Biblio Spotlight: Vater, It is to be Fayetteville

“The Nazis aren't rolling their eyes at the Americans. They are learning from them.

 The Germans look at Jesse Owens and Jimmy Laval and Archie Williams and all the other black athletes and they say, They came. After all, you put them through. You get to bask in the glory of their success without having to treat them like human beings.”*

 When I listened to this episode of Revisionist History in the summer of 2024, it changed everything. 

 I had been confident that something like the Holocaust could never happen here. We have laws, we have norms…we’re America! Then I learned the truth. Or perhaps I fully comprehended the truth.

 It can happen here. 

 The Nazis learned how to legally dehumanize their own citizens from us.

 We’ve heard it said that those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. The knowledge of history is not merely an intellectual exercise. We need to understand our history at a philosophical and spiritual level, so that we internalize that we are no better than they were.

 Until we accept that we are all capable of signing the Indian Removal Act, of owning and exploiting human beings, of lynching, and of turning on the gas, those kinds of horrors will always be just a few rationalizations away.

 It’s not about guilt or shame for things we didn’t do, it’s about recognizing in ourselves the potential for doing great harm - so that we don’t do it.

 After World War II, laws were passed to expand liberty and recognize human rights -  and to protect us from our own worst impulses. But there has always been resistance to the guarantees of equality. 

 All it takes is a few overturned laws to bring back the era of Jim Crow that inspired the Nazis. Then what?

 I truly believe the greatest threat to authoritarianism, to all forms of supremacy, is the Gospel - not the corrupted version that rejects the teachings of Jesus - but the message of Jesus that got him killed.

 “He has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
    and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things
    and sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53, NRSVUE)

 I would encourage you to listen to the podcast, and take the time to visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture, then go through the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It’s easier to look the other way than we imagine.

 “What happened, happened - we can no longer change it. It must only never, ever happen again.” (Margot Friedlander)

 But what can we do? Are we powerless to stop it? Some days it feels that way. 

 I believe the Bible is the greatest collection of resistance literature ever compiled. Although it’s been hijacked to justify all kinds of horror, the truth remains. 

 Let’s work toward putting Christ back in Christianity. One day at a time, one conversation at a time, one Bible study or book club, one social media post…

 *From Revisionist History: Hitler’s Olympics, Part 8: “Vater, It is to be Fayetteville”, Aug 15, 2024

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revisionist-history/id1119389968?i=1000663972083&r=2337