TELLING IT LIKE IT IS !

When Adolph Hitler took power in Germany, he recognized immediately that the major threat to his tyrannical designs would come from the church. He reasoned if he could neutralize the voice of the church there would be no one else to stand in his way.

Consequently, he immediately cranked up the Nazi propaganda machine to develop slogans designed to silence the voice of the church, slogans which were then relentlessly hammered into the minds of the people who meekly complied.

Hitler crafted two slogans in particular that became the bulldozers he used to push the church to the margins of the culture and silence its freedom to speak truth. This caused the truth, that could have powered the liberty of the entire world, to be threatened. Now, liberty was only preserved at the cost of millions of lives, including hundreds of thousands of America’s finest young men.

These slogans, mind you, do not come from the United States Constitution or from Thomas Jefferson or from the mind of the Founding Fathers. These slogans come straight from the mind of Adolph Hitler, and bear a sobering similarity to the mantras of the ACLU, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

Here are those slogans straight from the mind of Adolph Hitler:

“Politics do not belong in the Church.”

“The Church must be separate from the State.”

If they sound eerily familiar, it will only be because you instinctively recognize in these words the voice of tyranny and repression. Hitler himself drove the pilings even deeper when he said, in December of 1934, “The Nazi State will however not tolerate under any circumstances any new or any continued political activity of the denominations.”

In the same speech, he added these ominous words: “But we will ensure the purging from our public life of all those priests who have mistaken their profession and who ought to have been politicians and not pastors.”

The objective of the Nazi regime was virtually identical to the agenda of today’s ACLU: Contain the voice of the church within the four walls of its buildings, turning them into nothing more than echo chambers, and punish any effort of church leaders to make their voices heard in the public square.

Further, in a manner that is strikingly reminiscent of efforts to purge any references to God from our public systems of education, Josef Goebbels said the following in August, 1935: “To educate the young people into religious ways may perhaps be the task of the Church, but to educate the young in politics is very much our affair … The youth belongs to us and we will yield them to no one.”

All church youth groups were banned in favor of the Hitler Youth, which became the only legal youth organization in the country. Churches were no longer permitted to hold any meetings in public venues. They were instead locked up inside their sanctuaries, forbidden to speak their message outside the four walls of their church buildings.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The current restraint on the freedom of the church in America to speak truth to political power was imposed in 1954 through the efforts of then Sen. Lyndon Johnson. Johnson, incensed at some non-profit organizations for opposing his most recent run for office, suspended the sword of the IRS over the necks of any religious leader who would dare to stand for justice and truth in the nation’s political life. And so today’s church is still paying the price for this small-minded politician’s petty and vengeful ability to use the power of the federal government to punish his adversaries.

Prior to 1954, churches had the freedom to be as engaged in matters of public policy as they chose. They were free to be actively engaged without fear of punishment, and free to be completely uninvolved in political matters if they so chose. That, my friends, is liberty, both of the religious and political kind.

While churches may still today distribute non-partisan voter guides, and pastors are free to speak to the moral issues of the day, watchdogs from the ACLU and other leftist groups are lurking around every corner, looking to pounce on any religious leader who would dare use his influence to help shape the direction of America’s public policy.

Judicial activism has turned the First Amendment on its head, and the very provision intended by the Framers to protect religious liberty is now being used to repress it.

The remedy? First, Congress should repeal LBJ’s onerous 1954 IRS restriction. Second, we must elect a president who will appoint justices to the Supreme Court who understand the original intent of the First Amendment and will restore constitutional freedoms of religion and speech in full to America’s churches.

Then, and only then, can we be assured that true American liberty will be preserved for us, for our children, and for their children after them.

(Source: “The Nazi Persecution of The Churches, 1933-45,” by J.S. Conway, Basic Books, 1968)

In reading Hosea 4:6-10 substitute the word leaders for priests: “⁶ my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children. ⁷ The more the priests increased, the more they sinned against me; they exchanged their Glory for something disgraceful. ⁸ They feed on the sins of my people and relish their wickedness. ⁹ And it will be: Like people, like priests. I will punish both of them for their ways and repay them for their deeds. ¹⁰ “They will eat but not have enough; they will engage in prostitution but not increase, because they have deserted the LORD to give themselves.”

The following quote can be traced back to Alexander Fraser Tyler. It is worthy of repeating and expounding in relation to present day America and the state of our union. Where are we really headed?

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a louse fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world’s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence:”

“from bondage to spiritual faith;” – The Great Awakening of the 1730’s in the American Colonies was a time of revival and spiritual longing. Jonathon Edwards, considered by many to be America’s greatest mind, led the revival with Biblical sermons and a fire for truth. Edwards taught the unvarnished truth about sinful man and our accountability to an Almighty God. Not surprisingly, he is mocked and laughed at today, but that is more of an indictment of our society than Edwards preaching. Pastor Edward’s great composition, Freedom of the Will has never been refuted by any scholar. This was a critical step in developing the conviction to fear God and not man. Even if man, at that time, happened to be the largest empire in the world – the British Empire.

“from spiritual faith to great courage;” – Spiritual faith leads to great courage based upon convictions worth sacrificing for. A person who does not stand for something, will fall for anything. Think of the true heroes throughout history. One of the uniting principles that all heroes have is a willingness to stand for truth and convictions in a world of untruth and apathy. The Founding Families had great courage to stand for the truth of against tyranny and oppression. They did this because they knew the Bible said, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty.” The British were moving in the direction of excessive taxation and the Colonist would not sit back and allow an offsite government to tax the local colonists.

“from courage to liberty;” – The Colonist’s defeat of the British Empire was not a defeat of British military forces as much as a victory over British will. The Colonists were fighting for their deeply held principles of liberty that they were willing to give their life, wealth and sacred honor for. The British were fighting for some extra taxation in one of their many colonies. The American will defeated the British will because of the convictions involved. With the defeat of Cornwallis and the genius of our American Constitution, liberty reigned in the United States.

“from liberty to abundance;” – The abundance generated by free enterprise and limited government was one of America’s biggest blessings, but also one of our biggest challenges. One of the few standing economies after WWII was America’s. Our products flowed to nearly all foreign markets creating the wealthiest society in the world’s history. It takes incredible discipline to remember where our blessings come from with abundance heaped upon further abundance. Over time, people forget the principles that created the liberty and the fruit of that liberty. Seeing the inequalities in the blessing of individual citizens, an envy of our fellow Americans germinates. The fruit of this unholy thinking is a desire to take our brothers and sisters abundance and give to those less abounding. This can only be accomplished by governmental intervention for the envious.

“from abundance to selfishness;” – The 1960’s were a decade of self masquerading as caring for those less fortunate. Free love, destruction of society’s norms, and a drug culture prevailed in the youth. The 1960’s were a rebellion against the society of abundance without the belief in the principles that created that abundance. The Church, having lost conviction of the truths of the Bible, became hardened and withdrawn. The youth were left on their own to search for answers to the hypocrisy that engulfed them. Instead of returning to the Biblical principles and the God that created the blessings, society entered into the worship of self and self-actualization. The youth of the 60’s saw the hypocrisy, but in their endless faith in their own self-righteousness marched America even further from its Biblical roots.

“from selfishness to complacency;” – Without a Biblical foundation, the rebellion was bound to produce worse fruits than the culture it attempted to replace. With no firm convictions to stand upon, the rebellion dissolved into peace and personal affluence. The loss of Biblical absolutes is bound to lead from convictions to surrender to complacency as no one is sure what the truth is. What is the use of standing for anything, if we are not sure that what we are standing for is truth? The 1970’s saw this complacency as the youth joined the “system” and pursued peace and affluence with little understanding of original principles that America was founded upon.

“from complacency to apathy;” – 1980’s were a brief respite in the cycle. Thanks to the leadership and convictions of Ronald Reagan, America stood its ground against Communism and found that Communism was a paper tiger. The interval was short lived because the President, even with his influence, cannot consistently educate Americans on Biblical truths. Teaching these truths must be a function of the church, which had abdicated their responsibility in an effort to be relative to a lost generation.

The 1990’s saw a near complete surrender to apathy and personal fulfillment. With a near complete rejection of absolute values, people defined their own values and pursued fulfillment in the myriad of choices available to them. People did not care who was running the government as long as they were left alone to pursue the own personal agenda. Government performed by doing focus groups to ascertain what the people wanted and giving it to them, surrendering all leadership responsibilities to the dissimilar wishes of the people. Government, instead of playing the role of umpire and defender of our freedoms began to play the role of a benevolent dictator. This dictator studied to learn what we wanted and offered that to us with only a presumed token price of submission to the almighty sovereignty of government in the affairs of the citizens.

“from apathy to dependency;” – The 2000’s will be remembered as the decade of complete submission to the government’s charity … the American citizen’s dependence upon government for their welfare, health care, social security, etc. It would be unthinkable now for most Americans to live without the direct involvement of Big Brother government. The baby-boomers have wanted for little and have not required their own kids to learn the value of hard work. People don’t appreciate what they don’t earn. They just expect more. The price of dependency is submission of our freedoms to the dictates of the government to pay the way for those who don’t or won’t. The old saying that you boil a frog one degree at a time aptly fits here. If you take a frog and throw him into boiling water, the frog will have enough sense to jump out. But if you turn up the temperature slowly, the frog will open up its pores and will literally be boiled without an attempted escape. Americans are now boiling in our dependency on our government unbelievably unaware.

When the voter discovers they can vote themselves entitlements because the corrupt politicians are more concerned with the power and perks of the office, they will. This will continue until the country bleeds to death.

“from dependency back again to bondage.” – Eventually in our dependence, we see our status falling in the free world as slaves can never perform the functions of free men and women. Although the government still mouths the words of our founding fathers, the words have new meanings. The citizens cannot put a finger on the malady, but they know something is not right. In their desperation, they look for a messiah to save them. Because the Churches are not sharing the message of the true Messiah and the true way to liberty, the citizens look for a worldly messiah … a perceptive leader, with words that tickle the ears. Powerful words and promises of deliverance speak directly to the masses with the promise of salvation.

A shocking truth often learned too late that man cannot save man and only Jesus Christ can liberate the soul in bondage. A people held in bondage to sin can never be responsible to run a free government. The people in bondage will look to the government the way Christians look to their Savior. Government cannot be the savior to the people and was never intended to be so when created by our Founding Families.

America’s spending spree national debt will bankrupt our children’s inheritance on the altar of self indulgence! Ben Franklin said after the creation of our Constitution when asked what type of government was created, “A republic, if you can keep it.” A republic was formed to keep the masses from directly running the government and voting the government into bankruptcy. How far have we traveled from our founding principles and roots?

Our consciences need to be awakened. We do not have to complete this cycle and just as Ronald Reagan interrupted the cycle, we can too! Will it take convictions and guts? Yes, but a Godly people that have studied the truth of our founding principles will not be swayed by the promises of an almighty government.