Restoring Kingdom Builders

Winston Churchill is one of my few heroes.

When Time named their Person of the Century in 1999, they gave the award to Albert Einstein, truly a great man in a century dominated by scientists.

But without Churchill, we might be living under a Nazi flag.

I’ve had the privilege of visiting some Churchill sites, including Blenheim Palace (his birthplace and boyhood home), the nearby churchyard in Bladon (his final resting place), and the underground War Rooms in London, from which he coordinated the British fight against Hitler’s Germany.

Right now, I’m reading William Manchester’s second volume on Churchill entitled The Last Lion: Alone 1932-1940, and I’m continually drawing parallels between the way Sir Winston viewed the Nazis and the way churches deal with antagonists.

The First World War was horrendous, resulting in 885,138 combat deaths for England and 2,050,897 deaths for Germany – not counting wounded soldiers.  When the Allied Powers drew up the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, they threw the book at Germany, demanding financial reparations totaling $442 billion in today’s currency (Germany made their last payment on October 4, 2010), forcing them to disarm, and making them take full responsibility for the war.

While the German leaders at the time tried to cooperate, Hitler and his cronies began their slow rise to power.  Hitler telegraphed much of what he did – through his autobiography Mein Kampf, his speeches, and various interviews.

After he became Chancellor of the Reich in 1933, Hitler charmed diplomats from countries like England, assuring them that he was rebuilding the German military only for defensive purposes.  Still gun-shy 15 years after the end of World War 1, the nations of Europe – and their leaders – chose to believe him.

All the while, Hitler was training young men to be soldiers, cranking out munitions at a non-stop pace, and putting together a top-flight air force, the Luftwaffe.

There were British citizens inside Germany who knew exactly what Hitler was doing.  But when they sent their data to the Foreign Office in London, they chose to ignore the facts, convincing themselves that Hitler’s military buildup had no relevance for England.

But Churchill knew better.

While still a member of the House of Commons, Churchill had been banished from any top leadership posts in His Majesty’s Government.  Whenever he rose to speak in the House, his views were ridiculed because he was relegated to being a Backbencher.

But Churchill had a friend who lived near his Chartwell home who consistently delivered hard data about the Fuhrer’s real intentions.  Churchill had to be careful with the information because if he shared too much in public, politicians and journalists would demand to know where he obtained it.

Let me share with you four parallels between how England viewed Hitler and how many churches view conflict:

First, most people are conflict-avoiders.  The British did not wish to fight any country so soon after the Great War, a conflict that the United States entered late in the game.  And even when Hitler conquered Poland and bombed London, our country publicly remained isolationist.  (We didn’t officially enter World War 2 until Pearl Harbor.)

Most of us act the same way.  If there is a conflict in our family, we avoid it as long as we can.  If there is a shouting match between politicians on television, we turn the channel.  And if there is conflict at church, we look the other way or deny that it’s happening.  After all, we reason, it’s not my fight.

The truth is, even if it is our fight, we’ll do almost anything not to fight – and that emboldens certain people.

Second, there are usually signs that conflict is brewing.  The increasing number of German soldiers and munitions – along with the expelling of Jews – was a clear indication that something ominous was about to occur on the Continent.  Conflict almost never erupts without warning.  Those whose eyes are open can usually connect the dots.

During the message time at our church yesterday, we saw a video interview of a father and mother.  Their son had been acting strangely but they had no idea what was wrong.  As it turned out, he was on drugs, eventually taking both ecstasy and heroin.  The signs of drug usage were there, but this couple – who prided themselves on having a harmonious, loving family – refused to admit that their son could be involved with any mind-altering substances.

Denial in the face of evil can lead to destruction, not life.

Something similar happens in church life.  We don’t want to believe that the pastor is immersed with pride, or the youth pastor is getting too close to that Jr. High girl, or that board member has destructive intentions.  While the warning signs are there, we don’t act on them.

If the problem is within your authority, deal with it as soon as possible, using Matthew 18:15-20 as a guide.  If the problem lies within someone else’s purview, inform them quickly.  If you see something that concerns you, speak up and take action!  Delay leads to defeat, not victory.

Third, call evil for what it is.  The first time I heard about Adolph Hitler was when I was five years old.  (Hitler had committed suicide only fifteen years earlier.)  The atrocities he committed were still fresh on everyone’s mind, bolstered by The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by journalist William L. Shirer in 1959 (the longest book I’ve ever read besides The Bible).

When I entered fourth grade, our class saw a lot of newsreels of Hitler.  We saw him making speeches.  We saw the torchlight parades in Nuremberg.  We saw the Nazis burning books (that spot is now a peaceful little park in East Berlin) and the Jews being fed into ovens.  We saw images of evil that never left my innocent little brain.

And much to the credit of my teachers, we learned how Hitler came to power, fooled his own people, and disguised his true intentions to the world.

In other words, we learned how to detect evil before it openly surfaced.

Please hear me: evil isn’t confined to dictators.  You will find evil in churches, too.  And not just evil actions; people can be evil.

How can you tell who they are?

They never admit they do anything wrong.  They blame all problems on other people.  They disguise their real intentions and lie about others – especially leaders.

Their ultimate goal?  The destruction of church leaders so THEY can be in control and call the shots.

Scott Peck wrote about such people in his book People of the Lie.  It’s a chilling read.  Lloyd Rediger has also written about such people in his book Clergy Killers.

Hitler was evil.  Sadly, a handful of church people are evil, too.  I hope no one like that is in your church, but evil people have been known to infiltrate churches.

I’ve met a few.  Have you?

Finally, Christians have to be willing to fight evil.  Whenever Hitler bombed London, businessmen and families headed for shelter, especially in the depths of the British subway system known as the Tube.  They ran from evil.

But the British war planes couldn’t hide in the Tube.  It was their job to take on evil – and they did so nobly.  We might not be living in a free country if the British hadn’t confronted Nazi evil in their own backyard.

No Christian should go looking for evil in a church.  Churches have enough hyper-critics.  But when evil rears its ugly head, and it’s obvious there are people bent on destroying the pastor or other leaders, evil must be resisted – and defeated.

Evil cannot be appeased.

A few weeks ago, I caught The Two Towers – the second film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy – on television.  At the end of the film, as Frodo is nearly possessed by the ring’s evil, he says, “I can’t do this, Sam.”  In what is probably my favorite speech in any movie, Sam replies:

“I know.  It’s all wrong.  By rights we shouldn’t even be here.  But we are.  It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo.  The ones that really mattered.  Full of darkness and danger, they were.  And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end.  Because how could the end be happy?  How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?  But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow.  Even darkness must pass.  A new day will come.  And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.  Those were the stories that stayed with you.  That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.  But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.  I know now.  Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going.  Because they were holding on to something.”

Frodo asked wearily, “What are we holding onto, Sam?”

Sam replied, “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo … and it’s worth fighting for.”

Churchill would be proud.