My Brother Keeper
23 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in Holy Land Moments Tags: Budapest, God, Holocaust, Hungary, Jews, Nazi, Raoul Wallenberg, Wallenberg
“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?”—Proverbs 24:11–12
Raoul Wallenberg came from a wealthy and famous Swedish family. When the Nazis started rounding up Jews in Hungary, Wallenberg went to Budapest as a diplomat to hand out Swedish citizenship papers to thousands of Jews. More than 400,000 Jews had already been deported to Auschwitz, but 200,000 remained in Budapest, so Wallenberg acted swiftly and fearlessly.
He even chased down deportation trains, pulled Jews off, and declared them Swedish subjects under his diplomatic protection. The Nazis weren’t sure how to stop him. The Swedish embassy in Budapest could not accommodate all the new citizens, so Wallenberg purchased thirty-one buildings to use as “safe” houses and declared them Swedish property, protected by international law. Wallenberg may have saved as many as 100,000 Jews from a deadly fate.
Wallenberg’s decisive action, at great personal cost and even greater personal risk, is a model for all of us. Whenever we see injustice, whether small or great, we should take action. It’s easy to see something and think, “That doesn’t affect me,” but the principle of being accountable for our fellow human beings goes all the way back to the early chapters of Genesis. After Cain killed Abel, God asked Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).
Later, in Genesis 9:5, God said “And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.” So the answer to Cain’s question is: yes, you are your brother’s keeper. Each one of us has a responsibility to those around us. God desires that we serve as guardians for one another.
People tend to ask, “Where was God during the Holocaust?” but it’s also appropriate to ask “Where was man?” More than six million lives were lost during the Holocaust, not only at the hands of perpetrators, but also at the hands of bystanders who did not prevent or stop it.
According to Proverbs 24:11–12, ignorance is no excuse because we cannot tell God “we knew nothing about this.”
We must do more than just remember the atrocities of the past. We must also accept responsibility for preventing such tragedies in the future. The timeless truth calls each of us to action: “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4). In what ways can we look out for the interests of others today? How can we stand up for someone today?
It may not be as earth-shattering as buying 31 buildings, but even the small, ordinary steps are important to God.
http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/my-brothers-keeper
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Jews For Genocide
19 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in TownHall.com Tags: Abortion, Holocaust, Nazi, Nazi Germany, Nazism, Townhall.com, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Washington
Dear Mr. Friedman:
I am deeply disappointed by your refusal to speak with me personally about some remarks you make to my editors at TownHall.com. I have given you ample time to respond to my phone calls. Now, I’m responding to you in this open letter. I really have no other choice given your unwillingness to speak directly to the people you target with your misguided condescension. I’ll respond to your irresponsible remarks one paragraph at a time. Here goes:
Mike Adams is not the first person to draw an analogy between the Holocaust and abortion, but we wish he would be the last one. (Aborting Hitler, Mike Adams, January 30th).
In my column, I correctly referred to the Nazi Holocaust as a Holocaust. I correctly referred to the feminist Holocaust as a Holocaust. I did not deny or in any way minimize any Holocaust. I simply spoke of two instead of speaking of one. If you are anti-Holocaust, then why are you morally superior for talking about one less Holocaust than I do? I just don’t understand your basic premise. Unfortunately, you will not pick up the phone to explain it to me when I call your office.
Referring to abortion as the “American Holocaust”, makes for a catchy headline but it also undermines the historical truth of Nazi Germany, and Adams ought to know better. The Holocaust was the systematic industrialized murder of millions and should never translate into 2012 political analogies.
(Author’s Note: The headline was “Aborting Hitler” not “American Holocaust.” Friedman is undermining the historical truth of what I have written. He ought to know better).
Now, I am even more confused. When I assert the truth of one Holocaust, how do I “undermine the historical truth” of another? Why can’t both assertions be true – particularly when I back those assertions with evidence? Furthermore, are you at all concerned that some of the unborn murdered in the womb are little Jewish children who cannot defend themselves? Have you no concern that Planned Parenthood is engaged in industrialized murder? Are you also denying the “historical truth” that the founder of Planned Parenthood was a eugenicist who subscribed to Nazi ideology? Can you not see the connection between the two? Or are you trying to re-write history like the Holocaust deniers you claim to oppose? These are all great questions you could answer if you would just pick the phone.
Adams is entitled to his views on abortion, but his attempt to assert a moral equivalency between abortion, and the murder of millions of people at the hands of Nazis, is not only offensive but is indicative of a lack of understanding about the Holocaust.
Now, I think I understand your position. You don’t think the unborn are “people.” Well, what are they? Are you even prepared to offer an explanation of when a living fetus becomes a “person”?
Here’s where I can help. There are exactly four reasons routinely given for denying the personhood of the unborn. They follow in no particular order of importance:
1. Size – the unborn are smaller and therefore not persons; 2. Level of development – the unborn are less developed and therefore not persons; 3. Environment – the unborn are not persons because they are still in the womb; 4. Degree of dependency – the unborn are not persons because they must depend on others for survival.
I have rebuttals to all of these argument but you do not seem interested in them. Nor did you seem to understand the basic premise of “Aborting Hitler,” which was to assert that the denial of personhood is the motivating force behind Holocausts in general. Because you didn’t get it, now you’re doing it. Do you get it now?
Sincerely, David C. Friedman Regional Director, Washington DC Regional Office Anti-Defamation League
Finally, I must take exception to your decision to sign off using the word “sincerely.” You aren’t sincere. If you were sincere, you would take seriously the argument that the unborn are persons. Then, once you arrived at that conclusion, you would also conclude that abortion is a Holocaust. Abortion provides a clear example of the “systematic industrialized murder of millions.”
Unfortunately, you have become nothing more than a Holocaust denier. The fact that you work for ADL makes you a shameless hypocrite, as well. Of course, you are entitled to lecture someone who sees through your intellectual poverty and moral bankruptcy. But you ought to know better.
Author’s Note: For more on the parallels between the Holocaust and abortion see Ray Comfort’s brilliant film “180.” Click here to view it now. Unfortunately, the film has not been approved by the ADL. It never will be.
Mike Adams
Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts “Womyn” On Campus.
Help Needed
23 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in This N That Tags: Britain, British Isles, God, Nazi, Nazism, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, World War II
During World War II, the British Isles represented the last line of resistance against the sweep of Nazi oppression in Europe. Under relentless attack and in danger of collapse, however, Britain lacked the resources to see the conflict through to victory. For that reason, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill went on BBC radio and appealed to the world: “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.” He knew that without help from the outside, they could not endure the assault they were facing.
Life is like that. Often, we are inadequate for the troubles life throws at us, and we need help from outside of ourselves. As members of the body of Christ, that help can come at times from our Christian brothers and sisters (Rom. 12:10-13)—and that is a wonderful thing. Ultimately, however, we seek help from our heavenly Father. The good and great news is that our God has invited us to come confidently before Him: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).
At such times, our greatest resource is prayer—for it brings us into the very presence of God. There we find, in His mercy and grace, the help we need.
Aborting Hitler
30 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Pro-Life, TownHall.com Tags: Abortion, Adolf Hitler, Holocaust, Jews, Mississippi, Nazi, Spencer Tracy, United States
Someone once asked me whether I would abort Adolf Hitler if I knew in advance he would try to launch a Holocaust against millions of Jews. I said I would not. That is because aborting Hitler would not have prevented the Holocaust. It would have justified it. The killing of millions of innocents does not begin with the killing of one innocent. It begins with the idea that in the larger scheme of things it is permissible to kill one innocent person.
The movie Judgment in Nuremburg (1961) shows that, even in Hollywood, Americans once appreciated this important principle. The movie is three hours long. But one only needs to watch the last ten minutes of the movie in order to see how far we have fallen in just a half-century.
For those who do not remember the end of the movie, Spencer Tracy plays an American judge who sentences former Nazis for their involvement in the Holocaust. One Nazi judge who sentenced innocents to death was himself sentenced to life in prison. As the sentence is read, he stares off in disbelief. He initially believes he is innocent because he was simply following the law. He later realizes his life sentence was just.
Only a couple of days after he is sentenced, the former Nazi judge requests that the American judge visit him in his jail cell. As he faces the man who sentenced him, he makes an odd request: he asks him to keep his personal memoirs – adding that they must be placed in the hands of a man who can be trusted. It is then that he declares the sentence passed upon him was just.
After pausing for a moment, the condemned Nazi judge says of the millions of dead Jews, “Those millions of people. I never knew it would come to that.” Spencer Tracy, playing the American judge, responds with one of the most profound lines of his storied acting career saying, “It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.”
That has been the story of the American Holocaust as well. It began in 1966 in my native state of Mississippi. Just two years after I was born, a law was passed that made it legal to abort in the case of rape or incest. But then, the very next year, Colorado passed legislation allowing abortion in cases of rape, incest, or threat to the health of the mother.
Then the floodgates were opened. By the end of the year, several states were pushing legislation modeled after the Colorado statute. Within just six years, abortion for mere convenience was not just permitted by several states. It was enshrined as a fundamental constitutional right.
Some have declared that they will not rest until Roe v. Wade is overturned. Others say that is too lofty a goal. I disagree. I believe it is too shortsighted. We must reach further back if we want to reverse our moral free fall. Pre-1973 thinking is not enough. We must go back to the time when no state authorized the killing of innocents – a time when only the rapist, not the product of rape, was eligible for a sentence of death.
Ideas have consequences. And so do exceptions. One of the consequences of embracing an evil exception is that it hardens our hearts and clouds our thinking in advance of our consideration of other exceptions. Eventually we come to a point where we cannot imagine life without that initial exception.
It is fitting that it all began in Mississippi. We have a legacy of executing innocents by denying their personhood. It happened with slavery. It happened again with abortion. Now we have learned to justify our own Holocaust. We didn’t need Hitler after all.
Mike Adams
Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts “Womyn” On Campus.
