Posted: 09/08/06

Breeding Self-Hatred and Self-Destruction

By Dr. Ted Baehr, Publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®

When I go speak to my class at a seminary at one of the top ten universities in the United States, I find that most of the students seeking ordination, even the smartest and most gracious ones, have a deep-seated hatred for their own culture. They hate white males, Christianity and Western Civilization.

Entitled "The Enemies in Their Midst," The Los Angeles Times had a front page article on Sept. 1 talking about Britain's (and Europe's) homegrown problem – Muslim militants converts "with British passports and the accompanying resources and western ways, as well as links to lethal [terrorist] networks in Pakistan." The article stressed that homegrown Muslim radicals in Europe result from "open borders, tolerant laws and social alienation." Who would have thought that the Los Angeles Times would perceive the source of the politically correct problem facing Christendom today.

Part of this social alienation is the schools and universities that have been attacking the United States of America for the last 50 years. Another part is a steady stream of movies like TALLADEGA NIGHTS, THE DA VINCI CODE, THE DEATH OF A PRESIDENT, THE LAST SAMURAI, FAHRENHEIT 9/11, SAVED!, GANGS OF NEW YORK, JESUS CAMP, and KINGDOM OF HEAVEN that attack Western Civilization and the United States, the Church, white men, business, and Christianity, all of whom are the last acceptable villains in our society.

Herbert Marcuse, the left-wing teacher who invented Marxist tolerance and political correctness in the 1960s, would be delighted that the West is rearing children who hate themselves, hate their culture, hate their country, and will eventually bring the downfall of their own civilization. Marcuse developed the politically correct doctrine that these young alienated radicals should be tolerant of everybody, including sexual perverts and killers, except bourgeois western Christian culture. Too many of our children in the United States and Europe have learned his lesson well.

The left-wing movies and television programs coming out of some segments of Hollywood and the entertainment industry are part of the problem. Too many of our young people are buying into the evil propaganda in these movies and programs.

For instance, in Great Britain, a majority think their government is the cause of the Underground London bombings, not militant Islam or terrorist nations like Iran. Even more disturbing, the Sunday Times in London reported earlier this year that 14,200 of England's "elite," including top landowners, celebrities and offspring of major establishment figures, have converted to Islam in recent years.

According to the Times study, carried out by Muslim convert Yahya (formerly Jonathan) Brit, the son of Lord Brit, the former director-general of the BBC, many of the converts have been inspired by the writings of Charles Le Gai Eaton. Eaton is a former Foreign Office diplomat and author of ISLAM AND THE DESTINY OF MAN.

"I have received letters from people," Eaton says, "who are put off by the wishy-washy standards of contemporary Christianity, and they are looking for a religion which does not compromise too much with the modern world."

C.S. Lewis, the great defender of the Christian faith, once observed that a watered-down Christianity is absolutely useless to anyone. He also urged the Church to go out and convert university intellectuals and other cultural leaders to the Christian faith, because those are the people who will train up the next generation in the way they should go.

The Church today, however, and many of our schools, are filled with untrained anti-intellectuals who do not have the necessary tools to ably defend their faith in the public square. Most Christians don't even believe in the inerrancy of the original Greek manuscripts of the New Testament documents. Neither do most Jews believe in the divine authority of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses.

That's why our young people are easy prey to the Muslim fanatics, Marxist radicals and sexual hedonists in our world, in our schools, and in the products of our ubiquitous mass media.

It's time that people in the West stopped breeding self-hatred and boldly defend the biblical, religious, political, moral, and cultural traditions that made Western Civilization so strong.

By Ted Baehr Click here for bio and archived articles