Sunday, January 23, 2005
Cassandra?
"I suspect the reason why the left declares that religion has become too involved in politics," says conservative activist and a former Republican candidate for president Gary Bauer in a Jan. 19 essay aired on NPR, "has everything to do with the fact that conservative Christians, who are pro-life and support traditional values, have established themselves as a formidable force in politics."
Listen to the whole essay here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4458516
Here's another reason why thoughtful people of all political stripes and religious beliefs should be concerned:
"We who were born at the end of the Weimar Republic and who witnessed the rise of National Socialism—left with that all-consuming, complex question: how could this horror have seized a nation and corrupted so much of Europe? ...
"Hitler himself, a brilliant populist manipulator who insisted and probably believed that Providence had chosen him as Germany’s savior, that he was the instrument of Providence, a leader who was charged with executing a divine mission. God had been drafted into national politics before, but Hitler’s success in fusing racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity was an immensely powerful element in his electoral campaigns. Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics, but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured his success, notably in Protestant areas."
Acceptance speech delivered by Fritz Stern, a refugee from Hitler's Germany and a scholar of European history, who has devoted a lifetime to analyzing how the Nazi barbarity became possible, upon receiving the Leo Baeck Medal at the 10th Annual Dinner of the Leo Baeck Institute, No.v. 14, 2004.
You can read the whole speech here: http://www.lbi.org/fritzstern.html
Listen to the whole essay here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4458516
Here's another reason why thoughtful people of all political stripes and religious beliefs should be concerned:
"We who were born at the end of the Weimar Republic and who witnessed the rise of National Socialism—left with that all-consuming, complex question: how could this horror have seized a nation and corrupted so much of Europe? ...
"Hitler himself, a brilliant populist manipulator who insisted and probably believed that Providence had chosen him as Germany’s savior, that he was the instrument of Providence, a leader who was charged with executing a divine mission. God had been drafted into national politics before, but Hitler’s success in fusing racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity was an immensely powerful element in his electoral campaigns. Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics, but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured his success, notably in Protestant areas."
Acceptance speech delivered by Fritz Stern, a refugee from Hitler's Germany and a scholar of European history, who has devoted a lifetime to analyzing how the Nazi barbarity became possible, upon receiving the Leo Baeck Medal at the 10th Annual Dinner of the Leo Baeck Institute, No.v. 14, 2004.
You can read the whole speech here: http://www.lbi.org/fritzstern.html
