Dr. Martin Erdmann has just announced he is scheduling seminars across the country on the topic of “The international agenda of Church and State in America: an historical and religious analysis.” To read more about this click HERE and to schedule an event click on Contact.
Regarding this topic, we have previously reviewed Dr. Martin Erdmann's book Ecumenical Quest for a World Federation HERE.
Below is a synopsis of Dr. Erdmann's proposed seminar.
Synopsis of the Seminar:
In the first half of the 20th century elite corporate and political leaders in America such as John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen began to drum up religious fervor as a tool to build their utopian vision of a global international order. Their influential efforts would eventually gain more traction during the Eisenhower administration where both of these brothers ascended to prominent positions of power. Their vision is summarized in a letter written by Lord Lothian (Philip Kerr), the British ambassador to the USA and a personal friend of John Foster Dulles:
“I am convinced that when Christianity reaches the point when it is able to bring the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth it will establish a world federation of some novel kind as the necessary institutional condition by which alone the Kingdom can be maintained in being.”
If a world federation was to be established, the British Empire, along with the United States, would have to lead, nationalism would have to be abolished and a world commonwealth would have to be established, a commonwealth which would unite the nations of the earth into a confederacy similar to the design used in establishing the United States. However, politicians and governments could not accomplish this goal alone; something even more powerful was needed—the church. If the church could be convinced that by creating a politically united world in which war, poverty and injustice were eliminated, and that they were also ushering in the kingdom of God, then the church would gladly join hands with politicians to bring about such a world society. It was Dulles’ task to motivate the churches to become actively involved in building a global society. The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America (FCC) was on board as became clear in their Social Creed of 1932. One leader stated,
“We are coming to see that the kingdom of God in Christ’s conception never means anything less than a righteous human society … He has come not alone to save people out of the world and fill them for a far-away heaven, but to make a heaven here. He has come not to patch up human society and make the world a little less intolerable for men, but to make all things new and create a new social order.”
The true mission of the church according to the FCC was to build the kingdom of God on earth. In order to accomplish this it was not only necessary to promote a civic religion in American, to which all Christian denominations would pledge their allegiance, and thus lay the groundwork for a merger of church and state. It was also necessary to recognize that the moral, or natural, law is revealed through other religions, and can be comprehended by all men, so that it is a force far more universal than any particular religion.
Between the World Wars a liberal postmillennial view of the kingdom of God dovetailed with a political push for a world federation. In 1934 the Federal Council of Churches began a grassroots public relations campaign to further the Social Gospel during the Roosevelt administration. This led to the formation of the World Council of Churches in 1943. During the war years the FCC also exerted its influence on the US government to abrogate its national sovereignty and become a member in a supranational organization after hostilities would have ceased. In 1945 the United Nations Organization was formed on American soil to bring about a one world government.
The ambitious goals behind these two organizations have never been realized, although they continue to be the heartbeat of many political and religious leaders. Recently, within evangelical Christianity in America different initiatives and movements have re-energized the postmillennial liberal attempt to establish the kingdom of God on earth through a social agenda. Using virtually the same verbiage, methods and propaganda, leading evangelicals are indoctrinating a whole new generation with an unbiblical understanding of the kingdom of God and the mission of the church. This same agenda is now promoted by many churches and missions agencies around the world.
The intent of the seminar is to forewarn believers in Christ, especially pastors and Christian leaders, of what is transpiring in many churches, both liberal and evangelical, today in continuation of the original goals of the ecumenical movement. A special emphasis is placed on retracing the historical and religious roots of the program to institute a civic religion in western nations, primarily in the United States of America, which will eventually lead to a fully functional State-Church system. Putting this system in place is an indispensable aspect of bringing about the unification of all nations under a common political and religious authority of global dimensions. Every church which cherishes its independence from state interference, especially in its refusal to become a proponent of a syncretistic civic religion, which, if adopted, will negate any biblical Gospel ministry, should be interested to know more about the long-range goals of ecumenism.
Keep reading HERE and HERE. Buy Ecumenical Quest for a World Federation at Amazon HERE.