We'll get back to the science next week. This week, it feels necessary to react to one of the presidential candidates and his comments on Muslims. The following is are excerpts from a book I wrote in the 1980s called One Nation Over God: The Americanization of Christianity (http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/andyfletch42). The excerpts are from Chapter 6:
Chapter 6 - A Free Society Out of Control
Do not say,
"Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask
such questions ... Who can straighten what he has made crooked? When times are
good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well
as the other..."
Ecc 7: 10, 13b
He stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael felt
ashamed. Then the man of God began to weep. "Why is my lord weeping?"
asked Hazael. "Because I know the harm you will do to the
Israelites," he answered. "You will set fire to their fortified
places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little children to the
ground, and rip open their pregnant women." Hazael said, "How could
your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?" "The Lord has
shown me that you will become king of Aram," answered Elisha.
2 Kings 8:11-13
With this in mind, an interesting
parallel to the US in the last 20 years is found in the writings of Emanuel
Hirsch, a theologian who died in 1972. One of the more profoundly intelligent
theologians of the 20th Century, Hirsch found that in his own country, freedom
was being abused, to the great detriment of his land and people. Immorality was
rampant, economic injustice ruled the day, the government was destroying the
nation through morally relativistic and secularistic dogma and practices, and
liberal thought was eroding Christian and Democratic values. Foreign interests
were controlling the land, the industries, and the banking structure, and the
influx of foreigners was causing unemployment and suffering among the citizens
of the nation.
Economically the country was out of
control; the balance of trade was a disaster, the national debt was beyond
repayment, mostly owed to foreign banks and governments, and inflation made it
impossible to pay for basic necessities. Educators were no longer teaching the
values of patriotism and love of country in the classrooms. Communists were
making inroads politically within the structure of the government. Homosexuals
were flaunting their lifestyles. Traditional values were being laughed at and
scorned by intellectuals, particularly in the film and arts communities. We
can easily recognize the striking similarities to problems and stresses within
the present day United States.
As many Christian authors and pastors
have written and preached in recent times in our country, Hirsch preached and
wrote that his country should return to the traditional values present when his
land was strong and powerful, when the economy was healthy and vital, and when
the church supported the state. As the Puritans and the Founding Fathers saw
God's divine will in America, so he saw that God was with his homeland in a
special way, and God desired and ordained his country to become the creation of
a New Israel under a state and church dedicated to service of God and people.
God had provided them with a new leader, a Christian man who prayed in his
speeches to the people, who would lead a state which was intended under his
leadership to become a tool of God's grace.
The horror is that Emanuel Hirsch was
writing in Germany of the 1930s and '40s. The nation which he foresaw as this
"tool of God's grace", since it "accepts Christianity and
preserves order" was Nazi Germany. The leader who was, in Hirsch's view, a heaven-sent Christian
leader, was Adolf Hitler; witness what Hirsch wrote in 1933: "No other
Volk (people) in the world has a leading statesman such as ours, who takes
Christianity so seriously. On May 1 when Adolf Hitler closed his great speech
with a prayer, the whole world could sense the wonderful sincerity in
that." Yale's Robert B. Ericksen, in Theologians
Under Hitler, tells us that "Hirsch believes that God stands with
Hitler in this moment of German history..."
Other German theologians, Gerhard Kittel
and Paul Althaus, held similar beliefs. It must be said here that none of the
three, not Hirsch nor Althaus nor Kittel, accepted what we in US Christendom
term as classic German theology; they were, and remain, respected conservative
theologians as far as their non-political theological writings are concerned.
Their own individual tragedies lie in their acceptance of a national theology,
which initially seemed to fit their Christian faith, but within a decade had
become the epitome of evil on earth.
It is intriguing to see how closely the
observations and complaints the people and in particular the Christians in
pre-war Germany and in present-day America parallel each other. It is not true
that conditions were necessarily similar sociologically or economically, but
somehow the perceptions held by the God-fearing citizens in each nation of
their life and times manifested themselves in rhetoric and writings which are
almost interchangeable, as is evidenced by the opening paragraphs of this
section.
There were two outcomes of this process,
both vitally important to understanding both the Germany of the war, and
America of the present. First, as Jesus had been stripped, Germans felt free to
dress him in whatever strange and misfitting costumes they whimsied.
Eventually, he was clothed in the brown shirts and swastikas of Nazism,
co-opted like a loving retarded child into a deadly game. This was done most
brutally by the Deutsche Christen, the German Christians, the official
Christian and church arm of the Nazi regime. As they violated openly and
horribly the most basic tenets of Christ's teachings, there is no doubt that
the Deutsche Christen were not Christian; for example, in 1933 (the pivotal
year in Nazi history), the Deutsche Christen held a rally at which the call was
made for "removal of the Old Testament from the Bible".
However, the Deutsche Christen were
represented by a minority of churched believers in Germany. The vast majority
of German churchgoers went along with the excesses of their government for what
must have been a variety of reasons, with a rainbow of conflicting emotions.
Those might have ranged from quiet outrage and helplessness to quiet
satisfaction and subtle cooperation. Most undoubtedly were disquieted,
unnerved, but found it easiest and safest to pretend as though the government was
indeed, as the Bible teaches, put into authority over them by God, and they
should be submissive to its laws and strictures. They found refuge, no doubt,
in their theology of individual salvation and personal walk and faith with
Christ, and felt as though sermons and religious discussions should avoid
politics unless those politics were in support of the state. Frankly, the
economics of the street improved immeasurably under the Nazis, and Christians
have always been tempted by comfort and bounty, seen as a reward for their
piety. They dressed their Jesus in formal robes and put high liturgy on his
lips, and stood him on the street corner to pray gratefully, thankful that he
was not like those Jews. The swastika was worn gracefully around the neck next
to the cross, in homage to the state, and the giant red flag slashed in black
rested on the podium across from the Christian flag, the church and state once
again strong together.
Both Kittel and Althaus joined Hirsch in
support of the National Socialist movement and the Nazi regime in all of its
heinous excesses and immorality, despite their sincere and conservative faith
and profound knowledge of and familiarity with the Gospel. Kittel wrote that
"the Nazi phenomenon was a 'volkisch
renewal movement on a Christian, moral foundation'",
based upon "Hitler's promise that the Party stood for "Positive
Christianity,'" and
joined a political party, the Nazis, for the first time in his life, at age 45
in 1933. In 1934, he wrote Karl Barth (a great Christian counter-point to
Christian fascism), saying that "agreement with state and Fuhrer was obedience towards the law of
God."
Althaus wrote as the opening sentence in
a popular book that "Our Protestant churches have greeted the turning
point of 1933 as a gift and miracle of God." He goes on to say "...we
take the turning point of this year as grace from God's hand. He has saved us
from the abyss and out of hopelessness. He has given us--or so we hope--a new
day of life." In 1934, writing in response to the Barmen Declaration
(created by Barth and others in protest to the Nazis), he says that "we as
believing Christians thank God our father that he has given to our Volk in its time of need the Führer as a 'pious and faithful
sovereign', and that he wants to prepare for us in the National Socialist
system of government 'good rule', a government with 'discipline and honor.'
Accordingly, we know that we are responsible before God to assist the work of
the Führer in our calling and in our
station in life." In 1935, two years into the Nazi regime, he records his
thought that "We Christians know ourselves bound by God's will to the
promotion of National Socialism..."
Meanwhile, the Deutsche Christen found
comfortable and satisfying a comparison between Jesus and Hitler, made by one
of their leading theologians, Julius Leutheuser, who also responded to charges
that Nazism has been made into a religion by virtually equating the Reformation
with National Socialism. Later, another DC theologian, Siegfried Leffler, "asserts
that...Germany has been given a mission from God. The 'leader and prophet' is
Adolf Hitler." Althaus attacked this position, accusing the Deutsche
Christen of claiming the status of a "New Israel" for Germany.
Leutheuser had written that "Whoever gives up hope for Germany, gives up
hope for meaning in the world. Whoever does not believe in Germany's
resurrection, does not believe in the resurrection of God." To his credit,
Althaus ridiculed this idea. But he also wrote about "totalitarianism as a perfectly satisfactory form
of government" and noted that "democracy...is not the best form of
government for every nation". He, along with Kittel, supported a militaristic
state, describing war as "an unfortunate but necessary means for nations
to resolve their differences." Above all, he exalted devotion to the Volk, the people of a nation, the people
of Germany, as an absolute obligation in obedience to God and His will.
Hirsch, the true intellectual giant of
the three theologians, once quoted Ernst Moritz Arndt: "Belief in God
creates men, men of unshakable desire for freedom and genuine
faithfulness...and men with warm hearts, who are capable of a complete and
strong love for their Volk."
Here we see the confusion of loyalties; the desire for a restoration of the
things of Christ in society coupled with the longing for a strong and proud
state. Somehow the two become as one, and in the unholy union, Christ is lost,
crucified again in the 6 million Jews, the 10 million people killed in camps,
the 100 million who died world-wide as a result of the idolatry. This is
nothing but idolatrous worship of freedom, the same freedom that is blamed for
the ills of German society, the same freedom that will be denied to those 6
million, those 10 million, those 100 million. It is this freedom that will
enslave others to free those in power from menial labor and economic struggle.
It is this freedom that will deny others immigration in order to protect a
lifestyle, and this freedom that will deport or eliminate those it does not
enslave, again to ensure physical comforts and luxuries.
America now does not stand next to the
German example of 1939 or beyond; do we stand with the Germany of 1932, before
Hitler came to power, when all Germans were appalled at the state of their country?
Are the hard times in America yet hard enough to cause us to consider recalling
some of our freedoms, to reign in democracy, to get tough with crime, drugs,
illegal aliens, (refugees), foreign investors, and liberal lawmakers? In our idolatry of
freedom, our worship of America, is it now time to begin to deny freedom to
some in America, as we have denied it to people of other nations around the
globe? Will the powerful within our shores begin to manifest their anger on the
powerless? Who will be the Jews?
(Ironically, at the moment, the Muslims are the Jews. It may be time for us to be having serious conversations about the direction we are heading.)(And to buy and read my book.)(http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/andyfletch42)
No comments:
Post a Comment