So Steve, are you also concerned that Americans (of certain political persuasions) exalt Martin Luther King, Jr., and don’t ever address his philandering or plagiarism?

“Philandering” is such an understatement that it must be taken as a euphemism. King took part in wild orgies, especially when white women were available. Although, in fairness, it should be pointed out that apparently a black bruthah would serve in a pinch, according to Abernathy — King was apparently neither a racist nor a sexist, at least in this matter that interested him more than anything else. Nevertheless, it was encouraging to see Hart start off by at least mentioning these suppressed aspects about Westminster Seminary’s hero Martin Luther King, Jr.

Alas, it wasn’t to last. He continued:

The right [meaning, the Right -- ed.] of course looks at those moral failings to discredit King. But what exactly do those failings have to do with what he was trying to do to gain equality for blacks?

This is not the right question, however. The question is, what exactly do those failings have to do with honoring him as an American hero? And the answer is, it has everything to do with that. Moreover, heroes are generally identified not by what they “try to do,” but what they actually do. George Washington was honored by our forefathers not for “trying” to do something, but actually doing it, against all odds — namely, defeating an empire with a rag-tag group of freezing patriots. In contrast, what did King “do”? He was a hollow man that could not even write his own sermons and speeches. He was chauffered up to the front of the parades at just the right camera moment. His movement did not overcome anything. On the contrary, his small band of opponents were beaten down with the combined forces of LBJ, the nationalized militia, the FBI, federal marshals, corrupt judges, and an adoring and dishonest media. All King had to do was show up. What a difference from Washington.

But, Washington was also perceived to be morally blameless. For all intents and purposes, he was beloved by everyone, and that for the double qualification of heroic deeds coupled with exemplary character.

But let’s consider Mr. Hart’s thesis on its own level — what did King’s “failings” have to do with “what he was trying to do”?

According to lore, Mafia bosses “did a lot” to “gain equality for the Italian people.” But most people do not say that the criminal means can be divorced from the end (even if the ambiguity of that end is set aside for the sake of discussion).

I suppose it goes without saying that Mr. Hart would not praise the original KKK for attempting to regain equality for Southerners vis-a-vis the Yankee occupiers.

Why then are King’s methods and character set aside by defenders like Mr. Hart, when they would never do so for a Mafia godfather or KKK leader? It must be either that some heroes are guilty of a skin, and thus must not be honored, or character and methods is not something Mr. Hart actually believes can be set aside when deciding whether to honor a man. As if sensing the corner he has painted himself into, Hart continues:

Was he sleeping with female congresswomen in order to secure favorable legislation? That might discredit some of his stand.

Oh please. This is really quite a revelation of how the slavish political conformity of our Reformed “leaders” has addled their thinking. As if a Congresswoman in 1965 would be thinking, “I really can’t support this civil rights legislation … unless Dr. King would be willing to sleep with me. Then I would.”

A quick check of Wiki indicates that in 1965, of the nine Congresswomen in office, all were White and over 50, except for one Oriental woman from Hawaii. Does Mr. Hart really think that even one of these women would think the way he imputes in the one example that pops naturally into his head?

Does he think any woman holding power, of any race and any age would think that way?

This is one sick dude.

In point of fact, that is one perversion that Martin Pervert King did not choose in plying his trade. Why does Mr. Hart think this way?

Even so, how would such a scenario “discredit some of King’s stand”? Does “the stand” mean the cause — equality for black people — in which case, how could such a sacred cause be discredited by the behavior of any person? Or does it mean, “this man’s standing” — i.e. it discredits this man, personally, this man that is taking the stand? In that case, what does the “some of” qualification of his stand mean? To the extent that the stander not the stand is in view, wouldn’t it completely disqualify?

But for the most part, his failings were personal and private and represented the afflictions that cling to most human beings not born of a virgin.

First, all failings by persons are personal. How does that qualify anything?

Second, “Doctor” King’s failings were not private. The plagiarism in particular was witnessed every time he made a speech, and the plagiarized Ph. D. dilutes the credibility of every other Ph.D. holder, especially those coming from Boston U.

Third, this statement is a preposterous denial of God’s gifts and graces manifested in history. It plasters over human history into a flat sameness. Only, he doesn’t even use plaster, he uses dung.

According to Tacitus, the Germans in their pre-Christian state were more chaste than the African-American community is after three centuries of exposure to the Bible.

Actually, putting it that way is not quite fair… to the Germans. It would be less misleading to say it this way: the pre-Christian Germans were a chaste people; the Christian Negroes are not a chaste people.

But according to Hart, King’s flagitious character represents “the afflictions that cling to most human beings not born of a virgin.”

Michael Dyson says the womanizing is endemic among pastors in the black church. Is Mr. Hart willing to say, “also in my denomination, the OPC?”

Is Mr. Hart willing to say, “most Ph. D. holders not born of a virgin have plagiarized their dissertations”? How should we regard the integrity of Mr. Hart’s own Ph.D. if that is what he thinks?

In fairness, Mr. Hart admits defects in King’s theology, and rejects King’s use of theology for his civil struggle. But that’s not the point. Being antinomian leads to despising God’s work of sanctification where it has occurred, and to God’s common gracious preserving and directing in history. This is the theological fruit one reaps when one reveres the current political order, along with its shibboleths, above just about all else.

The extreme measures taken by the kikenpress — excuse me, we can be dignified — the extreme measures taken by the”MSM” to advance their theme — Mitt or Newt, which will it be? — was shocking even for my jaded sensibilities.

The other “candidates” were allowed a place to the side, and constantly made to look like pretentious and preposterous child hecklers. The two sponsored candidates occupied the center. They wore their best solemn dignity mask. The cameras, Leni Riefenstahl-like, pointed up at them adoringly. The bulk of the questions to the sillies that occupied each flank were of the form, how do you respond to the statements just made by the real candidates?

However, let’s not be too easy on most of the flanking faux-candidates. Most of them are also stooges of the “MSM,” put on the stage intentionally to distract attention and dilute the distribution of loyalty of the nationalist and conservative base within the goy population.

Rick Santorum is surely the silliest of all. I have earned the right to ridicule that whore, having cast one of the votes in 2006 that ousted him from the Senate in the last election I participated in. It is not at all that Pennsylvania is a “liberal” state. It is not. It is two cities separated by Alabama, as Carville rightly noted. Moreover, the “city” at the left end is hardly an east-coast style liberal city: indeed, with the right leadership, it has the potential to be a true right-wing bastion. To some extent, this is true of the one at the right end as well, and even the dark vote is exaggerated in its influence by all the dead people that still vote there. And that could be remedied. No matter what the “MSM” tells you, Santorum was not defeated because of his anti-abortionism. Santorum’s single non-negotiable stance is loyalty to Israel.  This is what defeated him, even if most voters would have been unable to articulate it. They felt a rage at Bush’s series of unjustifiable and unending wars, and rightly blamed Santorum for being part of that crowd. The rage was so palpable that our rulers, even armed with their Diebold voting machines, did not dare throw it to him this time.

In this debate, it was especially ludicrous that Santorum’s chosen sound-bite du jour was to keep repeating how successful he has been as a politician, in distinction from the other flanksters.

Then you had the Minneapolis chick. She’s not bad looking. The cameramen kinda ruined it for her, at least amongst the males, by constantly panning to her adoring, gawking wussman of a husband. Then again, her job was undoubtedly only to pick up and nullify the soccer-mom vote, so no biggie. Someone should have coached her that Cain is no longer in the running, however. Her irrelevance was a little obvious.

There was Rick Perry. I want to say something about him, but I literally can’t remember a single thing he said. It doesn’t matter — it’s obvious by their own statements that the “MSM” has decided to kill him off for the remainder. They can always keep him in the back pocket if Newt and Mitt both flame out later on, but, aside from that… enough said.

Finally, you had the only honest man on the stage, Ron Paul. He was given, what, maybe 90 seconds total? You see, because RP does not make an exception for Israel in his position that we should stop subsidizing foreign regimes, the “MSM” tags him as an anti-Semite. The fact that he wants to audit the Fed adds fuel to the fire, and sets them into a barely controlled rage. How dare someone suggest that the makers and keepers of our national currency should be audited and accountable to the unwashed goyim! It really is shocking. He must be an anti-Semite.

Their first line of defense is to ignore such a man into oblivion, if only they could. When they are forced to come up for air for a brief moment, they chuckle, “of course, Ron Paul is unelectable, but…” And indeed he is unelectable, in that he will die mysteriously if he starts winning too many primaries. Like the Godfather presciently observed in his great speech, he will be accidently shot by a security officer, or hang himself, or be struck by a bolt of lightning. Indeed, he is unelectable. However, that does not stop me from sending him money, because I am an Anglo-Saxon. We believe in supporting lost causes.

Little Davy B. cannot understand that. He wants always to back a winner, in the name of incremental progress. But the irony is, backing those kind of winners always leads to defeat. I was already an adult during the Reagan Revolution, and during the first Gingrich Revolution, both of which were “successful” they say.  But can anyone seriously suggest that, compared to 1980, we are the tiniest increment closer toward being a healthy nation?

The sudden rise, almost as remarkable as that of George Bush in 1999, of serial polygamist Newt Gingrich in 2011, is proof of the existence of the, ahem, “MSM.” He has no objective credibility, starting with the significance of taking an oath of office, on any issue except loyalty to Israel.

Indeed, the sole point of heated contention between him and Mitt was on Israel. There was a brief tossing of fur and bluster. I forget who said what… something like, Gingrich made a heroic and fearless defense of some plain injustice perpetrated by Israel, and Romney courageously countered that… only Israel should be allowed to make statements about the morality of their own actions. Something like that. It was really heated.

This debate was the first time I have ever heard Mitt himself speak. He was surprisingly articulate and urbane. Abstracting from who he is and what he stands for, I liked him.

But think about it. The only honest man on the stage would surely be assassinated by the “power behind the throne” if he ever mounted a serious challenge. Besides him, the most “reasonable” sounding man is a man that believes that Martians have coitus and produce gods, one of which we are supposed to revere as “our Father” and aspire to become like. This is what America has incrementally become.

Dixie Ministries
1660 S. Lumpkin St. #9
Athens, GA 30606

Mind you, I haven’t read the book, and don’t intend to. Enough can be gleaned from the interview with Rhodes and a quick google search to piece the story together.

Here is the official story. The 1930s Hollywood vixen was actually “Austrian-American.” She escaped the Reich after the rise of Nazism, leaving her husband, who after all hob-nobbed with Nazi industrialists. Meeting Hollywood studio head Mayer in London, she was offered a second-tier position in the studio, which she declined as beneath her. Figuring out which ocean liner he was to sail back to America in, she booked passage and during the voyage, found ways to demonstrate her great acting skills, at length changing his mind and landing a seven-year contract for the equivalent today of $3,000 per week. In America, she became the top celebrated beauty of the silver screen, but she was much more than that: she was a veritable rocket scientist. She submitted a patent application for frequency-hopping communications to guide torpedoes. The US government quickly tagged the patent as secret due to its value in the pending war. The Navy sat on it, however, little realizing what an advanced and powerful idea it was. Eventually, the patent rights expired, and poor Hedy never made a dime from it — not even a pat on the back and an attagirl… until now.

That is the official story.

However, it is utterly improbable that this promiscuous, self-advancing strumpet “invented” frequency-hopping, especially since there is a far more plausible explanation for how she would have come to the idea: the regular gathering of German industrialists around the dining room table of her first husband, as her puff machine freely admits was the case. So let us piece together the story of her life more believably, using the same facts as NPR and Wiki give us, but filling in a few that are buried in the footnotes.

Born in Vienna in 1913, Hedwig Jewess Kiesler was a wild girl already at a young age. Starring in the Weimar Republic-era porn film Ecstasy, in which at age 19 she was depicted with full frontal nudity and more — I won’t go into the details on this family-friendly site, but they are easily obtainable, and rather shocking even by today’s standards. No doubt this brought her to the attention of the man that would become her first husband, one F. Mandl, yet also infuriated him with jealousy, a phenomenon that is familiar enough. So he cloistered her in his castle, where he “took her to meetings with technicians and business partners. In these meetings, the mathematically talented (sic) Lamarr (sic) learned about military technology.” (Wiki) (No evidence is presented that she was mathematically talented, and the name “Lamarr” was adopted later at Mayer’s request.) At any rate, in 1937, probably nervous about the rise of National Socialism — or was it just her girlish pride and overweening ambition? –, she abandoned her husband and went to London. Meeting Louis Jew Mayer, she was offered a measly role, but on the ship to America showed him her real talent. Anyone familiar with Hollywood of that day cannot help but believe this involved re-enacting scenes from Ecstasy with him, while he eventually panted out, “$3000 a week, seven years, ahhh.” Sucked into the movie system, she portrayed the vixen again but in the more toned-down habit of American film-making of that period, i.e. hint at, don’t show. As the war heated up, she started to spill the secrets of her tribal enemies that she had learned around the dinner table. The US government hushed them up, possibly because of the military benefit for themselves, or possibly — my guess — to prevent German protests of the spy in our midst.

C.S. Lewis observed that traitors will be used by the enemy, but never trusted or admired. Yet this “Austrian American” is supposed to be nothing but admirable, helping the US in its just war against the Nazis as well as being praised as a great beauty. In reality, her case can be used as a good example of how we should think of nationality, loyalty, and betrayal, which is quite different than how our rulers want us to think of it. It can be illustrated by studying the entry under each category as our rulers want us to think, vs. reality:

Even the ubiquitous mention of her beauty must be a deliberate meme to try to overcome the common perception of jewish ugliness. Hedwig was not a bad lookin’ tomato, about as pretty as a typical white woman; but there were thousands of Midwestern and Southern girls that were (and are) far more beautiful than any picture I have seen of her on internet scours. Face it, she was puffed up down and every which way, and it continues.

See how cleverly our rulers spin the ugly truth.

In short, there is a lesson here. The white people of America were closely-related to the Germans as parallel branches from the same trunk of humanity. Hedwig’s tribe is quite different. She was not betraying her people by giving away German secrets. Our rulers know this, but they don’t explain. Instead, they tacitly portray her as “one of us,” the good guys, and not, a termite that aided us in our wicked fratricide.

Part 2: Religion

The value of the book resides entirely in the lucid and irrefutable summary of Part 1.  Part 2 starts off bad enough, using a higher-critical scissors to trim the Bible down to a kernel that suits Griffin’s purpose. (It is interesting, however, that once a statement in the gospels survives being pressed through the liberal sieve, he does seem to regard it as authoritative at some level). But it gets much worse. He needs a credible theory of “the demonic” to explain how imperialists could be so wicked as to execute a false-flag operation like the 9-11; but without a devil, as that would be mythic. With this motivation, he launches into an exposition of Process Theology only slightly less mythic than Mormon cosmology. In the beginning was God and matter; there was no creation ex nihilo; God shapes and persuades the matter as best He can, always trying to get it stay on the moral path; but the matter, especially after evolving into complex organisms like humans, has a mind of its own that is metaphysically autonomous from God and thus can assert evil. (Insert Twilight Zone theme.) He calls it Semidualistic Monotheism (p. 137).

There are metaphysical, ethical, and epistemological problems with this dualism that are fatal. Here, I take the time to highlight just one.  Griffin seems to think that if there was a big blob of matter that was a se, self-existent, and a god that was also a se, then that god might glance over at the blob of matter and say to himself, “self, I think I will go make something out of that blob.”

But this is a gross anthropomorphism. The independent god would not “see” the blob at all. He would not feel it. It would not exist for him.

We can see and feel things because our bodies are subject to electomagnetic forces just like the stuff we see and feel out there. If this were not the case, we would not see anything. If our “arm” swung down against a “table,” it would sail right through without a break. Take away the electromagnetic force, and floors, tables, roofs, walls, and so forth, simply don’t exist for us.

He tries to avoid this problem by saying that knowledge mediated by causal sequences is characteristic of creatures alone (p. 136). As if appealing to the Creator/creature distinction can help this ontology! The living and true God knows all thing immediately, because he is the master of them: his thoughts define them; but Griffin’s god, surrounded by darkness and unfulfilled potentiality, needs a third something between himself and his balky Gegenstand, to establish the contact. Moreover, for Griffin’s god to “find” the blob of matter, he and it would have to “reside” in the same space as it were. But what is the origin of that space? If it is from the god, then how did the eternal matter, being heterogenous to his nature, squeeze into it? If it is from the matter, how did the god enter in? Or, it is a framework in which both exist, in which case then we need to find the living and true God who defines the common framework.  Griffin’s god and matter would never have found each other.

It is embarrassing that Prof. Griffin saw fit to go into this, and that the publisher permitted it.

Part 1: The 9-11 Events

In stark contrast, Part I, which lays out the evidence that 9/11 was quite different than what the U.S. national government has told us, is quite good, both for logic and brevity.

He correctly sandbags against the typical name-calling. President Bush and 9/11 Commissioner Philip Zelikow have

warned against “outrageous conspiracy theories.” What do these men mean by this expression? They cannot mean that we should reject all conspiracy theories about 9/11, because the government’s own account is a conspiracy theory, with the conspirators all being members of al-Qaeda. (p. 35)

Griffin’s summary of the case against the Government Story of 9/11 can be sorted under several categories.

Physics

This includes things like the fact that burning kerosene only heats up to about a thousand degrees less than the melting point of steel (p. 36). The problems are nicely summarized in pages 35-44. One observation he makes had escaped my attention before, yet is devastating: if the floors really had “pancaked” down on each other, thus explaining the verticle collapse into its own footprint, then the steel columns should have been seen sticking up through it.

Intuitively, most people probably think that a skyscraper is like dozens of crates stacked up on each other, each crate representing a story. Then, as each crate collapses into a pancake, starting at the top, the added weight crushes the next crate, and combined mass falls down to the next crate, and so on.

However, this is not how a skyscraper is constructed. Instead, one should imagine massive steel columns (47 of them) which, tied together and reinforced, form the load-bearing core all the way to the top of the building. Then, each floor is “hung” on this core. So, if under the right conditions, the floors started to pancake down on each other, nevertheless the columns would stick through and still be visible.

The 9/11 Commission

simply denied the existence of the forty-seven core columns, saying, “The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped.” Voila! With no forty-seven core columns, the main problem is removed. (40f.)

The NIST tried a little harder:

The NIST Report handled this most difficult problem by claiming that when the floors collapsed, they pulled on the columns, causing the perimeter columns to become unstable. This instability then increased the gravity load on the core columns, which had been weakened by tremendously hot fires in the core, which, NIST claims, reached 1832°F, and this combination of factors somehow produced “global collapse.”

However, Griffin dissects NIST with two whacks:

First, NIST’s claim about tremendously hot fires in the core is completely unsupported by evidence. As we saw earlier, its own studies found no evidence that any of the core columns had reached temperatures of even 482°F, so its theory involves a purely speculative temperature. Second, even if this sequence of events had occurred, NIST provides no explanation as to why it would have produces global — that is, total — collapse. The NIST Report asserts that “column failure” occurred in the core as  well as the perimeter columns, but this remains a bare assertion. There is no  plausible explanation of why the core columns would have broken or even buckled, so as to produce global collapse at virtually free-fall speed, even if they had reached such temperatures. (41)

Sequence of events

The Sequence problem has to do with the consistency of alleged events — the timing of phone calls, meetings, and movements, with respect to the timing of the publicly knowable events — where was Cheny when the second plane hit, that kind of thing. In addition, there is the question of why — NORAD standing down or at least fumbling, intercept planes nearby not being ready. As much detail as the reader can stomach is ably summarized in Chap. 4, Flights of Fancy (pp. 57-75).

Investigations

The government investigations, notably the 9/11 Commission’s and the NIST report, are what most people rest their confidence in. It is probably not so much belief in the veracity of the government so much as the impossibility of the contrary: it seems incredible that so many people could collude to deceive without someone blowing the whistle.

Nevertheless, there are facts about these reports that need to be remembered:

1. The official narrative changed through several revisions as skeptics pounced on contradictions (pp. 57-75).

2. Facts that remain embarrassing are simply ignored into oblivion (e.g. 9/11 Commission on the 47 columns, mentioned above [pp. 40,41]; others discussed p. 16, pp. 80-82).

3. Other problems are dealt with by pure arbitrary assertion, without evidence — (e.g. the NIST report on the same problem [41]; more on p. 35).

How do we reconcile these difficulties with the common man’s feeling that a conspiracy of such magnitude is not possible?

The answer is, it is not necessary that very many of the investigators would be in on the scam — indeed, perhaps not any of the rank and file.  Most of them are just ordinary people doing their job, and their job was not to discover the most probable perpetrator from a clean slate, but rather, “show how al Qaeda did it.” And in terms of that non-falsifiable premise, the investigators did their investigation quite diligently.

That this is exactly how they proceeded is ludicrously illustrated in one incident. Just days before the event, a huge number of PUT options were taken out on just the very two airlines involved in the hijackings. This allowed the holders, after the event, to “put” the stock to the writer of the option at the pre-plummeted price, making millions of dollars. There is strong prima facie suspicion that the purchasers knew what was coming down. The government’s explanation for this is telling for their whole approach:

The 9/11 Commission tried to show that these suspicions were unfounded. Its most important claim was that the purchases of put options for United Airlines do not show that anyone other than al-Qaeda had foreknowledge of the attacks, because 95 percent of these options were purchased by “[a] single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda.” (p. 80)

And they roared with laughter, Solzhenitsyn’s equivalent narrative would add.

We can see what value should be put on those investigations.

The Inhumanity

For me, at the end of the day, it is the human narrative that makes the official conspiracy theory incredible. It is bad enough that 19 skinny Arab boys, entering single file Indian style with their box-cutters (and how did the investigators figure that out again?), are able to overwhelm the crews — who are generally tough guys, often former military — and succeed every time. Then, right after the fight of their life and commission of grisly, bloody murders, the corpses still lying around, they “get behind the wheel” for the first time ever, and find these targets and steel their nerves to blow right into them. Try this while speeding scary fast down a hill on your bike, then multiply the velocity by 20. Yet these Arab boys did it, every time without fail.

But it gets better. One of the boys, slated to board flight 11 from Boston, decides to make an excursion to Maine the day before. No one can figure out why. It will necessitate hopping on a commuter flight to connect to the big one the next morning. Imagine risking the whole operation if the puddle-hopper were to be late! And sure enough, it is late — not so late that Atta cannot board Flight 11, but too late for his luggage to get transferred, and so the authorities can now retrieve some smoking guns. And what is in his bags?

Flight simulation manuals for Boeing airplanes, a copy of the Koran, a religious cassette tape, a note to other hijackers about mental preparation, passport and will. (p. 17)

Think about it. I suppose Atta was thinking he would cram during the last hour before the “final exam” on how to fly the big Boeing. In case he would get bored with that, he could always read a bit of the Koran or listen to a tape. But the real howler is the will. He is about to self-immolate in a towering inferno. What possible good to anyone would it do to have his will burning up along with him?

I can’t believe a human would behave like this, even if I try. But I can very well believe that some dim-witted police-state bureaucrat assigned to this detail of the planning would include all those items in the packet, since each has its place in ratifying the government’s story.

All of this I mention, despite the fact that “the flight manifests that have been released have no Arab names on them. The 9/11 Commission Report simply omits any mention of this problem.” (p. 16) But we have to start somewhere.

Meanwhile, the boys that hijacked American flight 77

reportedly executed a 270-degree downward spiral, which according to some pilots would have been impossible for a Boeing 757 even with an expert pilot. Hanjour, moreover, was known as ‘a terrible pilot,’ who could not even fly a small airplane” (p19).

During all this, the W was yaking away to the schoolkids in Florida. He continued to yak even after the second tower was hit. This is not how a President would behave if an unexpected attack of unknown scope were occurring.

Conclusion

Despite its flaws, this book presents a succinct summary of the facts such that it is hard to imagine that anyone intelligent, honest, and diligent could continue to believe the government’s conspiracy theory of what happened on 9/11.

It is interesting to note the identity of orthodox Lutheranism with orthodox Reformed doctrine on a number of points. Specifically, there is little even to quibble about in Preus’ exposition of sin (chap 5), the bondage of the will, man’s passivity in conversion (chap 6), repentance (chap. 7), grace (chap 8),  justification on the basis of Christ’s merit alone (chap 9), sola fide and its object (chap 10, 11, 12, 13). Yet it is helpful to see the basic tenets of our belief scanned with a different order and tone, and I urge Reformed thinkers to read this book. In fact, it would not be a bad idea to use it as a text for the Soteriology section in Seminary. If we start using each other’s material as much as possible, it could eventually pave the way to a new effort at rapprochement between our communions, not in the cheap ecumenism of modernism, but in terms of clarification of orthodoxy, and seeking a way that is as broad as possible without compromise.

In the remainder, I will discuss one point of difference with the Reformed church, and another point that can be made in terms of the Federal Vision movement in our day.

The conversation partner of the book is fellow Lutherans and, in the second place, Romanists, so we should not expect much focus on the issues between our churches. Nevertheless, differences do materialize. The ordo of justification and regeneration would need to be discussed (p.56). As always, the discussion should begin with some definitions and avoidance of inadvertent equivocation. Elsewhere, there is one statement that is unfortunate:

It was not only with Rome that the Lutherans differed on the doctrine of grace. Against the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination the Lutherans asserted that God’s grace extends equally to all, that Christ’s work of atonement is universal, and that the Gospel and grace of God are to be preached and offered to all seriously and without discrimination. p. 51

Only the denial of Limited Atonement wedged, in passing, in the middle of this statement is an accurate summary of a real difference with the Reformed Church, and even that must be nuanced. First, very few that claim Calvinism, and as far as I know, none that can claim descent from the magisterial Reformation (unless it should be Hoeksema and his followers) have denied that “the Gospel and grace of God are to be preached and offered to all seriously and without discrimination.”

Second, the “doctrine of predestination” is not contradictory per se with the notion that “God’s grace extends equally to all.” This is a point on which there is undoubtedly confusion in both camps. Predestination is not contradictory to universalism as such. If no one can be saved unless predestinated, and all men are saved, then all men are predestined. It would be other considerations, not the doctrine of predestination as such, that would cause one to conclude against universalism. Even though none of the disputants here are dogmatic universalists, it would still be helpful to be accurate as to the real sense and actual entailment of the underlying doctrines that seem to divide.

What makes us scratch our heads with Lutherans’ vehement denial of predestination, is how that radical rejection squares with the equally radical assertion of total depravity and monergism in salvation, and the consequent ascribing all the glory to God, which are the shining jewels of Lutheranism. I can only think of a few ways to square this aggregation of belief:

1. Christ’s atonement did take away all the guilt of all men, and thus all men are saved.
2. Christ’s atonement did take away all the guilt of all men, whereupon each starts again as a “new Adam” so to speak, from which position each falls away again and is judged for that second fall.
3. Though the guilt of all men was imputed to Christ in his sacrifice, his merits are not imputed to men until the moment of faith, and the decision of faith is what separates the saved from the lost.
4. Though it seems like Limited Atonement/Predestination is a necessary consequence of inherited depravity and monergism coupled with denial of universalism, we must maintain a sense of mystery here and not be too dogmatic because of tensions which that solution sets in motion under other headings.

(1) is denied by orthodox Lutherans, i.e. they deny universalism. (2) is possible logically but I have not seen it asserted by any Lutheran, and it would be a rather odd view of redemptive history, with many problems that are hopefully obvious. The first part of (3) is indeed asserted by Preus as the “blessed exchange,” an exchange that has two different moments:

Our sins were imputed to Christ at His suffering and death, imputed objectively after He, by His active and passive obedience, fulfilled and procured all righteousness for us. But the imputation of His righteousness to us takes place when we are brought to faith. (p.72)

Well and good, but it would seem that the difference between a saved man and a man that is finally lost would either lie in something different between them as to God’s act, or in them. If the latter, do I not have something to boast about — I was at least good enough to recognize what a good thing this salvation proffered to all is; but if the former, how does one avoid Election?

Now (4) seems like an acceptable via media. It could be that the Lutheran wants to avoid Particular Election because of the nature of faith which, as Luther so eloquently describes, looks to the face of God as propitious and gracious in Christ, even in the teeth of unending affliction; that the doctrine of Election shifts the focus from a God who shows himself gracious to the world, to some secret and unknowable decree, with all of the subjective conundrums this can lead to.

If this is the nub of the issue, I am listening. However, we would then expect, not pot-shots taken at the Calvinistic understanding, but rather the concession that the Calvinistic exposition seems right from a purely logical standpoint, but that mystery must be invoked at this point for the reason just given as well as others.

Federal Vision

Some Reformed critics of the Federal Vision have suggested that the latter veers in the direction of Lutheran thought. That would appear not to be the case, however. The Lutheran view appears to be strongly insistent on the topic known in our circles as “the active obedience of Christ,” and while it prizes the doctrine of union with Christ, it is as a consequence of justification which is complete.

In Lutheran theology justification is seen as having two parts: 1) forgiveness, or the non-imputation of sins, and 2) the imputation of a righteousness outside of us, a foreign or alien righteousness (justitia aliena), namely, the righteousness of Christ.What is this foreign righteousness? It is a righteousness which comes from God (Romans 1:17), but it is not His essential righteousness, not the righteousness by which He judges sinners, nor the righteousness by which He redeems them from their sins. Rather this divine righteousness revealed in the Gospel is the righteousness of His Son Jesus Christ. But again, it is not Christ’s essential righteousness, the righteousness of His divine nature. It is rather the righteousness of Christ, the God Man, which He fulfilled and accomplished and acquired for us. It is the saving righteousness of His obedience to the Father, His obedience under the Law, by which He obeyed the Law as our Substitute, and obeyed the will of the Father to die innocently as our Substitute, and thus to redeem us. (p. 59, references omitted, emphasis added.)

And again,

It is not possible to understand Luther as grounding the blessed exchange in the fact of the believer’s union with Christ. To do so would deny that the justitia aliena is imputed and would put the motifs in opposition to each other. Furthermore, union with Christ is the result of justification, not the other way around. (p.64)

Thus, it would seem as though the Federal Vision should not be given the escape hatch of being a move toward Lutheranism, at least with respect to the issues of active obedience, and union with Christ.

Robert Preus, Justification and Rome. (St Louis: Concordia Academic Press) 1997 Lib. of Congress BT764.2.P748

Reconstructed Frauenkirche and square

We need to understand clearly that in modern German parlance, “right wing extremist” means, anyone that wants to remember his ancestors slaughtered by the “Allies,” unless he simultaneously confesses that they richly deserved to be slaughtered. This is what the rulers in Germany think, and an analogous viewpoint is held by our rulers. Therefore, it is worth while to reflect on this matter a little. I will do so by highlighting an anecdote from my own travel in Germany.

I was in Leipzig in December 2006 when Passau police chief Alois Mannichl was non-fatally stabbed, apparently at the door of his house. Instantly all the media — radio, TV, and newspaper — area-bombed the news that a “presumed right-wing extremist” (vermutlich Rechtsextremist), still at large, had done the deed. Every half hour on the radio, the same notice was given out.

Mannichl was a fanatical “anti-Nazi.” He had actually gone so far as to have the grave of a German dug up when he heard that a flag of the Third Reich had been draped over the body. In occupied Germany, such symbols are illegal. Showing Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will is illegal. Singing the Horst Wessel song is illegal. “This symbolism is illegal! We must seize the evidence” he must have screamed. Even the dead lying six feet under have no rest from zealots like him.

Mannichl had told police that a young man of such-and-such height and with a crewcut and a tattoo on his neck, before he jabbed the knife, had shouted, “with greetings from the national resistance.”

At the bar in the hotel lobby I had struck up an acquaintance with an amiable German who worked as federal police in the border control department.  I expressed doubt that the evidence that had been made public logically entailed that the deed was connected with “right-wing extremism” or even right-wing non-extremism. He said, they would not be claiming this if the investigation had not shown it. He knew, as a policeman. Trust the system, I suggested. Ja, he said.

Within days, perhaps just hours, all the pundits and politicians, like a flock of chirping sparrows, raised a unison cry that the NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany) — styled by our rulers as “neo-nazi,” presumably because it openly favors the continued biological existence of Germans –, should be outlawed. Even though no connection between the NPD and the skin-headed attacker had been made public! I encourage our readers to do a google search. Dozens of articles making this demand at the time can be scanned.

No suspect was apprehended, month after month. A strange detail leaked out: the knife used in the attack apparently came from Mannichl’s own kitchen.

A year after the attack, a few articles could be found that sheepishly conceded that the wound was probably received by Mannichl in a domestic dispute in his own household. Officially, the investigation is still “open” — even though finding a right-wing extremist with a tattoo visible on his neck ought to be exceedingly easy in a surveillance state like occupied Germany!

Was there an apology to the NPD? Was there an admission that there was a rush to judgment without sufficient evidence? Will anti-nazi Mannichl be indicted for making fraudulent statements?

To ask it is to answer it. Of course not.

Now, a little more than two years after the incident, a human chain is to be formed to keep the “right wing extremists” from honoring their slaughtered ancestors.

In a future post, I will document the extent to which censorship has already been put in place in Germany, and increasingly, here as well.

The Gulag is being constructed all around us, brick by brick. But this time, not a shot will need to be fired. The memory of Dresden stands as a reminder of what our rulers can do and will do if necessary. But they also have learned that mind-control is a much more convenient form of power than shooting guns.  No blood to mop up. Much cleaner.

(I. plausibility of big picture and motive)

1. The logistics needed to support the official story are stupendous

The number of total victims claimed used to vary wildly. In the 1980’s, a cousin of mine returned from an official tour and proclaimed to us with wild eyes that the number exterminated was actually over 20 million! Usually, however, the number of non-jewish victims is always kept just a little below that of the jewish victims, i.e. 5 million compared to their six. So stick with that for a moment.

As a budding Physicist, I was encouraged from a young age to visualize quantities, not just memorize them. If a dinosaur is said to be 30 feet tall, I look at a building and imagine a head poking in through a third-story window. That makes it vivid. We were also trained to do “order of magnitude” sanity checks of our calculations. One of my students carried out this agenda in a clever way. He supposed that every time a tire rotated, a one- atom- thick radius of rubber was removed by contact with the pavement. He then looked up the inter-atomic spacing of rubber, and calculated how long a tire should last. To order-of-magnitude, the tire life came out to be approximately right. That is the right way to test a model in a preliminary way.

Now, the serious accounts of the holocaust suggest that it took place mainly over a period of about two years — say, mid 1942 to mid-1944. Say there were six “death camps.” Then the average camp had to dispatch about 2 million victims, or 1 million per year. That is 20,000 per week, or 4,000 per day, if weekends or other rest days are allowed for.

4,000 per day, day in, day out, gassed, incinerated, and disposed of, for two years without letup, during the time that a desperate war was being waged, in which the Wehrmacht often had to resort to horses and wagons for its own logistics. Look up how long it takes a crematorium to incinerate one body with a Google search, and continue the calculation.

Perhaps, as Rocco in Godfather 2 said, “difficult; not impossible.” But almost impossible. Maybe impossible. It staggers the imagination in any case.

It was this kind of thought that first made me, with my background, open to the possibility of holocaust research. But it took years before I could work up the courage to actually start doing it.

2. There is more than one big-picture narrative, and these are contradictory

For example:

“No one knew” about the holocaust. That’s why it was rarely or never referred to explicitly by the officials.

On the other hand, “everyone knew” (e.g. the movie Amen.) That’s why the mass destruction of the German cities is justified, and never-ending reparations.

Likewise, at Treblinka, the bodies were dug up and burned, and everything bulldozed over without a trace, to remove all evidence prior to the allied victory.

On the other hand, “exterminations continued to the last day of the war” (e.g. the film We Were So Beloved).

Listen to enough discussions of the story with ears perked up, and such  contradictory covering propositions will quickly be discovered. We know from logic that once contradictions are allowed, anything can be proved.

3. If the Germans had set the goal of systematic extermination, bullets to the back of the head would have been much more efficient and cost-effective

The Judeo-Bolsheviks knew better, when they massacred the Ukrainians. Wouldn’t the Germans have learned from their superiors at the art of mass-murder?

4. The claim of having the goal of genocide — that is, completely eliminating the jew from the world — is not plausible, in that it was known that millions of jews had taken up residence in the US (for example)

Indeed, the Germans regarded the US as effectively a jewish client state.

For years the goal of the National Socialists was to induce the jews to leave, as can be seen in the film We Were So Beloved, for example. They knew many thousands of jews had emigrated to lands of safety, at the behest of the Nazis themselves. It is quite impossible to imagine rational people thinking that they could pull off a global extermination.

There is no evidence, contrary to the bar-room chatter, that Hitler had the goal of “taking over America,” let alone the world. On the contrary, Hitler envisioned a four-power division of hegemony between the Germans, the Japanese, the British, and the Americans. (See, for example, the Teaching Company’s series, World War II: A Military and Social History, conducted by Penn professor Thomas Childers.) The British indignation was not at the thought of someone “taking over the world,” but at having their own position of primacy challenged.

Thus, the idea that Hitler’s goal was to successively mop up all the remaining pockets of jewry, and thus succeed in “genocide,” is simply impossible.

(II. Rules of Evidence)

5. Much of the “evidence” comes from a group which not only had just been in a desperate war with the Germans, but was their ideological enemy.

The pictures of mountains of hair, and mountains of eyeglasses, and so forth, come almost exclusively from the Soviets. The Soviets just ten years earlier had conducted the infamous “show trials” in their own land. The Soviets had perfected the art of cinematographic propaganda in the earlier decades, led by Eisenstein. The Soviets had a visceral hatred of the Nazis exceeding even the Nazis’ hatred of them. The Soviets are now known to have blamed massacres on the Germans that were carried out by themselves — the Katyn Forest massacre, for example. They are known, documented liars.

6. Most of the “evidence” supplied by the Western allies has had to be modified or abandoned in the course of time

In the 1970s, mention of the word “Dachau” elicited the same horrified shudders that “Auschwitz” does today. But when I visited that camp in 1979, imagine my surprise to see that German historians had been permitted by their rulers to place a sign near the “gas chamber” that declared that no one was gassed to death at Dachau.

Likewise, any number of American WW2 veterans involved with the “liberation” of Buchenwald swear up and down that they “saw the evidence of the holocaust” with their own two eyes.  Yes, the conditions were harsh. Yes, many perished there in the cold or due to unjustly harsh treatment — the Reformed pastor Paul Schneider for example. But no one suggests anymore that anyone was gassed to death at Buchenwald. Buchenwald was a punitive labor camp: nothing more, nothing less.

Today, the idea that jews were turned into lampshades has been exploded.

Likewise, the stories about human soap — now abandoned.

Human hair for mattresses — absurd. No mattress stuffed with human hair has been produced. Think about it. If human hair had been seen as a desirable commodity, would not the Germans have first started a program of human-hair recapture from the civilian barbers — where the hair would be clean, not lice-infested, and plentiful, coming from repeat customers? Yet no such program has ever been made public.

By an amazing coincidence, it appears that all of the camps liberated by the Western allies have now been cleared of the charge of being death camps. All the camps still listed as “death camps” were liberated by the Soviets.

7. Even the Soviet accounts have been slowly revised and otherwise rendered suspect

It is now admitted that the main gas chamber at Auschwitz was reconstructed after the fact — “to reflect how it really was,” of course. (See other details about Auschwitz in the three videos that begin here.) The number of victims at Auschwitz has been revised downward by millions, yet the total number is never affected.

8. There is precious little actual eye-witness testimony

Examining the accounts carefully, one often finds the testimony qualified by “I heard that…” or “someone said that…” This is known technically as hearsay.

9. The detailed “eye-witness” testimony is often mutually contradictory

Some of the original “eye-witnesses” claimed the death chambers worked by electrified floors. Some said the floors were designed to open up and dump the bodies into railroad cars underneath that could haul the corpses quickly to their graves.  Others said they worked by evacuating the air. Others said the holocaust occurred by people being thrown alive into burning pits. None of these tales are accepted in the official account any more.

10. The detailed “eye-witness” testimony is often absurd

Adolf Eichmann spoke of blood spurting up out of the burial grounds.

The prison confession of Rudolf Gerstein, whose story is amplified in the movie Amen, is a serious case in point. His details are simply impossible. The pile of clothes would be ten stories high. The body counts would pack more than one victim per cubic foot of space. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), Gerstein died in Allied prison under suspicious circumstances before he could be cross-examined.

11. Eye-witness testimony that runs against the official story is always discounted, making the account look like a non-falsifiable dogma

Red-cross reports on camp inspections, for example.

12. Video pictures, absent verbal testimony giving the interpretation, are nearly worthless

We have all seen the footage of bulldozers pushing emaciated bodies into mass graves after the war. But who were the victims? Germans starved to death by the infrastructure destroyed by Allied napalm? Prisoners that died of typhus because the means for dealing with it was similarly destroyed? Without a narrative, including dates, times, and places, raw images are worthless.

At Buchenwald, there is a picture showing a mass of bodies. As time ran out toward the end of the unconditional-surrender destruction of Germany, these corpses could not be buried or cremated in time. It is now known that Buchenwald was not a death camp.

The maker of the Night and Fog documentary admits they were operating with little documentation. See my review for some of the absurdities in that film. Staring at the images in that “documentary” confirmed me as a skeptic. (It can be dangerous taking evidence too seriously.)

13. Doing the “numbers” by census report is unsound

First, jews are reluctant to be counted, even by themselves (see Wex’s explanation for this). Second, a reduction in number obviously does not prove foul play, let alone identify the killer. Third, some census figures I have seen show the jewish population increasing during WW2. This matter needs to be gotten to the bottom of.

14. The general German concession of guilt does not pass the smell test

Nuremburg led to a remorseful owning-up by the Germans. It was neither, “Ja, we did that, but you need to hear our side,” nor, “we didn’t know about it therefore we are not guilty.” There is just stunned, remorseful silence: a peculiar combination of assuming guilt even while incognizant.

For example, the interview of Traudl Junge that frames the movie Downfall shows that she was unaware of the holocaust, though she served as the personal secretary of Hitler. Yet she feels guilty because Sophie Scholl was her age, and Sophie “knew.” But the movie expanding on Sophie Scholl’s life does not put words in her mouth different what any pacifist might say in general terms. What is the chance that Sophie, living in Munich, “knew” while Hitler’s personal secretary did not know?  How does Traudl now “know”? Because the Nuremburg Trial proved it. All the years at Hitler’s side, right up to the end, divulged not a hint of it.

(III. General nature of historical evidence)

15. The evidence for the holocaust is quite different from the evidence for other historical “facts”

Think of the difference between denying the holocaust and denying, say, the existence of George Washington, or denying that the battle of Gettysburg took place.

To do either of the latter examples, one would have to deny the entire continuity of the historical narrative, including finally one’s own existence in a coherent world. But to deny the holocaust, the rest of the narrative of history remains intact.

Suppose someone denied that the Battle of Gettysburg ever happened. But there is the field that can still be visited, with bullets still findable in the soil, and mass grave ditches. There are the official field reports. There are the thousands of soldiers’ memories, that were integrated into the shared experience of the nation and, above all, their families: widows and comrades, that lived next door to others, and whose descendants still live among us. There were the books written later by the generals that were actually there. These all match the newspaper accounts written as the event was happening. At the end of the day, there is no integrated history of the world if there was no Gettysburg: then the whole world might as well be a figment of my imagination.

This comprehensiveness and coherence that would be lost is hardly the case if it turned out there was no holocaust.  The stories of the players and the newspapers are perfectly coherent and comprehensive without a holocaust: indeed, neither the newspapers nor official statements of the time even mention a holocaust in any kind of compelling way.

(IV. Evidence of fraud)

16. Many of the salient elements of the narrative were broached before the corresponding fact could have occurred

The “six million” figure was broached several times, long before it could have been a fact.

My favorite is the reference to “gassings” in the Charlie Chaplin movie The Great Dictator, produced in 1940, and long before the alleged “final solution” proposal at Wannsee. (A correspondent suggests it was a reference to WW1 gas. However, since the Allies also used gas in WW1, it would have been awkward for Chaplin to bring this up in his parody of Hitler.)

17. The Nuremburg trials have many marks of a show-trial

The Soviets were major players as prosecutors and judges, coming off their own show-trials of the previous decade. The American staff was loaded with resentful and vengeful jews. There was very little cross-examination. There is evidence that torture was used and threatened.

18. The number of “holocaust survivors” is huge, and continues to grow

Just a couple months ago, our local rag trotted out another victim of suffering during the Holocaust, who had remained completely silent for sixty-five years!

Before they think about it, people think the vast number of survivors is proof of the holocaust. It is the opposite. It is evidence against.

19. The story has grown, and grown, and grown

Evidently, the memoirs of Churchill, Eisenhower, and de Gaulle make scant mention of the Holocaust by any name. The director of the movie Judgment at Nuremburg states that he found that college audiences found his material incredible at the time — the early sixties. The Holocaust only became big business in the seventies. And it continues to grow.

Normally, don’t we expect details of history to be most vivid near the event, and fade with the passage of time?

(V. politicized nature of subject)

20. Revisionists are attacked in a way that is entirely unfair, ad hominem, and even criminal

Robert Faurisson has been beaten up physically, and endlessly reviled in print. Revisionists are routinely accused, without any evidence other than the content of their conclusions, of being neo-Nazis or fascists. Above all, see also #24.

The charge of “anti-semitism” as the only motive that could lead to questioning the story is question-begging. Perhaps the attackers should entertain the converse: could it be that seeing how questioners have been ridden roughshod over is the very thing that pushes some toward “anti-semitism”?

21. Questioning the official story is usually not answered by unassailable facts, but by appeal to the authority of the establishment guild

And this is particularly weak when we realize that the guild is self-perpetuating: dissenters are not allowed in, or are forcibly removed. When discussing the identity of King Tut, we might expect some objectivity from the academic guild, but when discussing a subject for which publishing the wrong answer will lead to losing the royally-rewarded tenure track, academics themselves should be honest enough to recognize their bias. Read the story of Germar Rudolf, and ask how many other academics you have ever met would be willing to sacrifice the cushy academic life for Rudolf’s destiny. Consider this list of people fired, exiled, and persecuted in Switzerland for doubting the story. Shame, and double shame!

Now add to this the threat described in #24. It is hardly surprising that the guild is united around one story.

The appeals to authority are often coupled with a condescending sneer that suggests that only perversity could even raise the question. Compare this to how someone that believed the earth were flat and the sun revolves around it would be answered. Can you imagine how absurd it would be if the only answer ever given to such a person were, “all the university Physicists disagree with you”?

Anyone – including non-Physicists — that can’t rattle off two or three infallible proofs that the earth is round and is rotating on its axis has no right to claim those beliefs.

Anyone that can’t rattle off half a dozen infallible proofs for the holocaust has no right to scoff at the questioner.

22. The manner in which jewish suffering is highlighted, and the suffering of others minimized, smacks of propaganda

The very term “holocaust” is virtually copyrighted. The Armenians are not allowed to refer to the Armenian holocaust. Nor are the Tutsi in Rwanda. Nor, the Cambodians under the Pol Pot. All these people are only allowed to mention their story as a footnote to the One Really Important Story.

23. Likewise, the way in which the noses of the “liberators” are rubbed in the muck smacks of propaganda

Virtually every American city of any size has a holocaust memorial. I thought we were the liberators, that we should be praised. No; we are to feel guilty also.

Finally, the clincher:

24. Almost everywhere in Europe, people that question the holocaust story are thrown in prison

Pacifist artist Ernst Zundel was dragged from his home in Tennessee, shipped to Canada, and then sent to Germany, where he sits in the slammer. Note that the charge of “inciting racial hatred” is identical to the “charge” of denying that the Nazis killed millions of Jews. Note also this chilling statement: “German prosecutors were able to seek his extradition on the ground that a Web site he ran was accessible in Germany.” What site is not accessible in Germany?  By this criterion, no one is safe that publishes such material on the web.

David Irving — thrown into the slammer in Austria for denying the holocaust – in a speech he had made seventeen years before!

Gerd Honsik  — extradited from Spain and thrown into the slammer in Austria – for holocaust denial

Gaston-Armand Amaudruz — Swiss citizen, thrown in prison – for holocaust denial

Fredrick Toben –  sentenced for publishing “anti-Semitic material” – which are detailed as (1) suggesting the Holocaust did not happen, (2) questioning whether there were gas chambers at the Auschwitz death camp, and (3) hurting some jews’ feelings by challenging their intelligence.

Some of these have already been freed. On the other hand, the list is not complete.

Not since the Gulag Archipelago was in full swing has the expression of heretical opinion been treated this way. Does anyone suggest throwing flat-earthers in prison, or Gettysburg-deniers? This shows that the holocaust is functioning as a state religion — in an age that pretends horror at religious persecution.

What academic wants to be thrown in prison, or (if he is American) put in a position of not daring to step foot into Canada or Europe?

What young academic wants to jeopardize his chance for the life-long gravy-train known as tenure?

What academic, tenured or not, wants to face a national campaign by ADL terrorists to have him removed from office and rendered unemployable?

Academics today is all about “getting funding.” What is amusing is that in the very era, our own, when every historian is keenly tuned in to the “material factors” that might have “influenced” the Nicean Council, or even a Luther, seem totally oblivious to the material factors that are patently and undeniably steering their own work!

The “academic consensus” in any matter that is so politically and (above all) financially charged as this subject is, has no value whatsoever. It is unfortunate, but true.

When people are thrown in prison for expressing a belief, it is virtual proof that something is going on with the power-holders other than commitment to truth.

Conclusion

These considerations do not prove that the holocaust story is false, but the consideration I have outlined do prove that investigating it is not a sign of insanity or bad faith. On the contrary, the mockers and persecutors of revisionists must answer the charge of bad faith, if not outright dishonesty.

The landscape has changed for me, and I think the landscape will be changed for anyone that takes a couple years, part time, to look into these matters.  For me, the burden of proof has decisively swung to the side of the received story.

Why does Westminster Theological Seminar continue to honor him with an awkward day off in the middle of the winter term? Anyone can guess: Because Martin Luther King, Jr. is a popular Negro, and they want to “reach out” to the Negro community with Reformed theology, by “showing solidarity” or whatever the current buzzword might be.

The only problem is, honesty is more important than being Reformed. And Negroes see right through the condescending prevarication of honkies that take this kind of stand.

If enough of them ever do adopt Reformed Theology, and do so honestly, then they will be the ones to rise up and condemn Westminster for this dishonest and immoral capitulation to political correctness. As a post-millennialist, I think that day will come. Or, perhaps WTS will have stopped this charade by then. That, too, would be a small yet significant sign to give one hope that progress is possible — or at least, an occasional correction of a wrong turn.