Nazi Germany stands out in history as a horrific and grizzly reminder of the depths of depravity that humanity can reach. The Second World War was the largest and deadliest conflict in history with total worldwide death estimates between at least 65 to 85 million people, which amounts to about 3 to 3.7% of the world’s population at the time.
Accurate numbers are hard to estimate, but during the course of the war, over 100 million combatants entered the fray and there would be at least 15 million who would not return home and more than 25 million who would be wounded. Add to this the number of civilians who would lose their lives due to collateral damage or famine and disease and the statistics are staggering. The Soviet Union would lose 20 to 27 million people, accounting for almost 15% of their population. China lost 15 to 20 million, Germany 6 to 7.4 million, Poland 5.9 to 6 million (about 16% of their population), with the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia, Japan, India, Yugoslavia and other nations suffering heavy casualties.
Important Lessons from History for Us Today
Those numbers of casualties from WW2 boggle the mind, as numbers so high are often beyond our comprehension. They start to become numbers, losing sight of their humanity we forget that behind each one was a human soul, an individual like us with families, friends, hobbies, and quirks.
Yet perhaps more puzzling is the task of trying to fathom why a nation like Germany would lead the world into such a devastating conflict, and furthermore, how do we comprehend the deplorable and inhumane acts the Nazis would commit against other people. As part of a deliberate program of extermination, the Nazis systematically killed over 11 million people including 6 million Jews. In German, the term “Lebensunwertes Leben,” meaning “unworthy of life,” was a Nazi designation for the segments of the populace that they determined had no right to live.
Viktor Frankl, a Jewish Holocaust survivor once noted:
“The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment – or as the Nazis liked to say, ‘Of blood and soil.’ I’m absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other of Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.”
It was said in the nineteenth century that “God is dead”. By the twentieth century, it seemed like man would die too. With God dead, men became untamed beasts.
How did our world get to such a depraved state? And could it happen again? Is it happening again?
I believe there are some very important lessons we must learn from Nazi Germany if we are to avoid another round of exploring just how deep human depravity can go. A really great book, and one which I’ll be drawing from a lot in this episode is “When A Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn From Nazi Germany” by Erwin W. Lutzer. I encourage you to purchase a copy and read it!
Many today are incredulous about the prospect that our world could ever return to such a barbarous state as Nazi Germany. And I’m not seeking to be alarmist in this episode nor am I saying that what we’re going through is exactly like pre-Nazi Germany. However, we must learn from history and seriously consider some of the warning signs from the past to look at our present with sobriety. The true nature of totalitarianism is always hidden and crouched in the language of morality, progress and liberty. It’s like what George Orwell wrote in his novel, Animal Farm, where slavery is defined as freedom and suppression is defined as “the quest for equality and fairness” – but of course, some animals are more equal than others! (BTW, if you haven’t read an Orwell dystopian novel yet, you should – there’s a lot of relevance for us today)
Many who are in or heading towards totalitarian states don’t realize it until it’s too late because it comes incrementally. They push you an inch at a time until you give a little resistance, then they stop and wait for a bit, then push again a few more inches, until you resist, then they stop and wait for a bit and repeat the process. Before you know it, you’re a mile into a gulag because nowhere in that process did they regress. They just stopped and held where they had pushed you… and nowhere did you push back. This is what many of today’s Conservatives do – they just hold the line at the point where the Liberals have pushed it.
Thus, resistance is not enough to stave off totalitarianism. We must not just resist it when it becomes “too much”, we must push back. And we must have a goal to which we are pushing towards. You can’t beat something with nothing. So, you must also have an idea of what you’re pushing back towards and what you’re building in place.
Here are eight lessons Christians should learn from Nazi Germany…
1. Reject Two Kingdoms Theology
One of the strategies from early on by Hilter was to marginalize the Church so that there would be no Christian influence on government policy. He sought to make worship a private matter, not something for the public sphere. Religion must be kept out of politics at all costs, and state policy must be determined by humanistic/naturalistic principles so that Hitler could do what was “best” for the German people… and of course, the Führer knew what was best. He said that the churches must be “forbidden from interfering with temporal matters.” The state would have to be scrubbed clean of all Christian convictions and values.
This was helped along by the teaching of Two Kingdoms Theology in the German Lutheran Church. This was originally conceived by Martin Luther (in a different conception to the modern view), and then developed and adopted by the Lutheran Church as well as many other Protestant denominations. In fact, today, many Evangelicals knowingly and unknowingly subscribe to this unbiblical doctrine. It posits that there are “two spheres” or “kingdoms” in the world – the sacred and the secular. Christ is Lord only of the Church, but Caesar is, in a manner of speaking, lord over the political sphere. Each must “stay in their lane”. The Church was never to interfere with the State nor the State with the Church.
That much is true and all Christians should agree upon, but this doctrine went further. It posited that public institutions like government, business, law, education, etc. belonged to the “neutral” secular sphere. It also posited that the Church should also not seek to influence the sphere of the State. Allegiance to God was best demonstrated by allegiance to the State and obeying its dictates.
You can see how this primed the German people to fall prey to dictatorship.
Even in believing German Evangelical Churches who opposed the growing Liberal Theology of German Higher Criticism, they withdrew from those intellectual debates and decided to witness to the saving grace of Christ (which is great), but believed that the church’s mission was only limited to that ecclesiastical sphere. The Christian’s only job was to preach personal salvation in Christ. In order to inject spiritual life into the mainstream Lutheran church, a healthy dose of pietism was emphasized. Faith was turned inwardly – focused only on personal holiness, personal spiritual disciplines of fasting, prayer, bible reading, ecclesial matters, etc – but never outwardly on social and political issues of public life.
By insisting that their faith was private, this sort of pietism had little to no effect against the Nazi tide that washed over Germany – much like today’s pietists have no influence against the rise of government overreaches and social issues.
Of course, this holy high-mindedness was a great asset to Hitler. He said to the church leaders, “You confine yourself to the Church. I’ll take care of the German people.”
This sort of Two Kingdoms Theology still exists and is popular today and it must be rooted out. If Christ is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all. There are not Two Kingdoms, but one. The Cross, Resurrection and Ascension guarantee this – that Christ is reigning now, given all authority in heaven and on earth, and lays claim to every square inch. This Gospel of the KINGDOM is the Gospel the Church must reclaim.
Christ reigns not just over the Church, but over the nations and they must be discipled to him and taught to obey all that he has commanded (Matt. 28:19-20). According to the New Testament interpretation of Psalm 110, Christ right now sits at the right hand of God where he reigns from on high and rules in the midst of his enemies (see for example Matt. 22:44; Acts 2:34-35; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:20-22; Heb. 1:13; 10:12-13; 12:2).
The Church cannot abdicate her calling as Ambassadors of Christ’s Kingdom. We must not give up the public sphere to pagans, for they will only do with it what pagan do. We must bear witness to God’s reign in every sphere and how He has designed it to function according to His Law-Word. The Bible speaks to God’s ordering of every sphere of society, including politics and government.
2. Don’t settle for the Guise of Freedom
Keep in mind that everything that happened in pre-Nazi Germany and leading up to the Third Reich happened under code words such as freedom, peace, and fairness. Erwin Lutzer notes,
“The people were assured that these changes were made with their best interests in mind. The Greater Good of Germany eclipsed individual freedoms and the right to opposition. Everyone was expected to be in sync with the accepted cultural values and goals. Those who opposed the regime paid a price.” (28)
Does this sound familiar to you from the past few years?
How many individual freedoms have been taken and the right to opposition and challenging the prevailing narratives squashed? Thousands have lost jobs because of their stance for bodily autonomy. Thousands more have been silenced, shunned, shamed, deplatformed and gas-lit who dared speak out and challenge “the science” – even when they themselves were expert scientists, medical practitioners, and independent researchers.
It’s been noted that, “The media does more than affect public opinion – it alters the consciences and worldview of entire generations.” We’ve seen a Technocracy enforce some of the hardest speech codes and play the Ministry of Truth on today’s information superhighways and other woke corporations shut down the funding of conservatives or anyone daring to challenge the accepted orthodoxy. There is no need for heresy trials and burnings. In today’s digital world, the bloodless witch hunts and gulags may not take your life, but they still take your livelihood.
In the US, John Whitehead recently observed,
“Citizens increasingly feel powerless to act. Indeed, modern governments often pose a threat more serious than the older ones because government has become even more pervasive. The modern welfare state controls more and more of the totality of life-often in response to the demands of its citizens that it do so.”
The fact that our welfare states have grown so big is not good news for liberty – for no one dares bite the hand that feeds them. And if the government is “feeding” a majority of its people, then who would dare mount a resistance to its tyranny? Yet many today cannot even imagine a society without a welfare state – that’s how far down the hole we’ve gone and how far away we’ve drifted from God’s design for government. We don’t even remember and can’t conceive of anything different.
Again Lutzer’s comments are very appropriate:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive…. Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience…. In reality, however, we must face the possibility of bad rulers armed with a Humanitarian theory of punishment…. We know that one school of psychology already regards religion as a neurosis. When this particular neurosis becomes inconvenient to government, what is to hinder government from proceeding to “cure” it? Such a “cure” will, of course, be compulsory; but under the Humanitarian theory it will not be called by the shocking name of Persecution.” (33-34)
This is what we’ve seen happening in our days.
Double-speak labelling legitimate concerns as “conspiracy theories” or “misinformation” aim at “curing” things inconvenient to these governments which grow increasingly totalitizing by the day. For the past few years, concerns over the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines have been raised by legitimate scientists, researchers and medical practitioners only to be labeled as “misinformation” and squashed without any fair hearing (Although some of this is finally starting to come out in the mainstream now because there’s only so long you can cover up a lie). Instead of rigorous dialogue and debate, silencing of all opposition and challenges to the accepted narrative is done through deplatforming, shadow banning and perpetuated ignorance – all in the name of the “good” of the people and public health. The progression down this same path is there, though in slightly adapted form and a different pace.
This is not to say that we will end up in exactly the same place as Nazi Germany, but one of the functions of reading history is to learn from its mistakes instead of repeating them.
Martin Niemoller, a pastor and theologian seeing what was coming in Germany, in a sermon in 1934 to his church, he said:
“We have all of us – the whole Church and the whole community – we’ve been thrown into the Tempter’s 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 a meditative Christianity is at an end….
It is now springtime for the hopeful and expectant Christian Church – it is testing time, and God is giving Satan a free hand, so he may shake us up and so that it may be seen what manner of men we are!…
Satan swings his sieve and Christianity is thrown hither and thither; and he who is not ready to suffer, he who called himself a Christian only because he thereby hoped to gain something good for his race and his nation is blown away like chaff by the wind of time.” (36)
I believe we are again in a time of great sifting. We’ve seen it even at a local level in our churches – as the past few years have driven some away, and drawn others in. The trials of pandemic life have shaken many and many things to reveal what stands on a solid foundation and what does not. There is more coming.
“At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:26-29)
As things are shaken, that which cannot stand is toppled to reveal that which is on a sure foundation. Christ’s Kingdom is that only sure foundation. It’s a Kingdom that extends from sea to sea and from the rivers to the ends of the earth, over kings and princes and governments, over all people, spheres and authorities – let’s seek first His Kingdom and righteousness.
3. We Must Love True Freedom
But how is it that a whole people would welcome such a dictatorship?
Germany was poised for the rise of Hitler. Had situations been any different, Hitler may have been a forgotten name in history. But the aftermath of the first World War and economic devastation in Germany set the stage for a population ripe to embrace a political figure who posed as their saviour with promises of a prosperous and powerful Germany. When many in Germany had experienced massive hyper-inflation and the wiping out of their businesses and savings, the promise of security sounded alluring.
Gerald Suster writes:
“Many welcomed the abolition of individual responsibility for one’s actions; for some it is easier to obey than to accept the dangers of freedom. Workers now had job security, a health service, cheap holiday schemes; if freedom meant starvation, then slavery was preferable.”
Many today also rather have someone higher up make the decisions for them or provide a social safety net for their bad decisions. The Nanny State with its bloated welfare system is the modern incarnation of this. If we want to live truly free, we must also accept personal responsibility. With great freedom comes great responsibility.
But some shirk at responsibility and so choose the safety of slavery. It is far more comfortable to let the State handle your retirement and pension and social insurance than to exercise financial responsibility, wise investment and planning for the future. This is why the World Economic Forum can be so bold as to tell the public openly that in their vision for the future, you will own nothing and be happy! Yet, when you do so, you’re giving to the State your future welfare by which to hold you hostage. If the State holds your retirement plan, then you better not get on its wrong side. A dependent population is an easily controlled population.
Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”
Those words ring true today as ever before.
In the name of safety, many people willingly gave up massive amounts of freedoms which were won at the end of a rifle barrel with the blood of thousands who counted liberty more valuable than their lives. And at that – for a virus that was only a major threat to a small percentage of the population. Generations past that went off to wars, suffered through the Great Depression and endured real plagues would rightly scoff at such softness. This is not to say that we should be wantonly reckless – there is a right place for prudence and wisdom, especially in protecting the vulnerable. But, the compliance of the majority of the population of many nations with the indefinite suspension of fundamental rights without adequate justification is quite alarming.
It has been said that tough times make tough men, who make prosperous times, which makes soft men, which makes tough times. We’re in that cycle again…
4. We Must Speak Up
Again, Niemoller’s famous words are haunting:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
One of the things which led to the dictatorship in Germany was the failure of the Church and citizens who did see things going wrong to speak up.
Eberhard Bethge, friend of the famous Dietrich Bonhoeffer said,
“though we would preach ‘Christ alone’ Sunday after Sunday. During the whole time, the Nazi state never considered it necessary to prohibit such preaching. Why should it?… And so it became clear where the problem lay for the Confessing Church: we were resisting by way of confession, but we were not confessing by way of resistance.”
Many Churches and Christians are content just to confine themselves to pietistic pursuits, forming Christian ghettos and never speaking out publicly against the ills of the day. Yet, if we are the salt and light of the world, wherever Christian influence retreats will inevitably become dark and start decaying. We must stand as watchmen – not asleep and not afraid to raise the alarm.
Bonhoeffer once said, “The sin of respectable people reveals itself in flight from responsibility.” And as that old maxim goes, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Speak up. Speak truthfully. Speak lovingly and graciously.
Speak with your friends and neighbours. Speak with your co-workers and classmates. Write and call your government representatives and express your concerns and propose solutions – you’ll be surprised how many people don’t do this and how much of an audience you might gain with your local representatives. Start especially with lower level officials – mayors, ward councillors, school boards, town halls, etc. Many people neglect this sort of engagement – so any engagement by Christians, even in a small way can make a big difference. Speaking up may cost you, and may cost you dearly – I’m not saying it’s easy – but who ever promised an easy Christian life? Christ surely did not.
5. Don’t Support Big Government
The trend in our days is towards bigger and bigger government. The size of our government budgets and national debts attest to the fact that many governments are doing far more than they should be. The Bible’s role for government is quite limited – mainly in the area of justice and national defense – yet, today’s governments are doing a whole host of other things they were never meant to do with money they either don’t have or have procured by coercive and unjust taxation.
Thomas Jefferson was right when he said, “The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” And yet because governments are rewarded for spending and punished for cutting back, it is almost as if our leaders are swiping our personal credit cards to get votes.
Remember this one maxim: The Government doesn’t have money. The Government has your money.
Many people today don’t realize that as they vote for the candidate that promises them the most money and benefits, they are actually voting for a form of mugging.
The government takes taxes by threat of the State’s coercive powers to then redistribute it. You are not entitled to someone else’s money, no matter how ‘noble’ the cause. Legalized stealing is still theft nonetheless. If the government did what God commands it to do and only that which the Bible gives it to do, we would have a massively smaller State and massively lower taxes. Yet this is unimaginable to many people today who take our current bloated states for granted. However, to get there, we would also need a population that takes personal responsibility and charity seriously, as well as many other important changes to how we think about rightly ordering society. We won’t get there overnight though – but we definitely won’t get there without a target to aim at.
Lutzer notes that “We can learn from history that politicians often use an economic crisis to make their subjects more government dependent, and with that dependency comes more control.” (54)
The more the government controls more areas of life, the more loss of liberty we experience and also the more loss of work ethic amongst the population.
You see this very clearly in communistic countries that set wages and where the government was the main employer. The public sector is never geared to be productive or efficient because it has no motivation to do so. Whereas in private free market capitalism, if a company is not productive and efficient, it will die because it won’t make a profit. If the government service doesn’t make a profit or isn’t productive, it suffers no consequence since the government can simply keep it afloat through taxation. The more that politicians control the income of the population, the more people are dependent on the government, and the more willing they are to bow to its demands.
By way of illustration, the Government of Canada is the largest employer in Canada. History has shown that no government has ever had a great record of expanding benefits without also demanding more control of its citizens. Freedom is lost by the promise of more ease of life. Yet socialistic policies ultimately only bring devastation and end in demise. Christians should seek to vote for candidates and policies that will incrementally downsize the State, and they should also do what they can to reduce its size by not supporting government services when alternate private services are available and also by not giving their workforce to the public sector in areas that God has not given to the government. If you’re already in the public sector in an area that does not Biblically belong to the government, prayerfully consider how you might either bring reform from the inside or move to the outside – taking your skill set to the proper sphere God has assigned it.
6. Don’t Divorce Faith and Politics
Biblical Law scholar, R. J. Rushdoony has observed that behind every system of law there is a god. He wrote,
“If the source of law is the individual, then the individual is the god of that system… if the source of law is our court then the court is our god. If there is no higher law beyond man, then man is his own god … When you choose your authority, you choose your god, and when you look for your law, there is your god.”
Our modern laws show us where our society’s god is – and it is definitely not the God of Scripture. We worship many other things and, perhaps most significantly, ourselves. However, this loss of the worship of the True God of the Bible in civil society has major ramifications.
While some claim that Hitler was “Christian”, he was anything but! He was anti-Christian to the core and hated the Church. Ultimately, Hitler hated God and his embrace of naturalistic Darwinian philosophy led to his belief in creating the “super man” from the Arian race – which he thought to be the zenith of evolution. Nazi Germany’s laws flowed from this rejection of the True God. Every society’s law reflects its god.
If God does not exist, then there is no objective and unchanging basis for transcendent laws or fundamental rights.
If then all laws are just relative and every country just decides for itself what it thinks is right without an appeal to a transcendent source, then we actually have no basis for criticizing the Nazis apart from our own personal preferences. This was exactly the challenge faced at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi criminals after the war. They claimed that they had done nothing wrong according to German law and thus could not be convicted. An appeal to a higher law than the laws of Germany at the time had to be made in order to convict them. Only an appeal to God and His revelation of His perfect standards of law and justice can provide a universal law by which all countries can be judged.
Yet, many Christians want to separate religion from politics and God from government. But when that is done, we are forced to accept arbitrary laws of men. Either God is our lawgiver or man is. Either God is supreme or the State will happily take His place. This is why Christianity in the public sphere is so essential to the preservation of freedom.
US president, Benjamin Franklin, who was a deist, offered a famous acknowledgment of God’s sovereignty in the affairs of men. He wrote,
“I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.”
Franklin at least got that right. He and many others of the US and Canadian founding fathers understood this principle well. John Warwick Montgomery adds, “This generation is not accidental; each step logically follows from what has preceded: the loss of the Bible leads to the loss of God, for in the Bible God is most clearly revealed; the loss of God leaves Man at the naked mercy of his fellows, where might makes right.”
We did not inherit our modern Western systems of democracy and freedoms by accident. This is the inheritance of Christians who had no qualms about bringing their faith to bear on the public square. They produced the freest and most prosperous nations the world has ever known. We must restore these foundations and go even further than they did to build a Biblically consistent society based on God’s Word.
7. Be Critical Thinkers
There is a phenomenon at play in society of cultural currents.
This is when a dominant idea is promoted by the media and adopted by a large percentage of the population who believe the myth to be true. They believe it so badly that they close their minds to all contrary evidence. It is a type of group think.
When this gains sufficient momentum, people will stare at facts and filter out what they don’t want to believe or are afraid to believe. Evidence that contradicts the accepted narrative will be ignored or reinterpreted. The more people in the population that believe the myth, the harder and harder it will become for people to oppose it and before you know it, we’re in a world where facts don’t matter.
This happened in Germany. This is still happening today. The Nazi party expertly used propaganda to sway the masses. Media captivates people into narratives and stories that take hold of their imaginations and hearts. And what the heart loves, the mind will justify and the will pursues. No wonder Hitler said, “How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think!”
Richard Terrell wrote,
“Create a critical mass of people who cannot discern meaning and truth from nonsense, and you will have a society ready to fall for the first charismatic leader to come along.”
This is exactly what we have today.
Our government run schools no longer teach how to think, they teach what to think. Long gone are the days when classical logic was a required course in schooling.
A modern example of this will serve to illustrate this clearly.
The gay-rights movement decided that they needed to utilize propaganda to change the way society thought about them. They intentionally utilized Hitler’s strategies to accomplish this. Eric Pollar, the founder of ACT-UP (which is a militant homosexual group) openly stated that Hitler’s Mein Kampf was the model used for their strategy which included lies and intimidation. Hitler said that it was better to tell a big lie than a small one.
In addition to this strategy was the technique of gas-lighting and shaming. Their goal was to make gays look good and people who opposed the movement as nasty, mean, and hateful so that people would want to dissassociate themselves from such types. Thus, they never conceded even in the slightest that someone could be against gay mirage because of legitimate religious beliefs, natural law, or concern for the good of societies, families and children. Instead, they called their opponents names like bigots, right-wing radicals, Nazis, hate-mongers, etc. This labelling caused others to distance themselves from such people. Language was used to stifle rational discussion and thought. It was jamming techniques similar to what Hitler used in his propaganda.
Alan Sears and Craig Osten write,
“On a daily basis, all across America (but more prevalent in some areas of the country than others), children as young as kindergarten are being told that their parents are ‘stupid’ or ‘bigots’ or ‘intolerant’ if they do not accept and embrace homosexual behavior as normal, or even something to be celebrated. In some classes, children are even recruited to promote gay pride marches and events.”
Thus, the LBGTQ movement has been enormously successful at changing and shaping public perceptions. It does not matter if people do not actually believe it in their hearts, if they shut up publicly about proposing any opposition and acquiesce to the pinch of incense on the altar of diversity, equity and inclusion – they’ve won.
Thus, Christians need to regain classical approaches to education and logic. Christians who have gone through the public school system need to realize that many of them would have been robbed of this education and have to learn it themselves. For parents, teach your kids and take responsibility for their education. This leads into our next point…
8. Reject State-run Education
If the State controls the education of the future populace, it controls everything. We should not be surprised that if we give our kids to Caesar, they soon come home as Romans. Hitler made it a point to make public school education compulsory. But of course, this was marketed as “free education for all”. Nothing is free (remember the government doesn’t have money, it has your money) and the cost of this is far too high in the long run.
In almost every modern totalitarian government, state-sponsored education served the purpose of indoctrination of the future voter-base.
This is an area that the political Left has done exceptionally well in. Many of the institutions of learning have been radically infiltrated and controlled by Leftists. However, even with this history, it is perhaps surprising and ironic that in Germany today, homeschooling is illegal! Here in North America, there’s a similar push by some in government to do the same. Something which Hitler did in 1938 was to abolish homeschooling and make government run education mandatory. He knew exactly what he was doing. He said:
“The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.”
Hitler could not have been clearer. He said,
“German youth must no longer… be confronted with the choice of whether they wish to grow up in a spirit of materialism or idealism, of racism or internationalism, of religious or godlessness, but they must be consciously shaped according to principles which are recognized as correct… according to the principles of the ideology of National Socialism”
Hitler made sure that the educational philosophy in the German schools was no longer concerned with whether a matter was true or false, but rather whether it was useful to attain the goals of the Reich. Today, Canadian government education and many other national educational priorities emphasize ideology over truth such as how many genders there are. There’s a reason why a dude in a dress is teaching little Johnny how to read. Hitler wanted to replace the values children received from their parents with those that benefitted the Reich. This is still going on today in government education – although in different forms, the goals are still the same. They promote ideologies that destabilize the family because the family is the biggest threat to a totalitarian State. The family is where future men and dragon slayers are raised.
Why would a State that desires more control want to teach its citizens how to think critically to make them more difficult to control? Why would the State want to teach children what their fundamental rights are and where they come from?
I’ve been appalled by the number of Canadians who were born, raised and educated here in public schools, who don’t even know their own constitution, Charter of Rights or understand their system of government. They were never taught the basics of government and economics. Is it any wonder why people keep voting for the same ridiculous political policies? The same is true of many Americans. If you were trying to create a totalitarian state with a compliant citizenry, I don’t know how else you’d make it easier for yourself. A truly educated people are a difficult people to control. Thus, I don’t think it’s accidental that the quality of public education is generally so dismally poor despite incredibly gigantic funding. Private and Christian schools generally do far better with far less access to resources.
Erwin Lutzer notes here that,
“In Germany there was an emphasis on teaching right attitudes using the cult of “experience.” Unlike knowledge that involves the intellect, experiences that involved feeling provided “access to the deep truths of Nazism which were essentially based on [ideological unity].” (107)
The greatest threats to a totalitarian state are a strong Church, strong families and self-controlled individuals.
This is because these are the building blocks of a free society. So then, it is in their interest to promote things to weaken them – such as sexual perversion and pornography. Porn addiction and sexual promiscuity destroys integrity, creates shame, destabilizes families, effeminizes men, and makes for an easier to control populace. Divide and conquer is the name of this game. Thus, it is to the advantage of the dictators to have a sex addicted culture. Ever wondered why some blatantly criminal pornographers and websites run openly in public without major crack down yet the tax-man can find a guy who’s cheated on his taxes in the far corners of a forest?
Many parents have no clue what is being taught to their children in the classrooms and schoolyards. Sex-ed classes are often little more than a “how-to” on having sex without guilt and without babies. In North Carolina, for example, the seven-point list that teachers are told to install in children include:
- There is no right or wrong, only conditioned responses.
- The collective good is more important than the individual.
- Consensus is more important than principle.
- Flexibility is more important than accomplishment.
- Nothing is permanent, except change.
- All ethics are situational; there are no moral absolutes.
- There are no perpetrators, only victims.
Many parents today say they can’t afford to take their kids out of public school. However, with the dangers that lay there, the better question is “can you afford not to?”
These are tough decisions to make in tough times. However, I hope you see how they play into the factors that can culminate in the loss of freedoms and slip us into totalitarianism once again. We’re only ever one generation away…
Tough Times Call for Tough Men
I realize that many may find this content offensive or challenging or perhaps even impossible. That’s OK. You can even disagree with some of my conclusions. However, we all should take a look at the mistakes of history and aim to not repeat them. But most of all, we cannot remain passive and do nothing.
Inform yourself, think critically and Biblically, make a plan and live intentionally. Buy some books by godly men who have thought through these things Biblically. Surround yourself with other like-minded men who can sharpen you – lone wolves will get plucked off first. It is of utmost importance that this start in the Church – for judgment must begin in the house of the Lord. We must set our own houses in order, then the Lord’s house – the Church, before we can ever hope to set our national house straight. Pray and then take action.
Sometimes the gospel has to be communicated with more than words. Michael Baumgarten, a nineteenth-century Lutheran pastor who was excommunicated from his church, wrote,
“There are times in which lectures and publications no longer suffice to communicate the necessary truth. At such times the deeds and sufferings of the saints must create a new alphabet in order to reveal again the secret of truth.”
The times ahead may bring much costly sacrifice as we seek Christ’s Kingdom firstly. However, our Lord has promised us His presence, power and good pleasure for our faithfulness.
Let us aim to please the One who has enlisted us.
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