It has been 24 hours (roughly) since the Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk. It has emerged that items in shooters’ possession confirm they were, as I initially believed, part of the “Radical Left.” Now, there is no point in using a term if it can’t be defined. So, in my definition, the “Radical Left” consists of three key markers:

1. A desire for revolution to upend the structure, institutions, and cultural and religious norms of a society.
2. A belief that what should follow in its place will be a utopia of sorts (spoiler alert: it never works).
3. A historical pedigree or belief in radical leftist ideals, such as Marx, the Frankfurt school, or radical Feminism, coupled with a desire to implement these ideas.

You may think that isn’t very accurate. Still, in reality, the far left consists of many disparate groups that don’t always align (an example of this is “Trans-Exclusionary Feminism” vs. Trans-right activist).

So what do Christians need to know about the “Radical Left”? Well, this post is designed to give a bit of history and explain that the movements and ideologies that make up the modern “Radical Left” have long hated Christianity and have desired to suppress its influence. I also wish to clear the ideas that the “Radical Left” is inherently anti-Christian and that the revolution they want to bring about and the utopia they desire to usher in will persecute, and if it were in their power, destroy Christianity.

One other caveat, I am writing this because, and perhaps naively, I think people are ready to hear this. This post is so that Christians understand and primarily know how to pray and what kind of forces are at work against the Church. I encourage everyone who reads this to pray for the repentance of many “Radical Leftists”.

1. It is common lore that Karl Marx was once asked who he most disliked; his answer was C.H. Spurgeon. This is likely just lore, but it represents something that should be understood. Marx was a contemporary of both Thomas Chalmers of the Free Church of Scotland and C.H. Spurgeon, and Marx was known for his dislike and critique of both of them. In fact, Marx’s dislike of Chalmers seemed to stem in simple terms from the fact that Chalmers wanted the Church to be an agent of charity during the Industrial Revolution, which Marx thought would appease and aid the poor, making revolution less attainable.

2. Frederich Engels, the co-founder of Marxism, along with Karl Marx, earliest writings against German Reformed minister F.W. Krummacher. Engels’ problem with Krummacher was essentially that he refused to speak out strongly against the Government, coupled with the fact that the Gospel he preached left people content with their suffering, seeing political and social problems as part of God’s Providence with a Spiritual dynamic that Engels despised. He wanted the people to be discontent so they would rise in a revolution.

3. Marx did, in fact, say religion was “the opium of the masses”, but the fuller quote is worth reading: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”- Marx in his Introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.

4. The Frankfurt School, which developed later and was the birthplace of “Cultural Marxism” as we know it, continued in the vein of seeing religion as an element of control, but also thought it could, in the right circumstances, be co-opted as a vehicle for critique and ultimately revolution. If you want to look into this, dive into “Liberation-Theology”, for example.

5. The Frankfurt School, again, the birthplace of modern “cultural marxism”, argued for the sexual revolution as a means of undermining the family. Understand that Critical Theory is just that “Critical” of everything. It doesn’t build, it just criticises and seeks to destroy. One of the institutions that the Frankfurt School wanted to target was the family, because destroying the family would uproot society. So don’t be surprised when you see the radical left arguing for everything from promiscuous sexual education teaching to abortion- sexual norms and the family must be destroyed.

6. Radical Feminism was no exception to the radical religious hatred of the Marxists. Westerners have been taught about the heroic struggles of the Suffragettes in the Commonwealth, as well as those of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in the United States. Sadly, some of the things these women believed were horrifying and anti-Christian. For example, early “First Wave Feminists”, while not necessarily pro-abortion, were strongly pro-birth control and saw the concept of “Voluntary Motherhood” as key to the success of their movement. “Voluntary Motherhood” involved a woman’s total autonomy over whether she wanted children, and also liberated her from the traditional obligations of marriage. “Voluntary Motherhood” was a key to breaking the “patriarchal hold” on society by not having sexual intercourse tied to childbearing. This plainly goes against the Bible’s teaching on sex and marriage.

7. American suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton published a two-volume work called the Woman’s Bible, which sought to undermine the orthodoxy of the Bible and cast women in a more favourable light. She felt one of the major forces driving women’s subjection was Christianity, and wanted to change the religion to align more with her more egalitarian views. So yes, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the American Suffrage Heroine, hated Christianity and wanted to gut its historic teaching to accomplish her political ends.

8. There is a massive debate about the stance that the early “Suffragettes” had on abortion. One thing is clear, though: while many did not outright argue for it, their movement and concept of “voluntary motherhood” did set the stage for the debate when society moved further beyond its Christian moorings. Modern Abortion advocates often argue that the Suffragettes would be favourable to abortion, while pro-life advocates argue that they were anti-abortion. Read up on the debate if you want to know more.

9. The Suffragettes were against the traditional family. Sadly, this is true. The Suffragettes felt the traditional family was part of oppressing women and keeping them in submission to male authority.

10. The modern “radical left” is a varied myriad of desperate groups that have furthered and synthesised much of what I have just laid out. While they do not always agree, I believe that the honest observer will find a uniformity in views related to Christianity and many social institutions, such as the family, the Church, and the state.

So you may have read this and think how radical. I am not trying to be radical, but simply to say that our complacency with some of these ideas and lack of understanding of the ideological roots of the modern “Radical Left” makes the Church and the average Christian worse off.