Socialism Is a False Religion. That’s Why It Kills the True One. Every Time.

Two of the leading Democratic candidates for president are pretty openly socialist. The rest won’t cop to the label, but favor identical policies. More government giveaways, not just for citizens but anyone who shows up, after sneaking across the border. More taxes and redistribution. Greater control in Washington of more aspects of our lives. More power for the secular state, and therefore less freedom or funds for private citizens and their churches. A pink fog of domination, floating across the country, choking out our choices.

Why should this disturb us not just as citizens but as Christians? The answer isn’t that socialism always produces economic disaster. That’s true, of course. And we shouldn’t wish impoverishment on our neighbors or our families.

Socialism Replaces God and Kills the Church

But as I’ve argued for some time, the worst effects of socialism have nothing to do with economics. The cancer it spreads is spiritual. Back in 2017, I considered why the U.S. is at once more violent, more competitive, and more religious than other Western lands.

Religion, violence, fertility, and the free market all go together. Socialism doesn’t just suppress one of those things, but all of them inextricably and at the same time. That’s why most of the nations in the European Union simultaneously:

• Ban guns.
• Smother the free market in a tangle of restrictions.
• Cushion people from economic risk through cradle-to-grave government programs.
• Suppress patriotism and flood their citizens with foreigners.
• Forbid capital punishment.
• Marginalize religion. And
• Produce fewer babies than corpses every year.

This combination of qualities isn’t an accident:

Why do these things move together, most of the time? The answer is not economic or political, but religious. Faith answers many needs in the human heart. But its primal function is this: It’s an answer to the obvious fallenness of the world. To natural evils, like death. And scarcity. And suffering. And violence. …

Read more here  stream.org/socialism-is-a-false-religion-thats-why-it-kills-the-true-one-every-time/