Bible Articles

C A R L   B.   G A R N E R THE HOLOCAUST: CAN IT HAPPEN AGAIN? Is it not amazing how the change of leadership from one generation to another can have such an effect on the thinking of a modern society. Fifty years ago the world was in shock, having seen the pictures and heard the testimony coming out of the war crimes trials. Survivors were revealing the terror and the atrocities from the death camps of Europe. The sight of thousands of dead bodies being bulldozed into mass graves was enough to make the whole world rise up in horror. Historians called it the most horrible display of brutality ever seen. Social Scientists were saying that these events were frightening because they revealed monstrous flaws in the psyche of all human beings. Entire families were destroyed. Once-great nations were now reduced to abject poverty, receiving assistance from the very nations against which they had done such violence in warfare. In response to these discoveries, a new motto was posted in the ruins of the death camps, stating, Never Again. These determined thoughts were written so that all could easily understand. This must never happen again! In the last three decades, evidence has been found indicating that such atrocities were commonplace in other cultures, including the Soviet Union and Southeast Asia. More recent atrocities in Eastern Europe are now widely known. As people learned to live with the knowledge of these tragedies, attitudes gradually began to change. Some denied that these events really happened. Others rationalized, "it was just the war." The following is a U.S. News & World Report article relating the fears of Professor Robert Simon, who says he has never met a student who denied the Holocaust, but... "What he sees quite often, though, is worse: students who acknowledge the fact of the Holocaust but who can't bring themselves to say that killing millions of people is wrong... 'Of course, I dislike the Nazis,' one student told Simon, 'but who is to say they are morally wrong?' Overdosing on non-judgmentalism is a growing problem in the schools. Two disturbing articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education say that some students are unwilling to oppose large moral horrors, including human sacrifice, ethnic cleansing and slavery, because they think that no one has the right to criticize the moral views of another group or culture." What should we make of this comment? Is the professor merely an alarmist, exaggerating his own fears? Could the world come to the point at which another Hitler or Stalin could eliminate millions of people without any protest? Who can say what may happen? I am of the opinion that if it happened once it could happen again. How did it happen before? As disturbing as the thought may be, it happened in part because too many good people looked away, not wanting to believe what was obviously true. There is another reason this could happen again, and it is fostered in the minds of current ethicists who believe that standards of ethical behavior are entirely autonomous. This is truly the harvest of fifty years of denying the existence of objective moral law. What can you expect when you tell an entire generation that there are no absolute standards of right and wrong? That they will be horror-stricken when they learn of the murder and torture of millions of people? Of course not. Unfortunately, that is the "politically correct" view in our modern world. Many schools are forbidden to teach any form of moral absolutes. They are mandated to teach that "what is right for you is right." Under no circumstances, some say, may we teach that adultery, abortion, or murder are absolutely wrong; it may be "irresponsible," or perhaps "ill-advised." If such a mandate continues, the professor may be right. People just like you and me could watch such things take place and merely ask, "Who is to say they are morally wrong?" There is a solution, but it is a bitter pill for modern ethicists to swallow. It is to recognize an objective moral code and enforce it. But you cannot have an objective standard without a God to authorize it. Humanism, the god of modern America, is not willing to allow anyone to teach that God is, or that He has a law to which man is responsible. There is an objective standard for man's behavior. It is found in the Bible. It says that murder is wrong, Exodus 20:13, Romans 13:9. It says adultery and fornication are wrong, Exodus 20:14, Luke 18:20. It says lying, stealing and deception are wrong, Ephesians 4:26, Colossians 3:9. These things and others are wrong because God says they are wrong, not because men have agreed that they are wrong. The Bible says that man is going to be judged by God "according to that he hath done," and the gospel of Jesus Christ is going to be the standard by which that judgment takes place, Romans 2:16, 2 Corinthians 5:10. It says that man's eternal destiny will depend upon that judgment, Matthew 16:27. It says that God is sovereign, and He has the authority to be the judge of man, Romans 9:20-21. Will we face another Hitler in the future? Who can say? I do know that what we teach our young people today will shape the moral principles of tomorrow. Our imperative is to teach them God's moral code. Today.