Article #346
by Bill Nugent
Line up any ten people and ask them to define communism and they’ll all get it right. They’ll say “Communism is Government ownership of all private property, one party rule with a dictator at the top, government censorship of all communication.”
Now line up the same ten people and ask them to define fascism and you’ll likely get ten different answers. What is fascism and how could it possibly be relevant for today? I will show you how the Bible condemns fascism and gives the doctrinal basis for just and fair government.
When you boil it all down, however, the real accurate definition of fascism is totalitarianism which means total government control of all aspects of public and private life. When we seek a concise definition of fascism we should look to the most prominent figure in fascism, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), fascist dictator of Italy. His definition of fascism was “Everything inside the state, nothing outside the state.” Communist governments own and control all property. Fascist governments don’t own all property but they control it.
Government control is forging ahead in twenty-first century America. Many people applaud government control of education and many people now also desire total government control of healthcare. America has long had government controlled education in public schools, K through 12, and in all of the state college systems. Would you forgive me if I called our government education monopoly fascist education?
The strong desire for government run healthcare is to make healthcare more accessible to the poor. Their hearts are in the right place but their heads are empty. “Free” healthcare as a government funded benefit for everyone would give the poor access to doctors and clinics but bureaucratic inefficiencies would overwhelm and collapse the system in a few years. This would ultimately mean mediocre healthcare rationed for all. It would also likely mean the outlawing of cutting edge alternative therapies. Vaccines could be forced on all people regardless of religious or medical objections.
Dare I say that national, single payer healthcare is fascist healthcare? Dare I say that the “liberal” politicians of the left are really ideological bedfellows with fascism? Dare I say that fascism and socialism are really synonyms and socialism is really just a euphemism for fascism? I dare! To understand this, let’s take a brief look at the history of fascism.
Fascism was a powerful movement in the first half of the twentieth century that brought on World War II and killed over 50 million people. Fascism was not conquered in 1945. Fascism was no flash in the pan. It’s still with us, alive and well but under different names.
Nobody except shameless racists and extremists call themselves fascists today. The term, fascist is used often as just a synonym for ultra-nationalism. Fascism, however, was much more than nationalism, even from it’s earliest days when Filippo Tommasso Marinetti wrote the Fascist Manifesto in 1919.
Marinetti went on to be an ardent supporter of Benito Mussolini, founder of the Fascist party of Italy, who later became dictator of Italy, who led Italy into World War II on the side of Nazi Germany. The symbol of Italian fascism was the fasces, an ancient Roman symbol comprised of a bundle of rods and an ax tied together with a cord. The symbol represented unity in the bundle of rods and violent power in the ax. Thus the Italian word, fascismo, which is derived from the ancient Latin, fasces, means unity and power. Unity and government power are good things, right? That’s what the people of Italy thought!
Fascism sought to unify Italy around the populist value of nationalism or national identity or hyper-patriotism. Nationalism was the carrot. Coercive government power over every business and institution was the stick. In other words, fascism is government control of all aspects of life. Sounds a bit like socialism, doesn’t it? The word “Nazi” is a contraction of the German word “Nationalsozialismus” meaning “National Socialism.”
While fascism rallies the people together under the populist concept of nationalism, communism rallies the people around the populist concept of their social class as workers. Both fascism and communism appeal to populism as bait and once the people are corralled together and either vote in a fascist government or allow a fascist or communist mob to take over their government, then the stick of coercive government power is wielded.
Fascism is national socialism. Fascism’s cry is “Ein Volk! (one people). Communism is international socialism. Communism’s theme song is “The Internationale.” Communism’s cry is “Workers of the world unite!” Fascism and communism are both terms with which no one wants to be associated today. Fascism and communism are both old-fashioned terms. The new disguises of totalitarianism are progressivism, socialism, Marxism, BLM, liberalism, social democracy and The U.S. Democratic Party. The new populist nationalism of the present incarnation of fascism is black nationalism. Black Lives Matter rallies the people around anti-racism but also openly promotes Marxist totalitarianism.
I once held socialist beliefs when I was in college. I’ve changed my views considerably. However, I still believe the wealthy should pay much more in taxes than they do now. Additionally, all stock and bond purchases should have a 1/4 % transaction tax imposed. This would result in more sensible distribution of wealth.
The Boogaloo Movement of Alt-Right and Neo-Nazi groups usually describe themselves as libertarian, anarchist, pro-gun or anti-government. Their emphasis is to promote racism rather than governmental political philosophy.
The coercive stick of totalitarian government power has, in every instance, suppressed dissent, canceled freedom, and suppressed religion, especially the biblical faiths of Judaism and Christianity. Why is governmental totalitarianism so hostile to the biblical faiths? It’s ultimately because of the Bible’s doctrines of human equality and original sin. What does original sin have to do with government? Everything!!
The Bible’s doctrine of man (anthropology) is that all humans are created equally in the image of God and the individual human’s life is not just valuable but is sacred. The Bible’s doctrine of man also says that humans are not just sinners who fail to keep God’s laws in the Ten Commandments but people are born in sin (Romans 5:12-21). When the first man, Adam, fell into sin, his nature was changed from innocent to sinner. All human souls are descended from Adam’s soul and inherit the sinfulness of Adam from conception. This means that no man, no matter how benevolent, can be trusted with dictatorial power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).
Wherever the Bible has been available to the general public and Christian teaching has been freely preached from church pulpits, totalitarian dictatorship has been destroyed. I’ve often said that the phrase “All men are created equal” which appeared in the US Declaration of Independence in 1776 could not have appeared in a political document 300 years earlier in 1476. Why? Because in 1476, Bibles were all in Latin and chained to church pulpits out of reach of the masses of people.
In 1476 Europe was ruled by absolute monarchs who were kings who ruled by decree. They were hereditary dictators who suppressed all dissent. During the time of the Protestant Reformation, in the 1500s, the Bible was translated into the languages of the people. For the first time in all of world history the Bible was available to millions of people all across the continent of Europe and the Bible was preached from pulpits. The people learned about original sin, meaning the king is a mere sinful man and he can’t be trusted with all power. The Protestant reformer, John Calvin was persecuted for his writings that criticized absolute monarchy.
The people also read the Old Testament account of king David of Israel being chastised by God for his sins of adultery and murder. The mighty king David was treated as a mere sinful man before God. The king was not above God’s law. King David was equal with all other men. The founding fathers of the United States of America wrote a constitution that divided power among three branches and made the rulers subject to election by a Bible believing electorate. They did not concentrate power in any one man, not even George Washington.
Ancient and Medieval Europe was ruled by absolute monarchs because no Bibles were available to the people. The ancient Egyptians worshipped the pharaohs and suffered under their outrageous decrees because they had no Bibles. The despotisms of east Asia suppressed the people with tyranny because the people had no Bibles. Fascism and communism arose in Europe and dictators came to power because the people had gotten away from the Bible and believed in the evolution myth that told them that humans are descended form apes and have no souls and no conscious existence after death. The liberal European theologians denied the doctrine of original sin and claimed all people are basically good.
The secular people who deny God’s existence look to government as their god. Unelected judges in the United States impose abortion and gay marriage as “rights” and curtail religious freedom. What is the remedy to counter the massive political shift towards total government and tyranny? The remedy now, as always, is to proclaim the biblical truths that God is our creator and people are all equal and people are sinners that need to turn to God for salvation. Justices of the Supreme Court are mere sinful people and should not act as a politburo rendering edicts that overturn traditional moral values.
Revelation 13:1-17 predicts the coming of an international totalitarian government ruled by the antichrist. Revelation 12:12-16 predicts a sanctuary in the wilderness for the woman (a prophetic picture of the church). Many commentators say the wilderness is the United States and other wilderness nations like Australia. The US will be a place of refuge and freedom in the end-times during the tribulation. The demonic realm is attacking the US and Australia, trying to turn them into an anti-Christian totalitarian governments under the new fascists. This would prevent the fulfillment of Rev. 12:12-16. We must do spiritual warfare against the demons to preserve religious freedom!
God has given us much proof of His existence and God has given us much proof that the Bible is inspired by God. When Jesus Christ taught His disciples on the hills of Galilee nearly 2,000 years ago He didn’t just say “I’m Jesus, follow Me” but He worked miracles of healing and raised the dead. He gave sight to people blind from birth.
Jesus also fulfilled several hundred prophecies that were written in the Old Testament hundreds of years before His birth. This supernaturally proved that Jesus is the promised Messiah of Israel who came to die for our sins so we, through Him, can receive forgiveness of sins. Over 700 years before Christ, Isaiah the prophet wrote about the ministry of Christ in the following words: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him [Christ] the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
Other prophecies also predicted the Messiah would come to bear the penalty of the sins of the people. Christ suffered, died and rose from the dead to offer forgiveness of sins to all who turn to Him in repentance. I invite you to turn to Christ today to receive forgiveness of sins.
Steps to salvation:
Jesus said “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7).
Prayer to receive salvation:
“Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:13).
To receive the salvation that Jesus purchased for us at the terrible cost of His suffering and death on our behalf I invite you to pray this simple prayer:
“Dear heavenly Father, I thank you for sending Jesus, the promised Messiah, to die for my sins. I admit that I am a sinner. I repent of my sins and I ask for your forgiveness on the basis of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I ask you to fill me with your Holy Spirit to empower me to serve you under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, Amen.”
If you prayed this prayer in the humble sincerity of your heart then you have received everlasting life, which includes power to live right in this life and entrance into heaven in the afterlife!