The term, Useful Idiot was popularized by Joseph Stalin in the 1950s. The term, more or less, means a follower who is not a card carrier, but one who embraces the party’s ideology.
Summing up, however, on one is going to believe the term is complimentary, but a negative designation for people who can be manipulated, perhaps even easily.
In today’s world with the new emphasis on ‘groups’, we see the media and others manipulating various groups as one group is played against another.
At least on convoluted collection of groups is the interplay between Christians and Muslims. In terms of political ideology, these groups fall under the classification of: Yes, you guessed it: Useful Idiots.
However, I assert that as a follower of Jesus, a person then is engaged with Jesus to the point where no Christian is against another person and to that point then cannot become manipulated.
This means that in fact, a Christian should not be an idiot: that a Christian should be a thinking individual, a caring individual and one who is guided by the principles of our Heavenly Father and not by the whelms of the world.
The important of this is that a Christian follows Jesus and Jesus only. There is no room for hatred with the Christian. The real crime here is that in the end, in being a useful idiot, one can find himself in fighting one another. Confusion is at the heart of manipulation. The real purpose here is to divide and conquer, not to unify. Genuine Christian concern is always to unify: to edify and to build: not destroy.
The primary fight then: the real fight is to resist becoming an idiot for the benefit for those who seek to use you. This applies to both sides of the equation: either the far left, or the right. The only person reliable enough and pure enough to guide the Christian is Christ Himself and no human on earth.
In the end, the Christian will probably still be referred to as an idiot in reference to worldly values. And yes, we are fools then: but at least we should be fools for Christ and only for Christ, refusing the role, the despicable characterization as a Useful Idiot.
Hard Times Ministries 