{"id":1323,"date":"2016-07-21T06:53:30","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T11:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ubfriends.net\/?p=1323"},"modified":"2016-09-22T08:28:45","modified_gmt":"2016-09-22T13:28:45","slug":"four-themes-in-mein-kampf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/four-themes-in-mein-kampf\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Themes in Mein Kampf"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"innerhitler\"<\/a>When I say I am an author who writes about taboo topics, I mean it. My newest book is about one of the most taboo topics–Hitler’s Mein Kampf<\/em>. The reading and research I did to prepare for this was enlightening and well worth setting aside the taboo and going beyond Godwin’s law<\/a>. In fact I sent a copy of my book to Mike Godwin and quote him in the book. Godwin did not write his law to stop all conversation about Hitler but to move us toward more thoughtful discussion<\/a>, with the hope to prevent another holocaust.<\/p>\n

in 2016, the 70 year German copyright expired, and so Hitler’s book is now available<\/a>. When one of my Facebook theology\/pastor friends, Tim Gilman, shared the article about the release of Mein Kampf<\/em>, I joined the heated social media discussion. At one point I remarked, “I could right a book about this topic!” Tim replied, “You should!”. And since Tim is a designer and connected to the publishing world, his company published the book. Here are some thoughts from my new\u00a0book, “Evil: Confronting Our Inner Hitler<\/a>“, that I would like to share with you. I find them highly relevant to America 2016.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Four themes besides racism<\/strong><\/p>\n

It should be\u00a0readily apparent to most\u00a0readers that Mein Kampf<\/em> is filled with racist thoughts and ideas. In my book I decide to go beyond the racism and attempt to discover what other themes drove Hitler and his rise to power. Was he purely and only a racist? We know how Hitler ended up, but how did he begin? How did a washed up wanna-be artist rise to such heights of evil?<\/p>\n

The title Mein Kampf<\/em> means “My Struggle”. I find\u00a0four themes that reveal Hitler’s struggle. Hitler wrote most of his book when he was jailed for the failed Beer Hall Putsch<\/a> uprising. It was a time of intense struggle.<\/p>\n

The four themes I find in Mein Kampf<\/em> are: struggle for beauty, struggle to\u00a0remove oppression, struggle for national unification, and \u00a0struggle to remove terror. In short, Hitler deeply desired beauty, freedom, unity and safety.<\/p>\n

“Taking the time to read Mein Kampf<\/em> is quite enlightening. The general themes of the early chapters are about Hitler\u2019s family life, especially his struggle with his father\u2019s will for Hitler to give up studying architecture and become a civil servant. At times Hitler sounds like a typical teenager arguing with his father about his future occupational choices. Hitler then quickly moves on to the bulk of the book where he expresses his political and pseudo-religious views of the condition of the German people, what caused their condition, and how to restore their country to greatness.” —Evil: Confronting Our Inner Hitler<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hitler – the master cult leader<\/strong><\/p>\n

To my amazement, all these themes keep weaving together. Perhaps this is just my own mind mixing the topics of Hitler, evil, cultic manipulation, religion and politics. Maybe I am crazy as some have pointed out…<\/p>\n

As I read Mein Kampf<\/em>, I find myself recalling my cult life days. I can easily imagine how educated, church-going Germans would be drawn in by Hitler\u2019s deceptive messages meant to manipulate people into following him. Hitler\u2019s writing uses an excess of words, with many repetitions of the same basic concepts. This is a tactic of harmful cult groups. In our campus cult, we would use many words but say very little. Propaganda was our friend. The purpose was not to educate or to enlighten, but to persuade active loyalty and obedience.\u00a0—Evil: Confronting Our Inner Hitler<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thoughts on Evil<\/strong><\/p>\n

After my review of Mein Kampf<\/em>, I share my thoughts on evil in general, and how to confront evil. I look to Jesus’ list of seven deadly sins<\/a>. In light of what Jesus calls evil, I find that America 2016 has much to learn from Germany 1932…<\/p>\n

In my observation, the melting pot that America once was, has solidified. The fire of inclusion of the \u201cother\u201d has gone out. Instead of saying to the world \u201cGive me your huddled masses\u2026\u201d, we say \u201cGo away\u2026 unless you have gold.\u201d We have separated into diametrically opposed camps: Republican vs Democrat, conservative vs liberal, pro-life vs pro-choice, black vs white, poor vs rich\u2014and the list goes on and on. We have forgotten how much we need each other. We have lost the sacredness of community.\u00a0—Evil: Confronting Our Inner Hitler<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I say I am an author who writes about taboo topics, I mean it. My newest book is about one of the most taboo topics–Hitler’s Mein Kampf. The reading and research I did to prepare for this was enlightening and well worth setting aside the taboo and going beyond Godwin’s law. In fact I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubfriends.org\/ubfriends2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}