As one commentator concluded recently, “While Marxism has failed spectacularly in politics, it has succeeded spectacularly in culture.” The senseless arrogance expressed by Bishop’s regime forty years ago is replicated today by the Pentagon’s CRT-DEI-touting leadership. Apparently, U.S. defense leaders believe no crushing of military members’ civil liberties can be committed in the name of liberating the so-called oppressed. Mandated diversity trainings, preferred pronouns and discouraged terms, and experimental drugs (formerly “vaccines”) are but three examples – lowering morale/cohesion and combat readiness and reducing the ranks in a military assessed by the respected Heritage Foundation as “weak.”

In 1974, the British granted independence within the Commonwealth to the tiny eastern Caribbean Island of Grenada, known as the Isle of Spice (especially for its nutmeg). Under Prime Minister Eric Gairy, an increasingly repressive police force and an extralegal private militia checked Grenadians’ civil unrest in the lush tropical “paradise” that it was for the tourists who provided revenues to Gairy’s coffers. To most islanders, however, Gairy ran “a hateful little dictatorship.”
In 1979, a small group of intellectuals pulled off a nearly bloodless coup, toppling a regime described as “a populist/black power revolutionary movement gone wrong.” Anthony P. Maingot wrote in Caribbean Review that the New Jewel (Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation) Movement, “schooled in various revolutionary tracts and rhetoric, quickly shed their vague romantic . . . program of a people’s democracy and turned to an attitude of: we love the people and know what is best for them and so must guide their affairs” [emphasis added].
It was precisely the arrogant, self-congratulatory attitude of the “Anointed” described by brilliant and prodigious Professor Thomas Sowell – who once considered himself a Marxist.
Opinions varied on the nature and intentions of the People’s Revolutionary Government, whose leader, Maurice Bishop, became the new prime minister. One writer called Bishop’s brand of socialism, “documentary radicalism.” With good reason, others viewed the movement – self-described as Leninist and using the term “Politburo” – as more than rhetorical in nature. (Maurice named his son Vladimir Lenin Bishop; tragically, he died as a teenager in a Toronto nightclub.) In any case, the Bishop regime caught the attention of both the Carter (1977-1981) and Reagan administrations. The Cold War’s East-West rivalry guaranteed Washington’s concern, especially in view of Fidel Castro’s socialist Cuba and the similar threat to regional stability coming from Nicaragua.
Under Bishop’s regime, British military officer and historian Mark Adkin wrote, “Any sign of ‘imperialist’ characteristics in a person weighed heavily against him.” In some cases, the result was what Grenadians called “heavy manners,” a term that included imprisonment, torture, or even death. While, admittedly, Bishop managed to improve health care, housing, and literacy for many Grenadians, during the doctrinaire regime’s four-and-a-half-year rule roughly 1 percent of the populace was detained for political transgressions.   

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Written by Dr. Jeffery J Ventrella |
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Worshipping the State is not inevitable; trashing the State is not inevitable. Rather, with moral clarity, moral conviction, and moral courage, Christians can—and should—seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, including public righteousness,  rendering to Caesar those things—and only those things—which are his.

We have no king but Caesar[1]
Especially those of Caesar’s household[2]
Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s[3]
God the Creator is a God of purpose, design, and order. His Creation is structured and ordered[4] and He requires the collective conduct of those worshipping Him to be done “decently and in order.”[5] What about society in general beyond the ecclesiastical realm? Here’s a hint: After liberating His enslaved people, God gave them law to structure and order society.[6] Liberty evidently requires order and structure, not radical autonomy with unfettered “freedom,”[7] or anarchy. This raises the question: What is the role of the State? If Caesar is the only king, should Caesar be functionally imbued with God-like attributes reaching, regulating, and even redeeming every crevice of society?  Alternatively, if Caesar is not the only king, should Christians just ignore or even despise the State? How should we view the State and its role today? Is it Savior, Suspect, or Servant? Lies that live distort the answers to these questions. Let’s get to the gist.
The State as Savior?
No pious Christian would ever crassly confess that the State is Savior; only Christ is savior, Yet, our conduct can often betray our confession. Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine a disaster, any disaster: Hurricane, tornado, wildfire, floods, pandemic, et al – anytime these occur, the knee jerk reaction functionally looks to the State to remedy the situation. And, even when not facing an emergent situation – education, health care, housing, poverty, inflation, social media, et al, the “first call” for solving societal issues seems to be the State, and in reality, its taxpayers.
Increasingly, the gut reaction of many citizens looks to the State to fix things. This reaction, however, is based on a lie for several reasons. First, the nature of the State is coercive; it bears the power of the sword.[8] Put in more concrete terms: What do we really want officials with guns and bazookas to do? Accordingly, whatever the State touches will be subject to coercion; its only operative mode is inherently coercive. If this power is not defined and confined, it will, over time, reduce citizens to being subjects, restricting or eliminating liberty to innovate and otherwise flourish. When this occurs, the cultural mandate is stunted, undermining one of man’s purposes.[9] Dictatorships may profit select individuals, but rarely, if ever, do they prosper a people as a whole: compare North Korea with South Korea.
Second, the State can never possess sufficient power and knowledge to salvifically regulate a nation into prosperity, let alone righteousness. To think otherwise embraces a utopian delusion and lives a lie. A State may gain or acquire significant power, but that power—no matter how significant—can never rival the Gospel’s power to rescue, heal, and save. It alone is the “power of God for salvation to everyone.”[10]
And, even setting aside the State’s lack of power for generating eternal consequences, the State lacks both efficient and sufficient knowledge to make viable temporal differences concerning human action and economics.[11] Managed economies are always mediocre economies doomed with persistent shortages, wide inflationary swings, and higher unemployment. The fundamental lie here is that it mis-orders the nature of productivity: Production must precede Consumption, not vice versa which all Keynesian managed solutions impose.[12]
When the State is viewed as Savior and deploys its coercive power to impose price controls, rent control, crony capitalistic deals, tariffs, wage regulation, taxes, etc., based on this lie, economies—and human flourishing—diminishes. As we shall see, the State cannot save even temporally because it was never designed nor purposed to save. Yet, recognizing this truth often leads to another enslaving lie: maybe the State should be viewed not through utopian glasses as Savior, but through a cynical lens, as a necessary evil. Christians are told to reject and avoid the State since “politics is dirty,” always viewing the State with suspicion, cynicism, and skepticism.
The State as Suspect?
Maybe this quip only appeals to legal and political nerds, but it illustrates a point:
Did you hear about the Libertarian’s proposal to revise the 1stAmendment?Here’s the new language: “Congress shall make no law PERIOD!”
The idea here is that the State should do next to nothing; in fact some Libertarians actually believe in nearly zero State action.[13] The assumption is that the State lacks competency or even moral illegitimacy for protecting and structuring ordered liberty. Libertarians instead believe that the unfettered market best orders society and solves its coordination problems. Libertarians are half right.
First, as the next section will show, the Biblical truth is that the State is both legitimate and limited – so far so good. However, while Scripture presupposes the morality of liberty-based markets,[14] it is the virtuous market that Scripture embraces. Saying “markets are good” is not to say “all markets are good.” Unconstrainted markets such as those that Libertarians promote, operate to feed sinful man’s appetites. In other words, there always will be markets, that is, demand, for bad things that compromise or undermine human flourishing and ordered liberty: drugs, gambling, sex trafficking, child pornography, contract murder, fencing stolen property, stealing or forging art masterpieces[15], medically mutilating and disfiguring children presenting with gender dysphoria[16], et al. Relying solely on markets absent a moral compass ultimately leads to systematizing moral weakness and corruption.
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Written by Dr. David S. Steele |
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
Our response to unbelief is crucial.  The world is watching.  May our apologetics match the biblical model.  And may we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in a winsome and compelling way.  For in the final analysis, all of God’s elect will hear and believe.

Unbelief is in the air.  Unbelief is gaining ground in postmodern culture.  Over 100 years ago, the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great innermost corruption, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means is poisonous, stealthy, subterranean, small enough – I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind.”
The bankrupt philosophy of the so-called four horsemen of atheism continues to gain in popularity.  Why?  Apparently, unbelief is in.  Unbelief is hip.  But the question that is burning a hole in the table for Christians is this: How shall we respond to unbelief?  How shall we who have a heart for lost people answer when they malign the Christian faith and mock the very foundations of historic Christianity?
The apostle Peter instructs believers to respond rightly: “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15, ESV).  In other words, we must develop the mindset of an apologist (ἀπολογία).  John Frame’s definition of apologetics of helpful: Apologetics is “the discipline that teaches Christians how to give a reason for their hope … it is the application of Scripture to unbelief.”  Cornelius Van Til writes, “Apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life against the various forms of the non-Christian philosophy of life.”  Tragically, the mandate to engage in apologetics often turns ugly.  Well-meaning Christians have turned apologetics into a nasty slug fest.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Notice six crucial principles of biblical apologetics.
Apologetics Involves Verbal Proclamation
Christians are commanded to proclaim the good news.  The Greek word, “proclaim”  (κηρύσσω) means to announce or proclaim; to preach or publish.”  St. Francis of Assisi was on to something when he quipped, “Preach the gospel and if necessary, use words.”  The point: Make sure your life matches the gospel.  However, actions alone cannot convert.  Actions must be backed up with verbal proclamation.  “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17, ESV).  Simply put, the gospel is meant to be published.  The gospel must be proclaimed.  Postmodern gurus and emergent sympathizers may be quick to downplay preaching and promote a “deeds not creeds” mentality.  Jesus disagrees: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to the nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14, ESV).  The first principle of apologetics involves verbal proclamation.

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