History of the Communist Use of Church and Religion (Reading) — Richard Wurmbrand

Reading from the New Testament book of Jude verse 2 3 and 4 Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation It was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith Which was once delivered unto the Saints for?

There are certain men crept in unawares Who were before of all ordained to this condemnation ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ,.

Communism’s Contradictory Attitude Toward Religion

I want to speak to you on the subject the history of the communist use of the church and Religion. A quick look into communism and. The individual will find himself faced with a host of contradictions.

The entire communist system Seems oftentimes to contradict itself. They often do things that contradict what they say and Say things that contradict what they do. This of course only serves to deeply confuse and further confuse the casual observer of this thing called international communism, however.

We need to realize that the communists have deliberately and pre Meditatedly planned it to have this effect upon those of us who casually Observe. Let me give you first of all a series of quotations from leading communist textbooks Which reveal the basic attitude of true communism?

Toward all churches and all religions be they true or false. Karl Marx in the writing called secret societies of Switzerland says quote. We make war against all ideas of religion of the state of the country and patriotism.

The idea of God is the keystone of a perverted civilization. It must be destroyed. The true source of liberty of equality of culture is atheism. Mousy tongue in the sayings of Chairman Mao says. There is no God other than the Chinese people.

Marx in the Communist Manifesto says our program abolishes eternal truth. It abolishes all religions. Anatole Linnikov ski a former lecturer of education in the University of Lenin at Moscow says quote we communist hate Christians and Christianity.

Even the best of them is to be considered our worst enemy. They preach peace Love and mercy to one's neighbor, which is contrary to communist principles. Christian love is an obstacle to the communist revolution.

Down with love of neighbor. What we communist want is hate only then Can we conquer the. Lenin says in his book socialism and religion quote. Religion is a sort of spiritual alcohol. He says again in the same book on page 24.

We must fight religion. Lenin says again in the same book on page 20. Marxism is hostile to every religion. Lenin in his letters to Maxim Gorky says. Pestilences diseases and Natural catastrophes are to be preferred to any notion of God.

Karl Marx in his writing the critic of Hegel says religion is the opium of the people. Now friends. I have just given you a series of quotation from the world's leading communist textbooks and writings and Please believe me these quotations reveal the true, but often hidden attitude of genuine communism toward all churches and all Religions.

Communist Claims of Religious Freedom

We hear these quotations. You who are listening hear me say this and then we're faced with a contradiction within the last 10 years. We have seen clergymen and bishops and metropolitans and layman's and various denominational leaders streaming out of the communist control lands into our Western free world and We hear them spout out their wonderful stories of religious freedom in these communist countries.

We perhaps have talked to tourists who have been into the communist lands and visited the pack churches with hundreds of singing their hymns and having their meetings and Perhaps the tourists have visited their Bible colleges and we hear various world religious figures Speak of how there is freedom communist control countries especially freedom of religion in many of them.

And that this business being spouted out by certain Christian anti-communist groups and Christian governments and Christian organizations about Communism oppresses religion. It's against religion. They say it's simply not so.

They tell us that communism has changed its basic feeling and attitude toward religion. Well, what is the answer to this contradiction? Has communism changed from the original view that I've just quoted from this series of famous textbooks?

Have they see the communists suddenly allowing churches and bishops and pastors and clergymen Coming to the free world and being voted into various religious organizations Such as the Central and Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches and the World Peace Conference and the World Brotherhood Organizations do.

What does all of this mean? Perhaps communism has changed some tell us. Is this so. Listen to this. Communism has deliberately planned it premeditated method of operation Communism in seeking to reach its goal of final world conquest they in their process of dialectical advancement to this goal can actually hate and curse the church and religion while at the same time praising it and Allowing it to exist under their control.

It has been said that the communists can speak out of both sides of their mouth at the same time. It has been said that they have the hands of Esau but the voice of Jacob and only when we of the free world understand that their basic attitude toward the church any and all religions has not really changed and When it has changed it has changed to deceive us.

To make fools out of the Western people of the free world and to further deceive them while they Sharpen the knife with which to cut our throats. It was the eye linen father of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 who said If we communists must shake a man's hand In order to get to his throat We will shake his hand.

And to those who listen to this tape, I want to say That in no place is this red handshaking so obvious as It is in the field of religion. But remember when they have finished shaking our hands They will reach now.

Lenin’s First Infiltration of the Churches

Let me explain to you briefly the first attempt of communism to infiltrate the churches. The earliest attempt to infiltrate and control the churches are used them for their purposes. Takes us back to the year 1922 in Leningrad Russia.

Lenin's efforts After he came in power in 1917 to stamp out religion and the church proved very fruitless. Christians still existed though. They met under persecution and torture and slave labor and secretly Lenin finally struck out a special plan he called together a group of radical apostate Russian Orthodox priests called the living church movement and He gave special instructions to these trusted Unbelievers hiding behind the cloak of the faith.

He sent these trained traitors back into their churches to preach that communism really was the friend of the church and That in reality God and Jesus Christ of the Christians were basically Socialist and communist themselves and that it could be proven from the Bible.

For example these apostate traitors these clergymen went back to their churches and they told their poor depressed congregations as they preached the event of Jesus driving the money changers from the temple and they said see Christ is against the rich.

He's against private ownership. While here in our Bible he takes the whip and drives them from the temple. They would take the illustration of the rich young farmer in Luke 12. When God spoke to him after he gathered earth's possessions together and God said thou fool.

This night thy soul shall be required of thee. These apostate priests preached a new message to their congregation. They said see God himself is against the capitalist in the bourgeois. For here he pronounces the death sentence on this man and he strikes him dead in the night.

They said see here is scriptural scriptural proof that God and Jesus Christ are both socialist and communist. The rich man in Luke 16 who died and went to hell was taken as a classic example of the proof that God was socialist and Communistic and it was this new perverted message taken from Holy Scripture.

That these religious renegades preached to their congregations. This friends was the first attempt of the Communists to infiltrate and sway the loyalty and allegiances of Christians to their cause and I must say amongst those who were uninformed who did not know.

Stalin’s Use of the Russian Orthodox Church

Some believe this perverted and poisoned message used as a tool of communism during the mid -30s. Joseph Stalin was the chief leader of the Communist Party took the place of power. In 1924 at the death of Lenin in the mid -30s to the late 30s Stalin Launched a mass purge of all of Russia.

Countless millions fell before his firing squad. That was busy day and night. Over 70 of his army Navy Air Force and Military leaders were either shot or sent into slave labor. During this mass Stalinist purges Stalin virtually swept Russia free of its generals and defensive.

He was to soon pay for this. In June 22nd 1941 Adolf Hitler's infantry swept into Russia and almost swallowed the entire Soviet Union. Stalin panicked. For when he hurried to his army his Navy and his military He saw the era of his previous mistake.

He found upon calling upon his military men to muster his forces to defend the Soviet Union. That there were few if any who could call the defensive forces together. He had most of them shot and exiled a few years previous by 1943.

The Germans were at the very door of Leningrad. Stalin knew that he was finished. He panicked thousands of Russians were actually deserting his army and Going over to the Germans to fight against him and I might add that I have personally met men.

Who did this? Stalin knew that he must do something quick or he was finished and The Soviet Union would become under the control of Nazism. Finally Stalin hit on an idea. He remembered that back in 1927 that he had made the friendship of a leading priest of the Russian Orthodox Church the largest church and the influential church in Russia this priest named Sergei.

He remembered how that Sergei had actually capitulated or came over to his that is the communist cause and Now Stalin hit on an idea. It was an idea enhanced with religion. Stalin knew that if he could rally the religious notions Of the downtrodden people of Russia.

He could perhaps defeat the German forces. So what did he do? He called in the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and he made some promises call the people of Russia to rally and save their fatherland from the Germans and then My party will work with religion.

We'll make some changes. Things will be different. We'll open some seminaries. We'll let you consecrate some bishops. We'll even give you permission to publish some church papers, but quickly. Call the people of Russia to rally and save our country from the forces of Adolf Hitler.

Well to make a long story short Stalin's deal was accepted and Sergei Laid his finger upon the religious devotions of the people of the Soviet Union and they did rally. And with this Stalin Soviet Union and I might add his bloodthirsty communist conspiracy was saved.

Stalin saw the advantages and wisdom of this move later on in September 1943 we had Communist Party call for a general meeting of religious groups. The Communist Party appointed a major general Gigi Karpov as Director of this group called the all-russian Council of Ministers.

Incidentally Karpov was a major general in the communist secret police. This major general in the secret police soon gathered all religious bodies that wished to cooperate with the party under his red wings.

He established 100 branch offices throughout the Soviet Union he under Stalin and through the religious stooge patriarch Sergia Gave orders to and begin to put their red hands to the throat of the churches of the Soviet Union.

It was with this move that many of the churches of the Soviet Union came out of hiding. Were fool enough to believe that they could trust the mass murder of Stalin the secret agent General Karpov. It was here that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union stopped handshaking with religion and put its hands to its throat in.

It was here that the churches and religions of the Soviet Union became a state communist control tool for the party. Karpov was in charge. Under him was Sergia and under Sergio was another favorite comrade him in Pokrovsky.

Pokrovsky had charge of all the Protestant groups. They were all banded together and they were appointed a leader. For example, the Baptist had the traitor Jacob Zidkoff as their leader. The Armenians had the traitor georgians as their leader.

The Lutherans had their traitor term. The Calvinist were appointed a faithful leader faithful to the party by the name of Krinkus and. So the story went and the various churches of the Soviet Union Found themselves under the control of the Communist Party and the Communist Party being directed by the mass murderer Stalin.

Communist Control of International Church Organizations

One year later in the year 1944 May We're told that strange things begin to happen. The puppet Sergio died. Metropolitan Alexia of Leningrad in Gorky was the stooge Appointed by the Communist Party to take his place on February the 2nd 1945 the greatest Ecclesiastical show ever staged in Russia was held when this faithful communist religious stooge was inducted into office.

Delegates from all over the free world were invited and some did attend the new religious tool Alexia Simply stepped into the empty shoes of his counterpart Sergio and He began to praise his leader Stalin as a great patriot as a man who was a blessing to the religions of the Soviet Union.

Right under Alexia was a second stooge called Metropolitan Nicolae. His entire record is one of lies subversion and betrayal of the true Christians. He was a member of the phony Stockholm Peace Conference of Communist controlled Organizations in his speeches of which I have English copies.

He continually praised the mass murderers Lenin and Stalin of the Communist Party. Nikolai I made a religious political move in I did certain American churchmen top American clergyman to attend a Special meeting being held in the Soviet Union and in early 1956 dr. Eugene Carson Blake former general secretary of the World Council of Churches attended this meeting sponsored by Communist faithful Nikolai on behalf of visiting American clergyman.

These stupid clergymen were wined and dined faithfully by their communist counterparts and when they returned to America they spouted from one end of the states to the other The praise for what the communist system had done for the Soviet Union.

But upon returning to America Dr. Blake returned the invitation of Nikolai and now invited Nikolai to come to America. Nikolai came under the sponsorship of the modernistic National Council of Churches.

He was wined and dined by the American liberals and apostates and the modernistic Leaders of the apostate wing of American faith and Then of course as a result of these exchange visits the door began to swing wider and wider for communist control religious influence to penetrate deeper into our churches our religious and Christian organizations and to further deceive those of these Organizations who do not really know communism.

In the year 1948 at Amsterdam Holland the World Council of Churches was officially formed. At this meeting there were a few communist leaders, especially from China. In 1961 in New Delhi a third meeting of the World Council of Churches was held and At this meeting communist controlled churches were given full membership into the World Council of Churches.

Is it was at this meeting in New Delhi in 1961? That the goal toward which the communists had slowly and carefully worked was attained. They had courted the friendship of the religious leaders of the Western free world.

They had deceived them in exchange visits they had made fools of them by hiding the true purposes and intentions and works of communism and now in New Delhi India 1961 By a vote where there was no debate and discussion allowed as to whether or not communist representatives from communist churches should be received into membership was enacted and At this meeting the Russian Polish Bulgarian and Romanian Orthodox churches were taken into full membership of the WCC.

It was with this move that the entire leadership of the World Council of Churches became communist or communist used to further the purposes through religion of the international communist Conspiracy.

Purposes of Religious Infiltration

The question is often asked what are the purposes and Why do the communists infiltrate and get into positions of religious? Organizations what good does this do them? With your permission, please may I explain to you precisely why?

They send their specially trained bishops their KGB agents who carry Bibles and smile and talk about the grace of God and religious freedom and Reconciliation and the the removal of all injustices and peace and disarmament.

Let me show you what they seek to do. By getting into the world's leading religions and religious organizations, and they're exerting their influence first. They often get into these places and there slowly, but surely Discredit the truth of the Bible.

Now this leaves the worshippers and the Christians of the free world floundering as They are now being told that the Bible that they love and trust it seems to be false untrustworthy and some parts unreliable.

A Document captured back in the Korean War reveals. This is a communist purpose. It says quote Communists must infiltrate the churches and replace reveal religion. That means the true faith with social religion.

We must discredit the Bible and stress the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a religious crutch in the quote a Second purpose of getting in is to influence the people the members of that religious organization.

Such as the millions of people that are influenced through the World Council of Churches. To influence these people to make certain political decisions are to vote against certain persons or things That will favor the cause of communism.

Another purpose and this is carefully linked with the one just given is to voice an opinion that will influence the Undedicated and intellectual youth of the churches. To get themselves involved in such things as anti Vietnam marches poverty demonstrations civil right displays Nonviolent exhibitions and so forth to encourage the young men to be conscientious objectors to oppose conscription or military training in the army to oppose a government that programs as censorship or anti-communist arms in its planning.

The Social Gospel and Personal Salvation

Another purpose of getting into various religious organizations and expressing their opinion through these organizations back to the membership churches and Is to preach a social gospel and I think that I could say that here we're facing one of the most serious threats of the present time especially within the ranks of the World Council of Churches and associate bodies and National Council of Churches especially a Social gospel is being preached today such as never before.

This is really a gospel of communism. For the social gospel places the emphasis upon the material needs of a person and The social gospel preacher are the social gospel church are the social gospel religious organization says something like this.

See half the world is rich and the other half is poor and we believe that we should take from those that have and Give to those that have not. We should distribute all things equally and then we have solved all of Earth's problems.

In reality, this is godless communistic socialism wearing a religious mask. This is the social gospel and to those of you who hear this tape on the history of the communist use of religion. Let me impress upon you to beware and to watch your minister your clergyman your do many Your religious leaders and see if they put the emphasis upon the material and economic conditions and needs of man or See if they put the emphasis where it should be put and that is upon the fact that man is a sinner.

That he's lost that he needs to be saved and when he's changed by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. That this is the beginning of the solving of the problems that do exist. Watch out for the communist Social gospel there is another purpose in the communist slipping into large religious bodies and then Expressing their influence down through publications and statements and proclamations.

Division, Revolution, and Political Agitation

Back to the denominational groups that belong to these bodies. For example, the World Council of Churches the communists seek when necessary to create situations of ill and split to cause personality clashes hate distrust and violence that finally will spill over into anarchy.

They preach the need constantly for a Revolution to change the existing order of things. They take the side of the draft Dodger. They take the side of the modernist the apostate the socials the liberals the infidels.

They constantly seek to blame capitalism. They constantly point a finger into the face of those who have worked honestly and legitimately and It's saved and acquired through proper Christian channels the goods of this world and They try to blame them for all of Earth's ills.

They refuse to take into consideration that some people refuse to work an honest day's work. Refuse to get off of their backside and go out yonder and get a job that their families may be provided for.

The communist social gospelers preach that there must be a potato in every pot money in every bank account a car in every garage and then through this Socialistic distribution will solve all of Earth's goods.

May I say that today? We're hearing is never before so much talk about Reconciliation through the Baptist World Alliance Through the World Council of Churches and through various other Organizations. I realized that in these groups some good men are deceived into saying these things but the fact remains that they are saying them and it's having its deceiving influence and the fact further remains that it's time that we Christians told the truth and Strip the deceiving face and masks off of these words of red Dialectical materialism that are changing the devotions loyalties and allegiances of people.

Beware of the proclamations of certain church councils. Beware of the statements being made by certain leaders in the South African Council of Churches in the British Council of Churches in the National Council of Churches in the African Council of Churches.

Because these proclamations are really a hand down from the communist agents who are in top positions and many of these men are Making these statements and deceiving the good people who are citizens of these various countries.

They use the pulpit to spout out their communistic socialistic Christ denying Bible denying truth denying Propaganda and it is our responsibility as believers to learn the truth to be informed that we might enter into this battle.

The Gospel That Preserves the Underground Church

It was the island in who said we communist will find our most fertile field for infiltration of communism within the field of religion for religious people of all people are the most gullible and Religious people will swallow anything if it is hidden in religious.

True is that statement from the mouth of a lying communist? Religious people will swallow anything if it is sprinkled down with a little statement of God's love reconciliation racial injustices equality Salvation in the context of socialism and Marxism.

My friend the truth of the matter is this there is one gospel that has kept the church pure. There is one gospel that has kept the church free from the shackles of communism. The underground Church of Russia of Bulgaria of Albania of China of North Korea Has not succumbed to the hammer and sickle and the red star of communism.

Because this noble and shining example of the true faith knows Jesus Christ in saving converting power and Have refused to bow the knee to godless communism. Even though its agents and stooges may take on a clerical gown or a Bible.

They know the devil and his devices. They realize that certain men have crept into the church and under the citadel of truth and There they're subverting the very institution of which the gates of hell shall not prevail.

Personal Faith in Jesus Christ

Where do you stand. Are you a true Christian? Do you know the Christ that has kept the underground church alive? Do you know him in living reality and personal experience in your own life if you don't?

You need to know him you need to know him as this broadcast comes to an end. Won't you come to this Christ? Won't you trust him as your Savior? Won't you renounce this liberalistic socialistic modernistic?

This false gospel that denies the truth that men must be saved and changed on the inside. That a black man must be changed on the inside that a white man must be that a poor man and a rich man must be.

And Then this is the first step in correcting the problems that exist today. I Refuse to believe and refuse to subscribe to the socialistic pacifistic modernistic gospel of Communism we take our stand with those that Jude said.

They must contend for the faith once delivered to the same. There you have it a brief sketch of the history of the communist use of religion. They're using it today. Their clergyman their bishops their pastors State approved are simply tools to deceive those who do not truly know their basic intention.

When they finally take over. Toward all religions and churches. Let us count ourselves and have ourselves humbly identified With the group of those who are conservative who are right-wingers who are fundamentalist who love our freedom our flag our nation our land our church our Bible and.

First we'll fight communism on our knees in prayer and from behind our pulpits. And if it ever comes to the place, we'll fight communism with a rifle in our hands. May God grant the latter will never come.

May he grant us grace to win this battle on our knees. Thank you for listening. This lecture has been brought to you by Christian mission to the communist world. For further information literature and details write post office box 6054 Johannesburg South Africa.

Speaking in the name of Jesus Christ the living Savior. I recommend him to you on this occasion.