Those Who Ignore History.....

Erwin W. Lutzer is an Evangelical and long-time pastor of Moody Church in Chicago. He's the author of Hitler's Cross and is known for his studies into Hitler's Germany, its relation to the German Christian church and for warnings to America on the temptation of such a mass movement as Nazism. He followed up his award winning book with When A Nation Forgets God, 7 Lessens We must Learn From Nazi Germany. This book can be purchased from Amazon.com for under ten dollars and I encourage you to give it to your loved ones, to friends and to anyone concerned about the path that America has taken. What you will find in this paperback are remarkable similarities of Hitler's methods in conquering a culture for illicit purposes and our own slide into oblivion. This book answers questions on how we have come to the state that we are in by simply presenting strong evidence that the reader recognizes on the weakness of the human mind when in the hands of master villains. Erwin Lutzer begins by writing that "There were circumstances and widely accepted ideas that enabled the population (of Germany) to become a part of an evil that was greater than that of any individuals." He message is similar to Mark Levin's in his book Ameritopia but much more relevant to the Christian therefore even more needed here in America. That message, and the message throughout this blog, is that our allegiance is first to Almighty God and that if allegiance to the state is perverted by maniacal power hungry tyrants, the state becomes a god seeking to destroy the only true God. Lutzer informs us that "The experience of the church in Nazi Germany reminds us that Christ must always stand alone...worshipped as One who stands...not...alongside the government leaders of this world but as standing above them as King of Kings and Lord of Lords." His first warning is that Hitler first tried to make peace with the church on his terms, then took power away from the German Parliament and finally used that usurped power to "obliterate" the church... "transforming (it) so thoroughly that every vestige of Christianity would be smashed." The "Confessing Church" of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoller that challenged Hitler was dealt with harshly. The state would take over from the church on all issues such as dedicating infants, marriage and holidays which would become paganized. God would be so separated from the state that He became an enemy of that state. Lutzer relates to us German theologian Niemoller's warning in a sermon, "We have all of us-the whole church and the whole community-we've been thrown into the Tempters sieve, and he is shaking and the wind is blowing, and it must now become manifest whether we are wheat or chaff. Verily, a time of sifting has come upon us, and even the most indolent and peaceful person among us must see that the calm of meditative Christianity is at an end." Examples from today are given, one being a Florida Principle and Athletic Director threatened with jail for the crime of praying before lunch at school. Some reading this will say,"well, that's against the law," oblivious to what transpired in the enacting of that law. Lutzer's title of his first warning is When God Is Separated From Government, Judgement Follows. His second warning emanating from the Nazi experience is It's Always The Economy. I had a friend tell me just last week that he voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 for one reason and one reason only...the economy. Lutzer reminds us that Hitler "could never have come to power if the German economy had remained strong after World War II." Hitler exploited the crisis and the result was National Socialism. The author writes (as if we here do not already know and have not seen evidence of it today) "an economic crisis is always a gift to a leader who wants to capture a nation." Lutzer points out that "Hitler not only attracted the support of the middle class, but also of university students and professors." Hitler created emergencies when needed and the Germans didn't care if they were losing their freedoms as long as the economy improved. Even the "majority" of Lutheran churches sided with Hitler and when eventually "mandated to swear personal allegiance to Hitler," 800 pastors who refused to do so were "arrested and imprisoned." Hitler satisfied the people through monetary policies that would only later be shown as disastrous and on this Lutzer quotes Thomas Jefferson in "The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." He also quotes Abraham Lincoln in "We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor." Lutzer quotes Scripture in the feeding of the five thousand and the demand that Jesus be made king, "do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you." (John 6:27) Lutzer's third warning is about the Law and is titled That Which Is Legal Might Also Be Evil. Hitler created his own laws to legitimate his crimes. The Jews were not persons, so the SS could "legally" kill them. In fact this was the defense given by many in the post-war trials. We suffer from this malady today for in the postmodern mind, laws are tools to accomplish our desires, not statutes of eternal truths. Today, Czars create their own laws in the form of regulations. One need look no further that Roe v. Wade to see how we legalized murder and one's conscience is clear simply because one is within the law. Same-sex marriage applies the same thinking. Under attack today are the thoughts of the Samuel Rutherfords and William Blackstones of yesteryear. Lutzer lays it out very clearly in, "A student of the history of law in the Untied States should have been able to predict that human life would soon be reclassified as unworthy of special protection. Abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, homosexual marriage- these are the inevitable result of secular humanism's (and evolution's) worldview. When God dies, so does man." Too often today we legislate from the bench, for the Constitution has become a "living document....(and), the Constitution is not absolute, judges are." Lutzer turns next in his warnigs to propaganda in Propaganda Can Change A Nation. We've all seen the response that Newt Gingrich has been given for comments in the debates. In my opinion, it's not the former House Speaker that generates standing ovations, but the fact that someone is finally shouting from a rooftop that the American media has long since become a Ministry of Propaganda. Anyone telling the truth to the American people in these debates would have been received with standing O's. Lutzer spends a lot of time on Hitler and his personal propaganda, quoting him from Mein Kampf, "The first task of propaganda is to win people for subsequent organization. (emphasis mine) The second task of propaganda is the disruption of the existing state of affairs and the permeation of this state of affairs with the new doctrine, while the second task of the organization must be the struggle for power, thus to achieve the final success of the doctrine." Just to be clear, that is Hitler writing...not Saul Alinsky. Lutzer continues, "Of course as any skilled propagandist knows the masses should never be told the end-game, that is, where the leader actually intends to take the people." Hitler believed that in order for people to believe the obvious lie that they had to be part of a "cultural current"..."He believed that many people would never change their minds individully, but would do so if they were in a crowd of several thousand convinced followers. When a seeker steps into a crowd of thousands, wrote Hitler, that seeker is swept away into the mighty effect of suggestive intoxication and enthusiasm...confirm(ing) to him the rightness of the new doctrine." Hitler knew that "terms and slogans could be used for broader appeal."  Read, meditate and weep, if you will, on this quote from Mein Kampf ..."The magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of credibility, since the great masses of the people in the very bottom of their hearts tend to be corrupted rather than consciously and purposely evil, and that, therefore, in view of the primitive simplicity of their minds , they more easily fall a victim to the big lie than to the little one, (emphasis mine) since they themselves lie in little things but would be ashamed of lies that are too big." And yet another Hitler quote, "By clever and persevering use of propaganda even heaven can be represented as hell to the people, and consequently the most wretched life as paradise." Lutzer writes of Albert Einstein's feelings on Nazi Germany in that the universities, the newspapers and the intellectuals gave in to Hitler...only the (Confessing) church "stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing the truth...I am (therefore) forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly." Lutzer turns next to Parents-Not The State, Are Responsible For A Child's Training Hmmm...where have I heard that concept before? From Hitler again..." German youth... must be consciously shaped according to principles which are recognized as correct...according to the principles of the ideology of National Socialism." Private schooling was abolished and "all education was unified under the Nazi ideology....textbooks were rewritten." Children's natural desire to be independent of parents was "exploited." Attitudes were taught and "values" were "clarified" and "facts were deliberately distorted." Here is another quote, from many years ago, this time from Harvard University professor Chester Pierce...(are you sitting down?) "every child in America who enters school at the age of five is mentally ill, because he comes to school with allegiance toward our elected officials, toward our Founding Fathers, toward our institutions, toward the preservation of this form of government....the truly well individual is the one who has rejected all these things...the true international child of the future." Lutzer's final plea..."take charge of your child's education." Erwin Lutzer's last two lessons to be learned have to do with what our response should be to what is going on. Are we to take hold of, what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, "cheap grace," or be inspire by costly grace? His last lesson is labelled We Must Exalt The Cross In The Gathering Darkness. From my perspective, and I have blogged upon it many times, the church today has found more powerful concepts to preach than the cross of Jesus Christ and here is the rub as it pertains to this book, preachers will look you in the eye after preaching a sermon that is 100 percent "application," void of the gospel, and tell you "well, the gospel is actually in the application." The overall church suffers immensely, is susceptible to all forms of poor teaching to heresy, and is perfectly content to live in a dumbed-down doctrinal Christianity, all because the shepherd has configured his logic in such a way that the gospel is not present...but present. American Christianity can learn a lot from the experiences of the German church, the first is that very difficult days are likely ahead and the most important that, as Lutzer conluded his book in a quote from Bonhoeffer, "it is before (the) cross and not before us that the world trembles." Erwin Lutzer took pains to emphasize that "Nazism did not rise out of a vacuum," that "cultural streams" were more problematic than individuals and I would like to emphasize that our peace in Jesus Christ is intact, through His strength so I offer once again, in part, a Puritan prayer from Arthur Bennett's Valley Of Vision, highly recommended for daily devotions and also available at Amazon.com:

Lord God Almighty,

May I maintain a supreme regard to another
and better world,
and feel and confess myself a stranger
and a pilgrim here.
Afford me all the direction, defense, support,
and consolation my journey hence requires,
and grant me a mind stayed upon thee.
Give me large abundance of the supply of
the Spirit of Jesus,
that I may be prepared for every duty,
love thee in all my mercies,
submit to thee in every trial,
trust thee when walking in darkness,
have peace in thee amidst life's changes.
Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief
and uncertainties.

Ameritopia

Mark Levin himself acknowledges that some people think that he writes differently than he speaks on his nationally syndicated radio talk show and it's something that I have noticed for quite some time. He's a little bit too pugnacious for me on the radio but when he pens his thoughts he is one of the very best, able to succinctly reach the ordinary American, albeit normal in a traditional sense. In Liberty And Tyranny, a former No.1 best seller, he contrasted the concept of liberty with the "growing tyranny of government-statism as I (Levin) broadly labelled it- which threatens our liberty, the character of our country, and our way of life."  His latest book Ameritopia, The Unmaking Of America, is another powerful reference and I write of that book here. It's a lesson in the history of political philosophy particularly as it relates to our constitutional republican form of government and the present threat to it. He begins with the concept of utopianism which he describes as a "pseudo ideal...in which a heroic despot, a benevolent sovereign, or an enlightened oligarchy claims the ability and authority to provide for all the needs and fulfill all the wants of the individual-in exchange for his absolute servitude." As a format for the book he choose "four classic philosophical works-that best describe the utopian thinking and conduct in America," those being Plato's Republic, Thomas More's Utopia, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan and Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. Describing Utopianism, the author writes that it is "irrational... (ignoring) the teaching and knowledge that have come before... (with) unachievable promises for knowledge-science and reason while laying claim to them all... abstraction framed as progress..., (stripping the individual and conforming him to the state)... deception disguised as hope... (based on) group identity... (ignoring economics and experience with a perverse definition of equality)... intolerant... rule by masterminds (and) driven by (their) own boundless conceit and delusional aspirations-which he identifies as a noble calling." He has a way with words for it's an accurate description of the liberal of today. On to the classic philosophical books that led us to where we find ourselves: Plato's Republic is a quest for a totalitarian state in which it is "not difficult to find the germs of Marxism, National Socialism, Islamicism and other forms of utopianism," a city that "provides for only the most basic needs  of its citizens-food, shelter, clothing and shoes." Acknowledging a problem in these limits, and the need to provide more, he calls for "Guardians...who will wisely rule and guard the city." The individual is out of the picture. Man is born with a particular "metal" in which you and I are bronze while I presume the Clintons and Obamas are obviously gold. He writes, "Indoctrinization is..crucial." Does the following sound familiar..."Only those who are otherwise healthy, but suffer either an injury or seasonal malady, are entitled to medical care" for "the chronically ill are not beneficial to the city." The "philosophers must rule" and we certainly see this today in the arrogance of the intellectual of our elite universities. Thomas More, who was in King Henry VIII's court and eventually executed, devised a plan in Utopia for a radically regimented society that substituted "one evil for another" and is eerily "reminiscent of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward." Concluding with Thomas More, Levin writes, "Utopia is a tyrannical society, destructive of individual sovereignty and free will, with many of the attributes of a communist state." Thomas Hobbes was a "partisan of the English royalty" during and after the reign of Charles I. Necessary in his utopia was "Submission to the Leviathan (or Commonwealth)...(and) transferring one's rights to the sovereign." Men were equal only "in the sense that all individuals strive for survival." Levin adds "Liberty exists only to the extent the Sovereign permits." Man once again is stripped of "human qualities that contribute to the essence of life." Levin concludes with "Leviathan springs not from a virtuous government protective of a civil society, but a totalitarian regime." The elimination of private property and the family comes next with Marx's and Engels's Humanist Manifesto. Class struggle anyone? Here is the "Workers paradise." Levin's emphasis is that "in all four utopias, the individual and his family, are subservient to the state." Having given the foundation for totalitarianism, Levin turns to two men whose writings challenged Plato, More, Hobbes and Marx...John Locke and Montesquieu. The individual here had "value, dignity and significance." Levin writes "Locke makes the case for a civil  and consensual government with just laws impartially enforced and in which the liberty and rights of the individual are respected, thereby rejecting the utopian centralized model where the philosopher/king, prince, sovereign or temporary despot rules over the masses and shapes the individual against his will." Enter the American colonies and those who would become Founding Fathers of the United States of America. Who would they choose to heed in forming the new nation? We all know the answer and Levin provides numerous quotes from the writings of Locke and Montesquieu including warnings of what the alternative was....warnings we need to hear again today. Mark Levin gives us the disturbing details of how men such as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and others reverted to the utopian concept, so much so that we are in peril today of a total political philosophy transplant and are now, according to Levin, in the buffer stage of Ameritopia. Levin states that Plato would approve of Barack Obama. The author writes, "The essential question is whether, in America, the people's psychology has been so successfully warped, the individual's spirit so thoroughly trounced, and the civil society's institutions so effectively overwhelmed that revival is impossible." My take on this is that Mark Levin's book, Ameritopia, is indeed needed. I read this book in an evening. Surely we as a people can allot time to heed such warnings, surely we can teach them to our children. It's interesting that Levin used the word "revival." The Evangelical of today uses that word often and unfortunately, once again often, ties a revival of the gospel and revival of America together. I say "unfortunately," for the former leads to the latter but is wholly distinct from it and if we ignore this, the best that we can hope for is a traditional, patriotic America to oversee the fall of that America. A reformation is more to the point of what is needed, a turning of the entire population, or at least the vast majority, to, not John Locke, but Jesus Christ. Our indifference to our benefactor directly led our rejection of a Constitutional Republic in favor of utopian forms of government. Nonetheless, there is a political realm that has to be paid attention to. This book is an asset here....if it will be read, particular by more than the conservative block. Thomas More's Utopia was written in the year of our Lord 1516. Martin Luther penned his 95 Theses in 1517. None of the above mentioned books, nor any others save God's very Word to us, changed the world so as Luther's thoughts put on paper. Indeed we experienced a Reformation that led also to political change whose offspring was England and America. Please take the time to read Levin's book and to pass it on, but only if this action is bookended by prayer and a return to the only words penned by man, under the inspiration of God's Holy Spirit, that transforms not only nations but the souls of which make up those nations.

Rhinos, Hyenas and Jackasses...Oh My!

The following blog is from September 14th, 2010:

The lampshade rotated slowly in the still and quiet room. Emanating from the top were two beams of light casting a glow on the planets on the ceiling. As the shade further turned, Buzz Lightyear appeared on the wall and slowly circled the room, wobbling over a Pittsburgh Penguins pennant, a Sydney Crosby Jersey, shower curtains revealed through the open bathroom door, two windows and an autographed framed photograph of President Ronald Reagan; not a standard decoration in the bedroom of a nine year old boy, but still appropriate in a world where most entertainments for children involve violence or some shaman witchcraft a la Harry Potter. The door creaked as it inched open. Dad would never oil that door for at night he wanted to know every time that it opened. The invading light made it appear as if Buzz was passing from out of the earth's shadow.

"Anyone awake?" He whispered hoping not to hear a response.
"Just me dad. I can't sleep."
Raising his voice to normal..."How about a fairy tale?"
"Yea!" came the reply.
Dad came in and sat on the lower bunk, the top reserved for a brother who had not shown up yet.
"How about Hanzel and Gretyl?"
"Nah."
"The Three Bears?"
"Oh sure, bears that talk! Come on dad!"
"But that's what fairy tales are supposed to be son. They free your imagination to think of strange things....like Little Red Riding Hood....a wolf in sheep's clothing...come on....huh?"
"You said that that women named Hillary is a wolf in sheep clothing."
"Well, that's true but that's what called a metaphor."
"A What?"
"Tell you later. I know. I have a story about scary Rhinos. Only they are scary for different reasons."
"Wow. A rhino could scare anyone!"
"These are different types of rhinos. Some of them are very small. Susie the rhino is about mom's size and Olympia the rhino carries a purse. Some are strong with very big muscles like Arnold the rhino, but as soon as Mrs. Arnold comes out, Arnold the rhino sneaks back into the bushes."
"So why are these rhinos scary?"
"Well, they are scary because they are pretending to be elephants. They're very dangerous to little children and babies not born yet because they are always stomping around. They like to live in big castles but when wolves come around they start to take down the castle walls."
"Why do they do that dad? Don't they know that the wolves will come in and eat them?"
"Well, part of the problem is that they do not have very good eyesight. They look at the wolves and think that they are cute little puppy dogs!"
"Wow!"
"And they don't hear very well either. You can warn them that there are bees buzzing all around and even yell 'Look out! The bees are going to sting you!' but they just keep on stomping on baby carriages and school books...so anyway, one day little bitty tea cups hopped up to them.."
"Oh come on dad, tea cups that hop?"
"Use your imagination son. The tea cups hopped up to them and told the rhinos to stop chewing on the animals constitution."
"They were chewing on the animal's constitution?"
"That's right son, chewing on it and spitting it out for there were two much trans fats in the Constitution and not enough fluoride and Prozac."
"What?"
"Never mind, I got carried away; but they chewed and chewed and said that they were going to make their own laws over the animal kingdom. All the other animals were scared  because they knew that the rhinos would get big and fat and eat everything in sight, including all the other animal's food. That's why this is such a scary story."
"Wow! What happens then?"
"Well, one day the lion, the king of the jungle, came back and he was not very happy. He told the rhinos that they were not elephants, they were rhinos, and they were more like jackasses."
"What did he do then?"
"He roared at the rhino castle and it fell down, and he roared at Lisa the rhino and she cried, and he roared in Spanish at the rhino with the white hair!"
"Wow! How did he roar in Spanish?"
"He rolled his R's...anyway he put the tea cups in charge of the constitution, to protect it."
"And what did the elephants...I mean the rhinos...I mean the jackasses do?"
"Well, they cried for a while but then they said 'OK, so we're not elephants...we are really hyenas!' and they laughed this crazy laugh. And then they said that they were going to huff and puff and blow the tea cups away but they didn't have any lips to blow with......then they became lobbyists."
Yawn! "That's a good story dad. I think that I can go to sleep now."
"That's good son."
"Are you going to bed now dad?"
"Soon son... but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep...I'll explain that tomorrow."
He kissed his son on the forehead, put Buzz back into orbit and tiptoed out the door...creeek!