You should know something about the Leftist understanding of Utopia. It is, well… let’s just say it varies somewhat from the standard definition.
Marx contended that his socialist Utopia could be created by making everyone ‘equal.’ His sentiments were echoed by others, including some with nefarious intentions and some who genuinely believed that this nirvana could be reached, inspired, attained, or imposed. Many died trying to oppose those notions, and sadly, many more will.
Remove classes and clashes, and you will get the intuitive outcome that arises from fundamentally good and evolved beings who will – out of the abundance of good conscience – just naturally do what is best for their fellow man. Yeah, sure, and I have Kamala Harris’ personal cell phone number, and inflation isn’t rising, and goats make good house pets.
The flawed thinking that humankind is intrinsically and inherently good does not align with observed reality, recorded human history, or a Christian worldview. As Christians, we recognize we are fundamentally flawed and sinful “As by one man (Adam) sin entered the world, and death by sin, therefore death came to all because all have sinned” (Romans 5:12).
As many have written before, equal does NOT mean equally wealthy, healthy, and free. Because of man’s fallen nature, some are bound to be more equal than others. That class, the more equal ruling class, will be wealthy and free and powerful. Everyone else will be equally poor, equally desperate, and equally suppressed so they can pay for the ruling class to have all those riches and freedoms the less equal do not have.
So what is the definition of Utopia under the new Left? The Leftist, Socialist, Progressive controlling powerful elite are the WE. Their vision includes, but is certainly not limited to, the following:
- WE will control your income. We control all spending and will be the final determiners of how much money you get. We will call it “guaranteed income” or “extended unemployment benefits,” but regardless of the confusing name, it means we retain all control over who gets moneyand how much. We will continually squeeze that amount until it is no longer sufficient to feed, clothe, or house you.
- WE will control your healthcare. We will determine what care you receive when you receive it (IF you receive it at all) and what lifestyle you must maintain to continue receiving those benefits. You should note that if you smoke, drink, refuse a shot, have more kids than we want, or fail to conform to the climate rules; we reserve the right to say you are not doing your part to create a “healthy planet” at which point your health benefits will cease altogether.
- WE will control your children. We will determine what they learn, where they learn, who teaches them, what’s in the curriculum, what facilities the school offers, how long they have to ride a bus to get to the school we determine best fits them. We will indoctrinate them with the state-approved philosophies we approve. Your parental input will be denied if you do not support our opinion. You will have no right to decline to have your 5th grader read about anal sex and homosexual perversion under the heading of gender diversity. If you show up at a School Board meeting and we know (after checking your social media feeds) that you intend to voice dissent, we will not allow you to speak, or we may simply have you arrested.
- We will control all media because we want to make sure you do not suffer the unspeakable consequences of misinformation. Nothing on the planet is worse than misinformation. We reserve the right to determine what is valid information and what is not. As the sole determiners of what is true and what is not, we also reserve the right to tell you anything we want and call it ‘true’ merely because we deem it so. Your truth will be the truth we give you. All other opinions will be silenced, de-platformed, and disavowed. No alternate views will be tolerated because that only leads to the horrible condition called “freedom.” We have determined that Freedom and Liberty aredetrimental to health, mental stability, and how hard you are willing to work to keep all these other benefits. Freedom cannot be tolerated.
- WE know what is best for you. WE know what is not best for you. WE are smarter and more important than you. We know this because we are in power, and this fact proves WE know best. You are merely worker ants who bring us to power, keep us in power, and work our system. Ants are expendable. Never forget that. We alone determine IF your life is valuable, and we can take it away anytime we wish.
- As noted above, WE determine what life is valuable and what life is not. We have already decided that unborn life is not valuable if it does not meet our quality standards forcolor, sex, social status, or is simply inconvenient. It will only be a matter of time before we apply those same standards to the other end of the age spectrum. When age makes you no longer able to work, contribute financially, or when you become too expensive to feed and too costly to treat medically, you will be extinguished. You are a drain on the rest of us. You are taking up valuable space and air and food. It’s for everyone’s good that you leave peacefully. If you refuse, we have people who will make you feel guilty because of how much burden you place on your family and others. If that doesn’t work, we reserve the right to enforce your exit. Once we control the guns, there won’t be a thing you can do about it when we decide you’re not valuable.
- WE know more than you. Your values must align with our values. Choice only applies where we say it applies. If you value faith, family, tradition, excellence, human life, or freedom of expression or thought, your values must change. It is that simple. Your values are outdated and therefore no longer necessary. You WILL be silent. Your words and thoughts WILL conform to the norms matrix. Since norms change, we will regularly update you on what you must think, feel, and accept. You will not think for yourself, and anyone caught promoting free expression, or free thought will be convicted of hate speech or worse – wrong think. How dare you think thoughts the WE did not approve! We reserve the right to change the norms. This will occur regularly to fit whatever agenda we determine is important. Norms will continue to change until you are so confused you quietly submit because you can’t keep up with how many genders, climate directives, or acceptable thoughts you are allowed to have.
- Because WE know best, we must be kept in power so we can continue to decide and enforce what is best for you. Ancient ideas about voting, elections, courts, law enforcement, personal property, and self-control are antiquated ideas that do not fit our Utopian perfect social order. They will be dismantled and replaced with whatever gives us more power and more control. The WE is more important than you. Society is more important than your puny little life or rights.
- WE decide what definitions to use for the terms we apply. Since all-powerful norms have replaced law and right and wrong and freedom, none of these things matter. We decide what truth means. We will determine what fair means. We will evaluate what healthy means. We will define right based on what we value – us. You will conform and contribute to the best for us, or you will be erased and replaced.
- Only the WE matters. Conform to the social order or be subject to our wrath. Forget your liberty, rights, andproperty; these are old ideas that only brought about the current unfair systemic oppression. You must resist the ideas that brought about such evils as Christianity, law, Capitalism, and equality by their old definitions. The collective is more important than any one person. You will live this principle in every area of your existence (or else!).
- Religion only dilutes the power of the one. Faith in God must be abolished. Its antiquated and obviously misinformed ideas about sex, right and wrong, morality, marriage, human worth and dignity, and the idea of a Divine power that has the right to determine all these things clearly must go. WE know best. WE are your gods and goddesses. Throw away any books that teach the contrary. WE have determined these books weaken the collective and foster a sense of superiority based on ridiculous ideas of salvation, heaven, and a Supreme Being who created all this mess we’re trying to fix.
- Since WE – all of humanity, animals, nature, and the universe, emerged from goop and stardust, all things that exist are subject to change—evolution determines all. There is no order or standard, or baseline. Everything changes as WE decide it must, or we decide what will benefit us most. Submit. Conform. Comply. These principles will govern your existence.
Humanity has tried, repeatedly, to create a Utopian earthly existence. Those who contend “Reeeeal Socialism hasn’t been tried…” are mistaken and, as usual, do not know history.
Utopian communes have been tried worldwide and dating back over two centuries right here in America. 119 communities in America attempted to create an ideological living system based on some form of utopian government. Some lasted as long as a decade; others died out after only a few months. Many abandoned the social experiments broke, broken, and disillusioned. Most lasted only until the money they stole from their followers evaporated – as is always true of Socialism – it’s only free until you run out of other people’s money. Other utopian dreams died out after the leader claimed someone else’s wife (or wives).
If you’re familiar with the book Little Women, by Louissa May Alcott, you know one person who was forced to endure the failures of a utopian commune. Louissa’s father, Bronson Alcott, moved her and the family to Fruitlands, an experimental utopian village in Massachusetts when Louissa was only eleven. Bronson would later depart the failed experiment on unfriendly terms with the other founder, Charles Lane after Lane insisted that part of the utopian experiment would require celibacy within marriage.
Louissa’s classic distrust of humanity reflected in her sketch characters and villains likely grew out of her experiences in Fruitland. Her snarky skepticism reflected what she had seen there as a child – the worst of humanity under the guise of its best.
Lawrence W. Reed is a friend and recent guest on our program A View From the Wall. In his book on the subject, The Dark Side of Paradise: A Brief History of America’s Utopian Experiments in Communal Living, Dr. Reed wrote, “Perhaps that lousy track record is the reason socialists don’t practice ‘voluntary’ socialism today, preferring to dragoon people into their plans by coercion. That’s a rather sad commentary, isn’t it? Ideas so bad that because they flop when tried freely, they must be imposed at the point of a gun? What could go wrong?”
Why does heaven on earth never work? We could list many reasons. One is sufficient: Heaven is God’s dwelling. There is no heaven without God.
He makes it paradise. Heaven is not perfect, glorious, wonderful, beautiful, and utopian because of where it’s located, the list of things to do there, or the list of items prohibited from entering, like evil, greed, crime, or inequity. Heaven is heaven because it is God’s eternal dwelling place.
Literally speaking, God makes heaven, heaven. Revelation 21:22-23 says, “But I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its Temple. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its lamp.”
Thus, it would be impossible for humankind to make a utopian society or live in one if one existed because as soon as a sinful and flawed human moved there, it would no longer be perfect. That person would carry inside their spirit all the sin, evil, errors, failings, flaws, transgressions, and blunders that accompany all of us.
Revelation 21:10-26 describes the New Jerusalem. Some people have, with good intentions, described heaven using some of the descriptions of the New Jerusalem. New Jerusalem on the new earth, not heaven, is where we will see streets of gold, twelve gates, jasper walls, gates of pearl, and other features that have come to be associated with heaven. It’s not crucial to what heaven is, only a point of clarification.
In 1 Corinthians 2:8, Paul quotes Isaiah 64:4, which states, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things God has prepared for those who love Him.”
Jesus made that statement even more clear when He told His disciples, “Then the King (Jesus) will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).
Jesus hinted at the wonders of heaven in a parable in Matthew 25:21 where the lord of the household tells the faithful servant, “Well done, good and faithful servant: you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things: enter into the joys your Lord has prepared for you.” We don’t know what the joys of the lord are exactly, but if it’s a place that makes God joyful, it’s where I want to be.
Then there is the singular passage we love to quote where Jesus promised the disciples what He promises all of us who have trusted Him as our Lord and Savior: “In My Father’s house are many mansions (or rooms). If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that where I am, you may also be…I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:2-6).
Heaven, as we understand it, was prepared before the earth was formed according to Jesus in Matthew 25:34 – “…prepared for you from the foundations of the world.” Someone quipped, If Jesus left in 33 AD to go and prepare a place for me, and two thousand years later He’s still working on it, imagine what a place that will be!
Any attempt to create such a place here will only fail despite how much money is thrown at it and regardless of the glowing promises we’re made that it will work “this time…”
Yes, heaven exists. Yes, we can go there to spend eternity with God and our departed loved ones. Yes, it will be wonderful beyond our ability to imagine or comprehend. And yes, we’re still waiting, but I know this much, God’s version of Utopia will work because God is there.
