Home Christian News ‘Enemies Within the Church’ Targets Christian Institutions as Marxist, Names SBC Leaders

‘Enemies Within the Church’ Targets Christian Institutions as Marxist, Names SBC Leaders

Once the religious right came to the cultural forefront, these leftist, academic elites began to fly under the radar, slowly subverting Christian ideals through their teaching at places like Wheaton College and Fuller Theological Seminary, according to Harris. 

This is why Everett Piper, the former president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, said that there are few Christian colleges or universities he would recommend. In fact, he would rather send his children to state institutions where “at least you know who the wolves are.”

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Michael Hichborn, President of the Lepanto Institute, argued that this is the same way communists infiltrated the Catholic Jesuit tradition. Because the Jesuits were highly educated, they used their elitist philosophy to promote communist ideals, which gave way to the order’s social justice emphasis. Hichborn says that this is what is now happening to American evangelicalism. 

Redefining Terms

One of the major themes of the film is the claim that while Marxists within the church claim to root their calls for justice and equity in Scripture, they are merely using biblical terms but intentionally changing their meanings. For example, the film claims that enemy evangelicals have taken terms like “love” and “justice,” emptied them of their biblical context, and filled them with communistic meanings. 

“Social justice is a euphemism for Marxism — ‘fairness’ — the same basic outcomes,” said Kevin McGary, President of the Frederick Douglass Foundation of California. “And so many of our churches, and especially our urban churches, they’re encouraging people to look at the things of this world and bemoan the relative position that we have within our community.”

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“White privilege…is a misnomer,” said McGary. Loudon argued that the idea of white privilege is rooted in Chinese communism. Loudon did not provide documentary evidence to support this claim. 

Gordon argued that the next logical step to these ideas is the persecution of Christians, citing that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has executed Christians for having Bibles. 

“Liberation theology is Marxism with a Christian veneer,” said Loudon. “It was a 100 percent invention of the KGB.” Again, Loudon did not provide evidence to support this claim, nor the implication that anyone who promotes social equity necessarily subscribes to liberation theology.

The documentary also insinuated that “woke” evangelicals are heavily invested in social justice causes for the sake of money and power, weaving a conspiracy theory about George Soros funding leftists among evangelicals throughout the film. This theory is not fully fleshed out in the film but alluded to multiple times.