Who Should We Disobey? Part One: Fascists and Communists
Given that Christian obedience to governing authorities is conditional upon lawful governance, here is part one of a three-part series on who should we disobey.
First up, fascists and communists.
Totalitarianism comes in many packages, whether fascist, communist, theocratic, or technocratic. At the moment, it is fair to say that fascism exhibits particular notoriety, largely in light of the haunting story of Germany and the rise of the Nazis.
While the terms “fascists” and “fascism” are over-used, we might say that fascist-like regimes are those who weaponize grievances, valorize militarism, play on ethnic prejudices, and believe that all the nation’s problems can be solved by a demagogue carrying a big stick.[1]
Perhaps the hardest thing to grasp is how seductive fascism was for people.
We like to imagine that if we lived in Germany in the 1930s that we would not have followed the masses in either enthusiasm or complicity with a fascist regime. But would we have been so allergic to it or actively opposed to it? Nazism was seductive precisely because it promised an immediate fix to parliamentary gridlock, an end to economic chaos, and refusing to bow to the crushing indemnities and humiliating conditions imposed upon Germany by the western powers. Nazism was not an alien political doctrine that appeared out of nowhere. Nazism succeeded because it embodied what people either believed or wanted to believe![2]
Nazism was an incredibly eclectic worldview, combining Darwinian science, pseudo-sciences like eugenics, Lutheranism, the philosophy of Nietzsche, the music of Wagner, Nordic mythology, anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, numerology, idealized masculinity, nationalism, Spartan militarism, socialism, and anti-communism – it had something for everyone! Nazism appeared to be scientific, spiritual, progressive, and effective, the new type of civilization the world needed. In addition, as a philosophy, Nazism was internally consistent to the point that it appeared self-evident to many people, precisely why it attracted supporters from all over Europe.[3]