Many years ago I read a book about Adolf Hitler and the rise of Nazism in Germany during the early 1930s. Although I don’t remember the details of what I read, the book contained a photograph that disturbed me to such an extent that I still vividly remember it after all these years. It was a picture of a beautiful, well-dressed young woman perhaps in her thirties. She was attending a rally at which Hitler spoke during the time he was gaining political power over the German people. As she gazed at the Fuhrer, there was a smile on the young woman’s face which glowed with admiration if not absolute idolization. Her rapt attention made her appear as though hypnotized by Hitler and his words. The reason I was so disturbed was because I knew the end of the story. How could this young woman and the crowd around her be so naïve and susceptible to the Nazi message? She and the others were just ordinary people! But these ordinary people, in their gullibility and rejection of their Christian heritage, allowed themselves to be deceived and as a result made possible the greatest conflagration of death and destruction in the history of mankind.
The Germans had lost the First World War in 1918, and the fierce German pride was dealt a succession of body blows. The 50-year-old monarchy ended with Kaiser Wilhelm’s forced abdication. Communists and Social Democrats warred for control as the nation was near anarchy. The Weimer Republic was the victor but a deeply flawed democratic regime. Germany was forced to eviscerate its armed forces, give up much of its European territories, abandon Asian and African colonies, and pay huge reparations to the Allied nations.[1] Germany sank into years of hyperinflation and depression (both economically and psychologically).
Because of the consequences of the First World War, the German people and especially the younger Germans were disillusioned and lost all confidence in the traditional authority of the monarchy and the church. They wanted a fuhrer, and for the German people salvation would come from Adolf Hitler who promised that he would restore order, resurrect the economy, and return the nation to its rightful place on the world’s stage.[2] But their desire for a fuhrer required a loss of rights and freedom which led to totalitarianism and eventual destruction of Germany.
Hitler’s message was not a new one. Eve succumbed to its seductions in the third chapter of Genesis…Ye shall be as gods. In the eleventh century BC, King David wrote, “The fool hath said in his heart: there is no god.” [Psalms 14:1. KJV] Humanism is man’s second oldest faith—the great alternative faith of mankind—man without God. But it was the Greeks of the fourth through sixth centuries BC that gave form and body to the man-made philosophy of humanism that would impact the world second only to Jesus Christ.[3] Seventeenth century Enlightenment thought gave new life to Greek humanism and the doctrines of progress, rationality, secularism, and political reform. Values did not arise from fixed notions of right and wrong prescribed by a non-existent transcendent God but were a product of moral relativism in which man is merely a bundle of instincts and urges.[4]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “…’the Greek spirit or ‘humanism’ as ‘the most severe enemy’ that Christianity ever had.”[5] And in twenty-first century America, Christianity is once again at war with humanism. From this battle we can see alarming parallels between the political and cultural changes that occurred in Germany during the early 1930s and those of the United States since 2009.
• April 1, 1933 – Boycott of Jewish stores across Germany. The reason given was to stop the international press supposedly controlled by the Jews from printing lies about the Nazis.[6]
July 26, 2012 – The Christian owner of Chic-Fil-A was urged to back out of his expansion plans in Boston and Chicago because his company gave money to nonprofits that support limiting marriage to unions between a man and a woman. Because of his biblical beliefs, he had run afoul of Chicago mayor Rohm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff for President Obama. Emanuel said, “Chick-Fil-A’s values are not Chicago values. They’re not respectful of our residents, our neighbors and our family members. And if you’re gonna be part of the Chicago community, you should reflect Chicago values…” Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno said he will seek to block a permit for Chick-Fil-A to expand into a Chicago neighborhood. “To have those discriminatory policies from the top down is just not something that we’re open to,” Moreno said.[7]
• April 22, 1933 – Jews were not allowed to serve as patent lawyers. Jewish doctors were prohibited from working in hospitals with state-run insurance.[8]
March 2009 – An Eastern Michigan University student was expelled because she would not counsel clients regarding sexual relationships outside of marriage which she viewed as immoral because of her Christian beliefs. Julea Ward was in her last year of her completing work for her master’s degree in counseling at EMU. While in a practicum in which she counseled clients, she asked that a prospective client wanting advice on a homosexual relationship be referred to another counselor. A faculty panel of three professors and one student ruled that Ward had violated the American Counseling Association’s code of ethics. However, the Association’s code of ethics “…broadly allows for referrals anytime a counselor determines an ‘inability to be of professional assistance’.”[9] The university and Ms. Ward settled the matter out of court in December 2012.
• May 6, 1933 – Anti-Jewish laws expanded to include all honorary university professors, lecturers, and notaries.[10]
April 2007 – Dr. Mike Adams, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina–Wilmington was denied promotions because of his religious beliefs following his conversion from atheism to Christianity in 2000. “Subsequently, the university subjected Adams to a campaign of academic persecution that culminated in his denial of promotion to full professor, despite an award-winning record of teaching, research, and service.” In April 2014, almost seven years after Adams filed suit, a federal court found in his favor and ordered the university to promote Dr. Adams with back pay.[11]
• June 1933 – Jewish dentists and dental technicians were prohibited from working with state-run insurance institutions.[12]
May 15, 2014 – Pasadena City Health Director Dr. Eric Walsh resigned after being suspended for two weeks pending investigation by city officials after their discovery of videos of sermons by Lay Pastor Walsh “…criticizing homosexuality, calling the founder of Islam a Satanist, and calling evolution a ‘religion of Satan’.” There was no evidence of bias or misconduct while serving in his capacity as the city’s health director, but the city’s Human Relations Commission Chairman Nat Nehdar strongly criticized Walsh for his beliefs. “We don’t tolerate this type of behavior, this type of thought.” Following his resignation in Pasadena, the Georgia Department of Public Health announced Walsh would be hired to manage a six-county health district. Strong pressure from the gay-activist community in Georgia resulted in an investigation of Walsh’s background including the video sermons and led the department to withdraw its offer.[13] (emphasis added)
• September 29, 1933 – Jews banned from all entertainment and cultural activities including literature, the arts, theater, and film.[14]
May 7, 2014 – Home and Garden TV canceled a home-flipping program planned for October by former major league baseball brothers David and Jason Bentham because of their Christian beliefs regarding homosexuality and abortion. Background reports from a left-wing organization given to HGTV labeled the brothers as “anti-gay, anti-choice extremists.”[15]
• October 1933 – Jews expelled from journalism when all newspapers were placed under Nazi control.[16]
September 6, 2013 – A college football commentator was fired by Fox Sports Southwest because of his Christian beliefs regarding same-sex marriage. A committed Christian, Craig James said, “…gay civil unions are wrong, homosexuality is ‘a choice,’ and gays will ‘have to answer to the Lord for their actions’.” He made the statements during his 2012 campaign for the Texas GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate. Fox Sports Southwest fired him one week after being hired. A spokesman said, “We just asked ourselves how Craig’s statements would play in our human resources department. He couldn’t say those things here.”[17] (emphasis added)
Change was the banner under which the Nazis marched. It would be accomplished by Gleichschaltung (synchronization) in which the country would be reordered along National Socialist lines “…which meant that everything must fall in line with the Nazi worldview.”[18]
The American Gleichschaltung of 2009 would also be a reordering of the nation to reflect the humanistic worldview whose default setting for organizing society is socialism. A Barak Obama campaign speech on February 5, 2008 captured both the message of change and the worldview behind it. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”[19] President Obama’s words resonate with the clarion call of the humanists whose God is self as opposed to He who created the universe.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 33-34.
[2] Ibid., p. 141.
[3] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods-Humanism and Christianity-The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 139.
[4] Ibid., pp. 92-93, 287.
[5] Metaxas, p. 85.
[6] Ibid., p. 156.
[7] Michael Scherer, “Chic-Fil-A meets a First Amendment buzz saw in Chicago,” Time, July 26, 2012. http://swampland.time.com/2012/07/26/chick-fil-a-meets-a-first-amendment-buzzsaw-in-chicago/ (accessed May 21, 2014).
[8] Metaxas, p. 160.
[9] Jeremy Tedesco, “The Julea Ward Settlement: A Win for Religious Liberty,” Townhall.com, January 4, 2013. http://townhall.com/columnists/jeremytedesco/2013/01/04/the-julea-ward-settlement–a-win-for-religious-liberty-n1478423 (accessed May 22, 2014).
[10] Metaxas, p. 160.
[11] “Court orders UNC–Wilmington to pay, promote professor after retaliating against him” Alliance Defending Freedom, April 9, 2014. http://www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org/News/PRDetail/3901 (accessed May 22, 2014).
[12] Metaxas, p. 160.
[13] Mark A. Kellner, “Pasadena’s medical director on leave after his Protestant sermons surface.” NewsOK, May 9, 2014. http://newsok.com/pasadenas-medical-director-on-leave-after-his-protestant-sermons-surface/article/4747892 (accessed May 24, 2014).
[14] Metaxas, p. 160.
[15] Ann Oldenburg, “Bentham brothers: If faith cost us TV show, so be it,” USA Today, May 8, 2014. http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2014/05/07/hgtv-nixes-benham-brothers-series-anti-gay-extremist-abortion/8810393/ (accessed May 22, 2014).
[16] Metaxas, p. 160.
[17] Barry Horn, “Craig James’ anti-gay stance during political campaign reason for quick exit from FOX Sports SW,” SportsDayDFW, September 6, 2013. http://collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/craig-james-anti-gay-stance-during-political-campaign-reason-for-his-quick-exit-from-fssw-college-football-duties.html/(accessed May 22,
2014).
[18] Metaxas, p. 166.
[19] “Barak Obama Quotes,” Notable Quotes.
http://www.notable-quotes.com/o/obama_barack.html (accessed May 28, 2014).
