1970 AACS Niagara Conference
Keynote by Dr. C.T. McIntire
Perspective Report
McIntire Advocates spiritual disaffiliation from American way of life for believers at Niagara Conference
Dr. C. T. McIntire told the conferees at the Niagara Conference on July 31 and August 1 that “we Christians must ourselves experience a spiritual disaffiliation from the American way of life. Until we have done this we are one with the spirit of this world. If a new basis or framework for the whole civilization were to be found in Christianity, we would find a total, profound shakeup of Western Civilization. The hope we must offer is total transformation of our lives.”
Outright Rejection of American Way of Life
McIntire stated that there is an overwhelming crisis In North America because of the increasing number of young people who reject outright the American way of life. He documented his conviction that the civic religion of America has had its most fundamental challenge in a new revolutionary cultural ideal by reading passages from the controversial book by Tom Flayden, published in Ramparts magazine, as a “tract for our times”.
After ten years of division, a new synthesis is emerging out of the three strains of revolutionary religious visions for America—the Maoist-Marxist Black Revolutionaries, the affluent New Leftist Marcusians, and the Hippie Street People. “The Movement”, as it is known, has entered a new stage of action known as The Resistance, and advocates the creation of Liberated Land, small pockets of counter-culture, possessing one music—folk—rock, one morality—free sex, and one narcotic—pot. “These are a people, with a new conception of people-hood formed by a Utopian vision of the Third World, but coming out of the very guts of the American revolution of 1776, and out of the same spirit” he said.
Missionary Activities of U.S. Army
“These revolutionaries have seen, starting especially since 1960, that the American Way of Life had major deformities in it. The police repression of Black Panthers, the missionary activities for Americanism in Asia by the U.S. Army, and the corruptness of a rich nation that can’t clean up its slums have all convinced them of the necessity for major change.”
Destruction of Thousands
Although he believes the revolutionaries are essentially right in discovering the deformities of the American way of life, McIntire said that the alternative offered by the New American Revolution was no better, leading to the destruction of thousands of lives through hard drugs, the dehumanization of women through free sex, and spontaneous lawlessness in the name of total anarchistic freedom.
A Third Way Towards a Christian Political Movement
“Christians throughout North America must regain a sense of their own people-hood in contradistinction to either the American way of life or the New American Revolution. We must work for a Christian non-denominational political movement that will lead to religious pluralism in the politics of Canada and the U.S. We should aim to change the constitution of the U.S. so that persons are represented proportionately as members of spiritual communities, not geographical regions. An independent Christian community that knows its own mind should seek positions of co-belligerence with either the American Way of Life or the New American Revolution to make it possible for the New People of God’s Kingdom to have a witness and a place in contemporary society.”