The Bridge Between Marxism and Maoism

Until now, I've often thought as Proclaimers as the right-wing church who wears all the designer gear but still finds itself yapping at the heals of the mega-church striving to become that paradigm by imitation alone. However, earlier, it occurred to me, that the `Revival` is more socialist - communist even, than I've have thought blogworthy.

Imagine, if you will, a myriad of faceless soldiers lining up for the front-line - an army who doesn't understand the concept of freedom, deny themselves the choice of identity and who bear only the name of their leader across their brow. It occurred to me earlier that rather than Rev. Rawls being the right wing controller to tells people what to do - he is in fact Hu Jintao (or Big Brother, if you will); the revolution: the glorious Red Banners proclaiming the over supplication of the populous (or ingsoc).

And while I could expand on the staggering similarities between Proclaimers and Red China (or as veterans of roughage will remember – Oceana) that occurred to me earlier, I do instead: make reference to how scared I am that in spite of the way free-thinkers (such as myself) are affronted with a Tiananman Square welcome from the Paster - the ambient church of the world does nothing so long as fabricated bonds between church and church are created for the edification of the church en masse.

However, this does inevitably come at the church's convenient ignorance of bloggers and commentators such as myself. In the same way, Carl recently blogged on the frustration of world leaders turning a blind eye to the atrocities in China because it served their purposes to do so. In other words:

The way China is propped up by the trade the West forges with it, ultimately this is the destructive force to the populous of the exploited country. This is because the motives of the main beneficiary are occluded in the interest of international peace and the primary capitalist goals of the wider world stage.

By paraphrase, I am, of course, implying the orthodox evangelical church has a primary objective to `make disciples of all men` Matt 28:19 and while the seeker sensitive performance of Awesome draws in large groups of gentiles who have found a rock concert with a gospel message, the human brains of the wider church are bribed by the numbers. In a far too real sense – they are the New York board members who find their production can multiply beyond Western conceivability if they embrace the aspects of Maoism of convenience to them. And while this sordid façade goes on between the irrepressible and the irresponsible, the only objectivity comes from the powerless commentators, humanitarians and libertarians. I comment on proclaimers because i see it as a danger to society and the church I serve, and Amnesty International raises the awareness of the public to Red China for the same motives (though of course the margins are grossly incomparable).

I don't think my thoughts could be surmised better than than the daddy of all social commentators – Karl Marx: `Capital [or the currency of the church] is dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks`. Expanding on this, Santayana said `a child educated at school is an uneducated child`.*

Without getting carried away with my earlier revelation regarding the social standing of Proclaimers - I read what I could find regarding what my posse Marx and Engels had to say concerning the virtues of society in the far left and from their accounts and from all others I could find on the net, those of Hegel, Trotsky, Tony Cliff, Marx, Engels, Napoleon to name the memorable - ALL accounts make reference to revolution.

Up until now, I have used the word `revolution` in such a casual manor I've taken for granted the deep foundations of the word. Perhaps the pragmatics of the word have undergone some sort of re-alignment in the dizzy heights of the evangelical podia. Or perhaps the words `revolution` and `revival` are illusively synonymous. Or perhaps I affiliate mega-church (and the church pretending to be one) too much with the real world of social interaction or society as a whole.

I cannot think of how Proclaimers (or more accurately, Awesome), from the outset, had anything against which to revolt, except the taboo of the domestic church politics that caused the rift in the church (the church history of the Proclaimers website says only that the forerunners to the revolution were `seeds`). In my research for this blog, I came across this theory by twentieth century Marxist Writer Tony Cliff:

The theory of `Deflected State Capitalism` or `Permanent Revolution`, says crudely, that in the scenario where a state is not sufficiently industrialised for a revolution of the Socialist party (e.g., Cuba - or a politically settled and liberal church i.e. the Proclaimers of old) the Prole form a kind of Worker's Union state which permanently pushes against the Democratic overhead until an ultimate consolidation of the devolved capitalism by the socialist. In other words the *revolution* has bubbled under the surface for a while and eventually manifested as the Awesome Generation.

And why did this happen? I think that's a question best answered by personal opinion.... I don't pretend to hold a torch to WHY the stable loving church of old was overthrown to a machine of extreme left. An overbearing uncompromising mass of Overdriven power chords, DTP, flash, strobes and shouting preaching continually breaking the spirit of the congregation and re-moulding it perfectly to its own hedonistic image. Nor do I know how the church leaders across the city manage to bury their heads in the sand - Or think the realm within the confines of the world as they decide it concerns them is ticking along nicely enough for them to sleep at night.

Perhaps Proclaimers needs only to be aware of the implications of figure heading such a body of people. I wouldn't call it a big gathering (primarily because I'm quite confident Paster Tom's ego doesn't need any more nursing than that except by that of his servants, but also, compared to the church they long for, the gathering even by their standards, is not immense). Implications of figure heading such a people is an apt enough term. Not only does it take into account the accountability they must face for the essays like this one, but also the responsibility they have to the people who have given so much.... My two cents is until they treat the congregation as the mass of individuals that they are, instead of the resource of nameless Awesomeites they've become – they're less of a church and more of a commune. (and thus governed by those politics).





* though for the sake of conversation, I found out recently that Santayana was also credited with saying `Nearly every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it`. Wise words indeed.