This video came up in some
previous discussions. I revisited it recently with my kids. We've been working
through the late 19th century and I believed this video to be both
pertinent and helpful.
That's true.
But such a statement ignores
the fact that the Nazis didn't appear from out of the blue. Some on the Right
have emphasized this in recent years and have desperately tried to tie in
Fascism with the Left-Wing Progressivism of the previous generation. This is a
reductionism typical of the Far Right. It's an interpretation generated by
political motive and thus is ultimately misleading.
Of course it must also be
pointed out that not all Progressivism was Left-Wing. Our present dynamic isn't
always applicable to previous generations. The present American polarity is an
enhancement of previous tensions but its current Two Party manifestation is a
child of the Civil Rights bill of 1964 and Nixon's Southern Strategy in '68. It
didn't all change right away either. Perhaps some of the folks have also
forgotten the many Reagan Democrats? There's always overlap and ideas weren't
always grouped the same way in previous generations. The system package
presented in each of our contemporary political groupings would seem strange to
earlier generations. Many older characters, William Jennings Bryan for example,
would not really fit in to the mold of either party today.
Anyway, the video gives a good
and succinct history of scientific racism and I think does a fair job in the
early portions explaining how Christian Abolition and the Missionary movement
played a part. It divorces their role from the later Racist Imperialism but
doesn't entirely let them off the hook either. I think it got the balance just
about right.
Explaining these nuances to
your kids is a challenge but must be done. We're all for missionaries but a lot
of missionary history and activity has a very poor record indeed.
The truth is there were
multiple holocausts occurring long before the Second World War. They were
perpetuated by Germany, England, Belgium, Portugal, Holland, Italy and
certainly the United States. The French are guilty too but to a lesser degree.
This is in part why they
harbour a certain bitterness toward America. They feel and are right to a
degree that they (and not the United States) have carried on the legacy of true
Democracy and the values of equality and fraternity. Of course they are far
from pure and their crimes and inconsistencies are also on display for all to
see.
All of this also plays into the
myth about 'The Good War'. England was not the underdog standing for freedom
struggling against the Nazi juggernaut. It was a brutal and evil empire that
already had a great deal of blood on its hands.
Nazism had to be stopped but it
was hardly a case of good v. evil.
It was more like Assyria v.
Babylon.
Britain, the Netherlands and
France all returned to their colonies after the war and fought to re-conquer
their lands that the Japanese had taken from them. They weren't fighting the
Japanese. They were fighting the people in Malaya, Indochina and Indonesia that
didn't want to be placed once more under European colonial rule. So much for
the values that supposedly came out of World War II. To the people of Asia it
looked like brutal White race-based imperialism... which is exactly what it
was.
All Imperialism whether Nazi or
not is based on a narrative that justifies theft and murder. That's what
empires are.
Nazi ideology built upon
already existing movements. It simply enhanced them and put a Germanic spin on
them. This also explains why many people both in Britain and America initially
supported them. If Hitler hadn't been so aggressive it would have all played
out rather differently.
People were blinded by these
ideas. Eugenics was very popular for a time. It was supported by many
respectable people and by no means were all of them secular. The list is
surprising. People like Charles Dickens (who certainly stood for the poor) were
taken in by the lies and evils of Eugenics. HG Wells, Keynes and Churchill were
early supporters. Americans such as Herbert Hoover and Theodore Roosevelt also
believe in eugenics and much later even people like Barry Goldwater supported
the idea.
Darwinism created a new set of
supposedly natural laws. This meant a change in ethics. Laws of nature are to
be followed and obeyed. They are in a sense divine. At least that's how many
looked at it. Many professing Christians adopted the new learning and took on a
more generalized take on their understanding of the Bible. To them they were
being faithful Christians, reading Genesis in allegorical terms and applying
the truths of the Bible and Science to the world around them.
This was being done in terms of
science, politics and economics.
This breed of 'Christian' has
largely died out though they were still around until about a generation ago.
There were many Mainline/Liberal Pastors that led the charge against the
Kennedy nomination in 1960. They didn't believe in the Bible anymore but Roman
Catholicism was abhorrent to them. It meant regression, bigotry and was
anti-scientific. The Fundamentalists and Evangelicals were also against Kennedy
but not with the same vehemence that the Mainstream Protestant churches
exhibited. The fear of Catholicism was cultural, racial and perhaps
philosophical... but not theological.
Though it would seem strange
today some of these same types supported Joseph McCarthy and had a strong
adherence to anti-Communism and military strength.
Again, the political lines of
today were not as stark a generation ago.
The Darwinists of our day don't
want to talk about this period..the late 19th and early 20th
century. It's little more than the ethics of their 'science' applied to
sociology. To try and escape this is pure delusion.
But at the same time, not to
come to their defense, the context was mixed. It was a strange hybrid of
Christianity and Social Darwinism that produced the Imperial crimes of this
era. Both sides need to be reminded of this.
Finally after you watch this
consider how little people have learned from this period of history. I still
reel when I think of a couple of sermons I heard not long ago. They were given
by British Calvinists and both lamented the fall of the British Empire.
"Why did Britain lose its
empire? Because it forgot God!"
That's just unbelievable. To
suggest the British Empire was somehow godly is to speak in terms that I
literally cannot understand. The whole thing in every aspect was an affront to
God and deserved to smitten into the dust. It was an abomination of theft and
murder. All the empires were... and are.
So-called Christian empires are
especially abhorrent.
It is testimony to the
sinfulness of human nature and reason that a person who grew up in the wake of
this, has studied history and the Scriptures still lacks the moral aptitude and
wisdom to realize what these Empires represented and what they were all about.
And then to suggest that
somehow it forgot God and thus lost it all?
That's a person who is laying
up treasure in a very different kind of kingdom and someone who has decimated
their own conscience.
