Political nihilism is called “facism.” It seems unlikely that America will experience the metaphysical spasm of a European-style facist government. But the dread possibility is that our unmetaphysical nation may reach the other side of facism without faving to go through the spasm. We may now be achieving the self-sustaining chaos which was facism’s distant goal: a police state in which “proper dissent” can be “tolerated” because it makes no difference, a military state in which “civilian control” remains because the civilians are militarized, a racist state in which oppressed minorities are allowed to fight apermanent losing war for their rights.
Robert W. Jenson, Story and Promise: A Brief Theology of the Gospel about Jesus (Ramsey, NJ: Sigler Press, 1989), 99-100.
I would just call attention to the fact that Jenson first penned these words in 1972. This paragraph strikes a particularly prophetic tone with me. Unfortunately Jenson has turned out to be right, I think.
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