🚀 go-pugleaf

IT'S TIME TO START TAKING THE THEOCRATS SERIOUSLY

DUMMERSTON, Vt. - The nexus of evangelical Christianity and Republican
politics is a force that is transforming the United States, and not
for the better.
As someone who firmly believes that church and state should be
separate entities, I find it disgusting that GOP, in the minds of some
Republicans, now stands for God's Own Party.
This implies, of course, that Democrats are tools of Satan.
But the biggest question I have regarding Christian Republicans is how
does one claim to be a good Christian and still follow a political
party that is very selective about which parts of the Bible it
follows?
The answer might be found in a recently-released documentary,
"Theologians Under Hitler," produced by Methodist Pastor Steven
Martin. It will be aired on public television in the coming weeks.
The film is based on the 1985 book of the same name by Robert
Ericksen. It looks at three prominent German Protestant theologians -
Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus and Emmanuel Hirsch - and how their
writings were used to legitimize the Nazi Party during its rise to
power in the 1920s and 1930s.
In an interview in June, Martin said he hopes the film "opens up the
discussion to talk about what it means to be uniquely Christian in the
world today. And I think that is the most crucial discussion we can
have today in the church."
That's because, as Martin put it, "pastors are trying to lead some
civil discussion of Christianity in context of a divided country and
what it means to be a Christian in context of a divided society. This
program gives you a very safe environment to do it."
While discussing current events from the pulpit is problematic, Martin
said "you can talk about history."
And this is history worth discussing. To talk about how German
churches helped Adolf Hitler come to power, you have to talk about how
church and state became one in Germany.
In the aftermath of World War I, when Germany was a beaten, exhausted
nation, a new vision of Christianity started to emerge. It was a
vision that championed a nationalist agenda. The idea of the
resurrection of Germany merged with the image of the resurrection of
Christ. It was a seductive image, especially when one considers the
depth of Christian faith in Germany and its attractiveness as a
antidote to a chaotic modern world.
The German Christian movement was the result. The Nazi swastika
started to appear on church altars. The idea of volk espoused by
Hirsch - a united, racially pure Germany - tapped into the
long-simmering anti-semitism of Germans. It didn't take much of a leap
to equate the elimination of Jews with the fulfillment of God's plan.
What made it possible was theologians such as Kittel, who advocated
for a Christianity divorced from its Jewish roots, or Althaus, who
linked Hirsch's volk and Hitler's ideas together in his writings.
Given the respect that people have for church leaders, having people
like Kittel, Althaus and Hirsch supporting Hitler made Nazism
respectable.
Martin's film doesn't mention present-day politics. It doesn't need
to. A viewer of the film with even the slightest bit of knowledge
regarding today's Republican Party can see how the combination of
church and state perverts both church and state.
Radical clerics such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson
certainly don't have the intellectual status of an Althaus or Hirsch.
But they most certainly are influencing political thought as their
German counterparts did in the 1930s. They have succeeded in making
their version of evangelical Christianity as the official religion of
the Republican Party. All other faiths need not apply. They want a
theocracy, one volk under one churchified state.
That's why the Founding Fathers made sure separation of church and
state was put into the Constitution. They had enough knowledge of the
religious extremists of their era to know that no faith or religious
sect should be allowed to dominate a free people.
But the present-day Christian Right doesn't see it that way. Like the
German church of the 1930s, they see our open, secular society and the
principles of the Enlightenment it was based upon as evil, and see the
people who believe in these principles as evil.
Too many liberals don't take the prospect of a fundamentalist
theocracy seriously, or think that the Christian Right and its
followers can reasoned with. Unfortunately, reason is an impossibility
when dealing with people who openly seek your destruction in the name
of the God they believe in.
This nation is lurching toward theocracy and we need to understand
what happens when church and state become one. The evangelicals who
believe that God chose George W. Bush to be president will probably
not see Martin's film. But for everyone else who believes that
religion and politics shouldn't mix, especially in light of what
happens when they do, this film is a must. More information about
"Theologians Under Hitler" can be found at www.vitalvisuals.com.





--
Alistair Sim




"I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I
know many strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and
women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless
terrors of which they dare not speak."




They seek him here
They seek him there.
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?
Or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel!


"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"




The little things are infinitely more important."





"I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for
trifles."


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