Iwas around 14 years old when soldiers appeared at my father’s workplace and told him to go home. His business, built over years of faithful labor, had been seized by the state without warning. I grew up learning to speak in whispers, trusting no one—for fear of my friends being government informants.
That was Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser’s socialist-Islamist regime. As a boy, I checked out books about American freedom in secret, terrified of who might be watching. I escaped that country as a young man because I had seen, with my own eyes, where socialism leads.
I never imagined I would watch it rise again, this time on American campaign stages, embraced by a generation that has never felt its cost.
That is why it breaks my heart to see candidates running on openly socialist platforms, now winning elections across the Western world. As someone who escaped a socialist-Islamist country, this is what I’m urging Christians in America to understand:
Socialism not only weakens a culture’s moral and spiritual foundations; it creates a vacuum. And that vacuum is being filled—deliberately, strategically—by Islamists.
Here are five things believers need to understand about this rising ideology.
1. SOCIALISM REPLACES GOD WITH GOVERNMENT.
The first and most fundamental reason Christians must be wary of socialism is theological. Socialism does not merely reorganize economics. It reorders ultimate allegiance. When the state becomes provider, protector, and arbiter of all things, it assumes a role that belongs to God alone.
Psalm 2:10-12 commands rulers to “serve the Lord with fear” and to “take refuge in Him.” Socialism inverts this entirely, instructing people to find their refuge in the state. This is not a policy disagreement. It is, at its core, a form of idolatry.
Many Christians embrace socialism with the best of intentions—a genuine desire to see the poor lifted up. But good intentions don’t redeem a broken system. Socialism has never delivered the compassion it promises. No society that places its hope in government rather than God has ever experienced true flourishing. Only the Gospel can transform hearts and societies.
2. SOCIALISM SILENCES THE CHURCH.
In Nasser’s Egypt, Christians were punished for speaking openly about their faith. Informants were everywhere—in schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. As a Christian, I was mocked and sometimes beaten simply for what I believed. Socialism does not tolerate competing moral authorities. And the Church, by its very nature, is a competing moral authority.
Christians who believe today’s democratic socialism is fundamentally different from its authoritarian predecessors are making a catastrophic mistake. The mechanism is always the same: consolidate power, marginalize opposition, silence the Church.
Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). Salt that stays in the shaker preserves nothing. Under socialism, the Church is pressured—and eventually compelled—to stay in the shaker. We have a responsibility before God not to let that happen.
3. ISLAMISTS ARE WINNING ELECTIONS ON THESE PLATFORMS—RIGHT NOW.
Right now, Islamist-aligned candidates across Europe and now the United States are rising to power by embracing socialist rhetoric. Many of them have documented ties to Islamist organizations—and now they have seats on city councils, in Congress, and in parliaments across the West.
They speak the language of equity, inclusion, and social justice. They build coalitions with progressive movements. But once in power, the alliance reveals its true nature.
Islamists understand something many Western Christians do not: socialism destabilizes, fractures community trust, and builds dependence on the state. That dependence becomes a tool. The Church in America must recognize it before it is too late.
4. THE ISLAMIST-SOCIALIST ALLIANCE IS DELIBERATE.
Many people are surprised to learn that socialists and Islamists have cooperated before. Although they appear ideologically incompatible, they share a common enemy: the biblical, Judeo-Christian foundations of Western civilization.
In Iran in 1979, leftist intellectuals and Islamist clerics united to topple the Shah. Within years, the Islamists had consumed their partners entirely. In Egypt, a nearly identical pattern unfolded under the Muslim Brotherhood. In both cases, socialism created the conditions—the breakdown of tradition, the promise of collective salvation, the resentment of existing institutions—and political Islam filled the vacuum.
5. THE CHURCH HAS BOTH THE AUTHORITY AND THE RESPONSIBILITY TO SPEAK
Some believers argue that political neutrality protects our Gospel witness. I understand the concern—and I respect the heart behind it. But silence in the face of encroaching tyranny is not faithfulness. It is abdication.
The prophets did not stay silent when Baal-worship entered the palace. The apostles did not stay silent when Caesar demanded ultimate allegiance. Dietrich Bonhoeffer did not stay silent in Nazi Germany. And we cannot stay silent now, as two totalitarian ideologies advance together against the Gospel—and against the freedoms that have allowed our nation to flourish.
This is not a call to partisan politics but to biblical clarity. Christians must name what socialism is: a system that is incompatible with human dignity and biblical freedom. We must educate our families, equip our churches, and speak—calmly, courageously, and with biblical conviction—into every sphere of life.
I fled socialism once. I’ve spent my life grateful for the freedom I found here as a naturalized American citizen. Out of gratitude to God, I’ll take every opportunity He gives me to proclaim the truth: The Gospel that saves souls is the only hope for our nation.
Freedom without authority becomes anarchy. Authority without freedom becomes slavery. True liberty lives only under the authority of the Word of God.
The Church must be awake, informed, and faithful—for this generation, and for the next.