From the Easy Chair

Two Trips Behind the Iron Curtain

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 4-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161AA50

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161AA50, - Two Trips Behind the Iron Curtain from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[Rushdoony] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 152, August 5, 1987. This evening Otto Scot and myself are going to discus with Jerry Mose his two trips behind the iron curtain, especially his trip into Communist Romania.

Today we are subjected to all kinds of propaganda which would reduce in the minds of the public the differences between the Marxist world and what remains of the free world so that we are not usually told what is happening in those countries. The great evil of our time listen to many voices in the media is simply something like Apartheid or Conservatism and supremely, Christianity, because the world today regards Christ and Christianity as the ultimate evil.

As a result, it is especially important for us to get a Christian perspective on the iron curtain countries. Gary, tell us about your two trips there and then let’s get into some specific aspects of your travels.

[Mose] The two trips which were made, one in 1985 and one just recently in May of 1987 were for the purposes of bringing encouragement and some relief help to Christians behind the iron curtain, primarily in Romania where the suffering is very great and also to engage in some fact finding of the purposes of reporting to the West in my writing and in discussions of the true conditions there.

First trip in 1985 was arranged by a Sacramento based organization known as Ministry behind the Iron Curtain. The trip was supposed to be ... supposed to look like a family vacation and I would take my family along. We loaded our Volvo in Sweden with just a few of our own personal goods and drove through Europe to Austria to a base training camp of this organization. And after a few days of training there, we loaded the car trunk and the car top carrier with as many suitcases as we could possibly carry of relief clothing, medical supplies, common items that are not available like soap and toothpaste and toothbrushes a few little treats also for our contacts there.

We were... these things were supposed to be ours. We were traveling incognito as a tourist family and if questioned we were to say that these items were ours. We were not to reveal our contacts. We were given very specific instructions with that... in that regard. We got as far as Budapest, Hungary, traveled through several countries to find a circuitous route in. We got as far as Budapest and met with the reformed church pastor in Budapest who immediately sat us down and told us that the situation in Romania had deteriorated so badly since the leader of the organization we were working with had been there, that it was just out of the question that we would take our children and our family into Romania. We also had another young man traveling with us.

We were very disappointed to hear this, because we had come a long way and we were eager to meet the Christians in Romania and to deliver the relief supplies that we had carried. We prayed about it and after some time of prayer the pastor came up with the suggestion that if Randy, the other young man who was with us and I wished to go on, he would provide a safe country home for my family just out of Budapest in a small town.

I was very reluctant, understandably to leave my wife and four children alone behind the iron curtain, so I pretty must just ruled that idea out until my wife said, “No, I believe the Lord wants you to do this.” I was very proud of her. She had really without much money and very few supplies to stay in this country house by herself... herself with the children. And Randy and I left in the middle of the night. We were advised that would be a good time to cross the Romanian border, because the guards, supposedly would be sleepy and the traffic would be low.

We got within a mile of the border and ran into a long line of cars waiting to cross. I guess everyone had the same idea, crossing in the middle of the night. It took us eight hours to cross that border. We were inspected three times and in the course of the inspection came under great suspicion. Obviously two men traveling alone with this great quantity of family clothes, most of which was winter clothes and it must have been 90 degrees out and many children’s clothes. So it was very obvious that we had something in mind other than what we were saying we were doing.

The story was that we were just tourists and we were crossing the border to a hot springs area in Romania to soak our bad backs. And I ... I did have a bad back at one time, so that was not a totally false story.

Interestingly, the night before we left my wife rehearsed us and started to just throw a number of questions at us that we might be asked at the border. And we came up with agreeable answers, the two of us so we would have our story straight. We didn’t lie at any time, but we were very careful in what we did say and how we said it. It was just incredible when we finally got to the border and were interrogated. We were asked almost word for word the questions that we had rehearsed the night before. It only had been the Spirit’s leading. We had our story down cold. They separated us and interviewed us separately, I guess, in hopes of finding discrepancies in our story, but because we had rehearsed it so plainly we satisfied them that we were just a couple of tourist guys. We flattered them about their beautiful country and they inspected my car very thoroughly three times and one occasion drove it over a it and went underneath the car and began to take parts off the car and looking for contraband items. I think they were looking for were weapons, drugs, western literature of any kind and Bibles. Bibles were the primary thing to be looking for.

After, I say, about eight hours, we finally cleared the border. We had a very short time in Romania on that trip, only 24 hours, but we made some very valuable contacts. We were just stunned by what we saw after crossing the border. Romania is a country that is just totally devastated. I don’t know how else to say it. It looks like a war zone.

[Scott] Did you go in buildings?

[Mose] We went in buildings. Nature itself is just sad. And to say almost impossible to describe. You have to experience. The sun does not shine brightly. The trees are bedraggled. The animals are skin and bones and I might add that the primary means of transportation in Romania is horse and buggy or horse and wagon. What cheap cars there are in the country are often just parts for the bulk of every month until the ration of gasoline is made available and then it... it costs he equivalent of 13 or 14 dollars a gallon.

[Rushdoony] Oh, my.

[Mose] So it is... it is impossible for most Romanians to have a car and if they do, it is almost impossible to buy gasoline.

We met with some...

[Scott] And yet Romania has oil wells.

[Mose] Yes, that is the incredible thing. Romania is a very rich country in... in natural mineral of every kind. A young... this pastor’s son in Budapest told me that it could be a paradise, but it is a hell.

Apparently all of the... or the bulk of the production, industrial production, mineral production, what there is in Romania is for export.

[Scott] It goes to Russia.

[Mose] Primarily. That is my guess. The only agricultural crop that seemed to be thriving were vast, vast fields of marijuana.

[Scott] Marijuana?

[Mose] Marijuana.

[Scott] Operated by the state?

[Mose] I assume so. All of the farms are state farms or collective farms and... I had mentioned that to our Christian contacts there and they... they were just incredulous. They wouldn’t believe it. To...

[Scott] Maybe... maybe they didn’t recognize them.

[Mose] They didn’t know what they were harvesting and many of the peasants harvested. I know what it was. I didn’t know so much know what it was, but my colleague who was traveling with me is a convert from the drug culture and we stopped and inspected the crops and there was no doubt about it. It was marijuana.

[Rushdoony] That is interesting, your report on Romania, because we are given the picture that Romania is a thriving semi free state, a showcase of central Europe in Communism and not a rigorous Marxist state like Bulgaria.

[Scott] Do you remember {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] {?}. Do you remember his comments? He was the former ambassador from the United States to Romania. And he reported that it was a desperate despotism in various reports that he sent back to Washington. And he was reprimanded for those reports. And he was told that it was not his duty to report on violations of civil liberties in Romania. It was his duty to get along with the ruling group and to make friends with them on behalf of the United States. And now, you know, Romania has just recently been granted most favored nation status.

[Mose] Well, it has for several years. As a matter of fact were just within the... in the last few weeks the Senate of the United States has passed a measure withdrawing that.

[Scott] Oh, it has.

[Mose] ...most favored nation status... status. And the primary reason was the reports of religious persecution. I am very encouraged about that. It automatically expires, the ban expires, I believe in November unless there is further action with ... that can be reinstated again.

[Scott] I see.

[Mose] I hope that report such as I am making here will ... will prevent a return to that ridiculous status for the... for the country of Romania.

The... the information which he sites, the glowing reports about independence and prosperity of Romania is... is just a bald face lie. It is disinformation of the highest order. That message is being brought to the world for the purpose of encouraging western ties with Romania. Romania is acting as a funnel of western technology, western contacts, western money into the whole of the Soviet block. And ... and so you have this very carefully thought out disinformation program to portray Romania as independent from the Soviet Union. It is anything but. It is... it is not a prosperous or a free country in any way. It is... it is Stalinist. It is oppressive. I is repressive. It is brutal.

[Rushdoony] Our ambassador was appointed by Reagan and resigned because he was not encouraged in his stand by this administration.

[Scott] He was chastised. He was reprimanded.

[Rushdoony] yes.

[Scott] They called him back. They beat him up. And he... he was a young man and he resigned. He ran for the Senate. He didn’t make it. But it tripped... totally turned him around. He was a young professor and I believe when he went over there he was pretty liberal. And he saw the devil. He came back. He felt differently.

[Mose] Well, I will tell you. You see the devil when you look at Romania. You can travel through several of the eastern countries, Yugoslavia and Hungary and ... and while they come nowhere near meeting the material standards of ... of any other country in western Europe, you... you certainly don’t feel the... the spiritual oppression and the sea of devastation that you do immediately when you cross the border into Romania.

I don’t know what the situation is in countries like Bulgaria or Albania. Albania, there hasn’t been a westerner there except for a handful for some years. It is a totally closed country. And what few reports leak out there, that place is... is really a hell...

From descriptions I have read of situation in Albania, I would say Romania comes very close.

[Scott] Is that...

[Mose] It is not that even let westerners into the country, because you... you cannot mistake the devastation everywhere you go.

[Scott] Ceausescu, is that how you pronounce it?

[Mose] Nicolai Ceausescu.

[Scott] Ceausescu. And he has got this big personality cult.

[Mose] Yes. He portrays himself as a modern Caesar. Romania, the name, is Rome.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] And its history is... is of a Roman colony.

[Scott] They all think of themselves as Romans.

[Mose] Right, yeah. And there {?} which is... is quite {?}

[Scott] Yes.

[Mose] It is Latinized.

[Scott] Yes.

[Mose] So there are a lot of ties to Rome. I think he considers himself a modern day Caesar. And I think this is really a mental delusion on his part. He ... he dresses even, you see, he wears gold sashes. He actually carries a golden scepter. This is the most curious government. It is, in effect, a Communist monarchy. It is a dynasty. His ... his son Nicu is expected to succeed him. {?} Romanians because they expect him to be even more repressive than his father.

[Scott] There are a number of times these in Communist dictatorships... North Korea. The son of the man who calls himself Kim il Sung is slated to be the heir and I understand that in the Soviet Union the children of the revolutionaries have all the privileges of the upper class. It has created a new nobility.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] That is very much the case in all of the communist countries that I visited. They are anything but a classless society. In Romania, for example, in the area of ... of commerce there are definitely two, maybe more than two classes, but just for the sake of simplicity break it into two. You have the common people who are starving to death. You have the privileged class which shops in special stores reserved only for them and they buy goods that are available only to them. And in many cases they do not even use the country’s currency. The Romanian leu is worthless and one of the things that really stunned me in my second trip to Romania was discovery of the existence of a thriving American dollar economy. That is not a black market economy. It is a... it is a legitimate, open economy. There are in the tourist areas in the hotels and in other places shopping places known as the dollar shops. It is painted right on the door, dollar shop. And all of the goods are priced... priced in American dollars.

[Scott] How do the average people get hold of American dollars?

[Mose] Well, any number of ways, through the black market, usually. Tourists coming in. The privileged class has access to foreign currency even though the law technically forbids Romanians to hold foreign currency. I saw... I went into one of the dollar shops myself on a smuggling mission which I can tell you about, but I saw Romanians with fistfuls of dollars going in and buying, oh, nice western and Japanese electronic gear and... and coffee. Coffee is a prized item. That was just to tell you what I was doing there. That was the item that I was shopping for. You need a foreign passport, supposedly, unless you can bribe the clerk. My Romanian contact went in ahead of me, made arrangements and ... and provided a bribe to the clerk, told her that there would be an American coming with three passports, two American and one Swedish and that I would be buying coffee. And he ascertained how much the dollars that I had would buy in coffee. And I carried out two suitcase full... two... two... two suitcases full of coffee.

The reason I did this is the Romanian people and including the Romanian Christians spend much of their time scheming about ways to beat the system and one of the... the ways they do it is through the purchase of coffee. I bought the coffee with American dollars and an American passport, turned the coffee over to my Romanian contacts who then sell that coffee on the black market.

[Scott] For more dollars.

[Mose] For more... yeah, dollars or anything they can get.

[Scott] [affirmative response]

[Mose] If that... we brought a thousand dollar contribution from a friend of mine.

[Scott] Did you have to declare your money when you went in?

[Mose] No. You are required to exchange a certain amount.

[multiple voices]

[Scott] But not the number of how much you carry.

[Mose] No, we did not say how much we had. This thousand dollars, if we had exchanged it at the official exchange rate which is totally arbitrary, we would have gotten approximately 8000 Romanian leu. If we had exchanged those dollars, a thousand dollars on the black market, directly on the black market, we could have probably gotten about 40,0000 leu as opposed to 8000 official. However, by buying coffee, that thousand dollars turns into 108,000 leu.

[Scott] My goodness.

[Mose] So we were able to ... to aid lots of Christians with that kind of money. And that is... that goes a long way when you have eight... 108,000 leu. The average Romanian probably earns the equivalent of, oh, 50 cents a day to a couple of dollars day. And this kind of money will help a great deal.

[Scott] You didn’t see very many fat people then.

[Mose] Well, strangely enough, you do.

[Scott] You do.

[Mose] But I think it is probably a factor of ... of poor diet, of bad nutrition. Yes, you see a ... a... an amazing number of fat people. I was struck by that fact. Not from eating well. I am convinced of that, because I was in a good many Romanian homes and although... because we were their Christian brothers and sisters and were greatly honored being from the West, they fed us well, we saw what they ate and it was pathetic. They are on the verge of starvation. No Romanian gets enough to live on though the official ration system. The only way you do survive is to gain additional ration coupons by cooperating with the secret police. And what they do is spy on each other. Everywhere you go in Romania 25 people watch you all the time and this is the way they earn enough to... to subsist on. You travel into the... the ordinary grocery stores, the... the goods are just pathetic. I went into a meat market. There was nothing available in the meat market except slabs of fat and some large bologna of some kind. But I was told that the bologna was made out of fat and blood and it was ... it was so gross I could hardly stand to look at it and... and my contact said that... I think his words were, “Your dog would throw up if he ate this stuff.”

Other necessities are just not available. Toilet paper, something as simple as toilet paper. We saw a line on a given morning. The toilet paper store was open and people lined up for two or three blocks to get their ration of toilet paper.

[Scott] Well, this is like war time conditions.

[Mose] Yes. My contact, he said there was a... the favorite joke around there is: We don’t need toilet paper, because we don’t have anything to eat anyway.

[Rushdoony] Or I understand they use any excuse to destroy a church.

[Mose] Yes. In the city we visited, Irad, in the last three or four years, I think, probably three or four churches have been bulldozed. It is usually either said to be a mistake or that the property was needed for some other purpose and that the ... the state would re-erect the church in some other location. Of course, that is never done.

[Scott] Well, this seems to be a rule, because the faith that has a vehicle for cooperative behavior on the part of the citizens and any way that the citizens work together have to be destroyed.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] And that is... that is very true. I observed that close hand. Not only are the Christians closely knit and support each other in just beautiful ways and we just don’t see in the West the kind of love and charity that they have for each other, but amazingly non Christians also, the common people, cooperate with Christians. I was just stunned, for example, a neighbor... a non Christian neighbor of my main contact came over to visit while we were there and in the course of our conversation I learned that this non Christian neighbor had... who had access to a vehicle had actually made some illegal runs into Hungary to get Bibles, to smuggle them back. Now it just stunned me. I mean why... I asked myself, “Why in the world would a non Christian risk his freedom and perhaps his life on such a mission?” And it became apparent that ... that it is so readily apparent to... to ordinary citizens what is available in the Christian community even if you don’t profess to be a Christian. They see something there, a love and a support and a... and truth and realness in the Christian community and they want to be a part of that in some way even if they don’t profess to be Christians themselves.

[Scott] What language did you use when you were there?

[Mose] Well, we spoke English. We had two English speaking people and a man... an evangelist traveling with me was a Swede who did speak English. We did have a couple of contacts who were English speaking who served as interpreters. One of our contacts was a young lay pastor of the largest church in Irad who was a very talented young man who was very fluent in English and... and acts as an interpreter for many of the visitors. In fact, his skill in English got him a call from the secret police. He had just recently been elected the head pastor of his church and will be ordained this fall. And when that word got out, the secret police contacted him and asked him to cooperate. They wanted him to remain as pastor of the church, but to be a spy, particularly on western visitors.

[Scott] Yeah.

[Mose] He was to use his language skills to make contact with westerners, but then to inform the secret police on the activities of westerners such as we were, what they were doing there, what our purpose was, things like that, who our contacts were.

And this very courageous young pastor refused and because of that has given up any hope of... of ever having any privilege which most... most Romanians dream about. He was offered everything, foreign travel, privileges for shopping and you name it. He gave it all up and determined to bring revival to his church.

[Scott] Is there any ... any way you could define the rulers of Romania, the ruling class? Do they fall into any category culturally speaking, ethically speaking?

[Mose] Ethically speaking I think I would have to classify them with the mafia probably. I did not have con... other than the border officials, I did not have contact with any officials.

[Rushdoony] You know, one man who was able to get out of the Soviet Union was asked in an interview if there was a mafia in the Soviet Union. And his answer immediately was, “Yes. Its name is the Communist party.”

[Mose] That is exactly right.

[Scott] Yes. I think it was Lukofski who was asked how many political prisoners there were in the Soviet Union and he said, “240 million.”

[Mose] Very accurate, I think.

[Scott] Everyone is a prisoner only some are trustees.

[Mose] Right. Yeah, my... my main contact in Romania, the way Christians have been severely persecuted and he just breaks down into tears the way he talks about freedom. And he wants that more than anything in the world. And he... and he always chokes up when he talks about that subject. He considers himself a slave and a prisoner as most Romanians do.

[Rushdoony] And it was our country who in the peace treaty at Yalta surrendered central Europe to Stalin.

[Scott] And not only at Yalta. Harry Truman threatened the Soviets with the A-bomb if they didn’t get out of Persia, out of Iran and they got out. He could have done the same regarding central Europe...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] And he did not. We had the world in our hands at that point.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] When you visit those countries all you can do, if you can do it at all, to forgive that kind of action...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] ...sees... see the slavery and the poverty and the oppression that those people live in.

[Rushdoony] Yes and yet we continue to teach in the schools that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a great man and made an important contribution to world freedom.

[Scott] Robert, you... you were telling us with during the break about the kind of emotions that this inspired.

[Mose] The first trip that we made, as I said, we were there for only 24 hours. So it was a very intensive experience. And in that time we made close contact with some very dear Christian brothers and sisters. In fact, we were so close that... that I would say I have never felt such a kinship, such a deep love for a brother or sister in Christ as we.... we experienced there. Randy and I were just filled to the brim with this very intense feeling of love, very emotional experience. And at the same time having these feelings of love for the Christians there, seeing the system that they live in, the persecution that they endure, the depravation, the ... the destruction and disaster all around them in terms of their material well being shows us that such hatred—and I don't think I have ever felt such intense hatred also for a system and for those who are responsible for it—having those two very intense, very strong emotions pent up within us both that intense love and that intense hate at the same time was enough to break us. And as we were driving out of Irad we were silent for probably 15 minutes so as soon as we got out on the countryside there was just a sudden release and we both, two grown men burst into tears and I think we did not say a word and drove probably for an hour and a half literally sobbing. It was a terribly draining and emotional experience. And that was all repeated on the second trip, probably even more intensely, because we were there for a longer time and saw even more horrors than we saw the first time.

[Rushdoony] And yet the horrifying fact is that so many church men, including Billy Graham, go to Romania or the Soviet Union and give very flattering reports on everything.

[Mose] Yes. One of the things that I did in my time in Sweden was to regularly monitor Radio Moscow broadcasts and Radio Moscow, I should say this ahead of time, Radio Moscow exists for one purpose and one purpose only and that is propaganda.

[Scott] Oh, yes.

[Mose] It... it has news... so-called news programs. It has cultural programs. Even these are directed to the single purpose of propaganda. And so when you hear reports on Radio Moscow from American church men and I... I have with me tonight a tape which I recorded from a Radio Moscow broadcast directly, an interview with some American church men who visited the Soviet Union on an officially sponsored trip, I believe it was sponsored by the Russian Orthodox Church. It was carefully arranged as these sort of trips are. The sights seen and the people visited are carefully selected and the interview was obviously for propaganda purposes and it just infuriated me having visited Romania and other iron curtain countries and seeing the truth of the matter, traveling incognito, not an arranged trip, seeing the truth. And then to hear American church men willingly allowing themselves to be used as propaganda tools.

I would like to play this tape. As I say, it was monitored from a great distance and the quality is not always best, although it is readily understand.

[Voice] Three Americans who are religious figures {?} are no exception in this {?} a fact finding trip to the Soviet Union and witnessed the {?} first hand. {?} Charles Hine {?} Wisconsin {?}.

[Voice] I observed, first of all, contrary to my expectations before leaving the United States that the seminaries and the church itself is very much alive and very active here in a way that I never even dreamed was possible. There are very many similarities between theological students. There is a deep care for people, for their well being, for their peace. I sense here in the studies of the students a deeper respect of tradition and history. It seems to play a more major role in their studies going back to the patristic, first century Christian writers. But besides that they learn Greek and Hebrew. They study ministry, but in a different sense. American ministry tends to think in terms of social consciousness, taking care of psychological, physical needs, hospital... hospital calling. I sense here a more spiritual attraction, possibly because so much of the... the medical care {?} that the Church can devote its attention to the spiritual needs of people.

[Voice] One {?} any other western countries, the church is separated from the state in {?}. The relationship between the state and the church and the {?} the Socialist revolution in Russia it was one of the antagonisms as the Church sided with the counter revolutionaries. As for the current relationship, here is what Bruce Winton, a professor of Church history at {?} theological seminary has sung.

[Winton] One of my impressions is that the word coexistence might be a useful word to describe the relations of church and state here. It seems to me that Soviet Christians, like other Soviet citizens have long ago decided to be good citizens of the state, to act responsibly as citizens of the state and so on. As a result, well, we should say that to the listeners, the Soviet constitution, its newest version, but even older versions guarantees freedom of religious cults.

It is true that the churches are functioning now and have been for a long time as places where believers can go and can express their faith in common worship. There is a coincidence of Christian conviction. I shouldn’t call it only Christian conviction. It is shared by Muslims and Jews and Buddhists and others and Soviet foreign policy, which, as I understand it, is committed to a... a dialog with the United States and does want to talk seriously about disarmament and so on.

[Voice] Under {?} the Americans not only visited churches, but also conversed with people, both believers and non believers. Here is what Andrea Thomas, the director of family ministry in {?} Catholic Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana has to say.

[Thomas] We visited the theological academy at the Gorsk. We also visited the academy at Leningrad. And we spent time at the theological seminary in Odessa. I rejoice at the fact that so many churches are open. The people seem to be very joyous in the celebrations of the liturgy. We conversed with seminarians. Also we have had an opportunity to simply in the matter... in the matter of greeting people with whom we attended liturgies. We did find the... the believers in the churches to be very warm and open people and when they discovered that we were from America they were ecstatic, you know, there were... there were embraces. There were kisses. There were tears in some cases, too. And we ... we have done the best we could in our broken Russian that peace would be with them. And I was asked because I will be going home and reporting on my own much of what I have seen and experienced. I was asked what would be my first words. And I said to someone who had just {?} an Atheist that my first words would be, “Soviet Christians want peace.”

And he said to me, “Would you please change that to Soviet... all Soviet citizens want peace.”

[Voice] {?} the Americans. Charles {?} from this country is a {?}.

[Voice] {?} First of all the churches {?} underground. {?} cathedrals, but I was amazed to see the thousands of people in the churches and people are free to attend churches. I would not have expected that before I came. Generally more religious freedom here than I would have expected before I came.

Second of all, that the Soviet people are a people who have suffered. And we... they call it 22 million Soviets lost their life in the Second World War, 40 times as many as Americans. That type of suffering every family being touched by events, I don’t think we are aware of in the United States. And I think that it is a very important message to bring home, that this is a people that has suffered and yet is strong in its suffering.

I wish that every American could come and stand... could have come and stood next to me in Leningrad and seen those graves, because it would have moved them. And it was made... and that is the third observation that this is a people who is committed to peace.

It is understandable. When 22 million brothers and sisters die in a war you don’t want to see another one.

I learned the Russian word for peace, мир, and I see it everywhere. And the other thing, we met with some people in the churches. On one occasion we were walking out of the church at a session and one of our delegation turned to one of the babushka and said to her and said to her {?}, peace be with you. And she smiled and they talked and our delegation, the member of the delegation said, “I am an American.” And the woman cried, because it is American... an American wishing her peace. I have only been here two weeks, but I am... I have been impressed with the people committed to peace. I did not know that before I came and I see it as part of my mission to talk to whoever I can and let them know that the Soviet people are committed to peace.

[Scott] I think that is a very interesting anecdote. The poor woman cried because she saw Americans over there offer a... cooperating with ... with the despots.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Those people were, of course, Modernists and liberals, but what excuse does Billy Graham have who pretends to be an evangelical.

[Mose] Yeah and that is a good question. The pastor I mentioned in Budapest was very angry about Billy Graham’s visits to his country in, I believe, in 1985 and also to Romania. He was... he feared—and this was before the visit—he feared that the same thing would happen that happened in the Soviet Union that Graham would come back and give a glowing report of religious freedom and ... and because of that Christians would suffer... suffer even more. They would be {?} by Christians in the West thinking that all was well and things would be worse for them. I don’t believe we saw that kind of reports from Billy Graham during his visit to Romania, or after his visit.

Of course to the Christians there are just happy to hear a famous man preach. Incidentally, one of the churches we visited in Irad was the church where Billy Graham preached and we ministered to about 3000 Christians on one Sunday there and my Swedish evangelist friend who preached brought a very biblical message and was well received. One man said he preached even better than Billy Graham.

I would like to comment a little bit on this ... this recording from Radio Moscow. As I said, because it is on Radio Moscow you know right at the outset that it is propaganda. You... if you listen carefully to that tape you heard several references to things like faith, belief, worship. But at no time did you hear any reference to God. Of course that would be against the official Soviet policy of Atheism. So there is no reference to God.

[Rushdoony] Nor to Christ.

[Mose] Nor to Christ. And when you listen consistently to Radio Moscow broadcasts or read Soviet publications after a while you start to identify certain common propaganda themes, catch words and themes and just listening to this cold without having the experience of... of prolonged exposure to the propaganda, you wouldn’t indentify that. But I had that opportunity while living in Europe and in this short interview I identified several of these very common propaganda themes. One, for example, was the frequent reference to peace. Another catch word was coexistence. Another was the commitment, the so-called, the supposed commitment of Soviet Christians to Soviet foreign policy. And that is an earmark of a propaganda statement there. And then one of the most subtle ones was the statement that said that the churches and the seminaries which were visited, which were carefully selected, were tending to the spiritual needs of the Soviet people. Now that sounds wonderful to us until we understand what is meant in the Communist jargon, the propaganda by the term spiritual. You have to redefine that word and when you understand that, you realize that the churches are, in fact, serving the purposes of Communism and the Communist regime. And if we... if we could, I would like to play another short cut or two...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] ...from Radio Moscow. I want to prove that point that ... that when the Soviet Communists talk about spiritual needs they are not talking about spiritual needs as we Christians in the biblical faith of the West understand that term. The term spiritual for the Communist means Communist doctrine. And this cut, I think... what this is, is it is taken from a summary of the recently adopted Soviet Communist party plan for the period 1986 through the end of the century. This is the official party program.

[Voice] In the area of spiritual life it means further strengthening in Soviet people’s minds the Socialist ideology, the spirit of Collectivism and common mutual assistance, giving the broadest sections of the population access to scientific achievements and cultural treasures and molding an individual of all around development. The result of these advances will be a quantitatively new state of Soviet society, a historical step forward will then have been made on the road to the high phase of Communism.

[Scott] {?}

[Mose] I think that proves beyond the shadow of doubt from a Communists own words what they mean by needs, spiritual needs of the people.

[Scott] Yes.

[Mose] And ... and when you go back to that interview with the church men, what they have said now is that that churches, the officially sanctioned churches, the ones they visited and the seminaries, the sanctioned ones, the ones that they visited, are serving that purpose, that spiritual need, advancing the cause of Communism.

[Scott] Now it is very interesting in view of that explanation that the American clergymen manage to put everything in the phraseology of the Soviet Union.

[Mose] That is right.

[Scott] Because ordinarily you would expect clergymen to mention God, to mention Jesus.

[Rushdoony] Not this type of clergymen.

[Scott] Yes.

[Rushdoony] They are dedicated to the same purpose here. So they were very much at home in the Soviet Union.

[Scott] And voices certainly sound that way, didn’t they?

[Mose] Absolutely. And if you listen very carefully, if time we could play it again, but I think you would detect at least two instances where you could actually detect coaching. A person ... one of the speakers stopped and spoke to someone and apparently had been reminded what to say. And that, of course, is always the case. You don’t get interviewed on Radio Moscow unless what you are going to say has been pre approved.

[Scott] Well, well, Phil Donahue went over there and interviewed men on the street as though the men on a Moscow street would say something his government doesn’t like.

[Mose] Well you mentioned the use of ... of terminology by westerners and, of course, Communists themselves pick phrases and words that have reaction here in the West. They know what kind of words people react to. One of those is morality. The Communists make a great deal of their Communist morality and I have one more short cut here from this same summary of the Communist party plan which defines Soviet Communist, international Communist morality. And if there is any doubt that Communist reality and Humanism are one and the same, this actual live cut from Radio Moscow broadcast should dispel that notion.

[Voice] {?} Communist morality is being revealed fuller and fuller in the conditions of this society’s gradual advancement towards Communism. All morality incorporates both the simple moral values of human nature and such norms of conduct by people in their relationships than have been produced by the masses of people in the many centuries of {?} exploitation for freedom and social equality for happiness and peace. The Communist morality that the Soviet Communist party is out to affirm, is a collective one to which egoism and selfish interest are alien and in which the interests of all the people, the collective and {?} interest are harmoniously blended. This is humanistic morality. It spreads genuinely through {?} relationships between people. Those of common cooperation and mutual assistance or {?} and {?}. It is active and rigorous morality that encourages men to new accomplishments in work and creativity to an interested participation in the life of the collective and of the whole country.

[Rushdoony] You know, this is a good point at which to answer a question one of our listeners, Rick Corliss, raised, about what is the meaning of dominion theology. Well, what these people are affirming is the necessity of Communism, of humanistic morality to exercise dominion over the world, to prevail in every sphere of life and thought.

Well, Christian faith requires us to exercise dominion over every area in the name of Christ, to bring everything to captivity to Christ, because as he teaches us, “Thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This is Christian dominion. And what we are facing today is a conflict between humanistic dominion theology and Christian dominion theology. And these Christians who go over there and play the role that the Marxists want them to play are anti Christian to the core, because they are renouncing the necessary dominion of Jesus Christ for the dominion of man.

[Scott] Well, they are... they are traitors.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] That is the word that I use, generally speaking.

[Scott] They are real traitors.

[Mose] They are traitors.

[Scott] Yes, they are traitors. And treason begins intellectually, right?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] It has to. It begins with a... a mental rebellion and rejection and then it leads into all the overt actions.

[Mose] Well, the point you made, Dr. Rushdoony, is very valid, that the... that Communism is the exact reverse.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] ...of the Christian faith. And because it is, it is fair to say and it is very honest and truthful to say that Communism is nothing short of Satanism.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] It is the reverse of {?} faith.

[Rushdoony] Any pastor who cooperates with it or is reedy to soft pedal its implications or to flatter the Communists in any degree, whether he calls himself an evangelical or reformed or Modernist, is serving the devil.

[Mose] That is exactly right. And you can feel that and you can experience that when you go there first hand. You can feel the presence of the devil.

Both of my trips when you ... when you come out you ... you feel a burden, a spiritual burden lifting off you physically. You physically feel a... a burden lifting off of you.

[Scott] Well, yes, I...

[multiple voices]

[Mose] That is true.

[Scott] ... people who have gone on to a plane in Moscow and fly out of the country break into cheers when they cross the border in the air.

[Mose] I just read an article in the International Herald Tribune by a journalist named Richard Reeds interviewed a group of teenagers who had been to the Soviet Union and they made the same observation. They felt oppression lifting off of them as they lifted off from Soviet soil.

[Rushdoony] Well, pastor Wurmbrand who left Romania some years ago in a recent book on Karl Marx calls attention to evidence in Marx’ writings about his worship of Satan and that there was a Satanist cult in Moscow of which Lenin and others were members and that the translators of Marx’ works who have the originals there in Moscow will not translate certain things, because they are too openly Satanist.

[Scott] Yes.

[Mose] Well, if you read Lenin’s writings also, you identify that he was very blatant about it. He didn’t make it subtle like these propagandists do that we have heard. He... he came out right and said it. His opposition to religion was blatant. He...

Getting back to this tape and the definition of morality, the key to that, the heart of that definition was morality is whatever serves the cause of the Communist revolution and the state.

[Mose] Yes.

[Scott] And that, of course, is pure Leninism.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] Well, you know, it is interesting. Mr. Lenin was five foot three, five foot three. Stalin was so short that when he reviewed the troops from the top of Lenin’s mausoleum he stood on a box. These are all very small men and it is interesting that they are always portrayed as giants.

[Mose] Yeah, I... I traveled in several countries and, of course, you come across the heroic statues.

[Scott] Yes

[Mose] They are always placed in what you might call the progressive areas of the country, a new... a new building us up they put a statue there. So...

[Scott] Yeah.

[Mose] ... the identification, of course, is always progress is due to the Communist system. Then you go two blocks and you see what the real world really is and you don’t... you don’t see any statues there. But always where the... where the evidence of material progress is and there are a few modern public installations. There you see the Communist propaganda.

[Scott] It is interesting to me that this effort to eradicate Christianity is not paralleled by efforts to eradicate Mohammedanism.

[Rushdoony] No.

[Scott] It... they are not out... they are not sending Buddhists to the gulag.

[Mose] No.

[Scott] But Christianity.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] Now these are men who learned about revolution from the {?} revolution and therefore they know every one of the avenues that leads to a revolution.

[Rushdoony] They know that the antithesis, the exact opposite of everything they are is Christianity, biblical faith. And that is why they are hostile to it.

[Scott] And yet the Christian community of the United States, Protestant and Catholic, has never issued a single unified statement on this subject.

[Rushdoony] No. The average pastor—and I am talking now about the man who professes to be evangelical—is ready to accept the world as it is. All he wants to do is to add a little Christian whitewash to it, a profession of faith which is meaningless. So it is the world plus Christ. And that is impossible, because the opponents of the apostles saw exactly what the faith meant. They said, “These are men who turned the world upside down.”

[Scott] Of course.

[Rushdoony] And any pastor who thinks he can add Christ to the corruption of this world and call it Christian is a fool.

[Scott] Probably not a fool so much as a coward.

[Rushdoony] Well, he is a dangerous man.

[Scott] Well, yes, because he helps the enemy.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] We... we... we... I think we have seen in these tapes and also my personal experiences that religion is being used overtly by the Communist world right now, particularly of central America where religion is very strong, but...

[Scott] Well...

[Mose] ...it might be the obvious vehicle.

[multiple voices]

[Mose] ... to deploy it.

[Scott] The loss of Spain taught them.

[Mose] Right.

[Scott] They lost Spain to the Spanish Catholicism which, like other national brands of Catholicism is peculiar to itself. But it was quite a lesson and it was quite a shock, because they actually had the government of Spain, they owned Spain. People don’t seem to realize that and they lost it. So every since they have worked inside religion.

[Rushdoony] Yes. Well, our time is almost over. Do you have a last comment or two that you would like to make, Gary?

[Mose] Well, just very briefly I think I might like to issue a warning. As I said, this material that I presented this evening shows that at least an area of religion that the cause of Leninism is being served. Expedience, morality is whatever the state wants it to be and whatever serves the purpose of the state is ... is moral. And that, as I said, is... is Leninism. I think that the West has got to wake up to the fact that that ruling philosophy in the Soviet Union and throughout international Communism today is Leninism. Not so much Marxism anymore, certainly not Stalinism, although you will find Stalinistic tactics in eastern Europe and throughout the Soviet Union, but the ruling philosophy of Leninism, it is deceptive. Disinformation is the ... the key tool. So when we hear about glasnost, openness and all the marvelous changes going on in the Soviet Union. Just be warned that what you are hearing is a lie. It is an out and out lie and it is calculatedly a lie. That is the Leninist approach.

[Scott] Incidentally that definition that you gave is exactly the same one that is used to define Nazism.

[Rushdoony] Well, thank you for listening. Our time is over now.

[Voice] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.