Hello, fellow wayfarers … Why American Christianity ought to take a Nazi “vibe shift” seriously … What made me laugh in a report about an Australian high school proficiency test … How a note from a missionary helped me appreciate the ninja skills of the Holy Spirit … What it takes to cultivate habits of patience in a world like this … A novelist’s Desert Island Bookshelf … This is this week’s Moore to the Point.
The Church Better Start Taking Nazification Seriously
Last week, after Tucker Carlson platformed neo-Nazi apologist Nick Fuentes on his podcast, the Heritage Foundation’s president Kevin Roberts issued a statement defending Carlson. Roberts denounced what he termed a “venomous coalition” of conservatives who called out the interview because they oppose any “no enemies to the right” posture that includes Nazism. In the days since, some Heritage Foundation staffers have told reporters that the controversy revealed for them how many of the youngest staffers and interns actually agree with Fuentes. This comes only weeks after text messages from multiple Young Republicans groups were leaked, showing racist, antisemitic, and pro-Hitler messages.
This matter is crucial for the future of the country, but the stakes are even higher for the church. It is well past time for the church of Jesus Christ to take this seriously. And the first step to seeing how to do so is to ask, “Why do so many evangelical pastors and leaders not take it seriously now?” Already some constantly online young men who profess to be evangelicals are winking and nodding with HH references and “noticing things” memes while commending the ideologies of Nazis such as Carl Schmitt. Some older leaders don’t take it seriously because they think the numbers of these young men are so few, and some because they think the numbers are so many.
Those who think the numbers are too few will wave away concerns with phrases like “Online is not real life,” usually pointing out that very few of these social media trolls are preachers or pastors. They will note that those who are preachers are typically in front of tiny congregations and spend most of their time podcasting and posting back-and-forth arguments online all day. That is true—and is utterly beside the point.
Those who say such things do not understand how almost every fad—good, bad, and neutral—that has swept through evangelicalism has taken hold. These trends start out in small groups of people that are not large enough to be taken seriously by “successful” leaders. These small communities then cultivate the fads until a couple people with bigger platforms adopt them. And then, seemingly suddenly, they are everywhere. Power evangelism, prayer walking, seeker-sensitive services, laughing revivals, New Calvinism—all of these (and again, some of these things are good, and some are not) happened that way.
Journalist Jonathan V. Last once described how systems fail: “When the bad guys win, it’s always because they are enabled by the weakness and wishful thinking of people in a position to stop them.”
The greater problem is with the evangelicals who say nothing because they think the numbers are too great. They will pivot the discussion and say that “this is what you get” when some objectionable thing happens elsewhere—as though we were talking about kindergartners. Whatever your theology proposes about the age of accountability, I think we can all agree that a 25-year-old is well past the bar. Others will argue that, though they wouldn’t have done it this way, there’s a vibe shift in this direction that we have to recognize.
During World War II, American journalist Dorothy Thompson described this type as “Mr. B” in her famous essay “Who Goes Nazi.” She wrote, “He fits easily into whatever pattern is successful. That is his sole measure of value—success. Nazism as a minority movement would not attract him. As a movement likely to attain power, it would.”
The mentality which suggests that laughing at sexual abuse or using denigrating slurs for those with disabilities or wink-wink-nod-nod sending around Nazi memes is evidence of a “vibe shift” is perhaps understandable for a pagan who believes the zeitgeist is lord. But for a Christian who has read any page of the Old or New Testament, that’s incomprehensible.
Jesus said, “For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matt. 24:24, ESV throughout). The description of the Beast of Revelation is of near-universal popularity and success: “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” (Rev. 13:4).
When the popular will becomes the standard of truth, we move from silliness in the best of times to cruelty in worse times and to the death camps in the worst of times. This is a call, as Jesus put it, for “endurance and faith” (v. 10). You can call that a “vibe shift” if you want.
The vibe-shift view is precisely what led the Confessing Church of 1934 to stand up against the German Christians, the religious party associated with Adolf Hitler. The Confessing Church’s statement said, “We reject the false doctrine that the Church could and should recognize as a source of its proclamation, beyond and besides this one Word of God, yet other events, powers, historic figures and truths as God’s revelation.” Karl Barth, the primary author of the Barmen Declaration, would write later to churches in Nazi-occupied France, who seemed to be wobbling in their commitment to resist publicly or forcefully Nazi ideology:
I cannot think that your judgment of today about the fundamental situation between Hitler and the rest of us is different from a year ago just because in the meantime Hitler has had so many good days (vividly reminding us of Job [21] and Psalms [10] and [73]) and France, together with all those other countries, so many bad days.
Barth continued,
If that were your attitude, you would have surrendered, not merely to the German arms, but to that German philosophy which in 1933 broke out like a plague among the German people themselves. In that case, Hitler would have conquered not only your country but your souls.
During the years of Nazi domination of Germany, writer Thomas Mann, an expatriate, broadcast a series of radio addresses to his fellow Germans, pleading with them to resist what was happening to their country. Among the atrocities, he included what he said had to be “the strongest and most ghastly phenomena of National Socialism [Nazism].” He described it with a word we don’t use much anymore, vitiate, which means “to debase” or “to corrupt.” Mentioning such glorious words as peace and patriotism, Mann wrote that Nazism “has vitiated all ideas which were supported by the best men in the world and has made them something in which no decent person wants to partake anymore.”
Conservatives alarmed at the steps toward the normalization of Fuentes and a Nazified young right understand this. They know this awful ideology will evacuate all the principles they wish to conserve of the meaning of words like peace and patriotism. But why do I say the stakes are even higher for the church? After all, the church does not have nuclear codes and cannot build death camps. It can only empower with its support—or its silence—those who do.
The question is whether the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. If it is, as I firmly believe, then what happens if words like evangelical or church or salvation or (I shudder to write) Jesus are filled up with the meanings of an antichrist alt-gospel? In that case, what’s on the line for generations is a matter of eternity.
We have a choice. The Bible will not sit alongside Mein Kampf. The cross will not yield to the swastika. We must ask right now: Jesus or Hitler? We cannot have both.
Render unto Caesar, but Try to Remember Which One Is Which
This week, the AP reported that high school seniors in Australia were given the wrong preparatory lessons for an important test. Their teachers taught them about the wrong Caesar in their lessons on the Roman Empire.
The state-mandated curriculum was about Julius Caesar, but the teachers taught about Augustus Caesar—the emperor who ordered that “all the world should be registered” (Luke 2:1), which led to Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem.
I do sympathize with these students, but I find this hilarious. After all, nothing was more important to the house of the Caesars than their name and fame. Jesus would point out how a (different) Caesar put his image on the coins. Their hierarchies and legacies were important to the degree that Jesus said to his disciples, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you” (Luke 22:25–26).
Now, over 2,000 years later, news reports have to clarify that Julius Caesar was “the one who had the haircut,” while we march toward the day when “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2:10). And no one will have to ask about Jesus, “But which one?”
The Holy Spirit Is a Ninja Moving Behind a Line of Clowns
A reader who serves as a missionary in a sensitive location overseas sent a kind note this week, responding to this line from the newsletter a few weeks ago: “Revival doesn’t start with a blueprint or, God forbid, a marketing plan, but with a state of helplessness and dependence.”
The reader writes, “Thank you for the reminder that what is easily seen is not all there is. It made me laugh to think of the Spirit moving like a ninja behind a line of distracting clowns. Keep holding up that truth banner for us who get disoriented to find our way back to hope.”
I will remember that imagery of a ninja moving behind a line of clowns for a long, long time. Thank you!
Mark Batterson on the Slow (Then Fast) Work of Long Obedience
What if the biggest changes in your life aren’t sudden at all but have been building quietly for years? That’s what I talked about this week on the podcast with pastor and author Mark Batterson of National Community Church in Washington, DC. Mark’s book, Gradually Then Suddenly, riffs on the famous Ernest Hemingway quote about bankruptcy. We discuss how patience might be the most underrated spiritual discipline of them all.
It’s hard, though, to tell the difference between patience and stagnation, and I wanted to get Mark’s insights on how to know. We also talked practically about how to establish new habits and about “snowplow spirituality.”
If you sometimes find it hard to carry out that “long obedience in the same direction,” you will benefit from this conversation.
You can listen here.
Desert island Bookshelf
Every other week, I share a list of books that one of you says you’d want to have on hand if you were stranded on a deserted island. This week’s submission comes from reader Michael Berrier of Carlsbad, California. Since Michael happens to be a novelist, I was really interested in his list:
- The Iliad of Homer, translated by Alexander Pope, illustrations by John Flaxman. I inherited this Heritage Press edition from my mom’s book collection, and it includes beautiful plates that add illustrations to Pope’s poetic translation from the original Greek. On my desert island, I can spend months enjoying every aspect of this volume.
- I’m afraid that including The Riverside Shakespeare in my list might be cheating since it’s a complete collection of Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, together with commentaries, thorough explanatory footnotes, reference and source material, illustrations, documentary appendices, and maps. Reading and studying all his works and coming closer to understanding them with the help of the contributors’ work will help pass the long island days and nights.
- T. S. Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909–1950, is another collection of works by an artist I love: his poems from “Prufrock” to verses he contributed to a play (“The Rock,” produced in 1934), followed by his “Four Quartets,” “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” and his three plays written during the period. So much here to explore and enjoy!
- The Gospel According to John, commentary by D. A. Carson, dives deep into this beautiful Gospel and helps me with better understanding of every passage. The introduction includes valuable thoughts on historical understanding of the Gospel, its authenticity, authorship, purpose, et cetera.
- Les Misérables by Victor Hugo would be the single book of fiction that I would take with me to the desert island if I were limited to one. Its scope, drama, characters, and language transport me, and the ending triggers tears whenever I reread it.
- Zora Neale Hurston’s Mules and Men takes me into cultural and linguistic territory I can’t find anywhere else with this kind of joy. This edition by Amistad/HarperCollins also includes an afterword by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and an essay, “Looking for Zora,” by Alice Walker (originally published as “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” in Ms. Magazine).
- I’m taking another risk including this as one book, but I have Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s 50th anniversary one-volume edition of The Lord of the Rings. The editors support me, writing in the text notes that it is in fact “a single novel, consisting of six books plus appendices.” All that is contained in this volume, including the extensive appendices that cover kings and rulers, family trees, et cetera. The only thing missing from the collection is the prequel, The Hobbit (which I also own but excluded from this list, barely).
- John Donne, The Complete English Poems, contains such richness of romanticism and language that I wouldn’t want to be without it, and the divine poems and meditations will be a good companion for Carson’s commentary on The Gospel According to John.
- The Poems of W. B. Yeats is a collection of poems from another Nobel laureate (like T. S. Eliot). The book was given to me by my brother 41 Christmases ago. The appendices include the poet’s notes, editors’ explanatory notes, and even some music written to accompany a few of the poems. “Sailing to Byzantium” might be enough on its own, but over 500 pages of brilliant poems will help me enjoy the solitude on the desert island.
- Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream was published posthumously, with a light editing touch by Mary Hemingway and Charles Scribner Jr. from the author’s original manuscript. It is my favorite of his novels, and my list would be incomplete without it.
- David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, in this Nonesuch Dickens edition contains not only the text but also many illustrations and copies of the original frontispiece, title pages, and covers. It is nearly as bulky as The Riverside Shakespeare and nearly as much fun.
- The Women is T. Coraghessan Boyle’s 12th novel, an ingeniously constructed fictionalization of the lives of the three wives of the great architect Frank Lloyd Wright. No bookshelf is complete without something by Boyle. He was my first fiction-writing mentor, and if I could come anywhere close to his skill, I would be delighted.
Thank you, Michael!
Readers, what do y’all think? If you were stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life and could have only one playlist or one bookshelf with you, what songs or books would you choose?
- For a Desert Island Playlist, send me a list between 5 and 12 songs, excluding hymns and worship songs. (We’ll cover those later.)
- For a Desert Island Bookshelf, send me a list of up to 12 books, along with a photo of all the books together.
Send your list (or both lists) to questions@russellmoore.com, and include as much or as little explanation of your choices as you would like, along with the city and state from which you’re writing.
Quote of the Moment
“I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.”
—Lesslie Newbigin, quoted in N. T. Wright’s new book The Vision of Ephesians
Currently Reading (or Re-Reading)
- N. T. Wright, The Vision of Ephesians: The Task of the Church and the Glory of God (Zondervan)
- Charles Murray, Taking Religion Seriously (Encounter)
- Jonathan Karl, Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America (Dutton)
- Rowan Williams, Shakeshafte and Other Plays (Slant)
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Russell Moore
Editor in Chief, Christianity Today
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