Marx without sparks?
Melvin Tinker’s latest book takes as its two starting points C. S. Lewis’ science-fiction tale That Hideous Strength and the biblical account of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. These act as lenses through which to make sense of the cultural transformations we have seen around us in the West.
Peter Newton, Co-Minister, Shepherd Drive Baptist Church, Ipswich
THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH HOW THE WEST WAS LOST:
The Cancer of Cultural Marxism in the Church,
the World and the Gospel of Change
By Melvin Tinker
Evangelical Press. 127 pages. £6.99
ISBN 978 1 783 972 401
Having introduced these two controlling narratives, Tinker brings us to the main focus of the book: cultural Marxism – a little-understood term that makes the subtitle sound rather sensationalist, but he does a good job of outlining the ways in which this movement has succeeded in transforming Western society in less than a century.
Sobering insights
The picture he paints offers an explanation of features of modern society that we have come to recognise and lament, such as the intolerance shown by the tolerance movement in its pursuit of total sexual liberation and the refusal to engage in truly rational argument about these goals. Tinker also offers sobering insights into the true aims of many of the revolution’s activists – perhaps most importantly the abolition of the family as the basis of society.
Church response?
So how should the church respond? Too often we have been afraid to speak. We must speak God’s truth with courageous refusal to be conformed and with the testimony of lives lived out in accordance with God’s Word, in deep dependence upon God in prayer and hope in the God who ‘came down’ and frustrated the plans of the wicked at Babel.
This book is a wake-up call and a cogent history of how we have come to where we are. Occasionally the brevity of the book left a point feeling unsubstantiated. Also, by the end I found myself wanting direction in thinking through how we can engage the people around us individually as we attempt to bridge the ever-growing gap and ‘translate’ our increasingly alien Christian faith to share the gospel with people whose minds have been shaped by this ideology. At least some suggestions of further reading in this direction would have been welcome. We must speak up, but we must consider carefully how best to meaningfully speak to these particular people. This is only a minor complaint – this is an important book for this moment in our culture.
