The principle of the greatest good for the greatest number is one by which dictators can justify their cruelty. When the communists starved to death millions of Ukrainians, massacred thousands of Polish officers, murdered possibly twenty million Chinese, and slaughtered the Tibetans, they could justify themselves on the ground that the pleasure of future generations of communists would outweigh the temporary pain. Certainly no scientific observation can prove the contrary. (Clark, "Ethics," ibid., p. 77). Also online at "Ethics," Gordon H. Clark Foundation.
A Short-Term
Mission Trip to Nicaragua: Part 4
Around 1989 I was in my second
year at Southeastern College of the Assemblies of God. The chapel services that year began to
promote a short-term mission trip to Nicaragua which was to be led by an
Assemblies of God mission and professor at Southeastern, Rev. Ralph
Leslie. There was another professor on
the trip, also a mature man, whose name I cannot recall. The trip was to take place during spring break
of that year as I remember. I was able
to raise funds from friends at the college and from members at my home church.
I was slightly older than most of
the other students on the trip being 29 years old. We were instructed to bring audio equipment for
street preaching to help the Nicaraguan churches there in the Grande CampaƱa to
be held all over the area of Managua. No
one should bring any equipment that would not be donated because in that
country everything is viewed as community property. As you know, Nicaragua is a communist country
and most of the industry there is state owned and controlled.
Ronald Reagan’s second term of
office as President of the United States ended in 1988. George H. W. Bush, the former Vice President
had just been elected as the new President of the United States of America. So things were still tense after the
Iran-Contra affair where Reagan had to apologize for subsidizing the Contras in
Nicaragua without the authority of the Congress. Feelings in Nicaragua among the general
population was towards a communist nationalism and against the Contra
rebels.
In light of this, we were instructed
not to discuss politics or anything remotely connected to politics while were there. Of course, this was no problem for me because
I didn’t speak much Spanish anyway. I
was to go into the mountains to a church in a remote area because I was one of
the more mature students on the trip, or so they said. The problem was that I had no
interpreter. Perhaps it was selfish of
me, but I had envisioned being able to preach to the small church with an
interpreter because that is what was implied in going on the trip in the first
place. So after several days, I finally
was able to speak to Ralph Leslie and told him that I was not happy about not
having an interpreter. It was then
agreed that I would be partnered with another student who spoke at least passable
Spanish because he was of Hispanic background and his parents spoke fluent
Spanish.
On the trip back to Managua I
rode with the pastor of the church where I had been assigned. We rode in the back of a small truck with
dual rear tires. There was a handrail
running over the top of our heads and there was fencing sides to the
truck. Before the truck made it to
Managua it was crowded, and we were standing shoulder to shoulder with at least
fifteen to twenty people on the back of the truck.
Later, we transferred to the back
of a pickup truck, which I learned later was owned by a local church. There were about eight to ten pastors riding
in the back of the pickup, all of whom were Nicaraguan Assemblia de Dios ministers. I had with me my preferred translation of the
Bible, a King James Version with cross references in a small edition that I had
purchased sometime after my joining the A/G church in Wauchula, Florida. For some reason during the trip to Managua
the driver stopped and we took a break on the side of the road near a sidewalk. One of the older men in truck, who had gray
facial hair, held up a pocket sized book and began speaking to me in
Spanish. I did not understand what he was
talking about as I don’t speak Spanish.
But suddenly I saw on the cover of the little hardback book the title, Manifiesto
del Partido Comunista.
I saw that the pastor had a serious
and intense look on his face. I had an
epiphany at that moment that he was testing me to see if I would make any
anti-communist remarks so that I could be arrested and imprisoned. We had been instructed not to mention that we
as students were Americans because in the minds of the Nicaraguans, they too
were Americans, albeit Americans Central America. We were to them Norte Americanos.
I patiently waited for him to
finish his lecture in Spanish. After he
finished, I held up my KJV Bible and gave him a look just as serious as he had
given me. I mustered up the best Spanish
I could remember and told him, “No comprende.”
I should have said, “No comprendo.”
I wanted to say that I didn’t understand Spanish but I was actually
saying that he didn’t understand. I then
said, “No Estados Unidos, no Nicaragua, pero La Palabra de Dios, la Santa
Biblia!” After that, it got very quiet. None of the other ministers said anything and
the elder pastor said nothing else. I
had said what I said in a firm voice. I
was essentially saying I don’t agree with your communism. I am here to preach God’s Word. No one bothered bringing up the Communist
Manifesto again after that.
Given the “holy boldness” of the
moment, I am glad that I did not offend them to the point of being arrested. For all I know, the pastor could have been an
informant for the government.
Later I was able to visit the
home of a family that Rev. Leslie had known during his missionary years in
Nicaragua. Rev. Leslie’s daughter,
Melinda, was there. She spoke fluent
Spanish because she had grown up in Nicaragua when her father was appointed
there as a missionary. There was a young
man there around age 18 or 19 years old.
He had had one leg seriously injured as a soldier in the Nicaraguan army
fighting against the Contras. There was
a military draft there at the time, so I was unsure if he supported the
government or not. But as the discussion
via the translator went on I perceived that the majority of the Christians
there were supportive of the communist government. I later surmised that the Pentecostal
churches in the communist countries were very much influenced by the Latin
American Liberation Theology of the leftist progressives.
This was a sharp contrast to the prosperity
gospel of the majority of Pentecostal/Charismatic megachurches with which I had
been familiar. It was troubling to me
for at least two reasons. First, I grew
up very poor and was somewhat sympathetic to the poor and their unmet needs. I opposed the false gospel of prosperity and
the health and wealth movement. On the
other hand, I still believed in capitalism, freedom of speech, and the American
view of the freedom of religion.
Communism by its very nature is based on materialistic atheism. It seems to me that liberation theology is a
this worldly natural religion, even a godless religion. Liberation theology in its many forms is
loosely based on the Bible but reinterprets the Scriptures in terms of a this
worldly justice for the poor. That I
could and will never agree with.