While it is a tautology that an ideology which moves its adherents to commit murder causes a loss of liberty – at least for its victims and for those who order their lives so as to avoid being murdered – murder need not be an explicit feature of any particular ideology for it to be pernicious.

In a very real sense, ideology has replaced idol worship as a justification for groups of people to behave in ways that are ultimately harmful. With the rise of secularism in the modern west, supernatural justification for bad behavior has faded, but the human appetite for pernicious behavior has not gone away.

Mirriam Webster defines ideology as:

Ideology has been in use in English since the end of the 18th century and is one of the few words whose coiner we can identify. The French writer A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy proposed it as a term to designate the “science of ideas,” and in that sense the word was quickly borrowed into English. Though ideology originated as a serious philosophical term, within a few decades it took on connotations of impracticality thanks to Napoleon, who used it in a derisive manner. Such connotations are still present in some contexts, but the word today is largely used neutrally, most often to refer to a systematic body of concepts, and especially to the set of ideas and beliefs held by a particular group or political party.[i]

For the present discussion, the philosophical meaning of the word, “the science of ideas”, may be disregarded. What is of interest here is that ideology is a more or less formal set of ideas and beliefs that motivate people’s behavior.

Since the subject is human behavior, it would be good to discuss who should set the standards by which behavior is to be judged. It should be obvious that the purpose of any created thing is determined by its creator. For example, if one wanted to travel across country, he might invent a wagon or an automobile or an airplane. The success of the thing would be determined by whether it succeeded in getting its builder across the country. The fact that it might also carry cargo or, when parked provide a place to tie your dog is interesting and might be useful, but is not the determiner of its fitness for the builder’s purpose. Thus, if the thing was a really good dog anchor but wouldn’t start and take you where you wanted to go, it would be a failure.

In that light, the designer and builder of the physical world and of us is God. He, then, is the one who can provide authoritative standards for evaluating both individual and group behavior. Thankfully, He has caused those standards to be written so we do not have to guess; they are in the Books of Moses as updated and interpreted by the prophets and the Messiah. (“Updated” here does not mean “changed.” Over the centuries, human language and culture do change, so the examples and metaphors from Moses may need to be updated in some cases. For example, Dt 24:4 forbids muzzling an ox treading out grain; Paul in 1 Cor 9:9 updates that, saying it would apply to someone who teaches the Gospel and that compensating such a one would be proper.)

What then does God look for in human societies to judge their worth? While the myriad of technical rules in Scripture may seem daunting, the principles they implement are really very few.

The first and most basic criterion would be whether people are fruitful. This, of course, flows from Genesis 1:28

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

There are laws about who may marry whom, what to do about infidelity, how to handle divorce, etc. but they all are designed to support fertility and healthy families. Hence, any ideology that discourages reproduction and healthy families would be judged as defective.

The second criterion in Scripture would be to establish justice.

And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.  (Ge 9:5-6)

You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.  (Dt 16:18-20)

There are specific laws concerning manslaughter, property rights, torts, etc. but they are all implementing details for the overarching principle of justice.

The third criterion in Scripture would be healthy and peaceful communities.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Le 19:17)

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Mt 22:34-39)

In colloquial English today, the word “love” is generally conflated with sex. The concept expressed in Scripture might be expressed as “care for your neighbor as for yourself.” There are specific examples of what that care might look like, but the beginning of caring for one’s neighbor is being a good neighbor one’s self.

The final criterion for evaluating a doctrine is whether it leads the community away from God. In Biblical times, that would have meant idol worship. In today’s secular environment, idol worship is generally out of fashion; so the test would be whether the ideology encouraged or demanded disregard of God.

How then should one go about applying these criteria to any particular ideological proposition?

While it is possible for an ideology to state explicitly that it will lead to misery, extinction, and damnation, it would have a hard time attracting any reasonably sane followers. Since Satan is the “Father of lies,” destructive ideologies are packaged in deceptive but attractive terms. In other words, those who push bad ideas are generally very glib.

Broadly, there are three “hooks” that are used to sell bad ideas. The first is to promise some good that cannot possibly be delivered. This attracts good hearted idealists. The second is an appeal to appetite – power, money, sex, etc. That plays to humanity’s sinful nature. The third appeals to hubris. Those who have tried this ideology in the past have failed, but we are smarter or more virtuous than they were.

If one pays attention to the political discourse, it is easy to pick out each of those hooks when someone is trying to sell a program or idea.

The fact that the pitch for a program or ideology uses one or more of these hooks does not make it automatically bad. The same techniques are used to sell shoes and real estate. What is important is that one recognize that the argument contains a sales pitch and filter out the associated fluff. Just as with buying a car, the wise consumer looks at the track record of the manufacturer and of the model. My father’s advice was never to buy a car in its first model year. There were bound to be bugs in the first year that would be ironed out in subsequent years. That is also good advice when evaluating any government program.

Consider marxism for example. The promises boil down to two. The common people will run things and everyone will have enough. These promises run counter to human nature. As discussed earlier, God made people hierarchical starting with marriage. The Marxist answer to that is that the smart ones among us will run things at first, but the state will gradually wither away. Similarly, people will not produce for the uncompensated benefit of strangers. The Plymouth Colony in America nearly died out trying socialism. The able among them saw no point in working hard to provide for the lazy and so became lazy themselves.

In addition, to not actually working, Marxism runs counter to two of God’s principles listed above. The first is the principle of justice. God commands us to be generous and to look after those who are poor. The marxist counterfeit is that the state confiscates the fruits of production and then it decides to whom it will go. That is unjust. In God’s economy the producer can evaluate the condition of the poor and decide to help or not. The second principle violated is that marxism explicitly leads people away from God.

In evaluating a program or ideology, look at those who are selling it and look at its track record. If, like socialism, the thing always fails, assume that that is what it is designed to do. If it is designed to fail you can ignore the marketing fluff and reject it.

In every place marxism has been tried the result is misery, death and virtual slavery to the state. That being the case, those trying to sell it change the name and polish up the promises. Marxism became communism which became socialism which became liberalism which became progressivism. As each branding became tarnished by failure, its adherents simply changed the name.

The sales pitch for each rebranding is a variant of, “They didn’t do it right, we’ll do it smarter and get the promised results.”

Biblically “truth” is a property of things, not necessarily of words. As an example, if one encountered a bridge over a river and used it to successfully cross, the thing was a “true” bridge. If it failed to get you across, it was a “false” bridge. In that light, a true ideology is one that delivers what is expected based on its rhetoric. Marxism and all of its derivatives are false ideologies in that they never deliver what an adherent is lead to expect. The fact that marxist derivatives keep cropping up despite their proven falsehood is an indication that they work exactly as designed. In other words, they are designed by Satan.

The above line of analysis should be applied to any proposed ideology or government program.

Does it encourage or discourage human fruitfulness?

Does it promote – biblically defined – justice?

Does it promote or harm communities?

Does it lead its adherents away from God?

[i] Mirriam-webster.com