Day 9 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

I finished When A Nation Forgets God: Seven Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany by Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer. Amazing. A book everyone should read. The best way to describe what the book is about is to just quote the back of the cover, “The exclusion of church from state. An economic meltdown. Laws that circumvent justice and morality. The systematic secularization of media, education, workplace, and popular culture… these same factors have converged once before in recent history, with catastrophic results.”

The book is a very quick read, about 140 pages, but it is packed with things that will make you cringe, and hopefully, make you think. For example, chapter three is entitled, “That Which is Legal Might Also be Evil.”

Dr. Lutzer starts out by citing various laws that Hitler created that would basically declare that Jews were nothing more, if not beneath animals, which in turn gave the SS the green light to exterminate them without being tried for murder since there was no law for getting rid of “vermin.”

Just a few pages later, Lutzer makes this stunning parallel to the culture in America today: “…in 1973, the United States Supreme Court changed the law to exclude a whole class of people from constitutional protection. Under the court’s ruling and its progeny, the courts have held that as long as a baby was in the womb it was not human and thus could be killed.” He concludes with this statement, “A court can make abortion legal, but it cannot make it moral.”

For those who don’t know: I attend Dr. Lutzer’s church. I also know him personally. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man so convicted of his beliefs. He practices what he preaches.

Though I expected to like the book, and agree with what was said therein, I was still shocked to see the parallels he drew between Nazi Germany and the trend(s) that are embedding their way into the culture today… far deeper than expected. As I stated at the beginning, I think this is a must read for everyone.

Happy reading.