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AfD: Germany’s ‘False Messiah’

A conservative German Evangelical explains why right-wing populist party is no solution

A German reader — an Evangelical physician and father of four children — e-mails in response to my blog post about the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the populist political party of the German Right. I post this with his permission:

When comparing [AfD leader] Frauke Petry to Merkel and emphasizing that Petry is the mother of five white kids you ought to keep in mind that

Petry left her husband and four kids what? two years ago and began a relationship with Marcus Pretzell, leader of the AfD in the state of North-Rhine-Westphalia – who because of that left his wife and four kids.

So yes, Petry is the mother of five kids; number five though is from Pretzell. Eight kids left behind in broken homes.

Also I’d like to point out that on my way to work I find the following ads beautifying our highways during election season:

On the left it says: “Burkas/Hijabs? We’re turned on by bikinis.”

I guess the left ad says it all.

The sexual morals of the AfD differ not much from the general populace.

My dad keeps on trying to convince me to vote for AfD because – so he thinks – at least we have some opposition in parliament. I disagree.

Germany has much more severed itself from God and Christian tradition than the US. The culture is deeply anti-Christian. AfD and PEGIDA [German nationalist, anti-Islam movement] for example long for a return to the days of a thoroughly Christian culture only in as far as “personal peace and prosperity” is concerned as Schaeffer put it way back when. Those adherents for the largest part aren’t Christian in any orthodox sense, whatsoever.

Unless there is a bottom up moral cultural renewal in this country/on this continent, parties such as AfD or movements such as PEGIDA will be hapless, romantic attempts to impose some well-meant principles/policies on a people that have given up on God.

On the other hand, the Evangelical/charismatic landscape here is deeply anti-intellectual/anti-worldview. Within that part of the church over here, Angela Merkel’s policies concerning the refugee crisis, for instance, are considered the only possible Christian perspective. If you’d argue (as I did once and never tried again) that yes, there is at least another possible/viable Christian perspective debatable, you’ll be relegated as pariah into the far right/Nazi shelf. The same with EU policy, or Brexit for example, and the list goes on and on. I am talking about large parts of the Evangelical church in particular the younger generation. So with a church devoted to God but in large parts caught up in a secular/leftist worldview — how can we bring change to a nation?

This is why I am entirely pessimistic about the forthcoming election. In the US you had two bad choices whith one choice though the possibility of at least doing something good for the courts, there ain’t nothing like that here.The CDU is entirely like the SPD (social democrats) and more or less like the Greens or the Free Liberals (although the latter one is good on econimcs, enthusiastically supporting the new family dogma). The AfD will probably score 10% of the vote with all parties having plausibly promised to not form a government with that party.

As an orthodox Christian you’re left to choose between pestilence and cholera — or abstain from voting altogether. Unless there is revival in the land, our land and continent is lost. The AfD is a false messiah.

This reader’s e-mail reminds me of what the non-Christian commenter here who blogs under the handle “German Reader” says about the churches in Germany: that on immigration, they are among the worst open-borders offenders.

UPDATE: A reader posts David P. Goldman’s column from January about AfD. Er, wow. I learned some things about that party that I did not know. The plain facts Goldman discusses in the piece are disgusting enough to make you understand why believing Christians Iand others) would turn their backs on AfD.

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