LibertyEagle
06-22-2007, 12:30 PM
"The examples of liberty surrendered, says Machen, are endless. He reinforced this sentiment in his 1937 classic, The Christian View of Man, in which he showed that liberty and patriotism—as one would expect—are inextricably linked. Here, Machen expressed his concern over a society increasingly detached from a morality and law rooted in the Word of God. “Everywhere,” he wrote, “tyranny is stalking through the earth, and decadence disguised under a hundred newfangled and high-sounding names.”
“What shall be done about it,” Machen asked prophetically, “to prevent [man] from destroying himself, for example, by another world war?” Patriotism, he said, lies at the heart of that answer.
We must, however, be wary of hollow and dangerous imitations. “Patriotism,” said the great English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, “is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Likewise, said Machen, for those tyrants who would direct patriotism away from the ideals of liberty and toward the absolutized state, as in “Hitlerized Germany” or the “march of communism.” “A thousand nostrums are being brought to our attention, different in many particulars but all alike in being destructive of that civil and religious liberty which our fathers won at such cost,” he warned. “Such measures will never accomplish even the end that they have in view. Patriotism can never be implanted in people’s hearts by force. The attempt to do that serves only to crush out patriotism when it is already there.” "
Read the whole article here:
http://archive.patriotpost.us/pub/07-25_Digest/index.php#continued
“What shall be done about it,” Machen asked prophetically, “to prevent [man] from destroying himself, for example, by another world war?” Patriotism, he said, lies at the heart of that answer.
We must, however, be wary of hollow and dangerous imitations. “Patriotism,” said the great English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, “is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Likewise, said Machen, for those tyrants who would direct patriotism away from the ideals of liberty and toward the absolutized state, as in “Hitlerized Germany” or the “march of communism.” “A thousand nostrums are being brought to our attention, different in many particulars but all alike in being destructive of that civil and religious liberty which our fathers won at such cost,” he warned. “Such measures will never accomplish even the end that they have in view. Patriotism can never be implanted in people’s hearts by force. The attempt to do that serves only to crush out patriotism when it is already there.” "
Read the whole article here:
http://archive.patriotpost.us/pub/07-25_Digest/index.php#continued