August 11, 2017, When Nazis Marched in America

 

Nazi flags and Rebel flags together in a racist medley at Charlottesville

Four years ago today Nazis with Tiki torches marched across the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.  The chanted "Blood and Soil" and "Jews will not replace us."  I was riveted to TV coverage of the march and worried about my daughter who lived 60 miles away in Richmond.  Hundreds of armed racists were in Charlottesville for a "Unite the Right" Rally.  Would the rally spill over into other parts of Virginia? I didn't know.  

The next day one avowed Nazi would murder Heather Heyer and maim several more people.  The coward-bully President we had at the time would waffle for days applauding then reluctantly condemning his fervent supporters waving Nazi and Rebel flags.  He finally said there were "good people on both sides."  

For more than fifteen years, my family and I had been members of Presbyterian Church that was part of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) denomination.  It was the conservative side of the denominational split in the 1970s.  

In the wake of Charlottesville, the liberal side of the split, the Presbyterian Church USA condemned the violence and the President for not speaking forcefully against Nazis.  The PCA did nothing. I already was bewildered by people at the Church who  supported Trump, some fervently.  I left the Church.  

By the end of the year I was attending a local synagogue.  I had learned a lot about the Holocaust since Trump won the election. Two months before Charlottesville, I visited Auschwitz and Yad Vashem.  At both places I learned about decorated Jewish veterans of World War I who were murdered in the Holocaust. I knew that my service to America means nothing to Nazis, or to the fascists who flocked to Trump. 

I also read about German Jews who became Christians, sometimes going back three generations.  In 1935, Jewish converts were expelled from all Churches in Nazi Germany.  By the end of the war, nearly all were murdered.  The Churches who expelled their ethnically Jewish members still called themselves Churches, but they were dead. Their god was Hitler.  

The Churches that openly worship Trump now and call him God's Chosen or a modern-day King Cyrus are no better.  There is not a word of the Sermon on the Mount that Trump has not spit on by his actions and life. So much of conservative America has shown itself to be shallow and shameless in following Trump.  The Churches that worship him, or simply allow worship of him, are as spiritually broken as Nazi Churches.