Marxism And The Church

Dan Ellsworth and Greg have had several discussions on Marxist thought. This discussion focuses on Dan's latest book, Marxism, A Latter-day Saint Perspective. They cover the DNA of Marxism to today's ideological movements such as DEI, Critical Race Theory, and Queer Theory.

We also discuss Marxism and the Church. Dan's book shows the vast differences between these modern Marxist offshoots and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Dan also boldly claims that Marxism is the "Great And Abominable Church" described in the Book of Mormon.

Marxism by Dan Ellsworth - https://amzn.to/3zTkNQP

 Raw Transcript

I appreciate you following this episode with Dan Ellsworth he is the author of The recently published book Marxism a
Latter-Day Saint perspective and I love that he just comes out and calls it
Marxism because it is what it is it is what ties many of the current day
philosophies of men to a root that is pernicious and is Antichrist that is
comparing it to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Into the Book of Mormon where
he calls Marxism the great and abominable Church found in first Nephi
it's a great little read a great little pass along I'm going to put the link to the book in the description box now this
episode has brought to you by the Isaiah institute's restoring the Covenant virtual conference this is on October
19th I am a guest speaker at the conference this is a chance for you to delve into Isaiah to get a framework and
an understanding of what Isaiah is trying to teach us to understand his prophecies you can go to Isaiah
conference.com backg Greg that's Isaiah conference.com backg Greg and I will
have the link in the description box here we
[Music]
go all right welcome to Quick show my name is Greg m and I am your host in this episode we have brought back my
friend Dan Ellsworth Dan how are you doing good how about you great we are I'm excited here we're going to talk
about the subject of Marxism uh I think a lot of people are like well wait a minute I don't know if
I want to go into that but I think it's fascinating to go back into time look at where this comes from how is it playing
out today and I think most important to you and I is how does this play out in the church today yeah so I wanted to
start off with that and you know let me let me just ask you uh uh first of
all why is the discussion of Marxism relevant for us today and especially as
church members well you have to have it's important to name things
correctly and I sometimes I just get tired of of hearing you know kind of
vague terminology used for this ideology yes that goes through the church that
goes through society and and and nobody quite knows what to call it and it does
have a name it is Marxism that is the name and I I've gotten tired recently of
of people saying oh it's not Marxism you know when we do critical race Theory and
and some other things like that and uh those things absolutely are part of
marxist ideology there's no question about it so very very important to to
give things you know their proper name and and that's the name for what we see well I think also it's important as you
say it's important to give the proper name but it's you know you've got all of these layers since Marx since communism
has been more the enemy that it w you know which it was in the 19th in the 20th century than it is seems to be
right now um but it's important to unravel that and understand what the source is of all of this I mean because
you've got all of these different disciplin and cultural changes that are
that have an origin you know and and and in Academia you look at queer Theory you
look at gender Theory you know you look at critical race Theory and and all the
uh identitarian uh intersectionality uh uh focuses that we
have these all come from the same roots and the individuals that produced these
are marxists self-proclaim marxists correct is the theory that they're drawing from correct that is absolutely
right very important to understand that okay so uh let's go back first of all I
want to go into a little bit about what is the DNA of this so that people understand as they're looking at things
today that come about and we're looking at Dei you know and and things that we
are are very prevalent in our culture in Academia in our workplace and coming to
award near you perhaps it's uh what is the DNA of this I want to
start off with who is Karl Marx and and why is does he produce this uh
this I would call it ironically a a a secular theology yeah yeah and you and I
have talked about Marx before there there are some things that that people probably don't understand about him and
that they probably should and you know he grew up in a Christian family that
had converted from Judaism because they were in Germany and they were worried about anti-Semitism so they converted to
Christianity kind of out of convenience and he he basically
performed kind of the normal Christian life growing up you know as as a kid and
um but as he was kind of approaching his university years people noticed a shift
and then when he actually left to go to college there was a big shift with KL
Marx and he there he joined a Poetry Club and he started writing poetry he
joined a group called The Young hegelians which was kind of a a group of
groups of people who who followed sort of you know some of the thinking of
George Hegel or I sorry friederick heg was it friederick I can't some sometimes
forget these names he has like three names so correct right so they followed
Hegel how let's let's put it that way and Hegel had kind of a formula for thinking about the world which was you
look at an idea and you attack it by bringing it into contact with its
opposite and uh and then out of that arises a
better uh idea that I ideally incorporates the original idea and and
I'll just say you know this so This is called the the dialectic and it's not
always wrong like sometimes that actually works uh for figuring things
out right but for some people like KL Marx it became the whole way that they
see everything like they see the entire world that way and they cannot help but
do this to every right even in situations where it shouldn't be done the
dialectic and uh so he fell in with this crowd and among them were people who had
what we would call Satan admiration um they had been raised
religious and then they gravitated toward Satan and they kind of saw him as
a hero you know and here he is this individualistic being who you know he
exalts the individual against Power and and so it it became kind of this sort of
oppositional view of Satan uh that led people to admire him and Carl fell in
with this crowd that's how he um that that was those were the waters that he
was swimming in during his time in the University yeah and you give several uh
you know previously we've talked about this as you said you've given several examples of this in book also uh
supporting this right that this is this is a they almost Relish in it and those
are around him exp you know from there are poems about about Marx that uh that
talk about this and who he was and his his the darkness of his spirit and yeah
and what he focused on and so I think again the important thing to understand is what what are the fruits today of
that Original Seed and that plant right that is planted how do we look at this and then see what the fruits are uh
coming from this today I want to talk about the dialectic a little bit I agree with you the dialectic is true right it
is it is it is in many ways the way that history moves forward
or that time moves forward there is a large change you know you again you've got the the thesis you've got the anti
antithesis and then you've got the synthesis that happens and this is what happens it moves forward things change
this way but what they do is they weaponize it yes right they take it and
they say okay we are going to not just see give a philosophy of how history and
time passes with culture how we evolve so to speak culturally which is really
what it is it's a theory on cultural Evolution yeah and and it's but we're
going to weaponize it and use this and understand that this philosophy can be used for activism yeah yeah and we will
push the boundaries and then get something in a synthesis and then push the boundaries and then and they so they
kind of go right along with it do you do you do you see that yeah absolutely it I what I see is um you know it's it's that
old saying when all you have as a hammer every problem looks like a nail right so
for a lot of people on the left and and for Marks and his and the people around
him every problem the the dialect became their hammer and everything looked like
a nail we need to do this to everything relentlessly and and with not with the
intention of arriving at the truth even it was just I hate this thing so I'm G
to use the dialectic or Marx one of the things with Marx is he would he had this
personality that was so just costic just
just vicious and so he he would make friends and and they had these ideas and
and theories and things and then he would apply the dialectic and he would write things about people who had been
his friends he would write these you know articles about them and he was
vicious personally just really vicious and in attacking these people and so the
dialectic just became this this way for him to I I'm just going to
be blunt kind of vomit poison on everything that's what he did yeah and you say in the book uh you
you say that there were 11 people at his funeral yeah think about that for this very reason but again I think it's
really important that people understand and look at look at a look at the things around you and how do you
identify uh something that is is Marxist right that has these roots and that dial
is one of the ways to look at it it's one of the things you see in the DNA of of Marxism is the the term critique
which becomes critical right and so it's a critical theory and this starts going
back all the way to K who coins kind of this critique and and it's you know in
in German at the time critique is not an analysis right right it's not let me let
me critically think about this let me look at this and and it's funny because I get this comment back all the time
when I talk about a critical theory or and they're like well you don't want people to think critically it's like okay you don't you don't get it you
don't see how right yeah it's like critique in
German means to break down and to change
yeah and that is what you're describing in terms of the attacks and using this dialectic to try and break something
down and to change it and everything that you get later on with gry and then
and then the the Frankfurt School and and the American marxists uh is you know critical race
Theory and intersectionality and Dei and all of these things are the same exact thing their objective is to break down
as gramp she says and you you outlin in the book the cultural hegemony of of of
of systems and then change them into what they want them to be right right and
yeah so I I wrote the book partly out of frustration because I see people trying
to avoid this reality right like you said you know people people say oh well
what can what harm could could come from critical thinking and you know
developing theories doesn't you know isn't that a normal thing to do well it sounds harmless until you actually look
at what Carl Marx's intentions were and and
one of the things as I was writing the book there were there were a few moments where I felt like I was struck by
lightning with Insight like wow you know you you read some things and um and
they're just incredible and one of those was Antonio grami he was he was an Italian socialist activist after Marx
who just fell in love with Marx's theories um also traveled to Russia
and saw what Vladimir Lenin was doing with the with the Russian Revolution and
and you know the bulvik party and stuff and he he was he thought a lot about you
know what what is really going on okay Marx Marx offered he he functioned kind
of like a prophet like you know foretelling the future of the world and
and society and and so after he died you know you have people like grami who had
come to follow his his teachings uh they're sitting there saying wait a minute okay this is not
all happening the way he en Invision so how do we make sense of this right and
he looked to Russia to what they were doing what Vladimir Lenin was doing and he saw that there was a contradiction
between how Vladimir Lenin was doing Marxism versus how Marx taught Marxism
and here's what an Antonio gry said he was talking about the Russians and he said they are not marxists that's what
it comes down to they have not used the Master's works okay I'm gonna stop right
there he calls him the master yeah so let that sink in right to draw up a
superficial interpretation dictatorial statements which cannot be disputed now pay attention to what he says here they
live out Marxist thought the one which will never die M okay the continuation
of idealist Italian and German thought and that in Marx had been corrupted by
The Emptiness of positivism and naturalism so grami is
saying Marxist thought didn't originate with Marx will never die okay it's going
to keep going after Mark did not originate with him either and in marks
he said it had actually been corrupted by some of his biases so grami saw that there's this
pure kind of current of thought that is actually the real Marxism
okay that's amazing for a Marxist to admit right because when you understand
what grch saying there then the word Marxism like the real meaning starts to
become clear it's not you know it's not KL Marx's economic theories about
communism those are part of how he envisioned you know this Marxism playing
out in kind of the economic sphere but Marxism is something different it's it's a whole it's kind of a
formula that predates marks and will always
exist yeah that's interesting because and and we've had this discussion before going back into to uh you know let's
call it gospel history scriptural history um I think we've talked about
Cain and Abel before I can't remember yeah we might have yeah and and and then of course the war in heaven yes and what
you have there and I've got you know some some interesting thoughts there also but it's it's almost as if as you
say you're you when you talk about uh Marx's interest and veneration of
honestly veneration of Satan then and you you get this idea with the restored
Gospel of well he's kind of in tune with him right in in a sense of of how what
what is the philosophy of Satan yeah right and and what does he want it's if
you parse out if you critically think about the war in heaven and the plans
that are presented there it it's hard not to draw a conclusion that this as
you're describing this undercurrent that that grampi is speaking of is way you
know existed way before we even had the Earth yeah it absolutely that's that's
what what becomes clear when you dive into this stuff and what's interesting I what I one of the things I wanted to
show in the book was during Marx's University years there was a big period
of time where he only took two classes and one of the classes was a course on
Isaiah by one of his Mentor is a man named Bruno Bower and Bruno he was a
German student of Hegel and he was very like atheistic
anti-religious and he was teaching a class on Isaiah and the university interesting I didn't know this yeah so
Marx takes Bruno Bower's course on Isaiah and so in my book I took it I
created a so one of the things when you think about what is in the book of
Isaiah right first of all in chapter 53 you have the most clear Old Testament
prophecy of Christ right um but in chapter 14 you have the most clear
discussion of Satan in the Old Testament and that's where you have this um it
starts out with Isaiah talking about the king of Babylon and there's kind of kind
of this archetype shared between the king of Babylon and Satan and and it's
the it's the passage where he says how art there how art thou Fallen oh Lucifer son of the morning you know and he talks
about these figures who think they're they're just G to they're going to build
this Tower up into the heavens and they're going to rule and they're going to be like God and all of these things
right and so uh you when you look at Marx's poetry
so his PO poetry has these satanic elements to it and I identified and I
put it in the book you can actually see where these elements of Isaiah 14 registered in him like from taking
that class with Bruno Bower and he's actually identifying with this Satan
figure in Isaiah 14 yeah so I wanted to show that I because there are frankly
there are a lot of people who go to college and they might take a course in Marxism or they might have a university
Professor who is a Marxist and they come to think that it's this cool
edgy you know system and wow look how cool I am because I did a course in
Marxism and I studied under a Marxist Professor right I want you to see exactly you know
what the roots of this system are and this kind of Satan admiration that that
is at the core of it that drove Carl Marx you cannot separate everything that
came after from that you really cannot do that and again going back to the
point of why you you you you called the book Marxism yeah it's you've got to
draw it all together now you write about a how how Marxism is a
response to unfairness yeah right so that's a part of this will you bring that together both in in in Marx's own
life and then and then how that has developed through time yeah so think of the time
of KL Marx you know the the 19th century in during the 1800s um there was a lot you have the
Industrial Revolution going on and you have a lot of families um being broken up to work in
factories you have child labor you have a lot of actual like real exploitative
business practice is going on in Europe and other places and so it it doesn't I
think it's important for us to recognize that people like KL Marx saw those
things in the world and hated th that unfairness now before you go and think
oh you know KL Marx like you know he had this uh benevolent view for making
Humanity better right you might conclude that BAS based on what he said about the unfairness that he saw in the world but
he his own personal life doesn't reflect that right but but I did want to put in
the book you know I I I want to be clear that that that was commonly understood
that there were a lot of really exploitative business practices in the world Brigham Young talked about that um
you know it it was it was actually kind of the way the world was back then still is to a great degree right so um it it's
not that you know when you think about people who might have been drawn to
Marxism uh it it's not that they became satanists and that's why they were drawn
to Marxism a lot of marxists just they grew up in really terrible situations
and they said okay here's an ideology that points to A A Better World you see
it you see it sprouting a lot more in in very poverty strict Nations for absolutely so so I hope that we can see
that and and I started the book off by saying you know a lot of us are going to as we do Temple and family history work
we're going to come across ancestors who got seduced by Marxism well why well a lot of them were
promised this better world through this ideology a lot of people fell for it and
a lot of people paid for their lives you know once they actually found out what it really was a lot of them think of ma
Tong and his Revolution and how he just he built this revolutionary force that
then turned on itself right so you had people who had devoted their lives for
it to it that are all of a sudden now being tortured and killed like what
happened you know so Marxism is a lie and it seduces good people sometimes it
has done that throughout history a lot of people who leads with a new moral it absolutely does yeah it it we can
make the world better well who doesn't want to do that right so yeah um so part
of that you know response to unfairness is I I think an important thing to understand and distinguish as you
separate for example Marxist ideas from the restored gospel is the idea of
pain right in your life and you're talking about this right now right and how what is your response to all of this
and how it is I and and I see I have this little I don't know what you call it like principle called Taos versus the
oppressors and and it's we have a very unique position uh in the world a little
bit esoteric in in an understanding of a purpose in our life with restored gospel
and we understand that there is supposed to be adversity yeah right there's supposed to be pain and we look at
section 121 with Joseph Smith and and how the Lord handles that and and of course looking at Abraham and his
struggles and and job which is brought up in 121 right it's it's we understand
that there's a process of becoming and moving through that Taos if you will to
to a Perfection if you will and and Marxism takes that and just kind of throws it all away yeah because there's
no understanding it's it's a secular view of the world and the idea of
becoming is nothing more than the new man of understanding the Marxist ideas
right and so if you have it what I'm trying to get to is it's
tragic that you know especially for younger individuals that that that are
exposed to these Marxist and and hard-left ideas and they don't understand what
they have in the restored gospel and they don't understand the the the the
the things that they're being exposed to are the antithesis of something that will bring joy and and
truth and and understanding that they've already had and they've already been given and yet they don't recognize
the conflict between the two sides what what how do we do a better job I mean
writing a book like this and hopefully getting it out there yeah right is is part of what can be done but you know
how how do we how do we get this out and let people understand what they've got and how what
these Marxist ideas are are are the complete antithesis to the restored gospel so that that's a big part of why
I wrote the book um one of the things that I'm tired of I I wrote the book
kind of angry sort of you know because I I I want to be able to tell you know
your average um Elders corn president Relief Society president Bishop State
president um stake Relief Society president I want to be able to tell them you know your flock
has a wolf in it and it's called Marxism and I want to be able to just
say that without being told oh we don't do politics in church right because Mar
the discussion around Marxism is not politics it is not a political
discussion I'm not telling anyone who to vote for I it's a purely spiritual discussion and that's why I wrote the
book um it is not about politics it is about the Soul what what does this do to
your soul what does this do to groups what does it do to
organizations and uh and however people want to vote that's their business I I
don't care I'm I'm not about that I just I want to describe this ideology so that
people can recognize it right and and so that's part of why I wrote the book is
so that you know I can actually hand it to a bishop or a stake president who
doesn't know what what is this thing going on in my flock what is this I don't have a name for it and how do I
counter it how do I how do I teach people you know the the problems with it
how do I even understand those problems that's what the book is for it's it's to be a passal resource to to get people
out of this mindset that Marxism is about politics it's not it's about your soul it really is about the soul and I I
love that rightous versus evil I mean that when it comes down to it it's just yeah the two ways yeah absolutely so so
think about um this we just talked about how life is unfair the world is unfair
it's still is unfair it it just is um a lot of us have known illness and tragedy
and all kinds of unfairness um we've known the unfairness of seeing loved
ones seduced by Marxism I know that personally and I hate it it's not fair
right but when you have the gospel and you have this community of award and a
stake where you regularly experience human connection and you you build these
relationships and you worship together and you do these things together you cannot ask for a
better uh a better situation to be in when you experience the unfairness of
the world right when you've got the gospel into Community love of God and love of neighbor you're going to weather
a lot of things that are going to cause most people to fall apart right and that
is the answer it's not Marxism uh so I I hope that through the
book that can become abundantly clear especially in the discussion of of Carl marks I wanted to make that point
especially clear yeah I to add to what you're saying here I think
that's it's such an important point to get out there because you know we've gone you you go over the in the book you
talk about how you know back in the day you know we had this major enemy and then the wall fell and you know and then
it's like okay well now maybe this is gone it's gone away had it had its day in the Sun and and now it's gone and
that's not true at all nope right it it is there it is it was already being
infiltrated in the academy throughout the United States starting in the 1930s yeah and and it just fermented and uh
and so it's it's crucial for people to understand that a lot of these ideologies today are are rooted in
something that is anti-gospel and and quite frankly Antichrist yeah here and
uh so it's I don't know I I there is so much confus conf usion over this I see
this all the time I get reports on this even coming through from within the Church of people that are teaching this
yeah and teaching these ideas and you know we need to see where this comes from you got to tie it together you got
to see that eventually this is this is a bankrupt philosophy and is
not going to work with the church right um there's a you talk about uh uh
Marxism and deconversion yeah in in the book a little bit and you talk
specifically about how Marxism is incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ it is it's completely
incompatible yeah this idea of of Mark's listening to a class on
Isaiah and then resting that scripture yeah right identifying with Satan fig
that's you see that happen all the time and you know I gave the example of I did an episode on the the professor that
came to BYU and and took the Book of Mormon
and the word iniquity and he wanted everyone instead of thinking of iniquity to think of
inequity just I want to pull my hair out that this is being taught to these you
know 18 to 22 year old students on on changing this but this is
really what to me the you know I I I always say this you know I'm not as concerned about Kor I I he he's an
atheist he's teaching atheistic things and I know that's where everything velops and I understand that Marxism is
atheist but the problem becomes when you rest the scriptures and you turn them
into something else and and that's how you really cause a problem with the
church and you see that throughout the Book of Mormon yeah and and I'm going to get really specific um you know it it
just pained me greatly to see some time ago Patrick Mason who's a who's a
latterday saint scholar who I really like right yeah I like Patrick too um
but he you know mentioning the work of of people like Taylor Petri and and
Blair Osler where they're talking about queering our Theology and queering scripture and queering things and I
don't think Patrick understood what is you know the root of
queer Theory what what are they actually doing because when it's presented to us
it's presented to us as oh this is empathetic this is not this is kind to
queer things right it's inclusive it feels kind right and no what's happening
is indoctrination and to Marxism and and people a lot of times
don't understand the connection between queer Theory and Marxism which is why I have a whole chapter on it in the book
where I quote Judith Butler who's considered one of the founders of queer Theory and she's she's talking to
classical marxists who are you know focused on economics and she's giving a presentation to them and she says my
project is every bit as at the heart of Marx's Vision as yours is she was
absolutely motivated by Marxism her project was always Marxist so um people
don't really I I'm tired of these things being understood as separate and oh
they're not the same thing that they absolutely are the same thing queer theory is Marxist to the core so is
critical race Theory yeah and they all are and again when you follow the DNA you see who the people are that form
these things and articulate them and codify them and what they're drawing from who their mentors were it's it's
not hard to see where this where this all comes from um on the Theory you know
it's interesting also to me as you bring that up and and it's we've moved you know how fast these things moving our
culture is moving with the internet but you know critical race Theory two years ago three years ago was this the major
you know uh uh bogey man of the right so to speak and and then and now and now it's moved a little bit more into the
identitarianism of of of queer Theory and and yeah um that that's really the
the cultural flash point that that we're looking at and you know it's if you go back and you look all the way back to
rouso if you go even further back than Hegel and you go to rouso and then up through Kant and then up through Hegel
and then into marks and angles especially you you get the same thing over and over again which is
this I we need to throw off the shackles of an order of sexuality yeah right it's
it's that's part of the liberation of a new man and a new woman it is throwing off these shackles of of
bridling your passion so to speak of putting up the guard rails of of family
and and a marriage and and it and it's always there I mean I you go anywhere
you go all the way back all of these men these philosophers coming
through that DNA are all saying the same thing that attack that you speak of with
Hegel is used that dialectic is used against sexuality it's used against the family yeah and that that that queer
theory is a product specifically of that DNA yeah it is anti family and and they
don't even hide it they they don't even try to hide it it is anti-am yeah and you know I I see a uh
with the comments that I get on videos that I do and the episodes that I do it's there's always this I just had this
email sent to me the other day that was on uh you know the hatred that I had for
the lgbtq community right and and and and then they bring up a couple of examples of of people that are gay or
trans that they know and how I hate them you and it's like of course no it's not
about the individuals you have a number of those individuals that completely reject queer theory that completely
reject identitarianism and a pride movement and then you have others and quite frankly
the larger supporters of queer Theory and identitarianism are
heterosexual well mostly women I would say but heterosexual individuals are the largest group of people that are
supporters of this yeah there's an ideology and then there's the individuals and and I go after the
ideology oh yeah and and there's a difference there yeah I hate the ideology there's no question about it I
don't hate the people a lot of people are seduced by these ideas they're they're fooled by them they're so it's
it is sold as compassion it's sold as empathy it's sold as inclusion
and women in particular are often shamed by others you know if you are not
doing this then gosh you lack empathy you're not compassionate and women are
more susceptible to those kinds of shaming than men are so it's not surprising that we see more women
adopting these ideas yeah so I want to I want to go through this as our our last major topic here but that is because
you're you're the first person you know this was a few years ago when you first brought this up to me you're the first person I've seen that that would state
that Marxism is the great and abominable Church yeah what where how did that
evolve with you that thought process and then taking that thought process how do
you see those fitting together so so we we have done a whole discussion on it
and there's more to say like I think we could have gone for hours on it but sure you know I read the book of Mormon every
year I've done that for a very long time and the the language around the great
and abominable church has always been you know there's so much speculation what is this what is this and and I have
a quote from Elder Oaks in the book where he says you know you can't pin it
down to an organization because because then you know it doesn't meet these criteria in
the Book of Mormon right and so it must be thought of more broadly it it can be
a number of manifestations right but when you actually line it up Marxism is
a great candidate for a manifestation of the great and abominable Church it is a
fantastic candidate for it and and one of the things that I tried to do in the book was outline the Marxist Covenant
path Marxism has its own Covenant path and I
you know recently there was um there was a the faith matters restore conference
and there was a talk there given by nylan McBain who takes kind of a feminist approach to the gospel and
talks about patriarchy and and uh you know I read her talk and I don't know if
the people who heard her talk understand that they were being invited onto the Marxist Covenant path
in that setting uh they were being given a formula right markx had a formula he
said there are there are there's a property and um you know in his in his
case he was talking about capital and private property ownership that's this thing that is kind of
exclusive and then societ builds this thing called a superstructure that is you know all all
of our customs and traditions and our Eon our our ideas about economics and
law and religion and those things and we protect the ownership of private
property right through this ideology this system called capitalism that
maintains oppression of ordinary people and so you take that Marxist formula and
you say okay you know with grch he said hey we need to look at culture well and
then the Frankfurt School and then you have this it branching into these fruits of critical race Theory and and queer
and gender Theory where now the property is being normal in the case of queer
Theory queer Theory hates the idea that anything is considered normal and so they have so they have this ideology of
of of okay you know they're trying to protect normal which is a thing that
only some people have access to through an ideology called
heteronormativity right um and with critical race Theory they're trying to
protect racial privilege using white supremacy right so this it's this formula that Marx established he that
that he kind of synthesized that is now applied to all of these different other things and in the case of feminism well
what is the property it's male privilege or male power or things like that and
the ideology is patriarchy it's the Marxist formula and so if that becomes your new
way of seeing the church now you're going to see the church as a system of Oppression yes
instead of Christ's Church and there's no way out of it if you're going to adopt that at all you're going to come to that conclusion yeah and now you are
on the Mark you on the Marxist Covenant path okay which involves you know for
Christianity you you start on the Covenant path either with baptism or you
know as a kid right if you're born into the Covenant um or if you're a convert
there's a conversion experience where you just you you see the reality of the
Gospel you you know you have an experience of God or an experience of coming to know that the Book of Mormon
is true or any number of things and it's kind of an an Awakening that we call the
conversion right well in Marxism you have this Awakening to critical Consciousness well now I'm aware of
patriarchy or heter heteronormativity or whatever so there's this shift in thinking right and then in Christianity
the Covenant path involves discipleship and teaching the gospel
spreading the gospel to the world it involves rituals you know like taking
the sacrament um you know baptism uh in the restoration we do Temple ordinances
and things like that so in Marxism you have all of those things you have prais which is that
Professor coming to BYU and saying we need to change scripture and not talk about iniquity but rather inequity right
he was conducting practice that's part of the Marxist Covenant path um you have
rituals in Marxism Pride parades are a great Marxist ritual right um and
confessions of privilege and and all of those kinds of things these are sacraments and rituals it's a it's a
different Covenant path yeah you've got I I want to this is I I want to go through this section here
that you have because I love this part of actually lining things up side by side and I love this Insight I had never
seen this or you know thought of this before about Nephi's mention of the removal of covenants yeah that's part of
the great I'm just going to quote this here um you say denial of Miracles and questioning the source of scripture
certainly constitute removal of plain and precious truths so we talk about that portion of first Nephi where where
things have been removed with the great and abominable church right but what
about Nephi's mention of the removal of covenants right with Marxism in particular there emerges a new set of
covenants that supersede the ones we find in scripture mark ISM replaces the
Christian Covenant of repentance with a covenant to reject any Spiritual Authority to Divine
sin uh Marxism replaces the Christian Covenant to love one's neighbor with a
New Covenant to attack and criticize relentlessly in the surface of service of marxist ideology that's that
critiquing Marxism replaces the Christian Covenant to love God with the Covenant to love political party and
specific authoritarian figures with our full uh devotion Marxism replaces the
Christian Covenant to spread the gospel with a new Godless Covenant of Relentless political activism there's
your practice so that that I really like because
I it is a religion to me because it it gets it you have all of the
ingredients of a religion that again it is a religion that is
anti it's it's not God's religion right right it it is antithetical to the
gospel and replaces it and counterfeits it wherever it can so I I really like
that portion there of being able to line those two things up together I so that's
another thing I get tired of is when people say oh Marxism is not a religion okay and that's why I quoted a Marxist
Eric FR who was part of the Frankfurt School he was actually an honest Marxist
he got like kicked out of the Frankfurt School because he was too honest
and adorno and horkheimer were just they were like no you can't say those things they're you know they they don't fit the
narrative right and so he got kind of pushed out of the Frankfurt School I I actually like Eric FR for that reason
like man I hate Marxism but the dude like I could actually probably sit down
and have a conversation with him because he's just honest like this is what he honestly thinks right but he said he
said Marx was speaking religiously he was he was speaking to
religious intuitions and yearnings now he's and he said Marx you know he's he's
doing this in an atheist framework but let's let's be clear what's really
happening here this is religious in nature all right so finally let me just ask you as I show your book here right
what is it that you want most of all for people to get and by the way this book is it's not too large it's not too
academic it's very consumable and and so you you you know you go out and you buy this and you
learn a lot right and and we'll put the link up for this book up in in the in the description but what is it that you
want people to get out of this book primarily I so a lot of your viewers
already know like they understand this you've been teaching and you've been
showing that you know that we've been lied to a lot right we've been told that
okay there are problems of racism in the church okay like that's that's always
been a problem well we've been told that the the only answer then is Marxism now
you have shown people something different you've had some great programs that talk about this topic where you
have not done Marxism you've not you've not shown a Marxist approach but if
people would pay attention then the church would get a lot better without without doing Marxism but but people
have been lied to and they've been told that if there's a problem in the church the answer is always
Marxism and I want people through that book to understand that there are other
options and I think your show is a great example of that as well right addressing issues without diving into Marxism um so
and I want it to be kind of a pass along along resource I've just known I wrote
the book because I've known so many people who need a resource that's you
know it's not too hard to read it's not super cerebral um most anybody can digest that
book and and I've wanted something that people can pass along and say hey when I talk about Marxism this is what I'm
talking about please read this you know and it's not political I'm not telling
you who to vote for I'm not I'm not going there I I want you to think about this in gospel terms so that is the
intention behind the book that's great okay so I'm going to hold it up one more time Marxism uh a Latter-Day Saint
perspective by Dan Ellsworth the link will be in the description box Dan
thanks so much always enjoy what you have to say uh you give a great approach to this I love because with you
especially we can talk about this very closely with how it relates to the gospel and and you do a great job with
that very good thank you oh