From the Easy Chair

Romania, Hungary & Sweden, 1989

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 56-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161BB100

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161BB100, Romania, Hungary and Sweden, 1989-90 from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[Rushdoony] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 210, January the fourth, 1990.

In this session Otto Scott and I will continue to discuss with Gary Mose his trip into Hungary and Romania and possibly, if there is time, some aspects of things in Sweden and elsewhere, because you did cover quite a bit of territory on this trip.

Would you like to continue, Gary, with your observations about the situation in Romania?

[Mose] Well, perhaps I will just continue from our... the last discussion or session with some anecdotes. There was one in particular that was very pointed to me. When I was in Austria at the United Nations refugee center I was told about a young boy who was staying at the center and I didn’t meet him on my trip to Romania, but I was told about him, a 16 year old boy who had escaped from Romania with is father. The father and son had decided to make a break. The father was desperate for employment and was unable to support his family. So while trying to get to the West to get a job and to be able to send money back to his family, wife and a... a younger son who remained behind in Romania.

They decided to go through the Danube River, again, as the other couple I mentioned before did, which is a favorite way to go. The problem was that the father did not know how to swim.

[Scott] That is a pretty good {?}.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] So what he decided to do was put an inner tube around him and float across, but as wit the other situation, he and the son were discovered as they were crossing the river and the guards were firing on them. And in the chaos, well, the guard shot the inner tube out from the father and be began to flounder in the river, eventually recovered himself and got on his back and floated downstream. He lost contact with his son. In fact, both of them lost contact with each other. The son managed to get into Hungary and walked for... in fact, all the way to Vienna which is a pretty long trip to be walking. It takes a good day to drive it. And he walked all that way. He eventually was processed and sent to this U N center in Lins.

I was told about this story when I was in Austria and asked... and I was told when I got to Irad which is where he was from to see if I could find anything out about the father and... and to report what had happened to the son, basically to the mother back there.

I was visiting my good friend and main contact in Irad and while we were worshipping together a man and his wife walked in to the house, to the apartment and I was introduced to the man and his wife and somebody started to tell me this man’s story. And it turned out it was the exact story I had heard about the young man, but this was the father, as a matter of fact. He had floated downstream and finally made it into Yugoslavia, was arrested there, was put in prison in Yugoslavia and then deported back to Romania.

Well, Romanians who flee and then are sent back, of course, life is very difficult to say the least. Remarkably he had not been put in prison when he got back. The believers had rallied about him and supported him in prayer, but he feared, of course. He had just come back from Yugoslavia before I got there. They feared what would happen to him.

This father did not speak English and, as I say, when he came we were worshipping. And when I heard his story, of course, I wanted to report to him and his wife what had happened to his son. And through a translator I was able to tell that story and they were greatly relieved. And while we were worshipping, we were about to leave Romania at this point. My time was up. And what I had done in each house we visited before we left we would pray together and I would read some Scriptures to try to encourage them and I had been reading in some passage from Ephesians which I don’t remember now. But as I was about to read that to this man the Spirit of the Lord just spoke to me and told me and almost in so many words to read Psalm 124 instead. And I did not recall at all what was in Psalm 124, but I turned to it because I really felt the Spirit telling me to share this with this family.

And as I began to read, I was almost shocked about what I read. And the man, although he didn't understand English, apparently the Spirit of the Lord was speaking to him also, because he began to sob almost uncontrollably. This is what Psalm 124 says.

“If the Lord had not been on our side, let Israel say, if the Lord has not been on our side when men attacked us, when their anger flared against us, they would have swallowed us up alive.”

And, remember this man’s story about going through the river. The next verse says, “Flood would have engulfed us. The torrent would have swept over us. The raging waters would have swept us away. Praise be the to Lord who has not let us be torn by their teeth. We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler’s snare. The snare has been broken and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.”

That was such a powerful word from the Lord and I will never forget in light of this man’s circumstances and his story.

[Scott] They both though the other had died.

[Mose] They, yeah. They had no idea what had happened to the other one and... and miraculously both of them had been saved under impossible circumstances. The Lord had brought him to safety.

This is a... just an indication of... of how God has dealt with true believers in Romania. He has been their shield and their stay and their provider and in every small detail of their lives. It doesn’t matter what risks they have to take or feel they had to take. No matter how bold they have been in their witness, I know believers who just go out in the streetcars and take tape recorders and play Christian music or sermons. There is that kind of boldness and courage in the face of the threat of death.

[Scott] Well, there must have been a lot of sympathizers.

[Mose] Yes, in fact, I have ... I found... I think I mentioned this on a previous occasion. I found in many cases people who did not claim to be believers, who would, in fact, cooperate with believers and give them protection or... or share whatever food they had with them. And that always astonished me to see that happen, because to do so means if you are caught some terrible punishments, fines, imprisonments, beatings, death. I always wondered why they would risk all that to help believers. An it became apparent, as I contemplated that and saw this phenomenon in operation, that in a country where people live in total fear, 100 percent of the time and have no anchors of any kind, socially or religiously or economically they are people who are searching for some kind of reality and they see in the lives of believers that reality whether they themselves publicly profess themselves to believer. They ... they like to be in the company of ... of the truth.

[Scott] Oh...

[Mose] ... the compassion... But this is the only place where you see compassion in the community of believers.

[Scott] Belief is not always conscious.

[Mose] Right. In fact, one man like this on my visit in 87, although he claimed not to be a believer when we came, by the time we left, he was, in fact, publicly professing his belief in the Lord.

Well, that, I guess, fairly all covers the anecdotes about my trip to Romania. I wish I had more time to ... to spend there. Each trip I have been there, it has been very short, almost by necessity and you will have to connive, you have to pay bribes just to be there, to exist there. You have to account for all of your time.

[Scott] To whom did you pay bribes?

[Mose] Well, you have to pay bribes to the people at the border, to exchange less money than they demand. You have to pay bribes to hotel clerks in order to get a room. You have to pay bribes to accomplish almost anything.

[Scott] The official price, in other words, is not the real price.

[Mose] No. Certainly not. And, as a matter of fact, even if you get the real price, they just won’t cooperate with you. I mean, they would tell us what the price of a hotel room was and you have to pay in western money. If you don’t have western money you are just up the creek unless you pay a bribe. That was the situation we faced the two nights we stayed in hotels there.

[Scott] How long did you stay?

[Mose] We were there three nights... two nights and three days.

[Scott] And how much... how many... what sort of distances did you travel?

[Mose] Oh, it was all in kilometers and I am never good at converting it, but I... just from the time we spent driving, I would say probably covered about 300 miles from point in to point out.

[Scott] And when you left, what sort of interrogation did the customs people give you?

[Mose] Well, that was almost worse than when we left.... or when we came in. We were gone through pretty thoroughly, but when we left I had an interesting thing happened. I had my Bible, this one that I have with me right now lying on the front seat of the van in the open and a woman customs official was looking through our things. I also had some of my textbooks along from Sweden, because while we were traveling I was preparing for a test I had to give when I got back. But my Bible was laying on top of the textbooks and she picked it up and the strangest thing happened. She picked it up and seemed to turn... be looking for a certain passage. She thumbed through it until she got to some place in the book of Judges. I was trying to look over her shoulder to see what she was reading, but it was almost as if she was looking for a given passage. And she stood there for three or four minutes and simply read out of the book of Judges. And I was very curious. My traveling companion whispered to me, “Maybe she has been reading the Bible in snatches as they come thought the border.” And it almost looked that way. She stayed with it until another guard came out of the building and made a very loud noise and startled her and she quickly closed the Bible and set it back on the seat of the car. And that is all that was said about it.

[Rushdoony] How about Sweden? What did you notice on this trip there?

[Mose] Well, my purpose in going to Sweden—I go there about once a year to ... to teach journalism at the Scandinavian Christian University at Nordica on journalism. So the time that I spend there is taken up in my... my daily chores and I don’t have an... an awful lot of time to ... to be involved in discussions and observations about the... the situation in Sweden. But I think I did observe a few things and ... and perhaps I could discuss two aspects of what I saw in Sweden this time.

First the material and economic situation and then the spiritual situation in Sweden. And I think it is important to talk about Sweden when we talk about what is happening in eastern Europe, because, as I will point out later, I think there is a link between Sweden and what is happening in eastern Europe in general and the Soviet Union.

In any event, economically, materially, I have the sense every time I go there that Sweden is moving increasingly toward economic disaster. I just... little indicators from time to time that seem to point this out. And one thing that became very obvious on this trip, although I had known about it before, was the growing problem of absenteeism in...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] ... in the Swedish factories and offices and all places of employment, hospitals, no matter where people work.

[Scott] Don't they get paid when they are not there?

[Mose] Well, that is... that is the problem with it. Yeah. There are incentives to stay away from work. You can actually leave for a short term. You can in many cases earn more by staying home than you can by working. And people do this regularly. They call in sick or they just call in and say they are not coming and then go right down to the social benefits office and collect money for every day that they are... I mean, they get not only the full amount of what they would have earned in the place of employment, but there are various other little incentives... their benefits that come.

[Rushdoony] Their best plant is the Volvo and the best working conditions, but their absenteeism there is 18 percent.

[Mose] It is... it is a terrible problem. I was told that in most factories, in most places of employment, the company has to hire three or four people for every position that they have open in the factory. And, of course, the employer pays all of what they call the social expenses for all of those three or four employees. So the expenses are tripled and quadrupled, social expenses for every position that they have open. And this ... this is a tremendous financial burden on industry and in Sweden.

So when there are many small places of employment that just can’t afford to operate under these... these conditions because of the... the terrible absenteeism problem.

[Scott] If they don’t work, what do they do?

[Mose] Oh, engage in leisure activities.

[Scott] Like what.

[Mose] If it is winter they ski. If it is summer...

[Scott] Are they big for games and sports?

[Mose] Oh, very much so, yeah. And they ... they enjoy the good life in Sweden. They don't swim very much in the summer time, because of the... the weather is not conducive to it, but they... they party. They go on tours. They love to go on vacations. Sometimes they will go for a month down into southern Europe. Spain is particular playground of the Swedes. And they...

[Scott] Is it a heavy drinking country?

[Mose] Yes, it is. Although it is not real visible, the drinking. Yeah, it is done either in private or if it is in public it is very much controlled to ... and limited to certain places and circumstances.

[Scott] So they...

[Mose] So they go on holiday. They will go on a, say, maybe a tour boat in the Baltic or somewhere in for the big lakes and then they cut loose. They can just go wild. They drink themselves into oblivion. But in Sweden they are always two faces. There is the public one and the private one. And they control very much the activities in each of these public and private spheres.

[Scott] You mentioned before that the Amsterdam to Sweden run is a drug run. So they are heavy in drugs?

[Mose] That is what I understand, yeah. I have no personal...

[Scott] Were there hippies in sight?

[Mose] Yeah. Well, almost everyone in Sweden, in fact, in northern Europe through much of Europe the punk fashion and grooming style and lifestyle is just swept through all Europe. So you see this everywhere. It is particularly evident in Sweden. And I wouldn’t call, you know, what we know from the 60s as the hippie image, I don't see too often, but it ... it is more the punk image.

[Scott] Punk image means...

[Rushdoony] {?}

[Scott] You mean multi colored hair?

[Mose] {?} crazy hair.

[multiple voices]

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] You use hair styles.

[Rushdoony] The kind of thing we saw.

[Mose] Bizarre clothing black.

[Scott] Those were in very young people here and in Britain, but there is a...

[Mose] Gradually you see this.

[Scott] Middle aged people?

[Mose] Yeah, it seeps into the popular culture and you can see that happening, happening in this country, too.

The other ... one of the other indicators of economic problems and I was told not long before I got there that the government had instituted a new forced savings program.

[Scott] Forced savings?

[Mose] Yeah.

[Scott] That means withholding, doesn’t it?

[Mose] That looks very much like a tax.

[multiple voices]

[Mose] In... in any other words, that looks like another tax and the... and if I remember right, it was something like two to three percent.

[Scott] Is withheld?

[Mose] Of the income... yes, was withheld and put into a savings account in your name.

[Scott] And can you draw it out?

[Mose] No. You cannot do that. There will be a... it is sort of like a savings monitoring.

[Scott] Well, Hitler did that.

[Mose] There will be a maturity date supposedly, but everyone was telling me, you know, where are they going to get the money to pay us back with? It looked like a desperation move.

[Scott] Hitler did that.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] And presumably it was to purchase bonds, government bonds.

[Mose] Well, this, by another name is what this is.

[Scott] And is it set aside for the... for purchases, government paper of some sort?

[Mose] I am not sure what the purpose ... what... what the use is in their general government expenses, I believe. Of course the expenses are extremely high in the welfare state.

[Rushdoony] We have a voluntary step towards that in the IRAs I think.’

[Scott] The IRAs. Well, first technically the... theoretically the... our income tax is voluntary.

[multiple voices]

[Mose] I had to laugh when I heard about this forced savings program. In fact, the many Swedes were laughing about it, too, and laughing through their tears and just... they knew it was just another tax no matter what the government was calling it. And the fact that it is a hardship to them. They are... the average middle income family, in fact, everybody is a middle income family in Sweden. It is all leveled out to a very low level. Many people are having a terrible struggle making ends meet, just maintaining their households.

[Scott] Husbands and wives work?

[Mose] Almost... almost universally there is at least two wage earners in the household and that, of course, has terrible implications for family life, for the upbringing of children and all of the children go through the day care centers which are operated by the socialists.

[Scott] Well, there is another aspect, too, which you seldom hear about and that is that when women enter the work force here and in Sweden and everywhere else, all wage are depressed, because the number of workers are doubled.

[Mose] Yeah.

[Scott] So that means that lower incomes per job.

[Rushdoony] And maternity leaves add heavily to the cost of employment.

[Scott] And those are very important in Sweden.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] Not only maternity leave, but also for fathers. Fathers also get the same benefit.

[Scott] Paternity leaves.

[Mose] Yeah, paternity leave.

[Scott] Paternity leaves.

[Mose] So any time a child is born you have both mother and...

[multiple voices]

[Scott] Do you see {?}, Rush?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] And this is a cherished new benefit of the welfare state there, but it is... the costs are, again, are astronomical.

[Scott] And you can both get up at night.

[Mose] Another indicator is the black market in Sweden and there is a thriving black market. In fact, I would dare say that it is the black market that is keeping Sweden’s economy afloat. {?} is very much alive and well in Sweden, but it is all on the black market.

[Scott] The... the Italian economists that I talked to about it call it the free market.

[Mose] Well, that is ... that is what it is. And it... it .... it is the only thing that is a free market in Sweden. Everybody knows about it and everybody operates in... not everybody. There are a few conscientious Christian believers who ... who have come to the conclusion that it is ... it is unethical. It is wrong, sinful to ... to deal in black. And they have a very difficult time. This friend I traveled with to Romania had a horseshoeing business and there are a lot of horses in Sweden and he told me that if he had been willing to operate on the black market he could earn a very fine living as all other horseshoers do, he told me. But he was not willing to do so as a ...as a result had to give up his business and was now working in one of these factories where the absenteeism is so high. He is working a lot there, because there is always room for people who want to work overtime.

[Rushdoony] Well...

[Mose] And he is not making ends meet either, then... but the black market is... is very much what is keeping the economy alive there.

[Rushdoony] One commentator said, in fat, someone who escaped from the Soviet Union that in earlier years before World War II, because the old Christian work ethic was still strong among the peasants, at that time the family garden plots produced 52 percent of the agricultural products. And one of their problems now is that the grandchildren of those people no longer have the same work ethic. And, as a result, the estimates by some that maybe 20 to 24 percent of the agricultural products are from the family garden plots are highly inflated, that what people do is to go out to the collective and steal it and sell it on the black market, so that...

[Scott] The same... the same thing in the Soviet...

[Rushdoony] Yes. This is from the Soviet Union.

[Scott] Oh, it is from the Soviet....

[Rushdoony] Yeah, so, it is a free market, but after a time the free market in the form of a black market dies because the people are destroyed.

[Scott] Well, yes, you have also in the free market a certain amount of criminal and corrupt activity where the goods come from in the first place, where the official is being paid off.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] ...and looking the other way. It has a ... it has a... a corrupting effect.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] ...when you have two systems in a country. Your friend is right about that.

[Mose] Yes. That is exactly what you have in Sweden. You have two economies running parallel and one is a disaster, an economic disaster and the other one is what is keeping the country afloat. It is almost a joke there. People have little... sort of like piggy banks on their shelves, on their black colored and it says, “Sort the payout with me, black money.” And this is where they ... they save their household cash and much of ... of economic activity is done on the cash basis there. People are, you know, do it on the side and no records. And, of course, no taxes paid on it.

[Scott] Of course, this...

[Mose] And they came...

[Scott] That is illegal here, you know.

[Mose] Yeah. It is illegal here, too. And it really came out just very recently when the government in Sweden attempted to register pleasure boats. Apparently up to this time pleasure boats had not been registered. Almost to an item the pleasure boats have been bought, apparently, with black money. And when this registration proposal came up that meant that all these boats were going to be identified and it would become apparent that people had more money than they were reporting on their income taxes.

[Scott] Well, that would explain how they got the boats.

[Mose] Right. And there was a wide outcry and strong resistance. And... and I didn’t hear what the outcome of that was, but it was something that was going to reveal the extent of the black market in Sweden and there was resistance to it.

[Scott] Well of course, I did notice this, that in the closing period of World War II and that is that anyone who had a boat could stay alive even when the economy collapsed, because you could move goods around and, of course, Sweden is a maritime nation.

[Mose] That is true. I didn’t think about that, but that is...

[Scott] And they could go to Norway. They could go to Finland. They could go to Germany. They could go to Denmark and bring goods in and out. It would be a very important thing to have.

[Rushdoony] Well, of course, there is some talk that we are going to go to a new kind of currency in order to flush out all the unreported money which people are hording in bills.

[Scott] What about the... what about the euro dollars? We have got more money outside the country...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] ... than there is in. You mean to tell me that if the Bank of England sends over 10 million dollars in old currency that they are going to have to explain where they got it?

[Rushdoony] No, only you and I.

[Scott] Oh, yes. yes.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] Yes. {?}.

[Rushdoony] Yes and the same is true of your people that supposedly they are going to go after, your criminal syndicates.

[Scott] Yes.

[Rushdoony] They are able to take care of laundering their money.

[Scott] They send it through the banks.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] But if you have saved money all these years, if you have put aside, let’s say, five percent of your income, which is not too great a strain for, say, the last 20 years, you have x dollars in hundred dollar bills, then what? Is the government going to make assumptions?

[Rushdoony] If you put 5000 or more cash in a bank account it is reported.

[Scott] Yes, I know. Yes.

[Rushdoony] Well, continue...

[multiple voices]

[Mose] {?} You think I should just move on some observations about spiritual life in Sweden.

The are two revivals, I think, going on in Sweden and one is a revival of Paganism. The other is a revival of Christianity. And my first with regard to Paganism and I mean abject Paganism from the pre Christian days. There is a...

[Scott] Lotan and all of that?

[Mose] Well, gnomes and trolls and, you know, the ... the wood... the spirits of the woods. These kind of...’

[Scott] Well, we have them here. We call them environmentalists.

[Mose] Well, there they take it very seriously. I noticed, particularly in children’s literature and in children’s television programming these themes are cropping up constantly and in books and in ... and in television programs.

[Scott] Like our nature programs.

[Mose] Yeah. This is... you see much of it the same. In fact, it is happening all over Europe I was told by my students that this is very much happening all over Europe on reliable... of Animism. In fact, I was in Hungary, I stayed in a hotel at night and tuned in Radio Moscow and they were having a program on Radio Moscow on the same subject.

[Rushdoony] Well, here in this country a major Presbyterian seminary had a witch address the student body, I believe, I chapel. So this is the kind of thing that is happening the world over, an aggressive revival of Paganism, sponsored from high places.

[Scott] By the government.

[Rushdoony] Yes in some instances.

Some scholars have held that Scandinavia and Iceland were only superficially Christianized, that it did not penetrate deeply into the culture. As a matter of fact, the great Swedish migration to the United States which brought one out of seven Swedes to this country has had an important influence on Sweden in that the Swedes who came here were converts very quickly and became intensely devout, in many instances, carried the faith back to Sweden on their visits and have been an aggressive force over the years in their influence on Sweden.

[Mose] Some... a couple of other manifestations of this Paganism. I think you see it in the animal rights movement which is...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] ... which is growing very strong there, the philosophical leader of this, I guess, is the children’s author Astrid Lingren. She has been very outspoken and promoting legislation for animal rights. And they have very stringent laws there now. Pigs and barns have to have so many square feet to roam around in.

[Scott] Oh, really.

[Mose] And dairy cows, if you can believe this, have to be led out of the barn in the wintertime so they can have fresh air to breathe, which every farmer knows is a stupid thing to do. On the other hand, horses, who survive quite well outside in the wintertime have to be given shelter in the wintertime. So you have bureaucrats telling farmers, you know, what the best way to engage an animal husbandry is.

[Scott] Well, they ...

[Mose] All in the name of animal rights.

[Scott] They still wear shoes and use briefcases, don’t they?

[Mose] I believe the animals will be very soon, yeah. So that is... that is one manifestation of it. Of course, that whole idea is being exported outside of Sweden and coming into this country as well. I think this revival of Spiritism, of Animism, of Paganism is ... is evident in many other places besides Sweden. In this country you probably see it in the new age movement, the revival of old pagan ideas.

[Scott] What about Christianity?

[Mose] Well, I... I... I say that is the other aspect of revival. Before I get into that, though, maybe just observe that along with the ... the grim economic situation this ... the spirit of Paganism which is creeping rapidly trough and almost pervading Swedish society is producing a very sour spirit, a spirit of bitterness and sadness. You can sense it.

[multiple voices]

[Scott] What are they worried about?

[Mose] That is... you... you can’t put your finger on it. It is just fear from bitterness. It is.... like say, it is partly it is their economic situation, but I really believe it is a spiritual operation. There is just a prevailing sadness among the Swedish people.

[Scott] No ... they don’t laugh, they don’t smile.

[Mose] Yeah, like that. Well, of course, some do, but...

[Rushdoony] Well...

[Mose] But, yeah, that is a... a good way to describe the whole aspect of the Swedish people. And it is... when you meet tem walking down the street there is a ... there is a grave look on their face, a depression and it is showing up in very high suicide rates and in the alcoholism that I mentioned earlier.

[Rushdoony] In his very famous account of a conversion of England the Venerable Bede cited that as a reason why the king decided in favor of Christianity, because although he didn't understand the doctrine, he didn't know much about what Christianity represented, the thing that told with him heavily was the fact that there was a darkness about Paganism, whereas Christianity seemed to bring in warmth and light and hope.

[Scott] Now that is exactly opposite the humanist myth.

[Rushdoony] Of course.

[Mose] Exactly, yeah.

[Scott] The exact opposite.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Rushdoony] Well, the Venerable Bede is worth reading on that, because it is a very telling account and simply on that basis the king allowed the Christians to propagate the faith and himself was ready to receive it.

[Scott] That is very interesting, because Sweden, you know, was the first country to break the pornography barrier.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] And that was supposed to bring back happy Paganism, which has never existed. And everyone was supposed to, because of this license, feel better.

[Rushdoony] And the sexual revolution began there.

[Scott] Yes.

[Mose] Even the pornography—and I have seen very little of it there—but you can’t escape it. you go into the stores and the magazines are there in front of your eyes to see. It has a ... a lifeless quality about it. It is very strange.

[Scott] Well, it has always been the down thing.

[Mose] Yeah, but in contrast to that and this is pervading sadness and darkness that you see in much of Swedish society, as you were saying, about the Venerable Bede’s observations, it is in the ... the spiritual community of Christians that you see joy and light and it is just remarkable. Christians that I know in Sweden are some of the most joyful and delightful people that I have ever met anywhere. And there is a revival of that spirit within Sweden. Along with the revival of Paganism, there is a Christian revival. It is mostly centered in the charismatic movement in house churches or in what you might call para chruch activities and organizations and it is these groups that are ... are being severely criticized and in some cases even persecuted. One of the most active group of believers, a charismatic group in Stockholm area by the name of the Word of Life, been a forerunner in establishing Christian education in Sweden. And while I was there, the leader was on trial, criminal trial for his operation of the Christian school.

[Scott] What was the charge?

[Mose] He wasn’t allowed to operate it.

[Scott] You mean a Christian school is illegal?

[Mose] Well, they have Christian schools there, but they have to be registered and, in fact, they... in fact, they are supported by tax dollars in some cases.

[Scott] {?}

[Mose] Regulated and controlled, but this was a...

[Scott] Is... is Sweden officially Lutheran?

[Mose] Yes.

[Scott] That is the established church.

[Mose] Right.

[Scott] Do the unestablished churches have a right to operate?

[Mose] That is subject to debate. In fact, the university that I ... that I am affiliated with there is a private institution, a private Christian institution and it is the center for the house church. They recently had to... a couple of years ago now had to fight off a... a legal action. The charge was that because they were not state sanctioned they did not have a right to operate as a church. The charge was filed with the consumer affairs ombudsman. That is kind of a strange route, but the reasoning was that because the school was holding itself out on the market as a university, that that was false advertising because the universities have to be state sponsored, state operated.

[Rushdoony] You pointed out in an article some time back that because the Church of Sweden is a state church everyone in the community has a right to vote in church elections which means that church boards are usually Marxist controlled. And this is the objection to a free church, a non state church. It is outside the control of the people. It is controlled by the believers.

[Scott] Right.

[Mose] When the free churches were established in Sweden it was major, major controversy for many, many years. And... and that spirit kind of lingers on although free churches are recognized now. Within some of the established free churches, the well established free churches, you have this mentality that unless you are not... your activity, now, your spiritual activity, your Christian activity, your Bible study or whatever, is sanctioned by the church, that you are some kind of illegal.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] When we began a little English speaking Bible study while we lived there, most of them members were a member of a large Pentecostal church which is one of the free churches, the larges free church in Sweden. And the members of the Bible study group were hounded. They were denounced from the pulpit. This group was a...

[Scott] By the state church?

[Mose] No, by the free church, the established free church. There is a... not an officially established free church, but one that has become an establishment church.

[Rushdoony] They have... they pick up the statist mentality.

[Mose] Yeah, they do. It is all the way through. No doubt about it. That is why I say the centers of... of real spiritual development and the true preaching of the Word and Christian action are ... are in the new breakaway groups which are primarily para church or house church, charismatic groups. And within in them you have just a wonderful spirit of worship and of determination to reclaim culture. One of the favorite songs of the students that I taught at Nordic College of Journalism, almost all of whom are charismatic students, goes like this. “For the Lord is marching on and his army is very strong and his glory shall be seen upon the land. Raise the anthem, sing the victory song. Praise the Lord for the victory won. No weapon formed against us shall stand. We are marching in Messiah’s land. The keys of victory in his mighty hand. Let us march on to take the Promised Land, for the captain of the host is Jesus. We are following in his footsteps. No foe can stand against us in the fray.”

And this is the attitude which these vibrant believers are taking. They are aggressive. They are taking no guff even in dissenting from the collective mentality, the collect position in Sweden which is next thing to treason.

[Scott] Could you give us a ... could you make a guess on the percentage?

[Mose] Very small at this point.

[Scott] Five percent, 10 percent?

[Mose] Probably less tan that.

[Scott] Less than five. Two percent?

[Mose] Probably at the moment.

[Rushdoony] Well, when Roland Huntsford wrote his remarkable book on Sweden entitled The New Totalitarians, 1971-2, he said that—and I am quoting, “Professor Albert Nelson, a government legal expert, says that our aim is remove all traces of church morality from legislation,” unquote.

He also says that the idea of urban redevelopment has been used to demolish churches and, in particular, as an international organization, the Catholic Church has been obliterated in many areas, systematically. And this has been a deliberate policy. Moreover, he says that the goal is, in effect, in their legal procedures is to make the judiciary appear infallible.

[Mose] And in Sweden’s case the judiciary really is the bureaucracy.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] There is a court system, you know, a regular court system as we understand it, but the real decisions are made within the various quasi judicial segments of the bureaucracy. And in many case their decisions are not appealable. They are irreversible. And what the bureaucracy says is it.

[Scott] What is the basis of Swedish law? I mean we know that the... we know that Roman law and canon law, Christian law, was the basis for common law and others in the West and we know the Napoleonic code in Italy which it resembles and France, of course, and so forth. We know the German code pretty well. But what about the Scandinavian code. What is that based on?

[Mose] I can’t really answer that authoritatively, although I recall from my reading of the book you just cited The New Totalitarians, the bulk of Swedish law, at least effective Swedish law has... is administrative law and which began to be developed...

[Scott] Would you call it Socialism?

[Mose] ... under the monarchy.

[Scott] Socialism?

[Mose] Oh, very clearly, yeah. Sweden... Sweden was Socialist before the word was even invented, I think. The Swedish mentality goes back almost to medieval times where there were ...

[Scott] Sharing everything.

[Mose] Collective... collective industry.

[Scott] It is a collectivist society.

[Mose] Yeah. It has been from Rome.

[Rushdoony] One American Scandinavian pastor told me that in the northern plain states where the Swedish communities are very strong and an area that is truly a Bible belt, the one point of problem that he has is that his people are socialistic...

[Scott] Well...

[Rushdoony] ...because this has deep roots...

[Scott] That is Minneapolis, Minnesota, Wisconsin...

[Rushdoony] The Dakotas.

[Scott] The Dakotas. That is where they settled and...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] And... and they are... they have always sent some bizarre people to Washington.

[Mose] The Nordic College of Journalism, I think, is becoming more and more a strategic center in ... in the face of both of these revivals, particularly in the Christian revival. And as things deteriorate in Sweden, this place is going to be more and more important. And, I might add, as eastern Europe and some parts of the Soviet Union itself begin to experience new freedoms—and I am thinking particularly of the Baltic states in the Soviet Union—as they begin to resist pressure from Moscow and establish their own directions, which they are doing, this school is going to be vital. When the ... as the freedom... as the press becomes freer in eastern Europe and in the Baltic states there is going to be a great need for journalists trained to be free thinkers. I don’t like to use that term, but free from the ... the Communist training.

And this is the only place where you are going to find it. So I think Sweden is... is an important with regard to eastern Europe in that regard, but also in many other ways.

If we can turn to ...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] ...maybe to an analysis of what is happening in eastern Europe in general. I mentioned earlier that I think it is appropriate to talk about what is happening in eastern Europe in connection with what is happening in Sweden, because as totalitarian, Stalinist, Communism is dying, which it clearly is in eastern Europe and to some extent in the Soviet Union, we can rejoice, of course, that the freedoms which come along with that, well, we have got to consider in our rejoicing is not so much where they are coming from, but where are they going?

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] And these... all of these states are looking for a new model to operate their societies. They are not ready to move completely into free market Capitalism yet...

[Scott] Well...

[Mose] ... because they have become slaves to the socialist system. So what, you know, they cherish freedom. They are looking for a way to be free and still have a socialistic system. And what that is, is the ... is the social and democracy model and Sweden is ... and has been in the vanguard of that since the whole idea ever arose. And, in fact, there are overt references to the Swedish model, particularly Hungary.

And this does not bode well for the future, because as I have described it, doing its ... working to the detriment of Sweden which is... has been a strong economy. You can imagine what is going to happen to these economies that are already in shameless trying to adopt a Swedish model.

[Scott] Well, you...

[Mose] And I can only see disaster.

[Scott] It is the model that we have.

[Mose] Well, we can all see what is happening...

[Scott] We... we have a welfare state. Who is kidding whom? This is not a capitalist country.

[Mose] Of course not.

[Rushdoony] Sweden got their model, in part, from us and from progressive education. To supplant a terroristic Totalitarianism with an educational one that ... a total control of the minds of the people so that Dewey’s area of great success has been Sweden.

[Scott] Well, the environmental movement is going to lock up American industry.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] Just as thoroughly as Stalin did. They don’t have to go to Sweden. They can just look at us. We will send Socialists over there in the name of liberals to tell them how to do it.

[Mose] Leaving the Swedish theme for a minute and discussing just in general what is happening in eastern Europe, I think one of the best analysis that I have come across about what is happening is an analysis that was made in terms of a prediction. And this analysis I would like to short time that we have read some excerpts from a book called New Lies for Old which I am fond of citing...

[Rushdoony] By Golitsyn.

[Mose] Written by Goltsyn who was a colonel in the KGB, a specialist in counter intelligence. He wrote this book starting way back in the 60s already. It was not published until 1984, but most of it was actually written before Brezhnev died. And so the predictions he was making about... well, the book is about the Soviet block with the international Communist block’s strategic disinformation program. And he... and in his last... the last part of the book he predicted about what would happen in what he called the final phase of this strategic disinformation program. And he predicted almost to the detail exactly what is happening now. And this was, as I say, done before Brezhnev even died, before there was any side of liberalization.

He points out that the ... that the whole idea was experimented with in Czechoslovakia back in 68, what we have come to know as the Prague spring which he says was a false and deceptive action and was a disinformation operation. And that may be a little hard to swallow unless you read the whole book in which he documents and details it to a very extensive extent.

Also the Polish Solidarity movement he claims was similarly a disinformation operation. And just if I could just read a few excerpts.

[Rushdoony] Surely.

[Scott] {?} Yes, do.

[Mose] It is uncanny, uncanny.

“As the Prague spring of 1968... as with the Prague spring of 1968, the motives for the Polish renewal, in quotes, were a combination of the internal and external. Internally it was designed to broaden the political base of the communist party in the trade unions and to convert the narrow, elitist dictatorship of the party into a Leninist dictatorship of the whole working class that would revitalize the Polish political and economic system. The renewal followed the lines of Lenin’s speech to the comittern congress in July, 1921.” Quoting Lenin now, “I am ... our only strategy at present is to become stronger and therefore wiser, more reasonable, more opportunistic, the more opportunistic, the sooner will you assemble again the masses around you. When you have won over the masses by our... when we have won over the masses by our reasonable approach, we shall then apply offensive tactics in the strictest sense of the word.

“Polish trade unions, before the renewal, were suffering from the stigma of party control. In an attempt to apply Leninist principles by creating a new trade organization through governmental action to have attempted that would have failed to remove the stigma. The new organization had to appear to have been set up from below. Its independence had to be established by carefully calculated and controlled confrontation with the government. The origin of the Solidarity movement in a shipyards bearing Lenin’s name, the singing of the internationale, to use the old slogan, the use of the old slogan, workers of the world unite by Solidarity members and the constant presence of Lenin’s portrait are all consistent with concealed party guidance of the organization. Without that guidance and help the discipline of Solidarity and its record of successful negotiations with the polish government would have been impossible. The party’s concealed influence in the catholic... Polish Catholic church ensures that the church would act as the force for moderation and compromise between Solidarity and the government.”

He goes on to describe the creation of a coalition government in Poland. The coalition government in Poland would, in fact, be Totalitarianism under a new deceptive and more dangerous guise. Except that it is a spontaneous emergence of a new from of multi party semi democratic regime, it would serve to undermine resistance to Communism inside and outside the block.

The need for massive defense expenditure would increasingly be questioned in the West which is happening exactly right now. New possibilities would arise for splitting western Europe away from the United States, of neutralizing Germany and destroying NATO. And the are exactly the objectives of the present situation.

With North American influence in Latin America also undermined, the stage would be set for achieving actual revolutionary changes in the western world through spurious changes in the Communist system.

[Rushdoony] Well, that is a very telling statement.

[Scott] That just about covers it, I would say. You know, the last great supporter of the Soviet Communist system and party is Washington, D C.

[Mose] Here is some more from his prediction.

“If in a reasonable time liberalization can be successfully achieved in Poland and elsewhere,” remember this is predicted and now that liberalization has been achieved, “it will serve to revitalize the Communist regimes concerned. The activities of the false opposition will further confuse and undermine the genuine opposition in the communist world. Externally the role of dissidents will be to persuade the West that that the liberalization is spontaneous and not controlled. Liberalization will create conditions for establishing solidarity between trade unions and intellectuals in the Communist and non Communist world. In times such alliances will generate new forms of pressure against western militarism, racism and the military industrial complex. And in favor of disarmament the kind of structural changes in the West predicted in Sakharov’s writings.”

And that, of course, in Sakharov’s writings is referring there to the whole theme of convergence, east west convergence which is...

[multiple voices]

[Scott] We heard that... we heard that New Years Day from Mr. Bush and Mr. Gorbachev.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[multiple voices]

[Mose] He admitted openly now that the whole thrust of the liberalization is to create the common European homeland, which is the catch phrase right now.

[Scott] And the only problem with that is that we are going to be excluded.

[Mose] Well, and again...

[multiple voices]

[Mose] ...trying to isolate the United States.

[Scott] Yes.

[Mose] So I think the 90s are going to definitely going to be the decade of Europe and there is going to be some extremely interesting and dangerous things taking place there.

[Scott] But the best thing that I have gotten out of your dissertation is that there is a Christian underground in all these areas.

[Mose] Yes.

[Scott] Which may interfere with this particular plot.

[Mose] And I believe strongly that it will.

[Scott] That is very good.

[Rushdoony] Yes. They have counted God out and God is in the process of counting them out.

[Scott] Well said.

[Mose] God never allows himself to be counted out.

[Rushdoony] Right. Well, that has been a very telling analysis, Gary.

[Mose] I would recommend people picking up this book. I have not only scratched the surface in this... even this final chapter. {?}

[Scott] Excuse me. Who is the publisher?

[Mose] Published by Don Reed and Company.

[Scott] What year?

[Mose] 1984 called New Lies for Old.

[Rushdoony] Well, we have a about a minute left. Any final statement on the part of either of you?

[Scott] No.

[Mose] Again, I would just like to encourage western church and western believers to... to consider to be in prayer about the opportunities...

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Mose] ...in eastern Europe. And I mean opportunities. There are opportunities there which have never existed before. And if we don't seize them, somebody else will. In fact, other people are. In Hungary, for example, the occult is on the rise. Cults are moving in. Pornography is moving in. When the demon of Communism is cast out of the house in Hungary, that demon is going to roam around as Jesus said in Matthew 12 until it can’t find any other place to light and it will come back to the empty house with seven other demons who are worse than the ... he was. And the situation for the ... the house will be much worse in the end. So if Christians do not seize the opportunity, we have only ourselves to blame.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Scott] Well, let’s not load any guilt on the Christians. We get enough of it as it is.

[Mose] Yes, it is just an opportunity and we must take it.

[Rushdoony] Well, thank you very, very much, Gary and thank you all for listening and do be in payer concerning these things of which Gary spoke. Good night and God bless you all.

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