It was 65 years ago, as World War II shuddered to an end in the European theatre, that the Allies began liberating the Nazi death camps. In recognition of that particularly shameful period in world history, Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust in the United States, beginning in 1982.
This year, Holocaust Remembrance Days began Sunday, April 11 [and continue through the 18th]. . . .
[I]ts explanation lies not in some flaw in the German character but in the human character in its fallen, sinful state. That such sickening barbarism broke out in Germany magnifies the fact that culture, education and scientific expertise do not inoculate societies against mind-numbing evil.
Germany was the most scientifically, technologically, educationally and culturally advanced culture in the world — and all that did was make their barbarism more heinous and more efficient once they severed themselves from Judeo-Christian absolutes and descended into Nazi tyranny. Education and scientific expertise are no inoculation against the darkness of the human heart. . . .
The dark tragedy of German Christianity under Hitler underscores dramatically what can happen when Christians allow their religious faith to be eviscerated by liberal theology or elevate their nationalism to the level of idolatry.
Unfettered by an orthodox and genuine faith in Christ, human beings are capable of horrific, if not unimaginable, deeds of evil against other men, evidence of the corruption of human nature (Ephesians 4:18-19). . . .
We must commit afresh to raise our voices against anti-Semitism wherever and whenever it occurs. . . . In God’s sight there is neither Jew nor Gentile, enslaved or free, male or female, for we are “all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). . . . Indeed, anti-Semitism is perhaps the most irrational of prejudices for followers of Jesus, Himself a Jew. ERLC
No comments:
Post a Comment