Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 10
The speakers warn, “The same theology, given the same situation, will very likely create the same result,” using WWII Germany and the way people “didn’t want to know” what was happening; what teachings or emphases in today’s Christianity could produce similar moral blindness under pressure, and what would it look like to build churches that resist being “swept into it like a revival”?
Another way to ask: What teachings today could lead Christians to ignore evil when it’s costly to face it, and what would churches look like that resist getting swept along by that pressure?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
Based on the transcript, moral blindness grows when Christians keep a church-state theology that justifies coercion or violence, and when they replace Jesus’ teachings (enemy love, two kingdoms, practical obedience) with nationalist or power-seeking instincts.
- Dean warns: “The same theology, given the same situation, will very likely create the same result,” noting WWII-era “passionate, Bible-believing Christians supporting Hitler.”
- He recalls a Mennonite man describing Nazism: “It came on us like a revival… we were just swept into it.”
- Stephen explains how people got pulled in: Germany “was not treated well… he sounded like he’s bringing… relief,” and only later did the “really, really bad things” escalate.
- They admit complicity: German friends said, “We didn’t want to know it… We could have known it, but we didn’t want to know it.”
- Stephen says the “two kingdoms” teaching is “essential” to resist this, because mixing them repeats Constantine’s bad end.
- Dean insists the cure is returning to “the simplicity of Christ… the words of Jesus… meant to be put into practice,” not “esoteric… speculative theology.”