Dancing Under the Red Star (41 page)

There is much documentary evidence that the Ford Motor Company worked for both sides during World War II. While Russia was at war with the Germans, the United States, as an official ally to Russia and Britain, was certainly also at war with Germany. And Henry Ford was doing business simultaneously with the two archrivals—Hitler and Stalin—supplying cars, financing, and political influence, for profit, to each. The Ford story was concealed by Washington, however, like almost everything else of that genre that could touch the name and sustenance of the Wall Street elite.

Further information on Henry Ford’s activities in Russia can be found on these Web sites:
http://beagle.u-bordeaux4.fr/ifrede/Ford/Pdf/Shpotov.pdf
and
http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/chapter_06.htm
.

R
ELIGION

The Soviet Union was the first nation of the world to have as an ideological objective the elimination of organized religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed anything vaguely resembling religious behavior, harassed believers, and openly propagated atheism in the schools. Treatment of particular religions, however, was determined by differing state interests, and most organized religions were never officially outlawed. But Christianity faced the most oppression and suffered the worst of all persecutions. The main target of the antireligious campaigns in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly its entire clergy and many of its believers were executed or sent to labor camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited. By 1939 only about five hundred of more than fifty thousand churches remained open.

To maintain the party’s ideological authority, religion was condemned outright and history periodically revised to match the current party line. Books and magazines viewed as politically incorrect were removed from libraries. Scientists, artists, poets, and others, including many who did not think of themselves as dissidents but whose work appeared critical of Soviet life, were systematically persecuted and even prosecuted. Often they were declared either enemies of the state—and consequently imprisoned—or insane and therefore committed to punitive mental hospitals. Thus the state destroyed both faith and freedom by fear.

Appendix C

CHALLENGE TO THE READER

Today’s world is not always big on real truth, as in clear definitions of right and wrong, moral absolutes, and the like. We don’t often see, hear, or read about real truth. Instead, we’re busy being led astray by false comforts, lies, and pure deception.

I didn’t know my grandfather Carl Werner personally, but I sense that he was very concerned about this issue of truth.

In our society we have callously discarded our principles, our moralities, indeed our very integrity, and, instead, we have graciously bowed down to the god of popular opinion and caved in to the law of political correctness as substitutes for plain and simple truth. “Such nonsense!” is what Carl Werner would probably say. But truth, nonetheless, is the patent reality and very foundation upon which this story is based. And sometimes, no matter what the cost, we simply have to tell the truth.

It’s almost funny to me how, in the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin heretically and arrogantly proclaimed, “God must be out of Russia in five years.” How ridiculous is that? Imagine the nerve of such a statement. But now it’s 2006, and I think it’s plain to see that same hideous message bombarding us right here in America of all places, a nation built upon the rock of “In God We Trust.” What has happened to us?

When will we wake up and realize that, not so unlike Stalinist Russia, our godless (otherwise known as progressive) liberal organizations and faithless media moguls have an agenda. There’s actually a purpose and a goal behind the absurdities we hear in the press day after day. Their business is that of shaping our perceptions with tainted information. Whose voices are we hearing, anyway?

Our society can do without aimless excuses—failing to take responsibility for our actions and then creating some new dysfunction in order to alleviate or redirect the blame. Misinformation, useless oratory, and baseless explanations all have to go, along with all of the proposed band-aid cures for the earth’s rapidly perishing collective soul.

An unfortunate reality is that this world, in all of its complexities, with its unfathomable banks of information and its depth of knowledge, seems to utilize so little true wisdom. Wisdom is entirely different from knowledge. What truly makes people wise is what they choose to do with all the knowledge they’ve obtained. The world has many knowledgeable fools, those who have turned their backs on God and who would not understand wisdom if it bit them on the leg! Why is that, you ask?

There is a prevailing element of spiritual death innately residing within the much-flawed human condition of unregenerated man. It must be dealt with. Step one is simple recognition; we must first get our eyes on the ball. The Bible states, “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?” (Mark 8:18). We are weak, we are terribly flawed, and we certainly need help!

Until personal awakening and a true spiritual makeover have taken place in a person’s life, the perpetual path of the same old, same old remains continually hopeless. But there is a remedy. It’s called change, transformation. It’s available through humility, transparency, and faith. It came to us by way of incredible sacrifice. It was freely offered through amazing grace. Mercy is its foundation. And it is here because of extraordinary love in the person of Jesus Christ.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that humanity, within the futility of its own mind and perceived resources, has not found and will not (if not by now) find the answers that have inevitably escaped its grasp for so long.

Answers cannot be found in ordinary education, rehabilitation, legislation, standardization (political correctness), psychology, therapy, counseling, extramarital affairs, psychic hotlines, self-help programs, cosmetic surgeries, workout routines, or cryogenics. All of these, as well as the other assorted magical answers, potions, and cures that are intended to be good things, do not and will not ever solve the problem that we all need to be solved. Nor will they bring the slightest degree of true fulfillment and permanence into the human heart or into our lives.

The world, having forgotten God as its Creator, has no remedy for its inherently iniquitous condition. Nor do we, as individuals, have a solution for ours. We are working from an untenable spiritual deficit, and apart from our acceptance of the grace and mercy of a loving God, there is no resolution. We need something more lasting, more permanent than the empty promises to which we have grown accustomed. We need something much stronger than what our often misplaced and shortsighted intellect leads us to believe.

We need truth—absolute truth—and we absolutely need it now! We need it in our homes. Our children desperately need it in their schools. We need it at the workplace. We need it in our government. We need it to fill our lives, and certainly we need it in our churches!

If we, as a society, continue to blindly endorse and believe the lie that morality and decency are somehow adjustable, contingent, or even optional, then we are also hopelessly lost—lost and without hope. We can no more effectively legislate goodness and human morality than we can accept the twisted premise that somewhere, deep below Stalin’s or Hitler’s malevolent conduct, there existed good intent. We’ve heard that particular nonsense before.

The world has not accidentally but purposely substituted God’s laws and the clear moral absolutes given us from the beginning—good things, intended to be our very lifelines—with situational ethics as the acceptable standard of our time. We have blatantly condoned the everyday arrogance of godless and defiant fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants morality as the order of the day. No, it is impossible to govern the human heart. And if we continue in that same increasingly indignant humanist mind-set, then we will indeed be forever shrouded with hopelessness, eternally lost.

What we need, what the world requires, is simple truth. Our human heart urgently pleads for it. Truth is universal, fundamental, unchanging, and everlasting. It is something we can stand upon, something that will not crumble. We need a sure and firm foundation: the rock of Christ and the Word of God.

Truth is not a concept or a belief. It is not idealism, a theory, an alternative (as some would say), or ever an option. Truth is not open to interpretation, debate, or negotiation; it has no time for that. It matters not in the least degree whether you happen to like it or not, if its convenient to you or not—truth is still truth. And it doesn’t worry about political correctness, stepping on toes, because it will surely do that. Truth will always be offensive to some. It stirs up hearts and minds that would, sadly, rather be left alone to relax in pretentiousness, indifference, and even deception.

The fact is that the world always needed truth and help. More so than ever, we need help today! Surely that’s a hard thing for our prideful nature to recognize and to admit. But we have no other workable alternative. Plain and simple: we all need help! And help, if we really want it, is right in our midst. He’s been here all along. In fact, help stands at the door and knocks. We only need, with a little bit of faith, to answer the door.

Margaret Werner Tobien’s life was miraculously preserved. Author Don Milam so aptly states in his illuminating book
The Ancient Language of Eden
that “Father is always moved to divine action by the sorrow flowing from man’s troubles. There is always a divine response to the human predicament.” During all of my mother’s calamitous times, she was protected, shielded, and cared for by a divinely omnipotent God who loved her. And he loves us all infinitely more than we could ever imagine.

My mother came to know that reality firsthand and then learned to apply it to her life—a life filled with disappointment and heartbreak, a life in desperate need of help. Forsaking the common worldly lie and with total humility, she came to fully understand and appreciate her natural dependence upon God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. She knew that she needed help. We all do. By faith, she reached out for that help in order to receive back, for herself, God’s wonderful grace and eternity’s final reward.

And God has said, “Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).

Just look around you. Our world is hopelessly lost and all but consumed by darkness. But this world, the Lord also admonishes us, is not our own. He said, “Take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). There is only one answer, none other: the Lord Jesus Christ, whom God gave us as one eternally bright light to dispel and conquer this darkness. The truth is that we all need a Savior. We are powerless to save ourselves. “For there is no other name under heaven given to man by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Our safe eternal passage is marked by these words: “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). And that, my friends, is the best news of all! For
that
is the true gospel.

In case you don’t happen to recognize Margaret Werner in heaven—when you go—she’ll be the one conducting the ballet recitals in the Lord’s outer courts, dancing and beaming radiantly from ear to ear, thanking God for his incredible love!

On behalf of my mother, whom I’ve no doubt is dancing still, I bless you and wish you peace eternal.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to express my heartfelt thanks, love, respect, and eternal gratitude to the following people, who in their unique way have contributed to my life—beyond measure—and, in so doing, the ultimate telling of this story

Karla, Matthew, Kaleb, and Khloe Tate Tobien (along with my
magnetic
son-in-law, Ryan Snow, and my precious grandchildren, Olivia
Margaret
and Elijah Louis),
for bringing me more joy than a father deserves; you are the jewels in my crown!

Pastor Wilbur Jackson,
my spiritual father; a man among men!

Pierre Paroz,
mein Bruder; my feeble words would be far too inadequate to express…

David Remenowsky,
my special friend; with the heart of David.

Denise Willen,
for “the truth” in 1984.

Eric Helmick,
ere the Academy Award; I love you, man!

William C. Keene,
a.k.a. “the Whirl”; we made plans, huh?

Henry Walker,
for a special season of guardianship during the gauntlet.

David and Ziva Rutherford,
a passionately divine appointment. Shalom!

Ron Weinbender,
for being there, brother; with hope…and “connections!”

Ruth Hoskins,
for a very sweet time of preparation, I thank his special handmaiden.