The Deception of Liberal Thinking
...or are you a Hippie-crit?

Children of the sixties above all hated hypocrisy. To be a hypocrite means to lie or deceive. A hypocrite is a deceiver, pretender, faker, swindler, charlatan, imposter, fraud or cheat. It is everything despised by those who invested themselves in the Movement. Nobody likes to be tricked, made a fool of, laid waste by someone else's selfishness.

In the Sixties it seemed like much of what the American Dream stood for was hypocrisy. The Establishment only got the 'haves' established at the expense of the 'have-nots'. We wanted to fix it so badly. We wanted there to be love and justice for everyone without discrimination. There should be no rich or poor, black or white, male or female — just treat everybody fair and equal. Isn't that what the Constitution stood for and what love demanded?

Something in the longing human heart knew it was true; love was the answer — it had to be the answer. If the problem was hate and greed, it follows that the answer would be love. Who was it that told us it would be easy to love anyway? Hmm?…

I can't hear you.

Nobody ever stopped to wonder too hard about who was going to teach us selfish human beings how to love. Did any of the prophets and philosophers demonstrate it beyond the rhetoric?

The Sixties proclaimed "All you need is love".Many believers trust that God is love. Could you say that "All you need is God"? Maybe, depending upon the god you decide to believe in. It has to be the right one, the one whose truth is worth banking on.

The bottom line is that the real God is really true. So He's the One you want to find. Forget the hypocrites, the pretenders. He is good and real and just and He is love. It is work to believe in Him in the face of the schemes of evil. Evil is smart too, very deceptive, and very skilled at leading us to believe that lies are true. Evil does not want us to believe God is true.

Therefore he artfully uses us, robs us, violates us, and tells us it was God that did it. Who would want to believe in a God like that anyway? Many are trapped in the snare, just like Eve was. Liberals, especially. It sounded like a good point, the question evil asked Eve. It led her to doubt God's goodness toward her. She fell for it. I used to be a liberal; it was the same thing. The deception is subtle, not obvious. I had a tender heart that hated injustice and believed that people could fix it if they just focused on the right things and were not greedy and selfish.

BUT, now I see, no one ever told us where we were going to get the power to not be greedy and selfish. Would it be subjective, left to every man and woman's own best judgment? The rich often do that, convincing themselves that "I worked hard for it; I deserve it."

The basic lie of liberalism is to believe that man can fix it alone, without God, through education and human effort. In an effort to upgrade the human condition,liberals often inadvertently assault the essence of humanity: the human will, which all humans have, making them accountable for their choices. The 'victim' spirit that prevails today is wicked; it is wicked because it excuses the choices people make and blames it on their unfortunate circumstances. Remember the heros and heroines that were credited with glory because they somehow rose above those circumstances?

How did they do it? They cultivated character and trusted something beyond their own understanding and their own righteousness. By and large they believed in God and His goodness; they clung to it. In the face of hardship, they did not get bitter, blame God and choose evil instead, justifying themselves while doing so. They took accountability and kept on devoting themselves to righteousness in the face of trying circumstances, instead of finding an excuse to choose evil and fail to take responsibility for their own choice.

I'll offer you a few examples.

The Word of God teaches man to discipline his children, to spank them in love, so that they will learn a way that they will not depart from when they are old. They will be raised to be respectful and obedient, God-fearing and humble. Dr. Benjamin Spock convinced a whole generation of parents that spanking was bad and permissiveness was good for children.

He wrote books that were bibles for new theories of child-raising that were relied upon by a whole generation, at least. Social workers in the name of state authority could take people's children, deeming them unfit if they failed to adhere to the doctrines of Dr. Spock. Shortly before his death, Benjamin Spock apologized and said he was wrong; his theories about raising children were hypotheses, but they did not bear out. In practice, healthy, responsible adults were not the outcome. It is good that he acknowledged this, but what about the people that got duped believing what he said? You may still be one of them. Whether you know it or not, it was a lie; it remains a lie, whether you believe it is or not.

What about equality between the sexes and among the races? That sounds good too. Let's do it! Let's fight for it, let's force it. Legislate. Protest injustice. Demand even Stephen and scream if it is anything less than that. Look at the last 30-40 years of strife trying to make equality happen. Where are we in those battles? Equality has certainly not arrived, but bitterness and division over the issues continues to plague both the sexes and the races.

What about the differences between men and women and among the races? Aren't they nice? Shouldn't we respect them, instead of pretending that everyone is identical? Isn't every human being entitled to respect and fair treatment because they are created in the image and likeness of God? Why don't we opt for God's way instead and fix it when we fall short? Why don't we strive for decency and civility between everybody and apply that standard in our daily encounters and help others when they miss the mark, instead of trying to claim money damages for the wrong? Laws can't fix the selfish heart of man. God's law of love is already available for people to obey. There is no law against it. Such equality cannot be achieved apart from the love of God reigning in the human heart. To gain such love, one must surrender self, give up one's own life as most important.

Liberals practice the philosophy that people do not choose evil and that educating people to do good, to do the right thing, is the hope of fixing social problems. The assumption is that once the right thing is known, somehow people will inevitably do it, as if self-interest is not an obstacle. This philosophy is a lie, grounded in deceit by evil. It fools good people big time. It pretends that evil does not exist and also that people do not choose it. It effectively erases accountability from people choosing between right and wrong and paying the consequences.

It is a good thing to learn as a child that selfishness is bad and why. Instead, a permissive, deceived parent will say, "Oh, they are only children; they will grow out of it." But they don't, what they grow is selfish, believing it is socially acceptable. Liberalism tends to cause people to make excuses for why they do what they do, rather than simply acknowledging sin — greed, selfishness, anger, impatience, etc. At least when you feel guilt it serves a function. It helps you know that you did something bad that you can be sorry for! This is why we have a conscience — to help us stay in good standing. When we don't, we fall lower and lower and become duller and duller. We have no hope because we forget God and His promises and the options He made for man to have faith and trust and recover from the consequences of sin. There is no recovery if you go too far.

But there is hope! There is hope if you are willing to admit that you have been deceived! If you are willing to believe that you have been duped by listening to lies and now you really want to hear the truth, you may be able to hear. You just have to be willing in your heart. Forgiveness for all the fallen things you've done and seen and heard is available! Because it is true: God is that good and that loving, and anybody who tells you differently is a liar, a deceiver, not worthy of leaning your life upon. If you want to know why you should trust the truth of Yahshua's forgiveness and promise of a new life that does not disappoint, it is because He paid the price ahead of you (death) and He received the glory (resurrected) so you could trust it and follow Him. Any other path is deceived.

If you are a child of the 60s and the ideals that once were all important to you when you had hope no longer run your life and direct its course, then you may be a hippie-crit.