Skip to main content

Kristallnacht

 A tyrannical ruler practices extortion, but one who hates ill-gotten gain will enjoy a long reign. (Proverbs 28:16)

          As I read this proverb, I can’t help thinking of a video of young folks with fists raised screaming in the face of people in a restaurant, or of the various Black Kristallnachts that have been taking place across the nation in recent months. For those who aren’t really aware of what Kristallnach was, it was a night in which Germans destroyed property owned by Jews. According to Wikipedia, “The pretext for the attacks was the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old German-born Polish Jew living in Paris.”

          True, the people involved in the extortion aren’t the actual tyrannical ruler, but they are acting on behalf of one, and as with the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s, it wasn’t so much the tyranny of a person as it was the tyranny of an ideology, and those who serve the ideology tend to practice extortion.

          The Socialists of Russia also participated in pogroms over the course of 50 years. It seems the major difference between the politics of the fascists and the politics of the socialists comes down to nationalism v internationalism. Either way, the tyrant ideology practiced extortion.

          These aren’t the only ideologies that have used extortion. Even some digressions from Christianity have done so. That doesn’t make it OK. Those forced into an ideology will escape as soon as they can. Those who reject that idea, and convince someone doesn’t tend to need to worry about the loyalty of their converts.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more