My Brush with Communism and Its Brief but Fearful Consequences
When I was nine or ten years old, I went to a father-son banquet (with my dad, of course) in my home church. It was a fad of the time designed, I’m sure, to teach boys manners and create some forced quality time between fathers and sons. This, in a culture where most fathers spent “quality time” working with their sons on their farms every day! What has happened to this quaint bit of Christian culture—the father-son, mother-daughter banquet—I’m not sure. I haven’t heard of any for years in the Christian communities I have lived in. In fact, I never attended one with my son who is now 37 years old.
In any case, what I want to remember here is the “entertainment” at the banquet, a lecture by a Christian Reformed pastor from Rock Valley who had been a POW in the Korean War. Well, if anyone at that time worried whether this preacher would be able to hold the attention of a bunch of little boys—not necessarily something folks worried about in those days—he need not have worried. The man held us transfixed as he described the conditions he suffered as a prisoner—rats, near starvation, beatings—mesmerizing us with the dreadful pictures he drew in our minds.
But the most potent part of his message concerned the evils of Communism. He painted pictures of Russian soldiers carrying bayonets and marching down Main Street of Edgerton, Minnesota, breaking down the doors of homes and marching up the stairs to the bedrooms of small boys, with bayonets at the ready.
For several weeks after the banquet I had dreadful nightmares that awakened me in tears and sent me to my parents’ bedroom. They would assure me that the Russians were not coming, tell me to go to the bathroom, take a drink of water and go back to bed. It was a cure that worked pretty well, but not so well that I gave up practicing lying perfectly still under the covers, thinking it might some how prevent my being transfixed by a bayonet.
The nightmares went away after a time, and I never was much afraid of Communism again. The railings of the John Birch Society, the screaming billboards about Martin Luther King being a Communist, seemed to me to be mostly silliness. Even though the preacher who spoke of his experiences with Korean communism was undoubtedly earnest and meant well, somehow, somewhat unconsciously, what trickled down to me as I matured was the recognition that fear-mongering and conspiracy accusations were often a lot of hot air, sometimes accompanied by personal agendas.
Which brings me to Glenn Beck, who in the light of his lowest ratings ever on Fox, has conjured a conspiracy theory that has almost everyone who knows anything about world politics scratching their head or laughing in outright scorn. Here’s his theory about the current revolt in Egypt: It has come about through the organized and combined scheming of Communism, Socialism, Obama’s government, The Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslims in general. This unlikely union of conspirators plans to make Babylon—which was intentionally not bombed in either of the Bush’s wars (and they are also in on the conspiracy)—the center of the Muslim takeover of the world.
Apparently, some of his faithful believe him, but I am not going to lose any sleep over it.
On the other hand, we do have things to worry about—more serious than communism or the coming Muslim takeover. It involves no conspiracy (but some hot air) and is a subject about which I lie awake and ponder. My previous blog entry tells you what it is.
In any case, what I want to remember here is the “entertainment” at the banquet, a lecture by a Christian Reformed pastor from Rock Valley who had been a POW in the Korean War. Well, if anyone at that time worried whether this preacher would be able to hold the attention of a bunch of little boys—not necessarily something folks worried about in those days—he need not have worried. The man held us transfixed as he described the conditions he suffered as a prisoner—rats, near starvation, beatings—mesmerizing us with the dreadful pictures he drew in our minds.
But the most potent part of his message concerned the evils of Communism. He painted pictures of Russian soldiers carrying bayonets and marching down Main Street of Edgerton, Minnesota, breaking down the doors of homes and marching up the stairs to the bedrooms of small boys, with bayonets at the ready.
For several weeks after the banquet I had dreadful nightmares that awakened me in tears and sent me to my parents’ bedroom. They would assure me that the Russians were not coming, tell me to go to the bathroom, take a drink of water and go back to bed. It was a cure that worked pretty well, but not so well that I gave up practicing lying perfectly still under the covers, thinking it might some how prevent my being transfixed by a bayonet.
The nightmares went away after a time, and I never was much afraid of Communism again. The railings of the John Birch Society, the screaming billboards about Martin Luther King being a Communist, seemed to me to be mostly silliness. Even though the preacher who spoke of his experiences with Korean communism was undoubtedly earnest and meant well, somehow, somewhat unconsciously, what trickled down to me as I matured was the recognition that fear-mongering and conspiracy accusations were often a lot of hot air, sometimes accompanied by personal agendas.
Which brings me to Glenn Beck, who in the light of his lowest ratings ever on Fox, has conjured a conspiracy theory that has almost everyone who knows anything about world politics scratching their head or laughing in outright scorn. Here’s his theory about the current revolt in Egypt: It has come about through the organized and combined scheming of Communism, Socialism, Obama’s government, The Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslims in general. This unlikely union of conspirators plans to make Babylon—which was intentionally not bombed in either of the Bush’s wars (and they are also in on the conspiracy)—the center of the Muslim takeover of the world.
Apparently, some of his faithful believe him, but I am not going to lose any sleep over it.
On the other hand, we do have things to worry about—more serious than communism or the coming Muslim takeover. It involves no conspiracy (but some hot air) and is a subject about which I lie awake and ponder. My previous blog entry tells you what it is.
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