Understanding Controlled Opposition

Neil Shenvi provides for us a helpful example of this far-left tactic, which is becoming more common in American evangelicalism

Vladimir Lenin famously said, “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves."

What Lenin had stumbled upon, which was a unique solution to the crisis of opposing ideas, would end up becoming a major advancement in psychological warfare and typify Soviet-era propaganda campaigns.

Russians perfected the concept of Controlled Opposition, which is a false protest movement in which a government or status quo authority controls both sides of a dispute. On one side lies the status quo authority, but on the other side lies those the status quo authority also control. Having the latter provides the appearance of a legitimate opposition, but in reality, it ceases all legitimate opposition. What’s left is just a shell of opposition, one that dishonestly pretends to oppose, but in fact stifles opposition.

Controlled Opposition is especially helpful in a one-party state, or a nation ran by a single authority. The Soviet Union was one such example. The concept is pretty simple, but I’ll number it out for you. There will (1) always be opposition. Therefore, (2) it’s best to control that opposition.

The benefits, are multiple. First, instead of the best and brightest leading the opposition, you can appoint the worst and dumbest. Secondly, giving the appearance of being legitimate opposition prevents angst and anger among the populace who otherwise would feel helpless and then attempt to topple the system that prevents opposition. So long as people feel they can oppose the status quo authorities within the accepted terms and guidelines, they won’t burn the system to the ground. And third, by controlling the opposition, you prevent legitimate opposition from landing any serious punches. All ideas that present a real threat to the status quo authorities, will be gate-kept by the leaders of the controlled opposition.

POLITICAL CONTEXT

Before the 2020 Red Wave in Montana, which more than one press outlet credited my activism with contributing to, the state legislature was helpless to provide any kind of check or balance upon the state’s Democrat governor. Despite having a Republican majority, Republicans could never seem to muster enough votes to override the governor’s vetoes or enact any conservative legislation.

I explained to my fellow citizens at the time that the Republican Party was occupied by Controlled Opposition. In other words, there were Democrats in the Republican Party, who identified as Republicans. This is always the danger of a one-party state. Because Democrats could not win elections, Democrats became Republicans, and then they voted like Democrats.

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A common tactic they employed, was bragging about their “conservative voting record,” which would show they vote with Republicans more than 90% of the time. But the problem was apparent; they only voted with Republicans when it didn’t matter. On non-controversial bills and bipartisan bills (for example, procedural votes), they indeed voted with Republicans. But whenever a bill offering serious conservative reform was up for a vote - which is only a small percentage of the time - they would vote with Democrats. Meanwhile, their voting record stayed overwhelmingly Republican, but every time they deviated from the party line, it was a significantly more important vote on a crucial bill (consider Sen. Joni Ernst or Sen. Lisa Murkowski as examples you might readily identify, who regularly engage in this grift).

The solution we presented was Legistats, an automated vote-ranking program created by my friend, Sen. Ed Butcher, and his late son. Instead of creating a partisan voting score based upon all votes, it created a partisan voting score on only deeply partisan votes. In other words, it didn’t weigh votes on mundane issues which were lightly partisan, but only votes in which a few errant Republicans would caucus with Democrats and vote down perfectly good legislation. After we amplified Legistats to the voters, they were able to see that their partisan voting score went from “93% Republican to “48% Republican” on all the bills that actually matter.

Butcher, another gentleman (Lonnie Bergstrom), and I would travel the state extolling the virtue of Legistats, and the rest was history. Suddenly, the Controlled Opposition was smoked out of their foxholes, and they lost their elections in a landslide. One of these incumbents who lost their seat was Joel Krautter, my own representative from then-HD 35, who had sued Liberty University while a student there, demanding that they authorize the College Democrats to meet on campus. When he came to my district, he immediately registered as a Republican. Upon winning, he voted with the Democrats on all the important issues. I wasn’t having it, and my warpath against him is something of a legend in the local lore. Ultimately, he lost his reelection bid, as did most of the rest of the Controlled Opposition around the state, which now has a super-majority of conservative Republicans who get done in the legislature whatever they want.

EVANGELICAL CONTEXT

As Megan Basham demonstrated in her book, Shepherds for Sale, Democrats, progressives, and globalists commandeered most evangelical institutions. This was accomplished in the SBC by Albert Mohler, who saw to it that his influence would propel progressives exclusively into entity positions. This was accomplished in the ERLC by Russell Moore (placed there by Mohler) who would provide influence to Michael Wear, a Democrat strategist and Obama advisor who laid out the case for why evangelicals should vote Democrat, and also by George Soros, who orchestrated the Evangelical Immigration Table. This was accomplished in Reformed learning institutions and seminaries by James Riady, who paid them to adopt Social Justice programs. Organizations like the Kern Family Foundation and its Oikonomia Network partners with the Acton Institute accomplished this at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Those are just some examples, but it was all gameplanned by a Democrat strategist you’ve never heard of named Zack Exley, which you can read about here. Seriously, read that article.

All of the effort to commandeer evangelicalism was for one primary purpose; to control evangelical opposition to progressive leftism.

What’s the best way to ensure the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) does not organize a mass voter turnout among Southern Baptists, against Democrats? Put a Democrat like Russell Moore in charge of the ERLC.

What’s the best way to prevent young pastors from preaching against the godless Democrat platform? Put Democrats like Mark Dever and Tim Keller in charge of The Gospel Coalition.

What’s the best way to promote Critical Theory and sow seeds of racial division? Have men like Thabiti Anyabwile (Ron Burns) and Dwight McKissic swear up and down they’re Bible-believing conservatives, but teach Critical Theory and promote racial division in practice.

This is how Controlled Opposition works. We’ve seen it happen repeatedly in politics, so much so that we’re now largely aware that some of Trump’s biggest opponents during his first term were in his cabinet, but have largely failed as evangelicals to see this tactic being deployed in our churches.

NEIL SHENVI, AS A HELPFUL EXAMPLE TO UNDERSTAND CONTROLLED OPPOSITION

Shenvi has pronounced his opposition to Critical Theory and pronounced it loudly. He’s done such a good job at this, that’s he’s been able to brand himself as, “Neil Shenvi, CRT expert and opponent.” He speaks at churches about Critical Theory and even recently (somehow) got Prager U to parade him out as an expert.

And an expert in Critical Theory, Shenvi truly is. He can tell you what Critical Theory is, explain its concepts, and tell you why it’s bad. And, he can do so credibly and with perceived sincerity.

But then, without fail, he uses his credentials as an opponent of and expert in Critical Theory to absolve every single evangelical leader who is accused of espousing it. In fact, defending evangelical progressives is Shenvi’s primary contribution to evangelicalism. It’s basically his full-time job.

No matter how clearly they espouse concepts like White Privilege and White Guilt, or Liberation Theology, or promote Affirmative Action, or teach the bullet-points of Cultural Marxism, Shenvi will predictably be out in front, waving off criticism and explaining that what they said they don’t mean, or highlighting contradictions in what they tell different audiences, or why they’ve been merely misunderstood.

Please understand that being an expert against Marxist ideology does legitimately no good whatsoever, if the teachers of Marxist ideology are absolved of the accusation. It does no good to be positionally against something, if in practice, you promote it.

Let’s say, for example, you’re a Democrat strategist, wanting otherwise conservative evangelicals to be “taken captive into vain philosophy and empty deceit” (Colossians 2:8). It would not matter to you one iota for conservative evangelicals to say they’re against that vain philosophy, so long as they fail to identify it.

What good would it do, for example, for a group of Christians to denounce sexual grooming, if they’re not able to identify sexual groomers?

If someone championed themselves as an opponent of sexual grooming, and an expert in sexual grooming, but consistently absolved child rapists of the accusations, at a certain point you would have to conclude that they are not, in fact, against sexual grooming.

This morning, Protestia posted an Insider article, in which I explained there was no crime in “noticing things.” Pattern recognition is key when using the spiritual gift of discernment. As the saying goes, “If it happens once it’s an anomaly, if it happens twice, it’s a coincidence. If it happens three times, it’s a conspiracy.”

There are many examples of this kind of Controlled Opposition in evangelicalism. Another example, with which you may be familiar, is apologist, Dr. Michael Brown. He will rebuke the “excesses of charismaticism” positionally. But, I’ve called him “the devil’s apologist” for years because no matter how excessive a charismatic charlatan’s charismaticism might be, Brown will defend them from accusations of excess. I would know; Michael Brown was on my program, Polemics Report, many years ago and refused to classify Benny Hinn as a false prophet, despite him admitting that Hinn prophesies falsely, because - as Brown said - “it takes more to be a false prophet than to prophesy falsely.” That’s Controlled Opposition.

So far as pattern recognition applies to Neil Shenvi, what one should take a step back and look at, is who he criticizes. Integrity absolutely requires an occasional criticism of your friends (which Protestia so well demonstrates). But if 99 times out of 100 you criticize people on the right, but overlook the left almost entirely, it’s totally justified to believe that you’re working for the left.

If unjust weights and measures can be detected, does the person weight the scales on the left, or on the right? Let me give an example.

Here, Shenvi lauds the trickery and deception of James Lindsay, an atheist who re-wrote 90% of the Communist Manifesto, changed its meaning, and submitted it (successfully) for inclusion in a conservative publication.

The opponents of Christian Nationalism then hooted and hollered, spiking footballs that the closeted anti-semites had been ‘owned.’ In reality, it’s like rewriting a prayer to Satan as a prayer to Christ, and then claiming that the audience doesn’t know a prayer to Satan when they see one.

In other words, it was a cheap trick, and one that convinced literally no one.

But, big deal. Who cares? Nothing to see here. Big. Fat. Nothing. Burger.

But what’s interesting is that just six weeks ago, Neil Shenvi (and his pals in the progressive evangelical left) attacked Matt Walsh, a conservative Roman Catholic, for “deceiving” race-baiting Critical Race Theorists in his documentary, “Am I a Racist?”

Keep in mind, Walsh’s “deception” that earned Shenvi’s rebuke was that despite him giving Robin De’Angelo his first name, he did not include his last name and the words, “with the Daily Wire, and I’m here to make fun of you.”

So, understand what happened. When an atheist deceived a conservative evangelical publication, he applauded. But when a conservative (professing) Christian deceived godless Cultural Marxists, Shenvi scolded him for “deception.”

It really couldn’t be more obvious who Shenvi works for (and it ain’t Jesus). This is the textbook behavior of Controlled Opposition. By pretending to be one thing, he has credibility to actually assist the other thing.

By raising himself up as a gate-keeper for the evangelical war against the Woke Left, Shenvi is in a unique position to claim that conservative evangelicals are the Woke Right. Using his credentials as an expert in Critical Theory, he’s able to denounce the real opponents of Critical Theory. And by his claim of expertise against something, he uses every bit of clout capital to promote the thing he says he’s against.

The sooner evangelicals can recognize Controlled Opposition, the better. Far from conspiracy, it has been a tactic that has wreaked havoc on the Western world for the last 75 years. It is, perhaps, the greatest tool in the Communist toolbox. And right now, it’s being deployed against evangelicals. .