This evening I watched the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will. “It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, which was attended by more than 700,000 Nazi supporters” (Wikipedia). It is apparent that mankind can give total, complete, and unreserved allegiance to something other than God. In Triumph of the Will allegiance is given to Adolf Hitler. It is a chilling thing to see this, this transfer of complete control to someone other than God. In the US, there is little danger that a human being will be so worshipped and deified. On the other hand, we are very susceptible to the deification and worship of ideology. Most recently, we have come to see the market as the great absolver of all sin. The market was seen to have even mystical power. In short, the worship of the market became a religion. As always, when anything other than God takes his place, disaster is not far behind. To relinquish one’s mind and soul up to a creation of the flesh invites rank stupidity and a relinquishment of man’s birthright—the retention of the critical eye and the exercise of responsibility to help correct dysfunction brought on by selfishness. Yet it always proves difficult to give up cherished idols so much is our faith in them, so much are we willing to rationalize for them when they fail.
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