Kristallnacht & Christabel- The wickedness of hatred

Today is the 85^th anniversary of Kristallnacht [the Night of the Broken Glass] the horrible night in Nazi German when Nazis destroyed Jewish businesses, synagogues, and beat up and killed many Jewish people. There is a movie, Christabel, that I always think of when I hear a reference to Kristallnacht &, The movie is based on the true story of Christabel Bielenberg, and taken from her memoir, “The Past is Myself: Looking Back on the Years 1932-45.”

Christabel, although British married a German lawyer and they lived in Germany during the Nazi years. Her husband was part of the underground that attempted to kill Hitler and was imprisoned in Ravensbrūck. Many of their friends were hanged for their righteous attempt. In the movie I first saw on PBS, although not in the one I own there is a poignant scene where Christabel is in a church on Christmas Eve, they are singing Silent Night, at the same time the viewer is seeing one of the friends being hanged. But this is not why the reference to Kirstallnacht always reminds me of the movie.

There is a scene where Christabel and her husband are returning home from a concert and they come upon a street filled with violence—windows of shops broken, Jewish people being harassed and beaten, buildings on fire. They then know that it is time to act—they must be against the Nazis. They must, although underground, plot to end the horror happening in Germany. Violence in this case is a signal that complacency must end.

As I listen to the various videos of protests against Israel and the Jewish people, and watch the videos of protesters tearing down pictures of those who have been kidnapped by Hamas, I am aware that there is a great deal of ignorance about Israel and the history of the Jews and the Holocaust. One young person being questioned suggests that if the Jewish state is annihilated the Jews just go back to whatever country they came from undoubtedly not realizing that the Jews were chased out of those countries.

 And many of the protestors sound as though they have never heard of the Holocaust or perhaps don’t understand how it was that 6 million Jews were murdered because of the lies told about them.  But at the same time there is a strong whiff of ugliness, wickedness to be exact, in their comments.  Idealism (the attempt to be altruistic or always choose the good), too often turns to wickedness when it is centered in secular paganism; that is a kind of religious bent that is centered in natural super naturalism, a materialism that leaves out the image of God in humanity. So one makes their own decision about right and wrong, emotion is the main authority. What is called good may in reality be evil. Such as celebrating the killing of children and babies, the mutilation and burning of families in the name of helping Palestinians. Right and wrong, good and evil have been turned upside down.

The people I wrote about above, the Bielenbergs and their friends, saw evil and knew evil when they saw it. At first they didn’t realize the enormity of the crimes committed against Jews and others, but their knowledge grew and their courage. After the war they moved to Ireland and the lawyer became a farmer. But this is the scary part: too many today see the evil and think it is good. May there be mercy from a gracious God to fall on us in torrents.

The Traumatizing Stories that Break the Heart

                                                                                         

They say it helps to write, but this is hard, hard to write. Because I often write about anti-Semitism, I have read many of the posts on what happened on October 7^th in Israel. I’ve watched many of the videos. I am traumatized. How does anyone deal with the nightmare image of a family where the father has his eye gorged out, the mother has a breast cut off, the small boy has his fingers cut off and the young daughter has her foot cut off and then they are burned alive.

I read the story of the family of three, a mother and father and their 16-year-old son. The father and mother laid on their son to protect him. He lived. The last thing he remembers from his parents is his father saying, “my arm is gone.” And his mother dying. This struck me very hard because two summers ago I broke my arm at the point where it fits into the shoulder blade, and when I got up from my fall I could see my arm sticking out from my body but could not feel it or control it. I had to take my left hand and reach out to my right arm and move it next to me. I was terrified and how awful one must feel as they are dying to have lost the arm that was probably trying to protect a son.

And the mother who was dying; I watched my husband die with Alzheimer’s. I read all the signs to look for—the breathing is one. As he died he began to breathe with short puffy breaths that one could hear.  And those would probably have been the last sounds of a mother given to her son. My anger and sorrow have not ended; probably will not end until eternity.  

Kevin D Williamson of The Dispatch wrote of how Israeli warriors were not meant to be models of goodness for journalist but were rather supposed to be protecting their people. That a nation’s job was to protect its people.

As a Christian my first duty is “to love my God with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my mind,” and my neighbor as myself—but a nation is called to protect its people before it protects any other. Carefully with concern but still protect its people. It seems too many with a misplaced understanding of history and yes with Jew hatred, with a warped understanding of their own prejudices and biases, believe that Israel is the only nation that should not protect its people.

The darkness that is falling over this world has always been here, it is the reptile hiding in the bushes, twining about the tree, calling out lies to many who allow their hearts to be bittered by anti-Semitism. Even when they smile one sees the hate and bitterness in the face of those who are tearing down the posters of the kidnapped Israelis. Their idealism has turned into a farce. Their activism has turned evil....

G.K. Chesterton in his book The Everlasting Man, with thankfulness that Rome had overcome Carthage, since it was a battle between Rome’s household gods and Carthage’s demons, is not aware when writing of the coming darkness of Nazi Germany. Chesterton explains the relationship of Carthage to Tyre and Sidon, and their god Moloch who could also be called Baal. He explains their method of worship was to throw babies into the great fire of Moloch. The Romans, Chesterton explains, would not understand nor would Chesterton’s contemporaries. He writes:

We can only realize the combination by imagining a number of Manchester merchants with chimney-top hats and mutton chop whiskers, going to church every Sunday at eleven o’clock to see a baby roasted alive.

Such evil returned with the Nazis and now with the Hamas warriors who also roasted a baby alive. There are surely those who are simply concerned about the welfare of Palestinian citizens but far too many are sinking into dark paganism, worshiping the god of anti-Semitism. When protesters won’t cry out against the butchery of Hamas, they stand not with Palestinians but with Hamas, with terrorist, with ancient evil.

Anti-Semitism-Killing People -Killing Our Souls

 by Viola Larson

Around forty years ago my husband and I attended Warehouse Ministries a church which was part of the Jesus Movement. The arts, painting, poetry, acting, etc., was a part of that ministry and one of their events was a play about Dietrich Bonhoeffer a German theologian, who was part of the Confessing Church during the Nazi years. He was one of the Christian martyrs killed by the Nazis toward the end of the war.  This was on my mind as I heard one of our Christian radio stations advertise a speaker with a “great message”; so I listened.  His message was that the Jews were the evilest group of all races and religions. Surprised and angry I called the station to ask about him and they gladly gave me his phone number. That was my first introduction to someone who was a holocaust denier. Thankfully he never spoke on that station again.

Later, folding clothes and watching TV on the Sacramento interfaith station I found they had a speaker whose program went on all day because he was free. The two ladies, one a Science of Mind pastor, the other a Seven Day Adventist, were using his program (for free) and did not know that he was an anti-Semite. He hid it by referring to the Jews as Kenites.  With the help of a Jewish professor at Sacramento State University he was removed from the station.

 I went on to write about these supposedly conservative anti-Semites believing that such racism was simply tied to deceived and deceiving fundamentalist although many were also involved in occultic beliefs. But later, belonging to the Presbyterian Church USA I discovered that progressives could also be deeply anti-Semitic. One organization in that denomination, The Israel, Palestine Mission Network, is simply as anti-Semitic as any of the conservative groups I have written about—publishing slick booklets that tell lies about the Jewish people in Israel.

So I have seen all these pockets of anti-Semitic groups here and there in the United States and elsewhere. But never have I thought that whole sections of our country and other countries, on college campuses, in large cities, in newsrooms with their coverage, would hate the Jewish people so much that they would riot, send death threats, tear down posters of kidnapped Jewish children and praise the terrorist, Hamas, who tortured, murdered, raped women and burned families alive. This is the scourge of Nazism rising again, not in one country, but in the whole world and horribly in our own country.

This kind of hate is deeply evil, like the blackness of hell. It will turn our whole country sour and if we do not stand against it deaden our souls. C.S. Lewis had some dire words to say about how we are either becoming splendid beings or the monsters of nightmares.  Dante places the devil in his lowest circle of hell frozen in ice—and that is perhaps the gravest transformation—so frozen in time and place because we no longer care about any other being but self. I have seen videos of those tearing down posters of kidnapped children, and they are frozen unable to feel shame or sorrow, they can only smirk or sneer.  They are well on their way to finality in that condition. Lord have mercy on all of us.          

And then there is evil, dark putrid, hellish evil—the kind that walks the smelly burning tunnels of damnation.

 

In 1999 three synagogues in Sacramento were firebombed. One was destroyed. The perpetrators were two brothers, white supremacists who also killed two gay men and bombed an abortion clinic. While much of the community came together and supported the Jewish community some failed in their concern and attitudes.

Picture by Penny Juncker

The Inter Faith director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center called me later, perhaps several months or a year, (I have forgotten) asking if I could help them find a Presbyterian church who would show a film on anti-Semitism. They had inquired of several different Presbyterian churches and the local PBS station and so far had been turned down. I did find a Presbyterian church, a small, Evangelical and multi-ethnic Church. It was where one of my daughters was a member. The meeting was small but fairly well attended given the size of the church.

What surprised me was the emotions of the two Jewish people who brought the film. One of them, who worked with a music association, as we talked after the film, told me that she was liberal in her politics but had become so discouraged with the anti-Semitic rhetoric of the left. She no longer would join them in their marches. Both were discouraged. That was over twenty years ago, and now, today how must they feel?

While as a Christian I believe all are sinners, there is evil, and then there is evil, dark putrid, hellish evil—the kind that walks the smelly burning tunnels of damnation. The kind that must lie where Hitler, Stalin and other horrid tyrants lie in a Dante like circle of hell.

This is the evil that visited the Jewish nation, raping women, beheading babies, burning families, blowing young people to bits as they hid in terror. Turning a merry dance into Satan’s awful ball. The perpetrators were religious in the same way the ancients of several lands were religious—worshiping the god of this world who cares nothing for the dignity of humanity despising the image of the Creator. The ancients sacrificed their own children to the monster Moloch, The Hamas terrorists sacrificed Jewish babes to Hamas’ dark gods.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer a pastor during the Nazi years experienced what is called Kristallnacht (night of the broken glass), a night when many Jewish shops, synagogues and homes were destroyed by the Nazis. Many Jews were beaten and even killed. Bonhoeffer was reading Psalm 74 which he marked because it speaks of the houses of worship being destroyed: “They have burned your sanctuary to the ground; they have defiled the dwelling place of Your name. They said in their heart, “Let us completely subdue them.” They have burned all the meeting places of God in the land.” Psalm 74: 7,8.

There is much more but I found some verses at the end of this Psalm that in this time is so helpful:

Consider the covenant; for the dark places of the land are full of habitations of violence. Let not the oppressed return dishonored; -let the afflicted and needy praise your name. Arise, O God and plead your own cause; remember how the foolish man reproaches You all day long. Do not forget the voice of Your adversaries, the uproar of those who rise against you which ascends continually. (74 20-23)

Too many on the left and the very far right are following behind Hamas praising their evil, calling it good. We need to pray for the Jewish people, pray against Hamas, pray against those who are backing Hamas, and pray for a great repentance among those who are cheering such evil. And, yes pray for ourselves that we will walk faithful to the Lord of creation whose holiness includes truth, kindness, compassion, forgiveness and redemption.  

 

Snakes, light bulbs, Area 51, Sacha Stone & Scott McKay--Wolves

 

Over thirty years ago when I wrote an article for Christian Research Journal on a racist movement “Christian Identity,” I told a friend I would not write on racist groups anymore because the material was so ugly. God had other plans. While in the PCUSA I was constantly writing about a Presbyterian committee which are both progressive and extremely anti-Semitic.

 I am now Lutheran (Missouri Synod) and I just recently saw an article in the religious news that several white supremacists, (really Nazis) had recently been banned and excommunicated from a Missouri Synod Lutheran church. The President of The LCMS has written a faithful letter denouncing such ideology. While I want to write about one of the articles written by this particular racist fellow, he insists that Hitler was a Christian—I’ve spent several afternoons listening to some horrid garbage espoused by one of the speakers from the last Reawaken America Tour.

In my last article, The Second Coming of Fascism to the United States,  I wrote of how reporter and columnist Jake Tapper “ in a video on Facebook shows a small part of a video where Scott McKay [a sometimes speaker on the Reawaken America tour] states that Hitler was fighting the same enemies that he and others are fighting.” I added:

“Tapper contacted Eric Trump Jr. who is not only a part of Clay Clark’s Reawaken America Tour but also the son of ex-President Donald Trump. In the exchange with Trump Jr. and Clark it is still uncertain whether McKay was allowed to speak at recent conferences or future ones. What is certain is that McKay is still speaking at many of the rallies and conferences provided by different adherents of Christian nationalism.”

Now Scott McKay admits in a video, that he was not allowed to speak at the gathering. But one of his friends, Sacha Stone, did speak.. Both of these individuals are extremists with wild religious views and using Khazarian mafia conspiracy tales are rabid anti-Semites. Stone pushes the idea that aliens are in control of many governments’ referring to area 51.There was, according to Stone, a plan to place alien DNA in the human gene pool. Stone insists that millions of humans are hybridized He states:

 “Now the real interventionism or alien invasion are MRNA and DNA related that is connected to Fauci, connected to Bill Gates, that’s connected to Obama, Bill Clinton, Bush, … and obviously incumbent puppet Biden regimes are all directly connected … which is how the devil is being permitted, granted permission by the status quo on your behalf, on my behalf over the last fifty, seventy-five years or so-in the main to infiltrate the human MRNA and DNA. All of these systems have now been infiltrated by the kingdom of the devil through synthetic molecules.”

Stone insists that the alien invasion is now inside of us. He asks and states, “What are we discovering inside human biology? We are seeing microbe snakes … we are seeing what appears to be spontaneous induction spontaneous manifestation of reptilian serpentine microbes, little microbe snakes with scales … He goes on, “with the 5G infrastructure in place and the pulse waving, pulsing and happening to the 5G antenna …” Stone goes on to point not only to the 5G towers but also to vaccines and lead light bulbs as the means of invasion.. 

How is this all overcome?  Humanity according to Stone has to manifest utopia using Christ Consciousness or/and their Kundalini power. Christ Consciousness is a term McKay uses quite often. Many Christians hear it and think it applies to Jesus and is personal but instead it destroys the biblical understanding of Jesus. Christ consciousness is an impersonal power or force that eastern and/or new age teachers believe must be attained in order to do miracles or even to evolve into deity. Those advocates for Christ Consciousness do not believe Jesus is the unique Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, but that he is simply a man who attained Christ Consciousness and that we can all do the same.

The Scripture is very clear:

 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. 1John2:22.

It is a great sin that Eric Trump Jr. and Clay Clark and Michael Flynn keep inviting speakers to their gatherings who are horridly anti-Semitic. It is also a great sin, perhaps a greater sin, that the three men who call themselves Christians keep inviting absolute heretics, wolves who will bloody the sheep to be speakers.

It is not enough that pastors and speakers who call themselves Christian are invited to preach, or that there are shofars blown or even baptisms and prayers, they are being used for political purposes. And to be used that way among the ungodliness of unbiblical teaching is to be placed on the side of evil.  

The Second Coming of Fascism to the United States

 

,Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is Jewish—his grandfather fought with the red army against the Nazis.[1] It was when I read that Tucker Carlson, the recently fired Fox news commentator, stated on his new Tweeter show that the President of Ukraine was “rat like,” a Nazi reference to Jews, that I decided to write this essay.[2] 

There was another time when fascists vied for power in the United States. They even attempted to place their own candidate in the White House. Some were isolationist who didn’t want to be involved in a war against Hitler. Some were very far right and involved in Nazi radicalism such as the Silver Shirts. Some were businessmen and senators who were doing business with Nazi companies.  Two well-known men were religious fanatics, one Catholic and one Protestant, both anti-Semites. Father Charles E Coughlin produced a popular radio program aimed at promoting Jew hatred and Gerald Burton Winrod, son of a protestant minister, published Nazi slanted material, had a radio program and spent time in Germany visiting with German officials. [3] And finally there was the growing movement of American firsters eventually led by famous aviator Charles Lindbergh.[4]

Bradley w. Hart in his book, Hitler’s American Friends writes of Lindbergh’s speech in Iowa, September 11, 1941, “Before a crowd of thousands, he denounced ‘the  British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt Administration’ for pushing the country toward war. ‘We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other people to lead our country to destruction.’ He concluded If America were to enter the war, he warned darkly, Jews would ‘be among the first to feel its consequences.”[5]

Lindbergh’s attitude toward the Jews was confirmed by an earlier passage in his journal. Hart quotes Lindbergh

We feel that the Jews are among the most active agitators, and among the most influential. … We feel that, on the one hand it is essential to avoid anything approaching a pogrom; and that , on the other hand ,it is just as essential to combat the pressure the Jews are bringing on this country to enter the war. The Jewish influence is subtle, dangerous and very difficult to expose. As a race … they seem to invariably cause trouble.[6]

This was the earlier Fascist movement in the United States before World War II. But is there a definition of fascism that fits both this past movement and todays American Fascism?

George L. Mosse, who has written many books on the culture of Nazism, in his book The Fascist Revolution: Toward a General Theory of Fascism points to several important aspects of Fascism. He writes:

Nationalism is a belief system which provided the foundation for all Fascists movements, it was the bed rock upon which they were built. Racism of prime importance to Germany enhanced nationalism and gave it its cutting edge. Finally Fascism must be understood as a nationalist revolution with its own ideology and its own goals.[7]

 Mosse also writes:

Ideas of regeneration, of sacrifice, and a vision of utopia were the staple of all of fascism, as was the need to triumph over ever present enemies. If a heightened nationalism became a civic religion than racism for all its scientific pretentions was a belief system as well. [8]   

And on religion Mosse, writing of National Socialism, points out the need for ritual, myth and symbolism and explains that fascism borrowed from Christianity. He clarifies:

Christianity was used in order to give fascism a familiar cast, to make it correspond to something people knew well. The structure of one belief system reinforced another. These borrowings from Christianity were, of course, stripped of their content, and nationalism was substituted instead.[9]

Having explained the features, structure and ideology of fascism, I want to point out that I am not writing about conservatives, I am after all a conservative. Nor do I include all of those who are lumped under Trumpism, although many do fit into this category. And notice that not everyone will be racist although it is possible that the movement will move into that dark abyss.  Thinking of Anti-Semitism, some already have.

I have already named Tucker Carlson, and other articles I have written provide characters that fit the fascist mold. For instance Bo Polny, a New Apostolic Reformation pastor who is predicting the hanging of enemies on television as well as a utopian ending to a financial collapse, fits squarely into this frame. But basically I want to look at the fascist ideology as it is being expressed in an American, mostly far right and religious, context, rather than looking at people. Still, that will, in some cases mean pointing to some people.

Nationalism is certainly a part of the rising fascism, it is the foundation for most of the movement. The adherents are being called to a pseudo “Christian” nationalism. “Christian” because the leaders insist that those in the movement must battle for a Christian nation. Pseudo because their idea of Christian falls short of orthodox Christianity

Those tending toward fascism in the United States are using Christianity in a more literal way than those in Nazi Germany. Perhaps because as Arthur C. Cochrane points out in The Church’s Confession Under Hitler the so called theologians backing Hitler were, “a liberal, nationalistic sect.” The nationalists in America call themselves evangelical. They attempt to at least project their image as biblical Christians. But leadership is still manipulating faith for the sake of political advantage. Using it as a means to legitimize their nationalist ideology.

The so called “Christian Nationalist” in the United States have Christian worship services not only at churches but within various conferences and rallies. For instance at Clay Clark’s The Reawaken America Tour there are sermons, baptisms and prayers but they are mixed with political speeches, the promise of jail and death to enemies and a constant stream of conspiracy narratives. The Fascist undertone is the political slant of sermons and prophecies, all laced with the promise of utopia. Not the second coming of Jesus and the new heaven and new earth but the wiping out of enemies—Democrats, Communists, Marxist, and Globalist. A work that is human centered rather than God given and comes with no offer of the grace of Christ.

. Not unlike the National Socialist of Germany such leaders as Michael Flynn and Clay Clark as well as too many pastors who follow them insist on twin allegiances to both State and Church. Not the State as it is in reality, full of saint and sinner and a great deal of diversity, but their ideal state—a projection of their own ideology.

Michael Flynn has suggested that followers put away their Bibles and instead study the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and other founding documents. These are of course great documents to study, protect and care about but the Word of God comes first. The Word of God is the Christian’s authority. When German Christians in their Rengsdorf Theses wrote “There is no contradiction between an unreserved position in favor of the gospel on the one hand and an equally unreserved position in favor of German nationality (National Socialist State) on the other hand.” Theologian Karl Barth responded:

The Christian Confession of Faith is the only “unreserved” position that is required of us and permitted to us. Hence all other positions (including those in regard to German nationality and the National Socialist State) are subject to reservations.

Whoever today talks about two ‘unreserved’ positions imagines he is able to serve Yehweh and Baal, God and Mammon, and places himself outside the evangelical Church.[10]

One must say the same thing to the American Church, “Christian Nationalism” is a contradiction in terms—the Christian Confession of Faith is our only unreserved position.

In this American fascist movement are those who have moved into a Nazi flavored fascism plus there are those who have cast aside any sense of Christian orthodoxy. I have written about one particular person, Scott McKay who detests the Christian Church predicting that all Christianity will change and be involved in Christ consciousness a rather New Age sounding spirituality. He connects both on his platform and others with wildly fringe religious views which even includes aliens. And yet he is invited to speak at Clay Clark’s Reawaken American Tour.

McKay also holds to some very strong anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. CNN reporter Jake Tapper in a video on Facebook shows a small part of a video where McKay states that Hitler was fighting the same enemies that he and others are fighting.  He also points to another anti-Semite Charlie Ward. Tapper contacted Eric Trump Jr. who is not only a part of Clay Clark’s Reawaken America Tour but also the son of ex-President Donald Trump. In the exchange with Trump Jr. and Clark it is still uncertain whether McKay was allowed to speak at recent conferences or future ones. What is certain is that McKay is still speaking at many of the rallies and conferences provided by different adherents of Christian nationalism.

There are others who have also moved into the very radical and uglier side of fascism such as Nickolas Fuentes who denies the Holocaust; his followers are referred to as Groypers. This mixture of occultic views, anti-Semitism and other’s attempt to hold on to Christian “nationalism” is not unlike the fascist movements in both Germany and American during the 1920’s and 30s.

So where does the Church belong in the midst of all of this? Faithfulness to Jesus has nothing to do with promoting a Christian nation but instead lifting up the Lord and His kingdom. When Pilate asked Jesus if he was a king, Jesus answered that He was but said “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews but as it is My kingdom is not of this realm(John 18:36).

While there are social evils that the Church must stand against such as racism, sexual abuse, abortion and social ills such as homelessness, addiction and poverty that Christians must work and pray for solutions to, this should not be the major focus of the Church in the midst of a faith crisis. That there are those who call themselves Christians who are confused and misled applauding the heresy of giving “unreserved” allegiance, as it has been put, to political parties and political leaders placed on golden pedestals, will produce a nightmare for the faithful. We simply cannot stand in two places.

The solution however is not political nor is it activism but the call the church has always possessed. Go into the world and preach the gospel. Stay faithful to Jesus Christ—neither the right nor the left.  Continue being the Church—she is upheld by the Lord and in the midst of what may seem like unbearable upheavals she will be the one steady, stable haven open to those who seek safety and comfort.

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[1] Who is Volodymyr Zelensky, the Jewish president of Ukraine? - Unpacked (jewishunpacked.com)

[2] https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/world/news/tucker-carlson-called-ukraines-jewish-leader-zelenskyy-rat-like-on-his-tw

[3] Bradley W. Hart, Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States, “The Religious Right,”  (Thomas Dunne Books St Martin’s Press: New York), See also, Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America by Steven J. Ross       `

[4] Ibid. Hitler’s, “America First.”               

[5] Ibid, Hitler’s, “Lindbergh sees a Plot for War,” New York Times. 2; Berg, 427.

[6] Ibid. Hitler’s American, 179, 181.

 

[7] I should explain that Mosse points out that not all Fascists nations were racist. Spain was not and at first Italy was not.

 

[8] George L. Mosse, The Fascist Revolution: Toward a General Theory of Fascism, (New York: Howard Fertic 1999) xi, xv.

[9] Mosse, The Fascist Revolution, xii.

[10] Arthur C. Cochrane, The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press 1961) 120,121.

https://youtu.be/0FhK1CBpVso

The Sound of Freedom and a serious problem with truth

 

picture by Melissa Tregilgas

by Viola Larson

I’m writing about “The Sound of Freedom” and first I want to put down some facts about the movie which I admit I have not seen. And then I intend to point to one particular serious problem with the whole enterprise. It is a problem that is so serious that it is possible to lead many Christians away from the seriousness of child sexual abuse and send them toward a damnable ideology.

The first fact is that this movie is about a horrendous and grievous subject, human trafficking and in particular the trafficking of children. A subject we should all care about, seeking God’s mercy and help.

Secondly most writers who disparage the movie at least admit that it does not draw on conspiracy theories to fill out the plot. Rather it is somewhat of an action movie portraying the work of Tim Ballard and his organization Operation Underground Railroad as they rescue children in South America.

Third fact Tim Ballard is a devout Latter Day Saint (Mormon) who speaks of his faith. On a LDS video he quotes from the Book of Mormon a verse he says has helped him in a time of fear, Alma chapter 58, verse eleven. [1]

The fourth fact, the actor who plays Tim Ballard, Jim Caviezel, is a devout Christian, a Roman Catholic. In many interviews he speaks of loving Jesus and even of Jesus’ return. But here lies the problem possibly tied to an extreme naivety.

Caviezel has promoted the movie on many far right and even QAnon platforms including Steve Bannon’s War Room, and he promotes many awful conspiracy theories in the process.

 Caviezel believes the conspiracy theory that many elites torture and kill children to drain their blood to obtain what is called adrenochrome which supposedly (but not really) gives youth to those who use it.[2] He states that such officials as the CIA and FBI are the main perpetrators of child trafficking. He insists that barrels of children’s body parts and blood are going to bio-labs in Ukraine thus implicating Ukrainian officials in the crime.[3]  Accusations of child stealing to obtain their blood is an ancient conspiracy theory used against the Jews.  And that old anti-Semite ruse, the use of bankers, mainly the Rothschild’s, Caviezel names as those who are involved in child trafficking.

Many Christians and others who consider themselves patriots seeing the actor who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ and now plays a heroic man rescuing children in the jungles of South America will without thinking believe such horrid lies. This is what happened to too many Germans during the Nazi years. They excused and followed monsters because they believed the stories that the Jews were destroying their nation, their families and their culture. Today people are being asked to believe that many in Hollywood, the FBI, CIA, DOJ, and Democrats are stealing children, raping, torturing, and killing them for their blood.

This is not to say that there isn’t a terrible plague of human trafficking, there is, and there are people and organizations working against this crime. They understand that human greed and lust are the motivating factors in such sins. Some of the organizations are Child Rescue Coalition, The Tim Tebow Foundation Lantern Rescue  Hug Project, and National Child Protection Force.

The person who follows the conspiracies touted by Caviezel may finally attempt to solve these problems, which are based on lies, by political means and/or violence. That is what happened with the incident called Pizza/gate. Some conspiracy advocates kept insisting that there was a pizza parlor in Washington D.C. where elite democrats (The Clintons for one) were holding children, torturing and killing them for their blood. One man hearing this was so incensed he went there with a rifle meaning to rescue children. As it turned out there were no kidnaped children and although shots were fired no one was hurt. The man was sentenced to prison.

In a recent blog posting entitled We cannot promote conspiracies and still be prepared to speak of the one who is Truth.I wrote, “We cannot promote conspiracies and still be prepared to speak of the one who is Truth. We cannot major in our own particular ideology over the truth of the triune God of the Bible. Our urgency, if we are faithful, whether apologist or simply follower of Jesus, must be to clear away the rubbish of false doctrine which includes conspiracies. It is to make the path clear so that others can freely rejoice in Truth as they submit to the Lordship of Christ.” Our children are in trouble—they need us to major in truth and in their safety.

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[1] Tim Ballard: The Scripture That Saved My Life From Human Traffickers - YouTube .

[2] For a very complete history and details about adrenochrome see, QAnon’s Adrenochrome Quackery | Office for Science and Society - McGill University.

[3] Jim Caviezel Bombshell: Adrenochrome $77,000USD per barrel of child parts, Ukrainian Bioweapons, 3-Letter Agencies & more (rumble.com). 6.29.23 Patriot Streetfighter ROUNDTABLE w/ Jim Caviezel on "The Sound Of Freedom" & Operation Underground Railroad’s Nate Lewis (rumble.com) and others.

The Manifested Sons of God, The New Apostolic Reformation and Dark Political Visions

 

by Viola Larson

When words such as suffering, cross bearing, humility, repentance and forgiveness are spoken the Christian generally feels drawn into a familiar circle. It is a hard circle, but full of the warmth, compassion and love of Jesus. It is rarely full of glory or worldly victory or great prosperity, it may be full of sorrow and even despair. But Jesus, He remains within the circle.

This article is about a festering “Christian” movement preparing to bypass the cross and insisting on glory, worldly victory and great prosperity. I am returning to issues I have written about in the past, over thirty years ago. Then it was family and church members entering my office with tapes and booklets asking me to review them and explain what their family or friend was involved in. Now it is a movement turning political and dangerous, marrying the Christian name to ideas of vengeful violence.

Years ago writing about two heretical religious movements I saw they were so connected that I could see them merging into one large movement. One group was Christian Identity, a movement of anti-Semites who believed that most white people were descended from ancient Israel, and that the actual Jews were the literal children of Satan.

The other group, often referred to as the Manifested Sons of God, believe they will overcome and destroy evil and even death before the return of Jesus; these two groups were so mixed that I eventually wrote a paper on the Manifested Sons of God which contained quotes from both groups. And then I focused on the racist group and wrote Christian Identity: A “Christian” Religion for White Racist.

Recently I read three books on the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement that contains adherents to the Manifested Sons of God teaching. All of the books are written by Holly Pivec and R. Douglas Geivett.  The books are: Counterfeit Kingdom: The Dangers of New Revelation, New Prophets, and New Age Practices in the Church; A New Apostolic Reformation?: A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement; and God’s Super Apostles: Encountering the Worldwide Prophets and Apostles Movement. The books reminded me of my past papers on the Restoration Movement and The Manifested Sons of God.

The movements I wrote about were the very early beginnings of the movements Pivec and Geivett have written about. Their information is excellent. They not only write about the heretical ideas but analyze them from a strong biblical point of view.

Recently I wrote about Clay Clark, Michael Flynn and Scott McKay who are part of the far right and hold many conspiracy views.[1] They all, along with others such as Julie Green who is considered a prophet and Eric Trump the son of past president Donald Trump, are a part of Clay Clark’s The Reawaken America Tour, and many have connections to the New Apostolic Reformation. While pastors and writers such as Lance Wallnau and Eric Metaxas may not have attended the tour they have interacted with and interviewed many participants including Clay Clark. The movement’s connections are growing within the far right political groups.                                

Among many of them one hears that God isn’t ready for the tribulation so Christians must fight against the so-called globalists, Marxists and Democrats in order to delay it. From Eric Metaxas [2]one hears that if Christians don’t fall in line, obeying the political ideology pushed by the far right, a greater evil than the Holocaust will happen. Pastor Michael Petro a Manifested Sons of God teacher suggests to Bo Polny, his video guest, that the early church taught that God would “pull a remnant out of the church then God will cloth them in the glory that Adam lost and they will pull the greatest revival that’s ever been seen.” Polny agrees with him.[3]

In their speeches and sermons atonement is rarely mentioned but when it is, it is sadly connected to political salvation. God is going to help Christians overcome and rule the nations by destroying their enemies. In a slide show Bo Polny, one of the supposed prophets, is predicting what he calls the Haman effect, a televised hanging of the movement’s enemies.[4] Some are predicting a catastrophe with banks and financial institutions in many countries failing and most wealth, meaning all gold, silver and real-estate, falling into the hands of the Christians who belong to this movement. And some antisemitism is connected to this particular prediction since several refer to the banks as controlled by the “Khazarian Mafia” which is simply a name taken from a Baltic tribe that converted to Judaism and is mythicized by several members of The Reawaken America Tour into evil conspirators.

There are two ways open to followers of Jesus in this moment. One is biblical consisting of both quietness in lifestyle (1Thess 4:11) and courage in confession. The other comes from the father of lies and lifts up sensuality, pride, a security that is tied to human strife and manipulation. Some theologians refer to the two as the difference between a theology of glory and a theology of the cross.[5] The first seeks constant victory, material blessings and supernatural events; the other clings to Jesus, accepting a cross that mirrors His.

The first doesn’t begin erroneous, it begins with the truthful understanding that God is the creator who is powerful. (Rom. 1:19-20) But the kindness and compassion of God understood in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is not known by simply finding God in creation. God’s revelation in scripture is Jesus Christ and God’s gift through Him of forgiveness of sins and everlasting life. While many in the NAR movement and those on the extreme right speak of God, even Jesus and salvation, they focus, as I have noted, on God’s power, vengeance and His material blessings. They see supernatural signs as proof of their own righteousness and correctness predicting a great revival when people see how the world’s wealth has fallen into their hands.

The second way Christians are called in this moment, and that by the Holy Spirit, is the way of the cross. We are called to live a life that is often full of suffering. We are called to live our life in quietness, confident only in the knowledge of our relationship to our Lord and our hope in the resurrection.

And we are called to make our confession to others including both the far left and the far right.  

Lance Wallnau, one of the New Apostolic Reformation leaders, teaches there is a difference between the Jesus who came to suffer for our sins and the end times Jesus; not in his person but in his attitudes and function. Wallnau sees the first as the compassionate Christ and the end times Jesus as the vengeful warrior. But Jesus does not change, As Hebrews states He is “the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb 13:8).” He is always the compassionate Lord and He is always the ruling King.

The problem with Wallnau’s teaching about Jesus coming back as a wrathful warrior is not this image, but rather his teaching that Christians must now become more like the end times Jesus in their ministry seeking power in the various cultural vocations including government and education. But rather Jesus called His followers, before His return, to abide in Him, to make disciples, to pray for rulers and individuals, to pray for deliverance from human evil and immorality, to care for those in need. We are not called to seek power, position or wealth in his name.

Yes, Christians have vocations in this world, doctors, teachers, senators, home keepers to name a few, but those vocations are not meant to be political attempts to defeat enemies.  

This festering movement consisting of heretical pastors, so called prophets and apostles, political extremists and the people they are seducing may in the end scatter, find darker visions and fade into nothingness. Or they may become connected to an elected leader and believe they are fulfilling their own prophecies. They may even attempt to fulfill their darker violent visions. Prayers for them and their followers. Prayers for the Church.

But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 4:15).

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[1] Naming His Grace: Clay Clark, Michael Flynn and Scott McKay: the Wolf cometh

[2] Naming His Grace: Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas: An attack on "Faith Alone": a book review by Viola Larson

[3] 'Sudden' Worldwide DEATHS in 24-Hours! Bo Polny, Michael Petro - YouTube

[4] GOD WINS, 45 RETURNS, HAMAN EFFECT, to be "SEEN ON TV"! Julie Green, Bo Polny - YouTube

[5] Gene Edward Veith Jr.. The Spirituality of the Cross, (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2011); New Dictionary of Theology, Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, Editors, J.I. Packer, Consulting Editor, The Theology of the Cross, R.J. Bauckham. (Downers Grove: intervarsity Press: 1988).