By Coral Ridge Ministries News
With President Obama and leaders in Washington pushing the country toward socialism, experts on the April 25 Coral Ridge Hour television broadcast discuss the roots of the ideology and the destructive and deadly path it has cut through history. For listings and to preview, visit www.coralridge.org.
“[I]n spite of all the socialistic failures of the 20th century, we are still toying with a socialistic idea that we’re somehow going to find a political utopia and paradise via socialism,” says David Noebel, founder and director of Summit Ministries.
The nationally televised program surveys the principles of socialism as laid out by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in their 1848 publication The Communist Manifesto.
“The Communist Manifesto is an evil document,” says David Horowitz, an author and former communist, on the program. It “is an incitement to war . . . civil war.”
The pathway to a workers’ paradise, according to Marx and Engels, is a heavy, progressive or graduated income tax, centralized credit through a national bank, a state-controlled media, state-owned factories, the eventual abolition of private property, and more.
But “paradise” comes with a price.
“Every time the state increases its power, we lose our freedom,” warns Chuck Colson, an author and cultural commentator, on the broadcast. “We are watching [the state] systematically strip away our liberties one by one.”
Tragically, many socialist regimes have carried the idea of central control and collective ownership even further.
“The death toll of the whole 20th century is basically [premised on] a socialistic experiment,” Noebel said. “Nazism was socialistic, fascism was socialistic, communism was socialistic, and those three alone are where the death toll just went into the tens of millions.”
The Black Book of Communism, an authoritative historical accounting of the profound human cost of communism, reports that some 100 million people died under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al., in the 20th century.
“The collapse of the Berlin Wall should have been the end of socialism,” says Dr. Jerry Newcombe, host and senior producer of The Coral Ridge Hour. “But unbelievably, liberals in our own government, however well intentioned they may be, have enacted a federal takeover of health care and have big plans for an all-controlling, all-consuming federal government. This deadly course can and must be reversed.
“The destruction that socialism brings can be avoided in America, but we must wake up and stand up now.”
This Sunday’s Coral Ridge Hour focus on socialism comes as Coral Ridge Ministries prepares a major two-part documentary to air May 16 and 23 on The Coral Ridge Hour, in conjunction with the release of a new book, Ten Truths About Socialism. For details on the book and the upcoming documentary, Socialism: A Clear and Present Danger, a Biblical Response, please visit socialism-aclearandpresentdanger.com.
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INTERVIEW REQUESTS: To request an interview with Dr. Jerry Newcombe, Senior Producer and Host of The Coral Ridge Hour, please contact Andrew Scott at a.scott@crministries.org or (954) 334-5332.
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Coral Ridge Ministries is a Christian media outreach founded by the late Dr. D. James Kennedy. Its programming reaches a national television, radio, and Internet audience at www.coralridge.org.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on April 22, 2010