Winston Churchill – That… Which Matters Most

World War II and Hitler

I don’t really know where to begin. Over the past year, there have been hundreds of challenges to the things that I grew up knowing and understanding about the world we live in, the world we were given after World War II. Some will immediately point out that this disqualifies me from saying anything at all, because I’m a Boomer. But I throw that back at you, what qualifies you from knowing anything at all if you cannot trust the eyewitness testimony of the generation that preceded you?

For the atheist, that question will mean nothing. But for the Christian, that means everything. If you cannot believe eyewitness testimony, then you cannot believe anything at all, for the Christian faith is built upon, and rests upon the testimony of eyewitnesses, and witnesses to those eyewitnesses (think of the gospel of Luke.) Yes, we also have the testimony of the Holy Spirit. I get that. Yet, even then, we still believe the testimonies of those who have had the Spirit testify to them. Our faith is built upon witnesses.

But my discussion here isn’t focused on the Christian faith, but the simple realities of World War II and Hitler.

This started about a year ago, when someone put forth the view point that Churchill was the true enemy in World War II, and that Hitler was really the good guy because he really wanted peace. (See Tucker Carlson intrerview).

For those of us who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, hearing the stories from our fathers, about the war, we know just how absurd this was. We knew, from eyewitness testimony, what Hitler was. We didn’t believe what we believed because it was official news from the State Department, or from CBS News, although the latter was much more trustworthy back then that it has been in the last 30 years.

For instance, during the mid-1970s when I would visit my step-mother who worked in the Galleria in Houston, I met the secretary in her office who was a refugee from Germany. She went through the war as a German citizen experiencing the rise of Hitler and the war itself. She told us of the speeches that Hitler gave. My step-mother asked the woman why she went along with it. The woman couldn’t explain it, but said it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Please note two things that didn’t need to be said: the secretary knew what Hitler had said and done, were wrong. She made no excuses for Hitler. She understood what he was. She also accepted her own culpability in it as well. She wasn’t proud of the fact.

(I believe there was a spiritual element to Hitler, and this is why he was able to sway so many. We also have reports of his religious beliefs. He really believed he was something of a savior for Germany. And no, he was not a Christian. To say that he was is to show complete ignorance of the man, and the Nazis as well as Christ.)

There was a woman in my first church as a pastor in the mid 1990s who had the tattoos on our her forearm. She was Jewish. She had been taken captive by the Germans and put in a concentration camp with the rest of her family. She made it out. Her family did not. She would only speak in vague ways of the horrors. What she went through still brought her to tears.

I would like to say that she was also a Christian. She never accepted Christ as far as I knew. She came to our church because she was lonely. We did the best we could to love her. But despite our efforts, she drifted off in another direction.

But we don’t need to rely only on eyewitness testimony. We can know from Hitler’s own words what he believed. In fact, this is the very reason that Churchill so opposed Hitler. Churchill read his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler’s own book about his life, and his beliefs of what should happen in Germany.

I confess, I have not read Mein Kampf. But I have read William Manchester’s excellent biography of Winston Churchill, The Last Lion, all three volumes. I have read William L Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a first edition copy that I got from my father. I have read Andrew Robert’s biography, Churchill: Walking With Destiny. And I have read Churchill’s own accounts of the war in The Gathering Storm.

Three of the four authors, actually lived during the war. They lived the war. Shirer was on the ground in Germany before the war, and was eventually kicked out when war was declared by Great Britain. He spoke both German and English. He gives firsthand accounts of what was taking place.

William L. Shirer

For example, Shirer wrote about the coming of Hitler in his chapter: The Nazification of Germany:1933-34, when 90% of the voting German population voted Hitler into power. The Nazi Party assembled on September 4th to take power.

“I watched him on the morning of the new day stride like a conquering emperor down the center aisle of the great flag-bedecked Luitpold Hall while the band blared for ‘The Badenweiler March’ and thirty thousand hand were raised in Nazi salute. A few moments later he sat proudly in the center of that vast stage with folded arms and shining eyes as Gauleiter Adolf Wagner of Bavaria read the Fuehrer’s proclamations:

The German form of life is definitely determined for the next thousand years. The Age of Nerves of the nineteenth century has found its close with us. There will be no other revolution in Germany for the next one thousand years!

Shirer continues:

“Even one returning to Germany for the first time since the death of the Republic could see that, whatever his crimes against humanity, Hitler had unleashed a dynamic force of incalculable proportions which had long been pent up in the German people. To what purpose, he had already made clear in the pages of Mein Kampf, and in a hundred speeches which had gone unnoticed or unheeded or been ridiculed by so many–by almost everyone– with and especially without the Third Reich (Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p 230).

William Manchester

Manchester was alive during this time, and fought in the Pacific theater. What he does in writing The Last Lion is show us the man who was behind defeating Hitler: Winston Churchill. Manchester takes us meticulously through Churchill’s life, beliefs, upbringing, education, and military career in order to help us see why he was the man of the hour to stand against Hitler. Yes, Manchester also shows us Churchill’s flaws. All these writers do, including Churchill himself. He was not a perfect man, or perfect hero. But he was a hero, for he stood against popular opinion of the day, against those who would have subjugated their own people for peace, against even friends, in opposing Hitler. He understood the danger. Manchester writes the following after the fall of Czechoslovakia:

Although the full scope of Nazi atrocities in Czechoslovakia was concealed from foreign correspondents, they could not be prevented from witnessing clubbings, the persecution of Jews, and the disappearance of Czech intellectuals once concentration camps had been built, wired, and equipped with watchtowers for machine guns and searchlights. There was no blinking the fact that this time Hitler had acted not as the champion of Germans living in a neighboring country but as a Genghis Khan bent upon pillage, enslavement, slaughter, and destruction.

The Czechs were the first Slavs he had subjugated. He frequently broke his promises; his threats he always made good. In a secret Führerordnung he decreed that the Czechs were to be “assimilier,” chiefly as “Sklavenarbeit” (“slave labor”) in the Reich; the others, “besonders die Intellektuellen” (“particularly the intellectuals”), were to be “entmanntet und ausgeschaltet” (“castrated and eliminated”). All this had been set forth in Mein Kampf, the best-seller read by few and dismissed by most of them as ravings. Churchill, virtually the only public man who had taken Hitler at his word, published a collection of his own Evening Standard and Daily Telegraph columns under the title Step by Step. Clement Attle wrote him, “It must be a melancholy satisfaction to see how right you were,” and Lord Wolmer wrote: “The book is a record of perspicacity and courage on your part”‘ (Alone, p. 398).

In reading all these volumes of pages about Churchill, Hitler, and World War II, I never once came across anything that would lead me to believe that Churchill was the enemy, or that Hitler was being misrepresented, or that millions of Jews were not indeed killed by the Germans. Hitler felt anyone who was to a German, or was a Communist, was to be eliminated.

Operation Barbarossa itself reflected the attitude of Hitler and his command. When Germany invaded Russia, their goal was to eliminate all those they captured because they knew with the coming of winter, they would not be able to support and feed all the prisoners of war they had captured.

Shirer, if I remember correctly, brought about the fact that it was a major mistake on the part of Hitler. His hatred for the Russians was so great, that he could not see the reality that many of those who were captured, thought of Hitler as a liberator, and were willing to fight for him, against the Soviets. But Hitler’s hatred ruled the day. Had he not killed off so may Russians who were captured, or surrendered, he could have easily captured Moscow and overthrown Stalin.

Conclusion

Now some might accuse me of Post War Consensus which Rich Lusk does a great job of explaining. I think that is just a label that the younger generation has grabbed on to to foist upon Boomers in an attempt to attack Boomers. It’s not my point to win over Generation X, or Millennials, or whatever generation pops up. But all this is important, as Rich Lusk wrote, “Everything you’ve been told is a lie.”

If we continue down this road, then we can know nothing at all about history, and more importantly about Christianity. After all, everything we know, everything… is rooted in history, whether the history is personal or national. So we have to be vigilant about what we do know. Hopefully, you have discovered the following:

Hitler had evil intentions for those not Germans. Yes, we can point to the fact that he was fighting for the blood and soil of his people, but he did so in an evil manner.
Hitler told the world what he was going to do in his book Mein Kampf.
Churchill read his book, and listened to his speeches, and opposed Hitler when everyone else was refusing to do so.
Millions upon millions died because of Hitler’s maniacal quest to exalt Germany over every other nation in Europe.
History repeats itself.

This last point, we need to know because it is repeating itself today. As I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, I couldn’t help but think about how many of the situations the Germans faced, that we face today. The beauty for us is that I believe God has spared us a maniacal dictator… for now. That may change, but up until this point in our history, He has shown us grace.

For more on the Post War Consensus, watch Man Rampant with Doug Wilson and Rusty Reno as they discuss Reno’s book, The Return of the Strong God’s.

Winston Churchill ON Socialized Medicine

And now from the department of history repeating itself department…

Churchill on socialized medicine that was implemented in 1948

“The queues are longer, the shelves are barer, the shops are emptier. The interference of Government Departments with daily life is more severe and more galling. More forms have to be filled up, more officials have to be consulted. Whole spheres of potential activity are frozen, rigid, and numb, because this Government has to prove its Socialistic sincerity instead of showing how they can get the country alive and on the move again.”

This is all taken from The Last Lion by William Manchester and Paul Reid. I’ve been working my way through the book for months and have really increased my progress now that I realized I can read while students are working on their assignments.

I love the fact that Churchill had a grasp on the end result of socialism. It never, in the end, provides more of something, but leads to less of something because there are more demands on it. Socializing things also weakened the work force. “A might army of 450,000 additional civil servants has been taken from production and added, at the prodigious cost and waste, to the oppressive machinery of govewrnment and control. Instead of helping national recovery this is a positive hindrance.”

We will see the same thing with Obamacare.

Jock Colville wrote concerning Churchill and all this: “Never in his life has he felt such despair,” Colville wrote, “and he blamed it on the Government whose ‘insatiable lust for power is only equaled by their incurable impotence in exercising it.’”

Churchill also wrote about the Socialists: “What the German U-boats could never do to us has been achieved by our own misguided fellow countrymen through their incompetence, their arrogance, their hordes of officials, their thousands of regulations and their gross mismanagement of our affairs, large and small.”

Churchill on class warfare and the socialist government that led to years of poverty for England’s masses after WWII, Between the loans “and the unparalleled sacrifices exacted from the taxpayers” there is no reason why Britain should not have attained “solvency, security and utopian independence. This has been denied us not only by the incompetence and maladministration of the Socialist Government and their wild extravagance, but even more by the spirit of class hatred which they have spread throughout the land, and by the costly and wasteful nationalization of a fifth part of our industries.”

Sounds so very familiar to the Democratic Socialist governments of the left.

I Finally Finished Walking With Destiny

Last night, I finally finished Andrew Roberts’ excellent book Churchill: Walking with Destiny. It took me more than a year to read it. I figure since it’s about Churchill’s life, I shouldn’t be able to fly through the book in a couple of months. After all, it took Churchill 91 years to live his life, it should take us a bit of time to read about his life.

Here are other articles I wrote while reading the book:

Colonization: Good or Evil? Or Both?

Winston Churchill, My Father, Good Cigars

The Iconic Churchill: A Story for My Fellow Photographers

The Iconic Churchill: A Story for My Fellow Photographers

I found this wonderful tidbit about the photographer who took the most iconic picture of Church in Andrew Roberts biography, Churchill: Walking with Destiny. I immediately thought my fellow photographers would enjoy the story. If you have ever had to work with people in setting up a photo, you will appreciate Yousuf Karsh’s persistence. The photo was taken after Churchill gave a speech to the Canadian Parliament in 1942.

Roberts writes:

Immediately after the speech, Churchill was led into the Speaker’s chamber by Mackenzie King, where the young Armenian-Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh was waiting to take his picture. He seemed reluctant as he had not been warned this would happen, but conceded that Karsh could take one photograph. ‘I offered him an ash-tray for his cigar but he pointedly ignored it, his eyes boring into mine,’ Karsh recalled. ‘At the camera, I made sure everything was in focus, closed the lens and stood up, my hand ready to close the shutter for release, when something made me hesitate.’ Karsh then said, ‘Forgive me, sir,’ and without permission removed the cigar from Churchill’s mouth. ‘His jaw tightened in belligerence; his eyes blazed. I clicked the shutter. ‘ The result was the greatest of all the thousands of images of Churchill, capturing his resolution, defiance and solidity, and, as Karsh noted, also his capacity for belligerence. It was not the only photo of Churchill taken by Karsh that day – he was allowed to take at least eight others, and one with Mackenzie King after Churchill had assumed a more benign attitude’ – but it is the one that fully deserves the overworked adjective ‘iconic’. It was the cover of Life magazine in May 1945 and became the defining image of him, and can be seen on the dust jacket of this book.

I’m glad Karsh had the courage to remove the cigar. It’s a great picture, the one on the cover below.

Winston Churchill, My Father, Good Cigars

I’m sharing this with Debbie’s Six-Word Saturday.

Early Tuesday morning, I was puffing on a Macanudo Gold, reading Andrew Robert’s biography of Winston Churchill, and thinking of my Dad. This happens a lot when I read Churchill, and smoke cigars. It something the two of us had in common, because of his interest in both.

My love of Churchill began back in the 1960s, especially around the time of the great man’s death. I remember seeing footage of Churchill’s funeral on our black and white television on the 5 o’clock news one night in January 1965. At 4, almost 5, I vaguely knew the footage was showing us the passing of a great man. Hearing my father talk about the man and the funeral, helped me to remember the event.

I can still remember my father telling some of the funny stories about Churchill to his friends. He told one story of how Lady Astor was upset with Winston, and told him that if she were his wife, she would put poison in his tea, to which Churchill replied, “Lady Astor, if I were your husband, I would drink it.”

Churchill was very quick witted. But there are a lot of men who are quick witted who do not rise to the level of greatness that Churchill did.

His greatness didn’t come about because he was perfect. He wasn’t. He had many failures politically in his career, but he was right on what was most important: his warnings against Hitler and Naziism. He was one of the few who read Mein Kampf, and understood what Hitler was about. No amount of appeasement would stop the dictator. Hitler was set on conquering the world, and when foreign nations tried to appease him, he let them.

Churchill knew better. There was no appeasing the man (and we would do well to learn from Churchill, you cannot appease a dictator). This is why it was so important to fight on in the face of great adversity, even fighting alone, as Britain did at the beginning of the war.

As for my father read a great deal on Churchill and owned his six-volume series on The Second World War, first edition. (I have that series now). So you can see his love for the man. Churchill was clearly worthy of admiration, for had he not stood up to Hitler, who knows what the world would look like today. Yet, he stood alone, when others were busy trying to capitulate to the madman who has become synonymous with the concept of ultimate evil.

When I had grown to be a man, my father gave me a paper-back copy of the Last Lion, the first in a biographical trilogy by William Manchester. It took me almost a year to read that book. I admit, my reading pace is quite slow. Nonetheless, I finished that great tome about Churchill. Then the second in the series came out, and both my father and I read that one as well. Due to Manchester’s death, the third and final in the series took years to be completed. When it finally did, I sent my father the hardback bound set for his birthday, and bought another set for myself. He finished the third in the series much more quickly than I did. He was a much faster reader than I was. Finally, he read Andrew Robert’s biography, and I’m slowly working my way through it.

I didn’t gain a love for cigars until I moved to his ranch back in 2013. It was there, on his front porch after work, that we would smoke a cigar together and talk about the world. He wasn’t an avid cigar smoker, but liked the occasion to sit and solve all the world’s problems without the addition of the barroom atmosphere.

When he came down with his illness, he had to give up cigar smoking and drinking alike. His body couldn’t handle it. But he still loved talking about Churchill and a host of other things as well.

I think as I sat there on Tuesday morning, smoking that cigar, reading Roberts, knowing that both Churchill and my father have died, it hit me how much of life is like the smoke that drifted away around me. Life is quick. It is like a vapor, as the writer of Ecclesiastes says. Or more specifically, “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

But that’s not my point in writing, although it is a fine point to remember. I think I just wanted to share with you my love for cigars, Churchill, and my Dad. I guess you could say I miss him.

My Favorite Bookshelf

A question that I was recently asked was, “what books do you come back to over and over?” It was in the context of a theological discussion, so I’m assuming that the man asking the question wanted to know what Christian books do I feed upon over and over. (I use the term because spiritual truth is spiritual food for the soul.)

This question always makes me uncomfortable, and I had to sit and think about the reason why. After much pondering, and trying to get to the bottom of my discomfort, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have no idea why it bothers me. But it does.

I don’t have any spiritual books that I go to over and over again. Usually, when I read a great theological book, I’m done with it except to use it for reference. These include books like John Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion. I spent a full year reading his great work, but have not really read it since. There are too many other great books to read. I have the Institutes on the shelf, and benefitted greatly from it, but only use it for reference now.

Outside of theology, there is one topic I do go to time and time again, and that is mostly centered around World War II. My favorite bookshelf, which isn’t really a big bookshelf, is filled with some of my favorite books on World War II.

As you can see, it includes William Manchester’s masterful The Last Lion series, as well as Winston Churchill’s series on the Second World War. Churchill loved to write about history, and expanding my bookshelf with his work would be a great achievement.

But the shelf also includes William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. This is highly recommended since so many of the things that went on under the Third Reich and going on today in our own country.

Current Reads

I also have a shelf/bench next to my bed which includes all the books I’m currently reading. This may be one reason why it takes me so long to finish a book. I’m usually reading three or four books at a time.

As you can see, it’s quite a bit. The ones on the lower portion of the bench are back burner books. So you can see what I’m currently reading. David Chilton’s The Days of Vengeance is a commentary on the book of Revelation. It is quite good, and very pastoral. Joseph Boot’s The Mission of God, is also very good. It’s about the battle between culture and the Great Commission. Hard to summarize something that is 800 pages long. Then there is Greg Bahnsen’s Victory in Jesus, which I have yet to start. And last, An Ark For All God’s Noah’s, by Thomas Brooks. A fellow pastor sent this one to me after I went through another refining fire in the church. It has been very comforting.

I can easily recommend all the books that I have discussed. If you have any questions, drop a note in the comments section.

Colonization: Good or Evil? Or Both?

I have been thinking of writing about colonization from a biblical perspective ever since I read the quote below in Andrew Roberts’ superb biography on Winston Church, Churchill: Walking with Destiny. More about that quote in a moment.

As I was perusing through FB, drinking my coffee on a refreshing Sunday morning, I came across the following meme and enjoyed some of the comments that followed, which prompted me to write this post.

(The meme reads: Christians feeling guilty for colonizing helpless pagan nations: Why do I fix everything I touch? It has a picture of Fix-it Felix from the movie Wreck-it Ralph).

Now, I know it is just a meme, not without flaws.

One of those flaws is that it posits the idea that Christians are the ones who colonized. Therefore colonization is often used as an attack on Christians, since Christians often used the expansion of a nation for missionary purposes. I think it’s worthy of pointing out that it was governments influenced by Christianity that were mostly colonizing in these conversation. However, not all expanding governments are influenced by Christianity that colonized.

In a sense, those nations were carrying out the dominion mandate found in Genesis 1:26. All men everywhere have been given this mandate by God when we were created.

Then God said, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)

This mandate was given to Adam when he was created by God, and given to us since we are Adam’s natural descendants. The problem is that shortly after Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden to tend and guard the garden, his wife, Eve, was deceived by the serpent and led to believe that she and Adam could become like God if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The irony is that they were already made in God’s image. They were already like God in their knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. They already had all that they needed.

Yet, Adam, not being deceived, chose to believe the lie of Satan (who was the serpent), instead of trusting God for all things. They sinned. They were banished from the garden. Yet, the creation mandate remained. The image of God remained. What changed was that the image was now tainted with sin and mankind lost original knowledge, righteousness, and holiness.

How does this play into our article?

It plays into the subject because we are given the dominion mandate to subdue the earth, but we do so sinfully. Look back up at the command given above. It says we are to take dominion over all the creatures and the earth. It does not say we are to take dominion over one another. Yet, in our sinfulness, this is exactly what happens.

Just look throughout history.

The Mongols, Japanese, Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, Aztecs, Germans under Hitler, the Soviet Union, and currently China are just some of the kingdoms that sought to fulfill the dominion mandate. Notice, these kingdoms did not know the God of the Bible (excluding Germany, although Hitler did not). It wasn’t like they were looking to Genesis 1 saying, “we need to take dominion as God has commanded us to do.” They didn’t have to. It’s a part of who we are as humans.

Our ability to carry out the creation mandate is warped by sin, but it’s still very much alive and well. The command, coupled with sin, manifests itself in the desire for power, authority, and riches. That is what we see in most nations when they expand. This is why we still have oppressive governments today. They seek to take dominion over our lives. In seeking control, they try to fulfill the command and establish their own knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. Unbeknown to them, they are carrying out the command, though sinfully, and trying to restore what was lost in the fall. This is what all false religions do, and these governments are false religions, or false gods, seeking to take God’s place in their own lives and the lives of their subjects.

So how are we to proceed?

Fortunately, the Triune God didn’t leave us to ourselves. After all, He has purposes for creation that most people are quite unaware of. He is actually establishing His Kingdom for His Son, Jesus Christ and rules over all other kingdoms. However, the Kingdom of God does not go forth via the physical sword, as the kingdoms of man do (think current-day Islam and their advancement through force). It goes forth through the proclamation of the gospel, which is the message of the Cross of Christ.

And, the gospel goes forth with the expansion of those kingdoms who are heavily influenced by God’s word, although not living up to the standards of Scripture. Only the Kingdom of God will meet those standards, through the ministry and work of Christ, the King.

One way to put it is, worldly kingdoms advance their own causes through expansion, rightly or wrongly. God uses those means to take His message to the areas that are conquered or colonized. The gospel, being only partly present in the members of those colonizing kingdoms, still has a salt-like effect on those colonizing and those being colonized. While mankind’s kingdoms expand and fall, the Kingdom of God continues to grow. Christ, in His sovereign good pleasure, uses both expanding kingdoms and failing kingdoms to grow His Kingdom. His Kingdom grows almost imperceptibly, like Jesus illustrates for us in The Parable of the Leaven (Luke 13:20-21). The leaven works slowly, steadily, and will eventually work thoroughly.

We get a glimpse of the salt-effect working through the United Kingdom’s colonization of India, which brought both good and evil with it. This is where Andrew Roberts’ book on Winston Churchill comes on the scene. Roberts notes that when Churchill was in India, he couldn’t help but be pleased with all that the UK had brought to India since its colonization. What Churchill saw, were the fruits of Christianity, the good in the United Kingdom’s rule.

Roberts writes:

Today, of course, we know imperialism and colonialism to be evil and exploitative concepts, but Churchill’s first-hand experience of the British Raj did not strike him that way. He admired the way the British had brought internal peace for the first time in Indian history, as well as railways, vast irrigation projects, mass education, newspapers, the possibilities for extensive international trade, standardized units of exchange, bridges, roads, aqueducts, docks, universities, an uncorrupt legal system, medical advances, anti-famine coordination, the English language as the first national lingua franca, telegraphic communications and military protection from the Russian, French, Afghan, Afridi and other outside threats, while also abolishing ‘suttee’ (the practice of burning widows on funeral pyres), ‘thugee’ (the ritualized murder of travelers) and other abuses. For Churchill this was not the sinister and paternalist oppression that we now know it to have been.

The first time I read that quote, it angered me and set me off thinking about colonialism. As I mentioned above, both good and evil are advanced through colonialism. You can see that in the Roberts quote (and I wonder if Roberts was speaking tongue-in-cheek about colonization being completely evil). What he doesn’t mention is that the gospel went forth to India as well, and Christ’s kingdom advanced. This is the greatest good that can come about through colonization, the advancement of the gospel and the redemption of the lost in those countries.

That brings us back to the dominion mandate again, which is still in play. Christ actually added to and clarified the mandate just before His ascension to the throne:

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20).

This command shows we are to take dominion over the earth, not with the sword of war, but with God’s word and the gospel. This is the greater purpose of God, expanding His Kingdom until all His enemies and our enemies are made a footstool for Christ (Psalm 110). God is still working to expand His Kingdom, and does so through both the good and evil of the nations.

Let me be clear: this is Christ’s purpose as the Second Adam, doing what the first Adam failed to do: take dominion over all the earth. As the gospel spreads, this is exactly what happens. The enemies of Christ are either converted, becoming children of God and members of the Kingdom, or they are condemned. Either way, they have been ultimately subdued under Christ.

Some might decry the fact that Christians are trying to advance Christianity over and against all other religions, and have an influence over all the earth. It’s true. We are. Some would accuse us of thinking Christianity is far superior to all other religions, both secular and spiritual. It’s true, we do. We do so with good reason. Our King did what no other religious leader, thought guru or political despot ever did: died on the cross and was risen up from the grave, dealing with man’s greatest problem: sin and death.

Colonizing/conquering is going to continue until every nation, every tribe, every king, is finally subdued or destroyed by Christ Himself. He does this through the gospel, which brings life to those called, and condemnation to those who are not. The point is that the influence of Christ’s reign will continue to expand over the earth until every knee will bow, and tongue will confess that Jesus is LORD.

As for Roberts’ book, I highly recommend it.