GERMAN PROTESTANT SUPPORT OF HITLER, OBEDIENCE TO BAD GOVERNMANT AND ROMANS 13

The excerpt quoted below is from an article found at:
 http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_060310nazi.shtml]

 "Campaign to preserve Nazi church -10/03/06

 A group of German priests and parishioners have begun a politically
sensitive fundraising campaign to save the country's last Nazi-era
church reports Roger Boyes for The Times newspaper.

 The Martin Luther Memorial Church in Berlin has embarrassed the
authorities for six decades, but is also seen as a warning to the
wider church about what can happen when Christians get too close to
Government.

 The image of a Nazi storm trooper side by side with Jesus Christ has
been carved into the pulpit, the entrance is lit by a chandelier in
the shape of an iron cross and the organ was used to stir the spirits
at a torch-lit Nuremberg rally."

A majority of Protestant - Lutheran and Reformed - churches in Nazi
Germany supported Hitler, just as many "conservative" churches in the
U.S. today support the Bush regime.

Many American 501C(3) churches and preachers have been deceived into
supporting the Bush regime, and the present federal government which
fails most of the time to act in the interests of the common people,
including most church members. Are they not moving toward the attitude
of the majority of German Protestants during the Nazi era? Part of
this attitude says that Christians should support and obey their
government, no matter how wicked it may be in the view of some.

One of the main leaders of  a small network of remnant German
Christians who opposed Hitler was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran.
Bonhoeffer and  his brethren called their opposition the Confessing
Church in Nazi Germany. Bonhoeffer was hung in 1945 by the Nazis for
his testimony to Christ and for his courage.

This  majority of German Lutherans and Calvinists who supported Hitler
and the Nazi government seemed to have forgotten that first the German
Lutherans, and later the European and English Calvinists  in the
sixteenth century formulated a rationale to justify Christian
opposition to the tyranny of government. And/or, the German pastors
who knew of this Protestant history thought it better to ignore it and
go along with Hitler.

Blind obedience to bad government, one that oppresses and threatens
many of its citizens or kills innocent people in foreign lands is not
the Protestant heritage.

As early as 1531  Martin Luther himself in his Warning to the Dear
German People said that if the Catholic political leaders made war
upon the Protestants, they were the real rebels, no longer lawful
magistrates, and nothing but "assassins and traitors."

Lutheran Martin Bucer at about this time wrote that "...if a superior
ruler  falls into ungodly or tyrannical rule or causes injury to his
subjects, the inferior rulers...must attempt to remove him by force.
(The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol Two, Quentin
Skinner, 1978, p.206)."

Wait a minute!  Did not the FBI at Waco on April 19, 1993, acting as
the federal government, and hence, in the capacity  of the ruler, kill
by burning and shooting a number of  its "subjects.?" Did   not the
"ruler," that is, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi, shoot and kill Vicki Weaver
from a distance away in August of 1992 when Daddy Bush was president?
Earlier U.S. Marshals shot and killed fourteen year old Sammy Weaver
in the back, and killed his dog Striker.

Quentin Skinner (l978, p. 206) says that the Calvinists  "...took over
and reiterated the arguments in favor of forcible resistance which the
Lutherans had already developed in the 1530's, and had subsequently
revised in order to legitimize the war against the Emperor fought by
the Schalkaldic league after 1546."  The Emperor was a Catholic.

Swiss Calvinist Pierre Viret (1511-1571) had said in his Remonstrances
(1550) that inferior magistrates are powers ordained by God with a
duty to protect the people against supreme rulers when the supreme
rulers fall into ungodliness or tyranny.

"Inferior magistrates" would be state governors, state legislatures,
and county and city governments.  Yet the Viret idea that lower level
government should protect the people against tyranny by  the highest
level  rulers is not made explicit in the U.S. Constitution.  The 1787
Constitution, according to historian Gordon Wood in The Creation of
the American Republic (1969), was not fully based  upon the English
republican ideology of opposition between the people's freedom and the
power of the government.  The Constitution of 1787 was, Wood, said,
"...intrinsically an aristocratic document designed to check the
democratic tendencies of the period."

The powers of American state government, in relation to the power of
the federal government, are rather weakly supported by the Tenth
Amendment.  The Tenth Amendment, which is not really an amendment but
more a part of the original Constitution, says "The powers not
delegated to the United States by the Constitution...are reserved to
the states respectively..."  The Amendment seems to assume that the
powers of the federal government really are limited to those powers
enumerated in Section 8 of Article One.  The Tenth Amendment gives no
powers to state and local governments to resist the federal government
when it over-steps the specific powers given to it in Article One,
Section 8 - or when the federal power becomes ungodly and tyrannical,
and kills its citizens without moral or legal common law
justification. I know that some U.S. cities have passed bills against
the Patriot Act of the federal government - but this does not mean
that Act is outlawed in the jurisdiction of those cities.

John Knox (1505-1572), a Scottish Calvinist, and Christopher Goodman
(1520-1603), apparently an Englishman, came up with the doctrine that
it is the duty of each citizen and of the "whole multitude" to
maintain and defend the moral laws of God against their own rulers and
lesser magistrates (Skinner, 1978, p.237).

Calvinist John Ponet (1514-1556) taught that when the people allow
rulers  to become idolators and wicked that God will punish the people
with famine, pestilence and wars.

But what about Romans 13: 1-7?  The Catholics and the Church of
England interpret Romans 13 to mean that the ruler has a  divine right
to govern the people, given to him by God.  The people must obey the
ruler, or government in all that he or it does.

Romans 13: 1-7 says "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.
 For there is no power but of God:  the powers that be are ordained of
God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance
of God:  and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.  Wilt thou
then not be afraid of the power?  Do that which  is good, and thou
shalt have praise of the same:   For he is the minister of God  to
thee for good.  But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid:  for he
beareth not the sword in vain:  for he is the minister of God, a
revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.  Wherefore ye must
needs to subject, not only for wreath, but also for conscience sake.
For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers,
attending continually upon this very thing.  Render therefore to all
their dues:  tribute to whom tribute  is due;  custom to whom custom;
fear to whom fear; honor to  whom honored."

John Gill, in his 18th century commentary on the Bible says of Romans
13: 2 that "This is not to be understood, as if magistrates were above
the laws, and had a lawless power to do as they will without
opposition; for they are under the law, and liable to the penalty of
it, in case of disobedience, as others; and when they make their own
will a law, or exercise a lawless tyrannical power, in defiance of the
laws of God, and of the land, to the endangering of the lives,
liberties, and properties of subjects, they may be resisted, as Saul
was by the people of Israel, when he would have took away the life of
Jonathan for the breach of an arbitrary law of his own, and that too
without the knowledge of it, (1 Samuel 14:45) ; but the apostle is
speaking of resisting magistrates in the right discharge of their
office, and in the exercise of legal power and authority."

On Romans 13: 4, John Gill goes on to say that  "He is a minister of
God's appointing and commissioning, that acts under him, and for him,
is a kind of a vicegerent of his, and in some, sense represents him;
and which is another reason why men ought to be subject to him; and
especially since he is appointed for their "good", natural, moral,
civil, and spiritual, as Pareus observes: for natural good, for the
protection of men's natural lives, which otherwise would be in
continual danger from wicked men; for moral good, for the restraining
of vice, and encouragement of virtue; profaneness abounds exceedingly,
as the case is, but what would it do if there were no laws to forbid
it, or civil magistrates to put them in execution? for civil good, for
the preservation of men's properties, estates, rights, and liberties,
which would be continually invaded, and made a prey of by others; and
for spiritual and religious good, as many princes and magistrates have
been; a sensible experience of which we have under the present
government of these kingdoms, allowing us a liberty to worship God
according to our consciences, none making us afraid, and is a reason
why we should yield a cheerful subjection to it."

Again, Gill seems to be saying that Paul is describing Godly rulers,
and that these Godly rulers should be respected and obeyed, as long as
they are Godly.

Romans 13: 6 says to pay tribute to rulers, who are God's ministers.
Gill comments on this verse in saying that the actions  of rulers are
"...not of laying, collecting, and receiving tribute, but of service
and ministry under God, for the welfare of their subjects; for rightly
to administer the office of magistracy requires great pains, care,
diligence, and assiduity; and as great wisdom and thoughtfulness in
making laws for the good of the body, so a diligent constant concern
to put them in execution, to secure the lives of subjects from cut
throats and murderers, and their properties and estates from thieves
and robbers; and they are not only obliged diligently to attend to
such service at home, but to keep a good lookout abroad, and penetrate
into, and watch the designs of foreign enemies, to defend from their
invasions, and fight for their country; that the inhabitants thereof
may live peaceable and quiet lives, enjoying their respective rights
and privileges; and since therefore civil government is a business of
so much care, and since our rulers are so solicitous, and constantly
concerned for our good, and which cannot be done without great
expense, as well as diligence, we ought cheerfully to pay tribute to
them."

John Knox, the sixteenth century Calvinist leader in Scotland, was
sentenced to death by the Catholics in 1556.  Knox said that the king
and the lower level magistrates were not placed above the people to
rule as tyrants.  He said the chief duty of magistrates is to punish
evil doing,  and  to support the well doers (Skinner, 1978, p.55).
John Knox pointed out that Romans 13 defines the duty of rulers as one
of punishing those who do evil, and to protect the people from those
who would harm them..

Like any other text in the Bible, Romans 13 needs to be interpreted in
light of other Bible verses.

One text that is often used to set some limits upon the interpretation
of Romans 13 to mean we must obey rulers regardless of their policies,
actions or words is Acts  5: 29.  The Pharisees and the high priest
had warned Peter and the other apostles not to teach in Christ's name.
 Peter then said, "We ought to obey God rather than men."

If a ruler requires a Christian to do something that clearly violates
a moral law in the Bible, then Acts 5: 29 should be applied rather
than the view that Romans 13 commands us to obey the government
regardless of what it does.

There is more in the Bible that can be used to interpret Romans 13.
The Ten Commandments and other moral laws in the Old and New
Testaments were  given to protect us from murder, theft,
wife-stealing, harm to an unborn child (Exodus  21: 22),  from being
cheated by usury (Exodus 22: 25, etc) and some other harmful acts of
others.

The Old Testament speaks often of the rights of people.  Psalm 9: 4
says "For thou hast maintained my right and my cause."  Right is from
mishpat, justice.  Psalm 9: 4 says God will maintain the right to
justice of the Psalmist.

Psalm 140: 12 says "I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of
the afflicted,  and the right of the poor." Afflicted is from aniy,
humble, or lowly in circumstances, and poor is from ebyown, destitute.
 Some other texts that promise protection for the rights of the people
are  Proverbs 29: 7, and  Proverbs 31: 9.

"Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and  that write
grievousness which they have prescribed;  to turn aside the needy from
judgment, and to take away the right of the poor of my people...
(Isaiah 10: 1-2)."  This is a warning from the Lord to rulers not to
take away the rights of the people, especially of the poor.  If the
rulers make and enforce laws that cause harm or injustice to the
powerless, then God says woe to them.  This also applies to judges who
judge unrighteously; it also applies  to the police and prosecuting
attorneys who charge innocent people with crimes.

Then Isaiah 59: 14 says "And judgment is turned away backward, and
justice standeth afar off :  for truth is fallen in the street, and
equity cannot enter."  Judgment is turned away backward  and stands
far off in many of our courts now.  Equity is defined by Black's Law
Dictionary as "...the spirit and habit of fairness, justness and right
dealing..."  The confusion in America from our having become the
Babylon of Prophecy means that moral standards have been lowered and
many morals have been lost, and as Isaiah 59: 14 explains, "truth is
fallen in the street." We hear too many lies and are confronted with
too much deception from government, the media and others.

The American rulers at this point in time have failed to a great
extent in their duty to punish evil and to reward good works.

And the ruling elite have been moving behind the scenes to fully
reestablish the old divine right of rulers so that just about all the
people will be willing to obey them, no matter how oppressive they
are..  They might then  come out from behind the
curtains into the open, perhaps when the devil, their leader,  has come down
"...unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but
a short time (Revelation 12: 12)."   Bernard