Sárospataki Füzetek 1. (1997)

1997 / 2. szám - Dr. Frank Sawyer: The roots of totalitarianism (A totalitarizmus gyökerei)

THE ROOTS OF TOTALITARIANISM

chaos into a pattern. There is something about a post-divine arrangement which seems to ensure that the makers of the law will themselves be the breakers of the law: a law unto themselves. While avoiding state totalitarianism we now fall into a - democratic-pluralist trivialization of ethics. Morality is now defined as mainly a question of likes and dislikes. Perhaps individualism is one of the most dangerous totalitarianisms thriving among the disorders of the post-divine outlook. In his song entitled GOD, John Lennon denies the possibility of finding any larger ideology and sings: "I just believe in me".

Sociologists point out that postmodern people more and more believe that all the grand faiths and ideologies of the modern era have failed. There is little sense in talking about a new world order if we have lost or never found the foundation for morality which might tell us how to act and which might also bind us together. Without God, who is the great limitor and the great liberator, everything is possible; and our century has taught us that what is possible must be actualized. Whatever can be done must be done. That is why this has been the century of Auschwitz and the Gulag genocides. The root of totalitarianism is first of all a spiritual question. Which also means that the root of justice, love, fairness and political goodness are also spiritual.1 To recognize this means that Christians, while acknowledging their own failures and that of the church, will continue to open a new dialogue on power and justice in the public square.1 2

1 cf.Helmut Thielicke, Theological Ethics, vol.2.: Politics, ch.ll: The nature of power’ (Eerdmans, 1979)

2 cf.Nicolas Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace (Eerdmans, 1983). Further G.H. ter Schegget, Volmacht in onmacht: over de roeping van de christelijke gemeente in de politiek (Ten Have, 1988). For a view from the south, Enrique Dussel, Etica Comunitaria (Sao Paulo, 1986); Jósé Miguez Bonino, Toward a Christian Political Ethics (SCM Press, London, 1983).

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