A Cautionary Tale

There once was a beautiful country that was the center of Protestant Christianity. It was characterized by significant achievements in the arts, philosophy, music, theology and biblical studies. It was also home to some of the world’s most distinguished universities.

A Darwinian philosophy, not merely biological evolution but Darwinian process, began to be taught in the schools. This Hegelian idea of constant improvement through conflict resolution soon resulted in a focus on the new – on the future – as something that carries an authority superior to anything else.

This distinctly modernist society began rejecting Christianity while joyously embracing an emergent secular spirit. The nation developed an intellectual and spiritual texture that was rooted in skepticism towards the traditional meaning structures.

“Higher criticism” of the Bible started making the Scriptures appear to be faulty, historically incorrect, “mythological”, and contradictory. Bible students, under the prodding of seminary professors, began to embrace the tendency to view all religion as constantly in the process of evolution, with no fixed or absolute premises. These textual critics insisted on fitting the biblical literature into a worldview grounded in naturalism and Hegelian evolutionism.

Of course, holding to this view, the leading theologians could no longer admit to the possibility of biblical miracles. So, there was a constant undermining of the credibility of the Christian faith, which surprisingly was accompanied by a rise in neo-pagan, health and wealth doctrine. Man’s needs, serviced by God, became the new primary purpose of popular religion.

At this point, the majority of the citizens still recognized the reality of God but were adopting a more and more deistic theology. Hegelian “immanentism” led to a “process” view of God. They believed man’s free will implied that God could not logically know the future; that transcendent God could be surprised. This made Man into the captain of his own fate and turned God into a semi-passive, nearly castrated bystander. This view logically led them to the fanciful idea of man-wrought human perfectionism.

Humanity came to be considered its own lawgiver and source of morality. The subjectivity of truth was now accepted as a basic postulate and inner sentiment was seen as a reliable guide to religious truth.

Rather than seek premises and evidences with which to defend the historic faith, theologians chose to refashion Christianity itself so as to make it appealing to the cultured “despisers of religion” and “seeker sensitivity” started taking precedence over doctrine.

Well-meaning but theologically challenged pastors began to respond to the attacks on Christianity by saying, in essence, that doctrines and historical evidences were not important anyway; that what mattered was the inner spiritual consciousness of human beings, not the acts of God in history and the witness of Scriptures.

Of course, by now Christianity was getting mixed up with popular mythology and old wives’ tales. Distorted and arbitrary theological inventions began emerging. These nonsensical stands were easily destroyed, lending further credence to the claims that Christianity was irrelevant. Fundamentally orthodox Christians started being viewed as being “in the way” of theological progress toward denominational and national unity.

Christ was no longer a Person. He was now a principle. The concept of sin no longer depended on any Scriptural revelation, but on pure feeling. The traditional concepts of sin, guilt and repentance were dismissed as artificially engendered complexes. Theologians continued trying to modernize the faith by accommodating it to the modern age. Religion without dogma became the new mantra; religion that was revealed on a natural level within the human mentality.

Man was considered to be the birthplace of God. The view of mankind as being in the process of realizing itself and able to achieve its full potential through education in a largely atheistic, secular and materialistic mindset, emancipated from any concept of sin was now fully rooted.
Christian churches were obviously offering a confused witness in a nation whose biblical scholars had launched the greatest frontal attack on the historical Christian faith ever seen by building on anti-Christian philosophical premises.

The death of God and the inherent potential of humanity became endemic in the national mindset and the development of a superior human through educational means became a fundamental philosophical tenet. In the minds of many, science came to be viewed as constituting the sole path to truth.

Thus freed of the doctrinal consideration tied to actual Christian history, a new faith emerged, yet under the name of “Christianity.” In the face of the rejection of God by the mainstream intelligentsia, the people began an experimental search for meaning. Alternative altars, false religions of every kind began springing up everywhere.

The worship of God’s creation (Gaianism) in denial of the Creator Himself gained popularity. Intrinsic to this new philosophy, the exaltation of mankind grew. The creature now thought to kill Creator God and stand in His place.

However, this pointed the way to abhorrence of traditional values. For example, death in the forms of abortion and euthanasia started being offered up as an alternative life choice. This eventually led to a staggering, raging destruction of the one creature that bears the image of God.

Meanwhile, higher textual criticism’s attacks on the Old Covenant started taking on almost anti-Semitic overtones. The efforts to remove the Old Covenant as a basis for Christian theology was beginning to look like an attempt to remove all Jewish influence from Christianity, much like the old, second century Marcion heresy. The Old Covenant’s commandments, rituals and ordinances were now seen as superstitious formulas not fit for modern Christian consideration.

Having already rejected objective truth, the people of this nation now believed that knowledge intuited by art and emotion as far superior to the knowledge deduced or researched by science.
On the bright side, the nation elected a leader who publicly spoke of supporting faith-based charitable works. He claimed to hear from God and went out of his way to form alliances with Christians. In his speeches he would frequently characterize his career in politics as a divine calling led by God. However, the theology he expressed, supported by an energetic use of traditional religious words, had become detached from their orthodox historic meanings.
Nevertheless, the Protestant denominations remained openly enthusiastic about him and his party, seeing in him the possibility of a growing national acceptance of their beliefs.

The disengagement from the God of biblical revelation previously described led to a sudden rise in crime which was followed by a push for a stronger, more controlling and centralized government that would strongly uphold the conservative views of retributive justice.

So with great care, cleverness and deceit, the church’s good instincts – inclinations toward a cooperative stance – were turned against itself. There was a gradual yielding of more and more authority from the church and to the State. This was accompanied by an emerging tendency to confine the actions of the church to merely “spiritual” matters, excluding it from the realm of politics. This had the effect of stripping the church of any cultural influence – an influence it had won through persistent and at times open conflict with the State in times past.

There came to be, in the hearts and minds of the citizenry, a sense of national entitlement, a view that their culture uniquely expressed the Absolute. There could be seen in the media the beginnings of claims of a national superiority and an intrinsic dispensation to rule. God was uniquely identified with the nation and the people began to consider themselves the new “elect” or “chosen” people.

Imbedded in the population was a large minority who was viewed as parasitical; as causing many of the nation’s welfare and medical healthcare woes. There was a growing resentment toward these immigrants.

Nationalism now took on a quasi-spiritual, or religious, patina in the minds of its patriotic citizens. Patriotism flowered under the new religion, and the purposes of God gradually became dangerously confused with national destiny. When the people were told by the leader that their nation was under attack by foreign influences, their theologians supported militaristic aggression on the grounds that the nations’ unique culture and government should be preserved above all things. Nationality, honor and freedom became the new idols. Patriotism had developed into a full-blown religion.

Private industry was allowed to exist, as long as its enterprises served the agendas set forth by the central government. Subordination of the individual to the interests of the state was the obvious next step. “Patriotism” or “team spirit” became the new buzz words in response to anyone with the temerity to question the status quo. Within a couple years of the leader’s election, the country was at war and the military was growing exponentially.

May I suggest that unthinking, unquestioning patriotism unchecked by solid, biblically based Christian doctrine was 1930s Germany’s undoing. The question is – will it be ours?[1]

[1] The facts concerning Germany’s religious, philosophical and political path toward Nazism were gleaned from the excellent book by Richard Terrell titled “Resurrecting the Third Reich”, Huntington House Publishers; 1994.