Uwe Siemon-Netto is the director Concordia Seminary’s Institute on Lay Vocation in St. Louis, MO, as well as an instructor at the World Journalism Institute. He has a powerful essay called “Remembering Collective Shame” (cross-posted at Gene Veith’s blog). Siemon-Netto reflects on his experience as a German who wrestled with the concept of “collective shame” that he bears because of the events related to the Holocaust. He observes that the issue that made Germans choose Hitler was not the Nazis’ anti-Semitic rhetoric, but the economy. Then he points out that this is the central issue for voters in this particular election. Someone, even among evangelical and conservative Christians, the issue of abortion ranks way down the list.
But Siemon-Netto draws a few noteworthy parallels between the killing of innocent people under the Nazis’ regime, and the killing of innocent babies in this country. Quote:
- Man presumes to decide which lives are worthy of living and which are not. “Lebensunwertes Leben” (life unworthy of living) was a Nazi “excuse” for killing mentally handicapped children and adults, a crime that preceded the holocaust committed against the Jews. Notice that today fetuses diagnosed with Downs Syndrome are often aborted as a matter of course in America and Europe.
- In German-occupied territories, Jews and Gypsies were gassed for no other reason than that some people considered it inconvenient to have them around. Today, unborn children are often slaughtered because it is inconvenient for their mothers to bring their pregnancies to term.
- Murder I is legally defined as killing another human being with malice and aforethought. The Nazis killed Jewish and Gypsies with deliberation – and maliciously. But what are we to think of babies being killed deliberately simply because they would be a nuisance if they were allowed to live? No malice here?
- Ordinary Germans of the Nazi era were rightly chastised for not having come to their Jewish neighbors’ rescue when they were rounded up and sent to extermination camps. Ordinary Americans and Western Europeans might find the fad to kill babies disagreeable, but as we see from the Faith in Life poll, most have more pressing concerns. Some future day Americans and Western Europeans will be asked why they allowed their children to be slaughtered. They would even have less of an excuse than Germans of my grandparents’ and parents’ generation. In Germany, you risked your life if you dared to come to the Jews’ rescue. In today’s democracies the worst that can happen to you is being ridiculed for being “a Christian.”
This is chilling, and he doesn’t end there. He goes on to remind us of a physician in Kansas named George Tiller, who boasts of already performing 60,000 abortions. On top of that, Dr. Tiller belongs to the Luther Church of the Reformation, the ELCA, and he will often baptize these babies before incinerating them in his own crematorium.
What will be the result of all this killing. Uwe Siemon-Netto concludes his essay with this warning:
Perhaps this little tale will give even non-believers pause if they have not discarded their conscience, known to Christians as the law God has written upon every man’s heart. One day, of this I am certain, this will indeed result in collective shame – and God knows what other horrible consequences.
Take a moment to read his whole post, and if you can, pass it around.
If you are a Christian who believes God's word has authority in your life, how could it be any more clear that you shouldn't vote for Obama in a few days?
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