Tag: UnionCountyBaptists

Under Socialism I went to Lutheran Church

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Our Church originated from the 12th century

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2022 by Uwe Bahr

Pastor Thom’s church of “Peter and Paul” at Elbeu, my hometown. Originally built in the 12th century, the structure was destroyed five hundred years later during the 30 Years War by passing Swedes. In 1758 the church was rebuilt with donations from the most famous Prussian king, Frederick II. – an atheist. The graves directly in front of the church date back to the 17th and 18th centuries; former pastors who ministered in the church are buried here. – In this church I took part in the Christmas Eve nativity plays as a child – unforgettable experiences.

Since I came to America in 1998, I have occasionally had to listen to the following words: “The only reason you don’t believe in God is because you grew up under socialism and were brainwashed by that propaganda.” Those who said this could obviously not imagine that there had been a church at all in East German socialism under communist rule.

Here is the contrary evidence (see documents below). The documents bear my name and date from when I was seven and eight years old. I possess another four documents from the corresponding subsequent years. That’s how long I went to church in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It was the only time I went to church regularly.

By the way, good old Pastor Gerhard Thoms, who filled these documents out, was the only true Christian I ever met in my whole life. He lived according to the guidelines. A God who allows people to own and shoot firearms? Pastor Thoms would have given such hypocrites a piece of his mind. The man possessed authenticity and did not interpret his Bible arbitrarily, as is usually the case elsewhere. He also did not make a profit through his Christian faith – imagine that.

Nothing was commercialized; there was no crazy band playing in the church, and there were no microphones and loudspeakers. It was a worship service as it should be, not a money-making business, in walls three feet thick, made of field stones.

Translation/left side: Our Lord Jesus Christ speaks: Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them; for such is the kingdom of God. Mk. 10 14
Right side: Uwe Bahr from the parish of Elbeu participated in the second year of Christian instruction 1968/69 for twelve hours, registered on 01/31/1969. He was excused for one hour, no missing hours. Behavior 1 (which is an A), cooperation 1-2 (A/B). Elbeu, 6/27/1969, Pastor Gerhard Thoms, Catechist
Translation: Evangelical Church of the Church Province of Saxony / Testimony of the Christian teaching

Germany Reels under Sanctions

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From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2022 by Uwe Bahr

The claim that Germany and other European countries have made themselves too dependent on a political adversary like Russia with their energy policy is highly simplified and therefore simply nonsensical. The Americans in particular should be careful with such accusations, for they have never cared about ideological sensitivities when it came to enforcing their intentions in all parts of the world by any means as soon as tangible American profit interests were at stake. American wars of aggression grew out of this substance.

Of course, the initial West German rapprochement with Russia after Germany’s barbaric war against the Soviet Union also had its own interests in mind. Six decades ago, the Adenauer government gave away pipelines to the Soviet Union in exchange for cheap oil and natural gas later. That is how it had all begun. The emerging economic power of the Federal Republic of Germany, the German economic miracle after World War II, would very likely not have existed without the energy agreements with the former Soviets. The demand was huge. For 60 years, the Soviet Union and later Russia proved to be reliable trading partners, despite all international crises and ideological antagonisms.

The economic partnership between Soviets and Germans survived the Berlin crises of the late 1950s/early 1960s, including the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the Eastern Bloc invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the dramatic events in Poland in 1981, and finally the fall of the Berlin Wall, including the demise of East Germany, and even the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union itself in 1991 – to name only the most important events.

During the entire period, there were no other energy sources equal in price and quantity to Russian natural gas that Germany and Europe could have turned to. True – the reproach that can be levelled at the Germans today is that they looked too long and too hesitantly for alternatives instead of relying on Russia alone. Instead of becoming more independent from only one source, the country took the path of convenience, counting on “change through trade” to heal up the terrible history between Germans and Russians. Peter Altmaier, CDU politician and last Minister of Economics in the Merkel government, recently stated: “Nobody was prepared at the time to pay billions in costs for more safeguards. Not us politicians, not the executives and not the taxpayers.”

This worked for a long time without any problems. Then came the war in Ukraine and the demand of alliance partners, especially the USA, to engage against Russia. Nonsensical sanctions, from which only Americans and Russians benefit, are now seriously reeling Germany economically: For it suffers more from the war with natural gas than others, having allowed itself to be dragged towards an economic hara-kiri. On the other hand, due to the increased prices caused by the sanctions, Putin can sell his gas and oil advantageously elsewhere, while the price for natural gas in the USA is currently nine times lower compared to Europe, making the country more attractive as an industrial location for companies from all over the world. In the U.S., where the simple man of the street counts for little, the deal makers, their lobbyists, and the politicians they pay know how to win a dirty poker game.

The war in Ukraine is a crime, without question – but the sanctions do not end it. For the time being, it looks like the sanctions war is hurting Germany more than Russia. Germany’s most important gas importer Uniper had to apply for state aid today because there is no longer enough natural gas flowing from Russia. How the situation will develop when scheduled maintenance on Nord Stream 1 begins on July 11 and is to be completed after ten days is still unclear. By the end of the year at the latest, millions of private households will be faced with final bills for energy consumed, which many will probably not be able to pay on their own. And of all things, the federal government in Berlin with Green participation is thinking about reactivating decommissioned, environmentally harmful coal-fired power plants.

Germany is bound to the alliance, but it cannot jeopardize its economic foundations with a nonsensical sanctions war with Russia. There is also a responsibility to its own people. This is why it should open Nord Stream 2 – that is my opinion. As a result, the Americans would not voluntarily withdraw militarily from Europe, because they are never going to give up their imperialistic world domination.

Nothing Changes

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As long as Firearms circulate in the U.S., Mass Murder will continue

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

What are stricter gun laws supposed to accomplish? Weapons are in circulation in the USA like toothbrushes. On that note, any restriction of certain types of weapons will not solve the deadly problem – unless the rate of fire leads to the macabre conclusion that the Boulder murderer merely would have had enough time to shoot “only” five people instead of ten.

Only a single, unambiguous and uninterpretable law could at least curtail these acts – an absolute ban on firearms to tackle the profusion of any kind of guns in private hands. But such a common sense step will never happen in a country with a culture of shooting and killing, framed as a fundamental right to self-defense – not even in the light of supposed Christianity and the unspeakable suffering of victims and their relatives.

There is no other modern western country where people shoot each other to such an extent as in the United States. This is not related to the reasonableness of the people in other civilized parts of the world, but rather to the existing legal order. If something is found to be wrong, then a government must implement laws that at least provide relief. That is what a democratically elected parliament and the executive authority are for. These mass killings in the USA are not only gruesome – they are also an expression of an all too liberal, flawed system of justice.

Yet, President Biden once again wants to regulate firearms ownership more strictly, including certain types of guns, but this sounds more like an act of stalling perplexity. Someone who intends to go to a shopping mall to shoot people has very likely finished with himself and the rest of the world; in any case, he will no longer be bothered by any restrictive laws. Much less will he have trouble getting a gun in the U.S., even if he has failed every background check.

Nearly unbridled support for the weapons insanity also arrives from the same side, which later officially laments the victims: There are public backyard areas in the U.S. where elected officials in neighborhoods with pure poverty not only spend vast sums of tax money on a shooting range, but seriously agree to demands that their county should be declared a “Second Amendment Sanctuary.” Any attempt to convince people with such a disrupted mindset of the opposite is likely to be in vain.

Some particularly highly intelligent people manage to argue as follows: It is not the gun that kills, but the person who handles it. This eminently remarkable view is as ingenious as it is undoubtedly correct. For the very same reason, firearms do not belong in private hands – particularly not in a country in which an obviously not insignificant ratio of the population exhibits mental deficits.

But, nothing will change to prevent the gruesome consequences of gun insanity in the future. The lobby of profit-seeking gun advocates, like the National Rifle Association (NRA), is too powerful. Human life, on the other hand, does not count. As long as that doesn’t change, it will be the same as always.

And thus, when the almost routine horror and grief have given way to everyday life, it will continue as before and straight on to the next massacre. And the blather of tougher gun laws will erupt again.

It almost looks like a calculated strategy.

Praying and Shooting

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From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Once again, the good Lord had one bad day after the other, just like on most other days in human history before. And no – the murdered people of the most recent mass shootings (seven in seven days) had no choice; they were innocent people who showed up at the wrong place at an unfortunate time. It could have been anyone. And the insanity will continue because guns are as commonplace in the U.S. as the use of toothbrushes.

Legalized criminal organizations like the National Rifle Association (NRA) have successfully manipulated the original intent of the Second Amendment for pure profit, and the mass of Americans buy into it because they allow themselves to be systematically brainwashed.

It was no accident, but a logical consequence that a character like Donald Trump could become president.

Change the Paradigm

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The President indicated those “on the top” should pay higher Taxes

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

He did not know that 20 years ago?

The new president, two days ago, talked about the trickle-down effect: “We’ve seen time and again that trickle-down doesn’t work.” He was alluding to the huge tax cuts for “those on the top and [the hope] that the benefits they get would trickle down to everyone” – tax giveaways granted the richest people and enterprises over the past 15 years (it was most likely a few more years, probably reaching back to the Reagan-Administration). He now sees a need “to change the paradigm.” That’s correct.

“Eine Kraehe hackt der anderen kein Auge aus”, as the old German saying goes. Freely translated: There’s honor among thieves. Because representatives of both parties are able to wheel and deal with lobbyists from the “very top”, my fear is that in the end not the billionaires, but representatives of the higher educated class will have to pay for the bulk of a new tax burden. In other words: those who were not eligible for the latest stimulus check because they are above a certain income level. If this happens, it would be a serious mistake by the Biden administration – because it would hurt America’s innovative future.

What Joe Biden did not say last Friday in the Rose Garden is the following: It is a misconception to assume that a national economy regulates itself in such a way that there is justice in the end for the many. From this follows what already John Adams and Teddy Roosevelt knew: The state needs to implement government power to tame nefarious profiteers permanently (the true “top”, which I hope Biden meant) and protect those Americans in their rights that are toiling day after day at the edge of the society to no avail. Will it take another 20 years before a majority of Americans come to this realization?

Because he left this part out, Biden was only talking about half of a plan that would really improve the livelihoods for the majority of Americans. Or did he omit this part on purpose and is clandestinely already on a path to “social democratize” the United States – a path that most Americans seem to confuse with “Socialism?” Has anyone actually realized that the Corona crisis is the last point in which it becomes clear that the United States, with all diversity and disparity, cannot go on as before if it wants to be prepared for the future?

The churches in particular have supported Trump and hatefully painted the specter of Socialism on the wall, fearing that Satan in the form of a Democrat might come after them, brandishing the tax bill with glowing eyes. Unfortunately, it is to be feared that hardly such a thing as taxing the churches will occur, although the President also said the following: “By the way, we don’t have anything against wealthy people. (If) you have a great idea, go out and make millions of dollars, that’s fine. I have no problem with that. But guess what: You’ve got to pay your fair share.”

Amen, Mr. Biden.

In the Name of Christianity

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The History of the Church is the Story of Moral Failure and Crime

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Particularly since the beginning of the second millennium Anno Domini, it was the Christian church that commissioned whole armies of knights to plunder and murder their way through the history of the world. At no time since has there been another institution in mankind, so blatant, so full of insolence, treachery and mendacity.

To make a complete list – if such an undertaking is possible at all – of the Christian essence would mean to fill whole volumes. As a logical consequence at the previous end, it is no coincidence that churches in the United States are the stirrup holders of a character like Donald Trump – basically, they were and are his principal base. In this, the churches have remained in their millennia-old tradition of moral failure: Trump could talk as often as he wanted about “if you have money, if you are famous, you can grab every woman between her legs”; he could pay hush money to “adult actresses” as often as he wanted, or state “I could stand on New York’s Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and still not lose voters” [1] – the overwhelming majority of the church people voted for him anyway.

As if that wasn’t already enough: Most of them still support him. And it was the churches and many of their blatherer that actively brainwashed their sheep in the decision-making process.

We deliberately are not mentioning here the storm on the Capitol. We are talking about historic facts, in this particular case the most recent ones included, to emphasize the path leading to the insurrection of 6 January 2021 and that this path, although not predictable from the outset, nevertheless was not an absolutely surprising element for all those who have followed Trump’s presidency attentively and with an impartial mind, including the words he used in conjunction with racism and radical, militant groups on the far political right. [2] All this did not keep millions of church people from praying for “our president Donald Trump.”

To return to the topic at hand: “Criminal” is not a foreign word in connection with churches – it is, at the same time, a rather very mild description for the work of the churches. Their involvement in criminal activities is as old as the church itself. To this day, the history of the Church is the history of mass stultification of the people for the purpose of self-enrichment and plenitude of power; it is a history of lies and hypocrisy, of oppression, exploitation, and extermination; it is the history of persecution and murder of dissidents, the history of the cruelest wars of conquest in the name of forced Christianization. [3]

Christianization, conducted in brutal, bloody campaigns by church warriors like the chivalric order with the cross on their rear, was a common method in the early medieval Europe and later in the New World (America) – and, in each single case, the crusades were nothing else but ruthless wars of conquest under the guise of God; with the Cross in one hand, and the Sword in the other, translated to the enslaved precisely as follows: ‘If you refuse to accept the former, you will get to feel the latter.’ It was not millions, but billions who suffered under the cruelty and brutality of the Christian cross – to the extent of seismic proportions. One Holocaust took place after the other, and no God to this day has ever intervened.

The churches justified slavery and told people that were treated like cattle to obey their masters. And, it is the church’s history of chumming up with dictators like Adolf Hitler; the history of scandals, of cover-ups and corruption up to the systematic rape of Altar boys; and it is also the history of tax avoidance for their own benefit while evincing charity to the justification of their purpose; it is the reality of the churches being the largest fan club for a demagogue and pervert like Mob-President Donald Trump.

The church as a whole has never been judicially indicted for its ruthless criminality, let alone convicted – as, on the other hand, has occasionally happened with other criminal organizations. It is as if Adolf Hitler with his National Socialist Workers’ Party (NSDAP) had never ceased to exist – and everyone today is kindly invited to participate. This is the church.

Notes:

[1] Donald Trump, 23 January 2016, at a campaign rally in Iowa. – Americans voting for Trump must have been well aware what they were doing, unless they were completely out of their mind.

[2] “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.” Donald Trump during the first presidential debate on 29 September 2020, when being asked if he is willing to condemn white supremacist and militia groups.

[3] To give an example: The Pruzzen, the “Old Prussians (Alt-Preussen)”, were a tribe on the Amber Coast between the estuary arms of the Vistula (Weichsel)- and the Memel Rivers into the Baltic Sea. They resisted forced Christianization by the Teutonic Knights in the 12th/13th century and were subsequently almost completely exterminated. In the following period settlers from the Holy Roman Empire migrated into the Pruzzen’s territory (note the similarity of the Christian conquest of the North American Continent) and astonishingly assumed the name of the “infidels”. – The terms “Prussia” and “Prussians” result from this historical context. Technically speaking, the “real” Prussians as they became known later on, virtually never existed; for they had long since been exterminated. – My later ancestors descend from the former area of the “Old Prussians”.