Kerby Anderson
If you do an online search of the term “cultural Marxism,” you will see a Wikipedia entry that dismisses it as a “conspiracy theory” that is supposedly trying to take over Western culture. Actually, it is the dominant form of Marxism in America and in much of the West today.
Dr. Paul Kengor was on the Point of View radio talk show with me to talk about his recent article about cultural Marxism. He explained that cultural Marxism began about a century ago in Germany because the proponents felt that orthodox Marxism was too limiting and too narrow. They wanted revolutionary changes in marriage, sexuality, and family.
They looked to the universities as a place where their ideas would be launched. They could organize the students, the artists, and the media to transform Western society. Instead of focusing on an economic war, they wanted to bring a cultural war.
One of the key figures in cultural Marxism was Antonio Gramsci, who taught that they should seize the “cultural means of production.” That would be the media and the universities. He believed that the social transformation would be able to “march through the institutions.”
One place where cultural Marxism is evident today is in what is called “critical theory.” Paul Kengor reminded us that Barack Obama’s alma mater, Occidental College, has a Department of Critical Theory and Social Justice. It promises to instruct students in the principles of “Marxism, psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, deconstruction, critical race studies, queer theory, feminist theory, and postcolonial theory.”
If you have been near a college campus lately, this should all sound very familiar. This is not a “conspiracy theory” but an accurate picture of the march of cultural Marxism through the institutions.

Kerby Anderson
America is a divided country. Os Guinness in his book, Last Call for Liberty, argues that the American republic is suffering its gravest crisis since the Civil War. He believes that the root of this disagreement is two different definitions of freedom.
One view of freedom is embodied in “1776 and the American Revolution.” The other view arose in “1789 and the French Revolution.” The first can be found in the Declaration of Independence that owes its formulation to the Protestant Reformation and even earlier in the ideas found in the book of Exodus in the Bible. The second can be found in France’s “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” that ended in the Reign of Terror. To that we can add Marx’s “triumph of the proletariat” and the policies of Stalin and Mao Zedong.
His book asks ten questions that make up the chapters in the book. When he was in studio with me talking about his book, I mentioned that few Americans could answer the questions in the affirmative. He asks, “Do you know where your freedom comes from?” Even fewer could offer good answers to questions like, “How do you plan to sustain freedom?”
He also addresses the question, “How will you make the world safe for diversity?” Here we have two starkly different visions of public life. On the one side are proponents of what Richard John Neuhaus called a naked public square that would exclude religion and religious expressions from public life. Proponents of a sacred public square would give preference to one religion. He advocates for a civil public square where citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage public life on the basis of their faith.
This book provides wise counsel on how Christians can be at the forefront of bringing America back to a proper understanding of freedom.