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unhinged
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a man who escaped the nazis warns his seminary student about the ability of the christians in america to create a similar breed of fascists:
'what i watch (at a conference of fundamentalists) reminds me of a lazy spring afternoon nearly 25 years ago, when dr. james luther adams, my ethics professor at harvard divinity school, told us that when we are his age - he was then close to 80 - we could all be fighting the 'christian fascists.'
the warning came at the moment pat robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. its stated goal was to use the united states to create a global christian empire. it was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of leaders in the christian right who expounded it. but adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. the nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. their ideological inheritors in america had found a mask for fascism in patriotism and the pages of the bible.
adams was not a man to use the word 'fascist' lightly. he was in germany in 1935 and 1936 with the underground anti-nazi church, known as the confessing church, with dissidents such as deitrich bonhoeffer. adams was eventually detained and interrogated by the gestapo, who suggested he might want to consider returning to the united states. it was a suggestion he followed...
he saw in the christian right, long before we did, disturbing similarities with the german christian church and the nazi party, similarities, he said that would, in the event of prolonged social instability, catastrophe or national crisis, see american fascists, under the guise of christianity, rise to dismantle the open society. (!!!!!) he despaired of liberals, who he said, as in nazi germany, mouthed empty platitudes about dialogue and inclusiveness that made them ineffectual and impotent. liberals, he said, did not understand the power and allure of evil or the cold reality of how the world worked. his long discussions with church leaders and theologians in nazi germany - some of whom collaborated with the regime, some of whom resisted and most of whom remained silent - were the defining experiences of his life.' - chris hedges
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