The Frankfurt School: A Threat to American Values and Christianity
By Bobby Darvish, Iranian-American Ex-Muslim, Former Vegan, Former Democrat, Former Socialist, Former CAIR-Columbus Executive Director, Former Muslim Forum of Utah President, Christian Conservative LDS
My journey from the world of Islam and left-wing activism to becoming a Christian conservative has led me to deeply re-examine the underpinnings of what drives much of today’s social and political turmoil in America. One major source of this ideological influence is the Frankfurt School. Originating in early 20th-century Germany, the Frankfurt School is a group of Marxist intellectuals whose ideas on culture, power, and society have infiltrated Western institutions and continue to influence social policies and norms. As someone who once walked in ideological alignment with some of these ideas, I now recognize how dangerous and corrosive they are to the principles of freedom, family, and faith that I hold dear.
What is the Frankfurt School?
The Frankfurt School was founded in 1923 in Germany as the Institute for Social Research, associated with the University of Frankfurt. The thinkers involved, including Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Erich Fromm, sought to expand Marxist thought beyond the economic realm and into cultural analysis. Their focus was on "Critical Theory," a framework that questioned every aspect of Western culture and values, analyzing them through a Marxist lens to expose supposed structures of oppression. However, what Critical Theory truly did was pave the way for dismantling Western civilization from within.
The Frankfurt School's intellectuals developed methods to critique religion, family, capitalism, and traditional values, all of which they saw as hindrances to a socialist utopia. They called for a “long march through the institutions,” meaning a slow and deliberate infiltration of Western institutions—education, media, and culture—with Marxist ideology. The goal was not an immediate overthrow of capitalism but rather a transformation of society’s moral and social norms to weaken Western civilization from the inside out.
How Frankfurt School Ideas Became Mainstream
After fleeing Nazi Germany, many Frankfurt School scholars came to the United States and found new homes at prominent American universities, particularly at Columbia University in New York. Through academia, their ideas filtered into other sectors, including public education, social sciences, the arts, and eventually into media and politics. The late 1960s saw a revival of these theories during the countercultural movements, where thinkers like Herbert Marcuse encouraged the youth to abandon “repressive” traditional values.
Marcuse’s famous concept of “repressive tolerance” advocated for tolerating progressive ideologies while being intolerant of conservative views. Today, we see the fruits of Marcuse’s vision as conservative Christian values are frequently marginalized or vilified, while radical leftist ideas are not only tolerated but celebrated.
Why the Frankfurt School is Anti-Christian
The Frankfurt School’s mission was not only Marxist but anti-Christian at its core. Christianity, with its emphasis on the individual’s relationship with God and personal morality, stands as an obstacle to collectivist ideology. The Frankfurt School intellectuals saw Christianity’s teachings on family, virtue, and self-restraint as antithetical to their Marxist vision.
For instance, in Critical Theory, family structures are dismissed as instruments of oppression that perpetuate patriarchy and capitalism. This is a direct affront to the Biblical view of the family as a sacred unit ordained by God. Christianity promotes values of charity, humility, and obedience to divine authority, all of which run counter to the Frankfurt School’s agenda of perpetual revolution and humanist relativism. They sought to replace divine law with human-designed “liberation” doctrines, which ironically bind individuals to a new form of social and political slavery.
The Frankfurt School’s Influence on Identity Politics
Identity politics—the division of society into groups based on race, gender, sexuality, and class—is a product of Frankfurt School thinking. By constantly framing people as “oppressed” or “oppressors” based on these categories, identity politics has turned Americans against each other, destroying the concept of a unified national identity. As a former member of the Muslim community, I witnessed firsthand how identity politics pits groups against each other, often creating resentment and hostility where there could be unity.
The Frankfurt School’s fixation on identity is fundamentally incompatible with Christianity, which teaches that all people are equal before God, regardless of race or social standing. Rather than uniting society under a shared moral framework, identity politics fractures it, leading to the polarization and social discord we see today.
The Frankfurt School’s Impact on the Church and Religious Freedom
Unfortunately, even some Christian churches have unwittingly adopted aspects of Frankfurt School ideology, integrating “social justice” perspectives that prioritize race and gender over scriptural principles. This infiltration has led some Christian institutions to stray from core doctrines, and in doing so, they risk diluting the power of the Gospel. Christianity’s message is one of individual repentance and salvation, not group-based liberation narratives.
The Frankfurt School’s impact on religious freedom is also profound. Their ideology promotes a secular, relativistic world where traditional religious beliefs are dismissed as outdated or oppressive. In countries like the United States, where religious freedom is a core tenet, these Marxist-derived ideas undermine the protections for individuals to live by their religious beliefs without persecution.
Conclusion: The Urgency of Defending Our Values
As a Christian conservative, I feel it is crucial to expose the destructive influence of the Frankfurt School on American society. Their ideas seek to dismantle the very foundations that have made America a beacon of freedom and faith. We need to resist the spread of identity politics, critical theory, and cultural Marxism within our institutions and reclaim the principles of liberty, individual responsibility, and religious freedom. Only by doing so can we protect future generations from a world where faith and freedom are trampled underfoot by godless ideologies.
Works Cited
Jay, Martin. The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923-1950. University of California Press, 1996.
Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Beacon Press, 1964.
Lind, Michael. The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Metropolitan Elite. Portfolio, 2020.
Buchanan, Patrick. The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization. St. Martin's Press, 2002.
Reiff, Philip. The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud. University of Chicago Press, 1966.
Gottfried, Paul. The Strange Death of Marxism: The European Left in the New Millennium. University of Missouri Press, 2005.
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