1930’s revisited
History has a habit of repeating itself, a century ago, in the mid 1930’s, Germany was facing an enormous crisis, unemployment was around 30%, the country was experiencing hyperinflation and major political unrest. This crisis produced a political climate ripe for revolution. Democratic Germany was about to become a dictatorship.
The unthinkable happened
How could Germany, arguably the most advanced country in the world in terms of education, culture, and the home of the great Christian Reformation, end up embracing the Nazi doctrine? Antisemitism had also begun beating a path to the extermination camps. When Goring, a leader in the Nazi party was asked how could this happen, he replied, “all you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” (Source; The Nuremberg diaries.) Where was the church, purportedly following in the footsteps of the great champion of justice, we can only conclude that it had lost its way and as a consequence its voice fell silent. When cattle wagons rattled past the churches on their way to Auschwitz with their pitiful cargo, the church organs played a little louder.
And not just Germany
The 1930’s was a decade of global economic and political ruin. To add to the turmoil, the Spanish War had erupted, Japan had invaded China, Italy was at war with Ethiopia and the list goes on. America in turmoil and lacking direction, was wracked with fear, prompting President Roosevelt to give a national exhortation, declaring “The only thing we need to fear is fear itself, nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses the efforts to convert retreat Into advance.”
Is the unthinkable about to happen again?
The International Monetary Fund reported in its half yearly forecast in 2020, that the ”great lockdowns will rival the Great Depression of the 1930’s.” The Anti-defamation League in America reported that antisemitism is now as bad as it was in the 1930’s and this time around, Christians are also under attack. There are differences today to the challenges of the 1930’s, but there are some striking commonalities and one important constant is the use of the “politics of fear.” The recent Government vaccination promotional video of an actor posing as a stricken young woman struggling to breathe, was like a scene out of a horror movie, and the intent is clear, create fear. A certain amount of fear is often healthy, but there is no doubt that the level of fear in our nation whether Covid or climate change related is growing to an almost palpable level. Political leaders and mainstream media are crushing dissuading voices, even those from the most elevated of sources. Martin Iles from the Australian Christian Lobby, one of the few dissenting Christian voices, had his well-attended, ‘The truth of it” WA tour stalled when his Albany and Perth venues were cancelled by the WA Government. Fortunately, public pressure caused the Premier to backflip, but the intent was loud and clear. Western democracy with its freedoms and justice system built on Judaeo-Christian foundations, is decaying from within, the trend is serious and if not stopped, the tyranny of Socialist-Marxism looms large on the horizon. It seems to me the “Bonhoeffers” of today are folks like Craig Kelly, Mark Latham, Alan Jones, Rowan Dean, Jacinta Price and the like, but main stream church leaders remain conspicuous by their absence.
A call to action!
The symbol of the Australian Light Horse is the Emu, a unique bird in that it is not able to walk backwards. If ever the spirit of the Light Horse is needed, it is needed now. Write to your local politicians, fill out the relevant petitions that come your way, attend freedom marches where legal, get onto social media, persevere to make your voice heard. The danger is like the “frog in boiling water” we get conditioned to the increased heat, and soon it becomes too late. We can all do something, as someone once said, “it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness”. The “Early warning cartoon” supposedly from the 1930’s is a hoax, but I think it is still a fascinating parody. It went viral, so YouTube canned it, but if you want some comic light relief it can be found by googling “Early warning cartoon.”
