Word: berggrav
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There was a man behind it all, says Berggrav, and his name was Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavelli (1469-1527) first boldly and systematically propounded the principle that the state is beyond morality. It is expedient, he held, for the state to be as moral as possible, because a flagrantly amoral state will engender amorality among its people-and that way lies decline and defeat. But in a pinch, said Machiavelli, the state must behave as a law unto itself...
Modern totalitarianism, according to Berggrav, is the flowering of this insidious line of thought. "There will be an awful day of judgment for us if all we do now is to put the label 'knave' on those of our contemporaries who are responsible for the present state of affairs, and refuse to recognize that there is a thread of continuity throughout...
...Greater Loyalty. Where can man look for a sword to cut the thread? Only, says Berggrav, in that which marks the difference between, a people and a mob-the conscience, where speaks the voice of God. Only insofar as Christians recognize a loyalty greater than their loyalty to the state "can law and freedom, realities which the state is supposed to protect, continue to exist...
...potent enough leaven calls for an "unpleasant Christianity." The oldtime Puritans might not have been very jolly people to have around, Berggrav points out, but they did great things for political liberty...
...Word & Suffering. Berggrav's book closes with a dramatic lecture which was illegally distributed in Norway during the Nazi occupation. Citing text after Lutheran text, it effectively scotches the theory that Luther enjoined obedience to all governments, whether good or bad. In the grip of a state he knows to be evil, there is only one thing Christians can do -speak out and suffer the consequences...