This four session class series begins Wednesday, August 31 at 7 pm at First Church in Room 211.
At the January 6 insurrection last year, there was a mix of participating organizations. There were American Nazis, white supremacists like the Ku Klux Klan, para-military groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, as well as Christian nationalists. That some Christians were affiliated with these groups on January 6th is reminiscent of the collaboration between many Christians and Nazi troops in Germany in the 1930’s.
Pastor Dan Berger will lead a 4-part series on the topic of “Extremism and the Churches – Then and Now,” starting on Wednesday, August 31 and continuing through Wednesday, September 21. The class will meet from 7 to 8:15 P. M.
The series will look at the rise of Nazism and the role of German Christian nationalists from the end of World War I in 1919, through the start of the war in 1939. Various historic documents will be studied and discussed. And we will also look at some recent statements from American Christian nationalists this year. Will we discover that there are some similarities between the German Christian nationalists during the Nazi era and American Christian nationalists of today?
An outline of the study will be presented at the first session, as well as a bibliography of books and articles.
Pastor Berger has been interested in this topic for many years. While studying at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, he participated in a year-long seminar on “The German Church and National Socialism.”
Attendees for the series will need to purchase the book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century paperback by Timothy Snyder, available on Amazon and other book vendors.
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