In all the world, it is doubtful that any single spot recollects more agony per acre than Israel's Yad Vashem–the Holocaust museum in downtown Jerusalem.
Within its cement walkways, there is more sadness per square inch than any place I have ever visited.
In addition to what you might expect–photos, letters, artifacts–there was something I had NOT expected: video testimonials. Large monitors by the dozens recounted the personal agonies of holocaust survivors.
Behind glass display cases, I saw things I wish I had not: a collection of shoes taken from people entering death camps….faces of men who would be shot just seconds later…photos of rabbis who had just been hung…
In one display there were gallon sized cans of pellets used in gas chambers.
To me what is most disturbing is that in many instances, these were neighbors committing atrocities against former neighbors. The difference? One set of neighbors had so dehumanized the other that any proper sense of evil had vanished.
When a neighbor is transformed into a nameless, faceless, worthless lump, the road from greeting them to gassing them is very short indeed.
In many ways, evangelical Christians today are undergoing a similar kind of dehumanization that the Jews experienced in World War II.
It begins with unkind stereotypes–"Bible thumpers", "Jesus freaks". It progresses toward increasingly vicious labels, as Christians are now often said to be as dangerous as terrorists or the Taliban.
Once dehumanization is achieved, the step toward outright persecution is both natural and easy.
Christians, beware: Israel's Yad Vashem is more than a cross section of cruelty past. It is a faithful mirror of an evil alive and well.