We need to be careful....

I’m in the middle of reading a highly fascinating book entitled “Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons from the Third Reich.”

I could already write a myriad of posts sharing what I’ve learned up to this point (and I’m only 1/4 of the way through it), but one thing that stood out to me today, from all the historical background given pertaining to the rise of the Nazi party is this:

The Nazi party, as outlandish and insane as its policies were, didn’t get their people to buy in by physical force or the concentration camps. It all started and was fueled by changing the language. They simply hijacked words and phrases and fed the new meanings to the populace through use of different media.
They even got a large portion of the Christian population, named “the new German Christians”, to reinterpret Scripture to insert Germany as the kingdom of God on earth and the German bloodline as God’s true chosen people. Hitler, of course, eventually became the Messiah.

It all started with controlling the narrative and the “once Christian nation” of Germany giving in.
And worse came to worse when they allowed the Gospel of Christ to be turned into a social Gospel focused on nationalism and human desires.

If we can learn anything from history here, we need to be extremely careful....