Nationalism, Crusades, and Anti-Semitism

Just learned that today is both Holocaust Remembrance Day and the March for Life. The latter is on a different date each year, the former is always on January 27, commemorating the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in 1945.

Many seem to think that the Nazis rose to power in some backward, unrefined place.

But Germany in the 1930's was the most educated country in the world, according to historian Paul Johnson. A culturally advanced, learned people allowed a monster to take control of the government, and two state supported churches - Catholic and Lutheran - helped the regime scapegoat Jews. Thank God for some exceptions (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Confessing Church), but the sad truth is that anti-Semitism has its historical roots in "Christian" churches.

If the church doesn't exist to stop tyranny like Hitler, what is the church here for? I am not reassured by the blind allegiance to Trump among Evangelicals - the spirit of nationalism is foul smelling and not easily reined in once loosed.

I've been studying the Crusades lately, and learning some things I didn't want to know.

To wit:

In 1095, Pope Urban II called Christians to a crusade to take Jerusalem from the Muslims. En route, the Crusaders learned to love killing, including entire Jewish villages. They started out hating the Muslims as "enemies of Christ" and along the way many of them decided that Jews were "enemies of Christ" as well. These demonic hordes, marching in the name of our Lord, were the source of blood libels and pogroms, and the evil and stupid idea of blaming all Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus.

When the Crusaders arrived at Jerusalem in 1099, they not only slaughtered Muslims within the city, but also Jews as well. The Muslims had banned Christians because they were regarded as polytheists for adhering to the doctrine of the Trinity.

Interesting to me is the fact that Jews were banned from Jerusalem until Muslims retook the city in 1187. Saladin invited them back to the city, and also allowed Christians from Greek and Eastern churches to remain, because they had not persecuted Muslims.

It seems that anti-Semitism has been more prevalent among "Christians" throughout history than it has been among Muslims, with notable exceptions.

Spiritually speaking, I observe the same filthy spirit in today's anti-Muslim crusade as inhabited the anti-Muslim crusades of the middle ages. I hope it doesn't redound to a new wave of anti-Semitism, although it apparently already has in parts of Europe. There were neo-Nazis among those who staged the Ukrainian coup that our government and NATO backed during Hillary Clinton's tenure at the State department. It also is not helpful for our government and evangelical Christians to blindly support Netanyahu's oppression of Palestinians, or the demonization of the entire Persian/ Iranian race.

This is a heart issue. Stereotyping of any one ethnic or religious group tends to snowball into hatred of other groups. Pope Urban II called forth a mob against Muslims. He didn't intend for the mob to go after Jews, but he was powerless to restrain the juggernaut he had launched.

Do we ever learn?

The answer is blowing in the wind?

John Calvin and the perils of Theocracy

John Calvin turned 500 years old this year.

As a Pentecostal, I obtained special access to heaven to attend a gala birthday bash in his honor.

Organizer Martin Bucer wanted to surprise John at home, but the guest list was too large for John’s 10,000 square foot mansion to accommodate. Instead, Michael Servetus invited John over to his place (15,000 square feet) - ostensibly for a barbeque – a ruse that worked beautifully. A great time was had by all, and John acknowledged the irony of being invited to a “barbeque” at Michael’s house, even while raising a toast to his good friend.

Upon returning to Earth, I pondered Calvin’s impact in the world.

My first thought was the horrendous burning of Servetus.

This brilliant but stubborn man, having escaped from Catholics (who would have executed him), ventured into Geneva - a thriving theocracy whose leading citizen - Calvin - had warned him not to come, on pain of death.

True to his word, Calvin (who had been annoyed by several unsolicited letters from Servetus) was the leading witness for the prosecution, and Servetus was burnt as a heretic.

This appalling episode is merely the most famous of several in which Christians were executed by other Christians in the name of orthodoxy.

Church history is replete with examples of the perils of a theocracy. Both Catholics and Protestants used state power to tyrannize dissenters and non-conformists.

Servetus's crime was dissent from the doctrine of the Trinity. This gives me extra pause, since I am also non-Trinitarian.

The outrage against Servetus notwithstanding, John Calvin is largely responsible for the separation of civil government from church government in our country. Separation of church and state wasn’t conceived by Progressives concerned about government enforced social mores, but by Calvinists (who had been on the receving end of more persecution than they had doled out) desiring to protect the Church from a meddling state.

Christians in colonial America wanted no part of a theocracy dominated by any religious sect, or a theocracy where the state is god.

Accordingly, it was through the efforts of anti-Federalists – mostly Calvinist in their theology - that the Bill of Rights was included in our Constitution.

The god of statism is currently the greatest threat to our liberty. Progressive socialism advances with slogans fitting a religious revival: "change you can believe in."

"Yes we [i.e. government] can."

Progressives (the old, but new, trendy label preferred by militant collectivists) spread fear of a fundamentalist takeover of the government even as said government ensures the transfer of all the nation's wealth to itself through debt monetization.

Similarly, the Progressives of the 1930's used Nazism and Fascism as bugaboos, while their idol, Stalin, secretly worked with Hitler to plunge the world into unprecedented chaos.

To be sure, religious tyrants have oppressed far too many humans throughout history.

But unrestrained states, of the kind that Obama and his progressive cohorts seek, have murdered or enslaved hundreds of millions - in the last century alone.

We are in peril of becoming serfs in a theocracy where there is one god, the State, whose prophet is Obama.

Progressive democracy is tyranny

World War II began seventy years ago yesterday, with the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht. Two weeks later the Red Army entered Poland from the east, per a secret protocol between Hitler and Stalin.



World War II was Socialism's gift to the world. History's two most prominent socialists exemplified what bipartisanship can accomplish.




The War is thought of as a struggle between freedom and tyranny. Actually, the Nationalist Socialists and the Internationalist Socialists put aside their differences to ensure hegemony of some form of Progressive Socialism in eastern Europe.



Hitler deserves all the contempt history has heaped on him, but Stalin hasn't received his due as Der Fuehrer's equal in terms of suffering imposed upon humanity. This is partly due to the large number of Stalin apologists among western intellecual elitists in the 1930's and 1940's - such as New York Times reporter Walter Duranty and The Nation magazine.

Communists and Nazis obfuscated the issue of statism vs. liberty by plunging the world into a bloodbath where the heresies were provincialism and racism on one side, and atheism and imperialism on the other.

Provincialism and Racism lost - two happy outcomes of the War.

Unfortunately, Imperialism and Atheism were victorious, and perhaps 100 million people were subsequently murdered by imperialistic, atheistic states.

Fascism survived the war, too, because it can adapt itself to internationalist and progressive causes such as global warming and massive printing of fiat money.

"Progressive" is the preferred term for modern fascism, because government schools still teach that "fascism" is evil.

Students are conditioned to think only within dichotomous paradigms: Democrat vs. Republican; Conservative vs. Liberal; Left vs. Right. Therefore the average citizen doesn't contemplate whether the government ought to continue to expand (on constitutional grounds), whether proffered solutions may be worse than the problems they purport to solve, or the future effect when $trillions in new debt is monetized.

Rather, students are taught that we are a democracy, in which the salient issues are: 1.) which party governs the ever expanding state, and 2.) which party's ethics (such as they are) are superior.

Government schools don't facilitate thought as to whether the state should continue to expand.



They are, after all, GOVERNMENT schools.

Hence, with a populace ignorant of American history, and of the Constitution, government growth continues under the guise of "democracy."

Politicians of every stripe - liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican - tout the virtues of "Democracy."

"Democracy:" the talking point that is seldom derided as a "talking point."

Democracy: "Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner." An apt description (yes, I'm aware of the petty scuffle over the quote's origin).

Democracy: What the French Revolution was all about. An obtuse king was overthrown by the people.

"The people" - euphemism for "a mob."

Pathetic as Louis XVI was, he was a pillar of virtue next to Robespierre.

In eighteenth century France, Democracy led to the guillotine, regicide, and finally....Napolean.