Metaxas: Attacks on Churches Motivated by Hatred of Authority and Ultimately of God
Radio talk show host and best-selling author Eric Metaxas sees the recent attacks on Christian statues and churches as signifying something much deeper and darker than anger at America’s history and heritage: a hatred of God.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson introduced a segment with Metaxas on Monday night by chronicling some violent actions taken against churches and church property recently.
In Boston, a statue of the Virgin Mary was torched over the weekend, while in Florida, a man drove his car into a church and then dumped gasoline into the entranceway and set it on fire.
Further, in California, a fire erupted at the 249 year-old San Gabriel Mission. Investigators are looking into the origin, but it came just days after the mission moved a statue of Franciscan Father Junípero Serra out of public view after other statues of the 18th century missionary were toppled elsewhere in the state over the last several weeks, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“I think a lot of the nastiness that is being directed at these statues, it really has to do with something deeper,” Metaxas told Carlson. “I hate to say it, but there’s something very dark. You saw this in the French Revolution. There was a hatred at the bottom of it of God, of any kind of authority.
“And these people are drunk with the idea that they can somehow be an authority themselves, that they can seize power,” he added.
Metaxas, author of “If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty” — went on to argue: “If you really want to cut to the chase, you forget about statues of generals and things, you go right for God.”
Carlson agreed, saying an acknowledgement of God would be an admission of the existence of an ultimate authority.
The Declaration of Independence makes four references to God, including him being the source of certain inalienable rights, as well as the “Supreme Judge of the world.”
The founders stated in the document that the purpose of government is to secure the people’s inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In other words, the founders were saying that authority appropriately exercised comes from God.
In an emailed statement to The Western Journal, Metaxas explained that what started out as a righteous response among protesters to the death of George Floyd has devolved into something else.
“Law and order and governments are instituted by God to protect the weak from the strong, who would abuse them and use them if given the opportunity, and just because there are bad cops and instances of ugly corruption doesn’t mean we throw the baby out with the bath water,” he said.
“Most Americans are hungry for law and order so that they can live their lives, but the forces of anarchy and fury that are taking this country over want to burn it all down.”
Metaxas pointed to the sad results of the so-called “Capitol Hill Organized Protest” zone in Seattle to emphasize that these forces really have no plan for what to do if they succeed in their goal of tearing down the government.
Further, he noted that history is replete with examples of revolutionaries overthrowing authority and then going after Christians and the institution of the church, whether it be the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, or Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in communist China.
“Many who signed on for what they thought was a good thing soon found themselves swept up in a rage that had no bounds and that could never be satisfied, as though envy of those with more, or envy of those in power had been deified and was itself being worshiped — and there can never be any satisfaction for those kinds of dark forces,” the author said.
In his Fox News interview, Metaxas offered the example of Nazi Germany’s attack on the Jewish people, of which Kristallnacht in 1938 marked a defining moment.
During the “Night of Broken Glass,” Nazis torched synagogues and vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses, according to History.com.
Approximately 30,000 Jewish men were also rounded up and taken to concentration camps.
Metaxas told Carlson he felt the mobs attacking Jews during Kristallnacht “were animated by the spirit of anti-Christ”
He recounted that German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood that the attacks on synagogues that night weren’t just about the Jewish people, but represented an “attack on God himself.”
Bonhoeffer was ultimately imprisoned and killed by the Nazi regime.
“I don’t like to use the word too lightly, but there’s something Satanic about it,” Metaxas said regarding mob rule.
“There is something about it that is an unbridled, roaring fury, and if you don’t treat it in the way that it needs to be treated, if you don’t deal with it with some force, really then you are allowing other people to be harmed.”
Metaxas urged Christians to oppose this spirit and to pray for a restoration of peace.
“I’m convinced that unless good people and people of faith especially stand up and boldly denounce what they see without fear of being called a racist or whatever the nom de guerre is today we will continue to see innocent people victimized in my own city of New York and in other cities and towns across the country,” he told The Western Journal.
“This is a deep spiritual ugliness that has hijacked what began as a legitimate grievance against an abuse of police power. It’s time we spoke up and prayed hard that God would restore order.”
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