Those Who Ignore History

 Those Who Ignore History.....January, 2012

         Erwin W. Lutzer is the 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 of a mass movement such as Nazism happening here. 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'll find in this paperback are remarkable similarities of Hitler's methods in conquering a culture for illicit purposes to our own slide into oblivion in America. Lutzer focuses on the weakness of the human mind when in the hands of master villains. He reminds us that our allegiance is first to Almighty God, and that what happened in the church of Nazi Germany should prove to 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."

         In his first warning, When God is separated from government, Judgment Follows, 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 gives 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."

         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 I." 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." He 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." He quotes Jesus in the feeding of the five thousand and consequent 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 consequently 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."

          Lutzer turns next in his warnings to Propaganda Can Change A Nation. We've all seen the positive audience response that Newt Gingrich has been given for comments in the debates. In my opinion it's not the former House Speaker that generated 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 quotes Hitler from Mein Kampf, "The first task of propaganda is to win people for subsequent organization. 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"... that many people would never change their minds individually, 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, 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 was..."take charge of your child's education."

           The author'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 inspired by "costly grace?" His last lesson is labeled 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 then is weakened, is susceptible to all forms of poor teaching, even 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 spoken...but is there anyway! According to Lutzer, "Nazism did not rise out of a vacuum" and that "cultural streams" were more problematic than individuals. The cultural streams in America today are equally debilitating. American Christianity can learn a lot from the experiences of the German church. Very difficult days are likely ahead and Erwin Lutzer encourages us with a quote from Bonhoeffer, "it is before (the) cross and not before us that the world trembles." I offer here a Puritan prayer, in part, from Arthur Bennett's Valley Of Vision, which I highly recommended for daily devotions. It is 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.