Sunday, May 18, 2014

America, America, God shed His grace on thee.


America is in a very dangerous state right now. In the early 1990's I began to wonder how it was that a nation like Germany that was a long bastion of Christianity managed to become such a brutal totalitarian state. I specifically set out on a journey to do a personal study to investigate why the Church failed to stand against the Nazis especially in relation to the stripping of all Jewish rights, properties and ultimately their lives.

I began with reading obvious books on the subject of Nazi Germany and allowed what I read to lead me to other books and to many different trails all related to the same. My main interest was why the Church allowed itself to be quietly swept into support of the Nazis, as I had heard the excuses that, #1. "They really weren't Christians" and #2 "They were fearful to oppose the Nazis."

I did not buy either excuse and my year long study of the question convinced me that my gut on this was accurate.

Now the reason I am saying all this is because I did not start with the rise of Nazi Germany and go forward, but I started prior to the rise of Hitler and studied the conditions that were present as he began to rise and as he was being seated in power. These types of power shifts have to do with a moral power shift in the public and Hitler was able to enact his ill-will because enough people of like-mindedness on political issues were to be found in key places - like the German judicial system and even German theologists which he used to convince German Christians to support him, or at least have the "godliness" to not resist their human authorities.

What I'm getting at is conditions that existed in Germany bureaucracies, as well as in misguided and easily manipulated Christianity, played a huge part in the totalitarian government that took hold of Germany under Hitler. Fear of resistance came much later, when they could no longer resist with any effectiveness.

I'm really concerned about the state of America. If Americans really knew what the actual state of things were - and I'm not talking about ANY conspiracy theories just the simple unvarnished truth behind all the current scandals of this administration and his like-minded bureaucrats - we would not go so stupidly quiet into this dark night.

I will tell you this: you better pay careful attention to the IRS scandal because it has the most potential to strip you of your freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We are a frog in a pot of warm water on the verge of bubbling into a rapid boil. We better wake up.
Do not grow scandal weary. These scandals of the government are not political witch hunts, they are real abuses by people who have a like-minded agenda for America that has no place for the convictions of people of faith.

These unrelated scandals of our current government does not require that all these people be directly related to a conspiracy network, because it is their mindset that connects them. Many take direct individual actions within their realms of authority - IRS, Homeland Security, Judicial, State Dept - because the environment is ripe for action.

Writing in hopes that we pay attention and take notice of the eroding of American individual freedoms - and that we do everything within our power to resist. When I did this study I discovered one German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who recognized the dangers early and who worked exhaustively to warn not only Germany but the world - especially Christians. But no one wanted to hear him.

Bonhoeffer gave his life to resistance of the Nazis. We should learn the lessons of history, rise early to resist America becoming totalitarian as this path is certainly forming.  I'm not advocating any crazy stuff, but I'm saying pay attention and fight it through the political and legal processes while we can.


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