Jimmy Carterm Inspirational Devotions SMALL
Bible Stories and Parables

Jimmy Carter Inspirational Daily Devotions: Bible Stories, Reflections on Historical Events

One of Bonhoeffer’s most famous books carried the title, The Cost of Discipleship. In it he condemns what he calls cheap grace. He insists one cannot follow Christ without full commitment, wherever that commitment might lead. In his case it led to a Nazi gallows.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth were leaders in the Confessing Church that resisted the Nazi infiltration and cooption of German Christianity, opposing the Nazi notion that Jesus wasn’t Jewish and that Christianity should condone the persecution of the Jews. […]

Five Minute History

Christians Surviving Fascism in World War II: What are the Dangers of Single-Issue Politics in Vichy France?

The danger of such a narrow view of the single issue politics of abortion is apparent when we review the history of the only anti-abortion, pro-Catholic regime in France after the French Revolution, the fascist regime of Vichy France that collaborated with the conquering Nazis. The leaders of this pro-Catholic Vichy regime were also deeply anti-Semitic and cooperated with the Germans to persecute the Jews from the earliest days of the regime. The Vichy regime was also deeply xenophobic in its immigration policies. Communism was the mortal enemy of the Christian faith; many Catholics saw fascists as allies in their struggles against communism. […]

Five Minute History

Christians Surviving Fascism in World War II: Under Hitler’s Brutal Nazi Regime, Were Brave Protests Ever Successful?

Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany was an incredibly brutal regime. We must ask, Were Brave Protests Ever Successful in Nazi Germany?

The answer is a surprising YES, sometimes brave protests against one of the most evil regime in modern times were successful and did cause the Nazi state to retreat from its brutal policies. […]

Five Minute History

Christians Surviving Fascism in World War II: What Were the Major Concerns of the Church?

Many Christians are confused about what spiritual warfare means, but the definition of spiritual warfare in a relatively free modern society is simple: the spiritual battle is an eternal contest of who is going to influence whom. Will Christians push back on the godless influences surrounding them, slightly improving the virtues of those who they meet? Or will Christians allow the godless influences surrounding them to corrupt their love for their neighbor? Will their politics increase in them their love for their neighbor, or will their politics decrease their compassion for the poor, the sick, the immigrant, the unemployed, the imprisoned, the elderly, and those who do not look like them? […]

AntiSemitism

How the Racist Jim Crow Laws Were Precedent for the Nazi Nuremberg Race Laws

The Nazis were not simply demons who erupted out of some dark underworld to shatter what was good and just within the Western tradition, until they were put down by force of arms and the authentic humane and progressive values of Europe were restored. There were traditions of Western governments within which they worked. There were continuities between Nazism and what came before and after. There were examples and inspirations on which the Nazis drew, and American race law prominent among them. […]

AntiSemitism

Christians Under Hitler’s German Nazi Regime

How could most Christians either tolerate or support the totalitarian Nazi regime of Hitler?  We cannot help but ask that question because we see bulging eyes of the skeletal concentration camp victims looking up in those black and white photographs, but we must realize that nobody in the prewar years could have predicted that the concentration camps would come to define Nazism.  In the prewar years many saw a reawakened national German pride and family values after the humiliation imposed by the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. […]