October 16, 2009

a lesson from history's knucklebrains

I read this passage in my Systematic Theology textbook just now, and was reminded of some of the popular responses in the American Church to the election of our two most recent Presidents. The last one caused a lot of us to have to eat our hats. The current one, well, it's far too early to tell how history will remember him. But we can be pretty certain that the nigh-deification we've been seeing is at best misguided, and at worst idolatry.

We need to be careful as to what we identify as God's providence. The most notable instance of a too ready identification of historical events with God's will is probably the "German Christians" who in 1934 endorsed the action of Adolf Hitler as God's working in history. The words of their statement are sobering to us who now read them: "We are full of thanks to God that He, as Lord of history, has given us Adolf Hitler our leader and savior from our difficult lot. We acknowledge that we, with body and soul, are bound and dedicated to the German state and to its Führer. This bondage and duty contains for us, as evangelical Christians, its deepest and most holy significance in its obedience to the command of God."1 A statement a year earlier had said, "To this turn of history [i.e., Hitler's taking power] we say a thankful Yes. God has given him to us. To Him be the glory. As bound to God's Word, we recognize in the great events of our day a new commission of God to His church."2 From our perspective, the folly of such statements seems obvious. But are we perhaps making some pronouncements today that will be seen as similarly mistaken by those who come a few decades after us?
-Excerpted from Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (2nd edition) (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998)

Now I'm not in any way comparing the President to Hitler. I'm not comparing the last one to him, either. I'm simply pointing out that, with both of them, a lot of evangelical Christians acted as though they were the anointed ones of God, when in fact they're just men. The religious zeal of the German Christians for Hitler is but an extreme example of the folly inherent in such conclusions. Let us act more wisely going forward.

1 Quoted from Berkouwer, Providence of God, pp. 176-77.
2 Quoted from Karl Barth, Theologische Existenz Huete (Munich: C. Kaiser, 1934), p. 10.