1930s. It watched the political rise of Hitler and the promotion of NAZI ideology. Individual Catholics and Protestants spoke out, but the church made no public opposition to antisemitism or to state-sanctioned violence against the Jews.[20] After 1945, the silence and even complicity of the church during the Holocaust produced major issues of guilt and recrimination. We may ask, without any sense of superiority: What should the German church have done to stop the slaughter of 6 million Jews, a bloodbath going on right under its nose?
Now is the time to ask what our Christian response must be to a dangerous political program that seeks to the divide culture and may well end up in far more physical violence than we have yet seen. May God grant us wisdom to face such a possible cultural future, not in order to produce a “Christian nation” but out of respect for God and for those made in his image. Yet while we live in this fallen world, we must also defend biblical principles of sound living, and of fair and polite discussion. We have the blessing of a First Amendment, which we would do well to defend. We must also defend the rule of law, any policy that promotes the nobility of the individual, normative male/female distinctions, and defense of the pre-born.
Clearly, truth must speak to power, whatever response it receives—even if it is a violent one. We must preach the gospel fervently both to the oppressors and the oppressed, for we all share a world temporarily under the oppression of the Evil one. We have true peace with God only through the suffering, sacrifice, death and resurrection of our coming King. We must make known the truth about God, the good Creator, whose common grace is extended to everyone and whose special grace is shown to all who will hear and respond to the saving death of his Son, which will produce the redemption of the entire creation (Romans 8:18–21), for God’s final glory—and for perfect, divinely defined, equity.
Dr. Peter Jones is scholar in residence at Westminster Seminary California and associate pastor at New Life Presbyterian Church in Escondido, Calif. He is director of truthXchange, a communications center aimed at equipping the Christian community to recognize and effectively respond to the rise of paganism. This article is used with permission.

[1]WND LINK: “…corrupt civil and church authorities have joined forces to exploit the coronavirus pandemic in their quest to bolster global sovereignty.”[2] “How Big Tech, Big Media, lying Democrats, deep staters and vote fraudsters cheated Trump – and America,” WND (September 02, 2021).[3]AM GREATNESS LINK, see also FRONT PAGE MAG LINK[4] Alex Newman, “Critical Race Theory: Marxist Poison Infecting America,” The New American (August, 9, 2021), 11-17.[5] Manning Johnson, Color, Communism and Common Sense (Martino Fine Books,1958), 7 and 15.[6] Johnson, ibid, 37.[7] Johnson, ibid., 44, 52 and 54.[8]FREE REPUBLIC LINK Joseph Hippolito BLM, Antifa and the Communist Strategy to Destroy the United States Frontpagemagazine | Sep 24, 2020 |[9] According to the recently deceased Walter Williams, see NEWS HERALD LINK[10] The BLM myth is turning the many encounters law enforcement had with African-Americans in 2019 into a racist genocide. In fact, only 9 unarmed blacks were killed by police in 2019 and, according to police records, a majority of the fatal encounters were the outcome of fully justified police actions of self-defense. In the same year, 19 unarmed whites were shot dead by police; yet no one hears or even seems to care about these victims, because they don’t fit the Left’s narrative of black genocide. 93% of all black homicide victims are killed by other blacks. This is the true genocide that needs to be stopped. Police are NOT waging war on African-Americans. This is a profound lie. This is NOT a nation mired in systemic racism. No one knows leftist radicals better than David Horowitz. He says Black Lives Matter, Antifa and Occupy Wall Street all seek the same thing: a progressive, socialist revolution in America – and they are far closer to achieving it today than ’60s radicals ever were.[11]NEW DISCOURSE LINK[12]BU EDU LINK[13] See Vivek Ramaswamy, Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, (Center Street, NY, 2021), 19.[14] by FRONT PAGE MAG LINK [15] Art.cit.[16] Art.cit.[17]FAITHWIRE LINK[18]THEHILL LINK[19]JONATHANTURLEY LINK[20]ENCYCLOPEDIA LINK

On the other hand, we should not focus on death when it is close but rather should focus on Christ. This is because a large part of the terror of death comes from the awareness of our sins and our guilt before God. The unbeliever has no alternative but to hope that there is no God on the other side to judge him. The Christian, though, has a different kind of certainty, and he can focus on Christ rather than on his sin.

A few years ago, I received this unexpected request from one of my church members with multiple sclerosis: “When you have time, could you please do a Bible study on how to prepare for death?” This person knew that her condition was incurable and, although death still seemed a fairly long way off, she was anxious to receive advice on how to face it. I was taken aback by that request, but I should not have been. This was a very sensible idea. Why wouldn’t every church member be interested in such a Bible study? Yet, I could not remember the last time I preached or heard a sermon on that topic. The Bible is very upfront about the reality of death but also very clear that it is possible to die well. It is perhaps significant that one of the best-known Hebrew words in the Old Testament, the word shalom, which we associate with peace and well-being, first appears in the context of death (Gen. 15:15). Knowing how we may die “in peace” should be an important concern for us all.
As I reflected on this, I was struck again about how common that theme was in Christian sermons and devotional literature until about two hundred years ago. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, decisive breakthroughs in medical research, such as the discovery of germs and anesthetics, made death and pain feel more distant. For the first time in history, being healthy became the norm and being ill the exception. For most people in history, death was an ever-present companion. John Calvin, for example, gives a vivid description of how precarious life felt in his time:
Innumerable are the ills which beset human life, and present death in as many different forms. Not to go beyond ourselves, since the body is a receptacle, even the nurse, of a thousand diseases, a man cannot move without carrying along with him many forms of destruction. . . . Then, in what direction soever you turn, all surrounding objects not only may do harm, but almost openly threaten and seem to present immediate death. Go on board a ship, you are but a plank’s breadth from death. Mount a horse, the stumbling of a foot endangers your life. Walk along the streets, every tile upon the roofs is a source of danger . . . I say nothing of poison, treachery, robbery, some of which beset us at home, others follow us abroad.1
It is therefore not surprising that Christians felt the need to be trained in the ars moriendi (art of dying). In fact, the idea that the whole of life is a preparation to die was commonplace. As events in the world sometimes bring death considerably closer to us, I believe it is urgent for the church to recover the Christian ars moriendi. What we need in particular is not so much rehearsing general theological truths about death but precisely what that church member asked me: some practical advice on how to prepare ourselves for it. The Protestant Reformers and seventeenth-century Puritans can help us with this because they knew how to face death and how to think about it in concrete terms. They wrote a great deal on the topic but, for the sake of brevity, I will focus on Martin Luther, whose teaching on the matter sums up the Protestant ars moriendi.2
Luther’s view of the Christian life is attractive because of its concrete character. Luther was not simply a theologian of more abstract concepts such as justification but a pastor who preached and wrote to human beings of flesh and blood facing much hardship and who were never far away from death. Luther himself, like his contemporaries, did not expect to live for very long, and he thought he would soon die from illness or martyrdom. It is therefore not surprising that he preached and wrote about death throughout his life. As early as 1519, when he was only thirty-six, he wrote a series of exhortations for his sovereign, Elector Frederick the Wise, who was seriously ill.3 In that same year, he preached a famous sermon on preparing to die, and he no doubt preached many times on the subject. Practical considerations about dying are spread through his writings. We also have fairly precise information about Luther’s last days and his own death that allows us to know that he put into practice what he preached.
Luther can help us because he teaches us how to think properly about death both throughout our lives and when it is near. His insights can be summed up under four headings.
BE CONFIDENT BUT REALISTIC
First, Luther recognizes that death is frightening even for Christians. He is not so foolish as to believe that the fear of death can be neutralized by stoic fortitude, as certain atheists try to convince themselves. This is a conviction that is often found in his writings. For example, in a sermon on 1 Corinthians 15 preached on October 6, 1532, he says: “The heathens have wisely said ‘he is a fool who is afraid of death, for through such fear he loses his own life.’ This would be true if only a man could act on the advice. . . . They advise that nothing is better than simply cast all such fear aside, to rid the mind of it and to think: why worry about it? When we are dead, we are dead. That is certainly disposing of the matter in short order and completely extinguishing God’s wrath, hell and damnation!”4
Or again, in one of his table talks: “I do not like to see people glad to die. . . . Great saints do not like to die. The fear of death is natural, for death is a penalty; therefore, it is something sad. According to the spirit one gladly dies; but according to the flesh, it is said ‘another shall carry you where you would not.’ ”5
Yet, because Christ defeated death, Luther also knows that the death of a Christian is fundamentally different. As he says to Frederick the Wise in one of his fourteen consolations: “The death of a Christian is to be looked upon as the brazen serpent of Moses. It does have the appearance of a serpent; but it is entirely without life, without motion, without poison, without sting. . . . We do resemble those who die, and the outward appearance of our death is not different from that of others. But the thing itself is different nevertheless because for us death is dead.”6
This is why the Christian is able to prepare for death in a meaningful way. However, this preparation should take place throughout the whole of life, and this leads to Luther’s next insight.
THINK OF DEATH AT THE RIGHT TIME
This is perhaps the most insightful piece of advice and the most challenging for us today. The issue is not simply how to think about death but when. Luther’s oft-repeated advice is that we should familiarize ourselves with death while we are still healthy, while death itself still seems far away. Conversely, we should not stare at death when it is near us but rather focus on Christ. Now it is clear that most people today—sadly, including many Christians—do precisely the opposite. They studiously ignore death while healthy and are caught unprepared when it comes.
On the contrary, Luther understood that spiritual growth is a slow process that takes a lifetime and that facing death is something that has to be learned. This is why he encourages us to think often of our own mortality, to reflect on its cause and consequences and on its ultimate outcome for the Christian—the resurrection of the body. One interesting suggestion on how to do that is to meditate on our own death and when we pass cemeteries.
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John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge, 1.17.10. ↩︎
Throughout this article I refer to the Weimar edition of Martin Luther’s complete works (Weimar Ausgabe or WA). The “Fourteen Consolations” and the famous sermon on preparing to die referred to below are also available in the American edition of Luther’s Works (Concordia Publishing House), vol. 42. ↩︎
“Fourteen Consolations for Them That Are Laboured and Laden” (1519). ↩︎
WA 36, 539. ↩︎
WA 408. ↩︎
WA 118. ↩︎

Jesus is referred to as “the last Adam [who] became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45). He came to crush the head of the serpent and take away sin. He died as the perfect—sinless—sacrifice for the trespasses we have committed. When we are in Jesus, we are safe. When we die and stand before God at the Judgment, He won’t see a sinful descendent of Adam, but rather a “new creation” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Adam is one of the best-known people in the Bible. Despite this, most people only know a few basic facts about him. His connection to every person on the planet, and therefore our need for the Gospel, is outlined below, as are five things about Adam you may not have known before.
1. “Adam” Is Grounded in Hebrew
The word Adam can mean a number of things in Hebrew: mankind, man, and a personal name. For example, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26) uses the word ‘āḏām (אדם) to mean ‘mankind’ (see also Genesis 5:2). This includes men as well as women, who are both made in God’s image. Later, in Genesis 2:7 we read more specifically about the creation of the first man. In this verse, ‘āḏām is preceded by the definite article hā (ה), akin to the English word ‘the’. This man was formed of the dust of the ground. The Hebrew word for ground is ‘ăḏāmâ (אדמה). So, we learn of the man (hā’āḏām) Adam (‘āḏām), made from the ground (‘ăḏāmâ), who is the first of mankind (‘āḏām). Not only do we see God inspiring some play on words, we also think there can be no “better name for the progenitor of all humanity” than Adam.1
2. Dust of the Ground
We, as indeed are all creatures, are not evolving to become better, we are DEvolving and getting worse.
The Bible records that Adam was specifically made from the dust of the ground before God breathed life into him (Genesis 2:7). The Hebrew word for dust is ʿāp̄ār (עפר, pronounced ‘afar’), which conveys the concept of dry earth. Now, Moses didn’t know about the material composition of the human body, or what elements were. Yet, he specifically recorded this detail when compiling the book of Genesis around 3,500 years ago. Today we are able to identify the elements that make up the human body, which can all be found in the dust of the ground. When we die and decompose, we do exactly what the Bible teaches: our bodies return to dust (Genesis 3:19).
Of course, just like baking a designer cake, the right ingredients must not only be present at the right time and in the right quantities, but they also need to be put together with purposeful design and complex organization. It is because God has done this and given mankind reason, intelligence, and consciousness that we have the ability to communicate, to love, perform complex mathematics, to produce beautiful artwork, and to play musical instruments brilliantly. Dust can do none of this, no matter how long you leave it. What we observe of humanity fits the biblical account of creation far better than Darwin’s theory.
3. Men and Women: Same Number of Ribs
Adam didn’t have to spend long in the Garden of Eden on his own. God created for Adam a wife, called Eve. God chose not to create her from the dust of the earth, but rather, from one of Adam’s ribs (Genesis 2:22). Some Bible skeptics have falsely claimed that if this were true, it would mean that “women have one more rib than men”.2 As a result, sometimes they think ‘gotcha’ when they confidently exclaim that men don’t have one rib less than women. Men have exactly the same number of ribs as women—12 pairs.
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