Genocide Prophesy: Autism, the Church and a New (American) Reich

By Dr. Brian Haack

What if modern bureaucrats led our country toward a genocidal end which rivaled history's most wicked regimes? What if Christians helped them do it? And what does any of this have to do with autism?

This book demonstrates how U.S. policy and social evolution has followed a trajectory eerily like the one which seated the Nazis, and how Germany's most-notorious human rights abuses began with violating the human rights of children with disabilities like autism. Evidence suggests that Germany's Christians unwittingly contributed to their catastrophic outcomes by remaining silent when speaking out might have made a difference.

Today we see a growing trend of abuse against vulnerable people in the USA, and like Germany's Christians, we are not speaking out. It seems that without intelligent Christian opposition, the creep toward genocide in the USA has begun. We are now seeing the first indications of a genocidal tyranny which infected Germany, now appearing in the USA. It could soon grow up to overshadow the world's memory of Nazi Germany--but there is hope.

This book offers biblically-sound, research-based evidence which intelligently refutes popular anti-biblical views on history, philosophy, and science. It also offers new possibilities for the discovery and defeat of prejudicial attitudes that have divided human populations for centuries.

In these pages, the reader will find renewed confidence in the reliability of the scriptures while discovering the Bible's relevance to topics like genetics and DNA, the origins of human life, and the seat of human rights. Finally, the reader will understand why these Christian perspectives matter to all people everywhere, regardless of their personal religious inclinations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781639031733

Book preview

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Genocide Prophesy

Autism, the Church and a New (American) Reich

Dr. Brian Haack

ISBN 978-1-63903-172-6 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63903-173-3 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Dr. Brian Haack

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Unless otherwise specified, all biblical references in this title are taken from the English Standard Translation.

A portion of revenue from the sale of this book will be used to help Christian schools and churches become more loving, welcoming, and available to people with autism and other special needs and learning differences.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

1

Background

The Threat

The Vision

The History

The Reality

No Threat? No Problem!

Much Faster than Expected

2

The Diagnosis

The Doctor

The Unexpected

3

See the Person

Myths

A Simple Example of Accommodation

Getting to Know Buddy

Not Random

Hyperacute Fixations

Fixations on Things

Fixations on People

Synesthesia

The Look

The Difference a Dave Can Make

Uniquely Alike

4

Expectations

Expectations Matter

The Rise of Autism

Church Ministry in Support of Autism

5

Infiltration

Relevant Questions for Society

Church Research

Slipping Off Our Foundations

The Necessity of Generalizations

What Is Autism Spectrum Disorder?

The High-Functioning Child

Behavioral Therapy

6

The Presence of God

Ability, Disability, and the Presence of God

Preaching to All

Preach Immediately

Peter

Gideon

Moses

7

The Bible

Job

Jacob

Old Testament Disability Summary

Jesus, Disability, and Healing in the New Testament

A Surprising Trend

A Word on Textual Priority

Man Blind since Birth

The Centurion's Servant

Paralyzed Man at Bethesda

Recap of Biblical Narratives

8

The Lies

A Classic Case of Hostile Commentary

The Hypocrisy

Not So Fast, Christians

Beliefs vs. Faith

9

The Problem

Passively Excluded from Church

Actively Banned from Church

Killed at Church

10

Competing Views on Humanity

The Abilities-Based Approach

The Materialism Approach

Materialism in the Church

The Utilitarian Approach

11

A Biblical View of Humanity

The Scopes Trial

After Scopes

What Makes a Person Human?

Deoxyribonucleic Acid and Genetics

Human DNA

DNA as Evidence for Intelligent Design

Nothing Special?

DNA and Probability

The Problem with Genetic Mutation

12

The Image of God

The Human Male and Female

Gender

The Persistence of God's Image

The Image of God Sets Man Apart

Human Ability

The Image, Disabilities, and Relationships

Why the Church Should Care

The Culmination of Humanity in the Incarnation of Christ

13

Materialism: Enemy of Human Rights

Same Old Materialism

Materialism in History

Materialism's Implications

Materialism and Relativism

Unanswered Questions

Mills, Watches, and Brains

Leibniz's Mirror Reflection Allegory

Science

Revoking Human Worth

14

How Genocide Begins

German Christians: Post–World War I

A Little Socialism

Silence the Christian Worldview

Eugenics

Right to Die Propaganda

No Longer a Crime

From Eugenics to Euthanasia

A (German) List of Reportable Conditions

Human Rights on Trial

The Undesirables

Nazi-Like Tyranny in the USA

Islamic Fundamentalism

Human Rights Conclusion

15

Nazi Fascism in the USA?

Law and Policy

Evidence of Eugenics in Today's United States

Labels

Abortion

Abortion Case Law Review

Bigelow v. Virginia and Bellotti v. Baird

Public Law 108-105: Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003

Abortion Industry Response

Doctor-Assisted Death in the United States

16

Education and Health Care in the USA

Institutional Health Care Summary

Education in Today's United States

The United States Department of Education

Financial Control of Teachers' Lives

Teachers as Overseers

Another (American) List of Reportable Conditions

The Eyes of the State

Overseers at Your Front Door

Incentivizing the State Surveillance of Families

Banning Private Schools

State-Run Education Summary

Social Policy Summary

17

Why Do We Act Like We Do?

Social Distance Theory

Similarity Attraction

Contact Theory

Social Acceptability Bias

Confronting Social Acceptability Bias in the Church

The Science of Attitude Theory

Explicit Attitudes

Implicit Attitudes

Attitudes Summary

Precautions for Leaders

Social Distance Theory as a Theological Topic

18

The Research Construct

Research Questions

Selected Research Methodology

Population and Sample Selection

Method of Data Collection

Bias

Research Instrumentation

Expectations for This Research

19

The Results

The Image of God—How Did We Do?

Social Distance Preferences

Correlated Results

SAMS Results

Follow-Up Questions

Epilogue

Don't Be Silenced

Appendix A

Appendix A: Copy of SAMS (with Instructions)

References

About the Author

To my family. My undeserved second chance.

Preface

My son's autism diagnosis caused me to see the world, the church, and humanity with new eyes. For the first time in my life, I saw the church's strained relationship with people on the autism spectrum. Over the last thirty years or so, many have written books and articles about this problem and how they might fix it. None, however, seems to have helped much. In fact, churches and Christian schools that are genuinely prepared to welcome and serve people on the autism spectrum are the rare exception: not the rule.

Although I hope my colleagues in the academy find scholarly merit in this work, I must advise that this book is not written for them. Many Christian academics write for the academy's attention, for validation and acceptance from the most educated among us. Yet we are dismayed when our work does not impact the local church. If our intent is to speak to the whole church, we should forego the thick language of academia and speak plainly to the people who have the collective power to make the needed changes. That, my friends, is not the few highly trained academics in our midst but the membership at large.

Considering this, I intend to model the simplicity and practicality followed by the apostle Paul in his New Testament letters. In 1 Corinthians 2, he writes,

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom…and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Cor. 2:1, 4–5)

We see in the book of Acts (22:3) that Paul was a scholar, yet he did not pursue a high-minded scholarly tone in his letters. He wrote for impact. He wrote to be understood. He cared not whether his readers thought he was smart in presentation. He wrote in service to the scholars, statesmen, tradesmen, and to the altogether uneducated. Even if a person was illiterate and needed Paul's letters read to him, Paul used a language the hearer would have understood.

Today, we rightly observe that Paul's letters impacted whole cultures. Some (including me) think his letters helped shape modern civilization. If this is true, why in the world do we (Christian researchers and authors) not follow Paul's example more faithfully? Considering the importance of what I have to share with you, I cannot make that mistake here. The topics to be discussed here are not just church problems. If we don't fix the challenges I will illuminate here, the church's problems of today will (very soon) actively contribute to a nationwide human rights tragedy that will utterly consume our free republic.

Introduction

Genocide? In the United States? No way, right? When I first started the research for this book, the possibility of genocide occurring in the United States of America never crossed my mind. All I wanted to do was help the church achieve sustained and growing success in its attempts to love and serve people with disabilities like autism. I had no idea where this study would lead. I hope the research discoveries outlined here will finally help Christians welcome and love people with disabilities like autism in a meaningful way.

If we fail, I fear that the very same prejudices that drive churches to reject people with autism will enable secular bureaucrats to authorize and fund widespread human rights abuses across our nation. This is not merely my opinion. It's a conclusion based on lots of evidence that you'll see in later chapters.

This book turned out to be more than I bargained for. It's not the book I imagined. It's not the book I wanted to write, but it's the book I ended up with. Now it's the one I must share with you. As bad as it will sound in some spots, remember, we're here because we still have time to change the outcome, but that will require us to confront some uncomfortable truths. We can't continue to retreat from those confrontations. The ways in which Christians have fearfully retreated from confrontation have been subtle but numerous. Take, for instance, the ease with which many Christians abandoned the use of terms that marked time by the earthly life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

The terms Before the Common Era (BCE) and Common Era (CE) are used to mark time based on the appearance of Christ, but they neglect to mention the person of Christ as do before Christ (BC) and anno Domini (AD).¹ Despite their appearance in some early literature (particularly Jewish literature) as early as the 1700s, BCE and CE were not widely used in the West until the late 1980s. That is when universities, publishing houses, and some governments started distancing themselves from BC and AD. Citing the need for religious neutrality, they began using BCE and CE. This allowed them to avoid referring to Jesus as the Christ and Lord which is affirmed by BC and AD. Most Christian scholars decided that using BCE and CE was a rather small change, so they acquiesced and began using them too.

After forty years of quiet submission, Christian writers are now finding themselves compelled to use BCE and CE as an unofficial standard of scholarship for publishable work. A major point of emphasis in this book is that Christians have allowed biblical perspectives to be chipped away from every aspect of our lives. The academic, cultural, and social consciousness in the United States is slowly and quietly being stripped of any awareness of Christ, thus eliminating any foundation for recognizing and esteeming him as Lord. I argue that the submissive abandonment of BC and AD by Christian scholars is—at best—evidence of the church's fearful and faithless response to the demands of a hostile intellectual adversary who has repeatedly proven they will never be satisfied. They will always demand more surrenders, more concessions, and more forfeitures. Their goal is not harmony with the church but the elimination of it. Modern society has seen this before, and we know where it leads.

We Christians have allowed ourselves to become so displaced from our cultural center that the story of the Christian Church and its impact on American culture is now largely told—quite inaccurately—by those who are hostile to Christ and his church. Many Christians allege that our country's troubling status quo is the result of the culture's departure from biblical values, but I contend that it was we (the church) who abandoned the culture and deprived it of the light and salt that we were called to be for them. By our abandonment of the culture, we allowed a vortex to form. This vortex now threatens to consume us all.

This book offers evidence which well-supports the conclusion that our nation stands at a critical crossroads. Where we end up will be determined by the choices we make in the coming years. One of the most critical choices will be how we treat and serve the most vulnerable humans among us. We have remained timid and silent in the presence of our adversaries who are actively deconstructing the traditional view of humanity. They are not considering the consequences, and they are getting no meaningful resistance from us. If this doesn't change, all of us will suffer for it. The first to suffer will be our most vulnerable.

If we are to be excluded from the culture, let us be excluded while fighting. Let us be excluded because we wouldn't stop praying and because we wouldn't be quiet about the unassailable worth of humanity. This will be the only way our secular neighbors will see the wisdom of a biblical worldview—the only worldview in which even their own humanity is safe and unequivocally affirmed.

Christ himself promised that he would be with us every step of the way—and that the very gates of hell would not prevail against his church. That assurance indicates he expected us to be fighting godless assaults on humanity! Yet here we sit silent, while our culture circles the drain of history. If we believe what we say we believe, there is no excuse for our indolence. The church has been shut up and shut in for too long and it has gotten us nowhere.

We cannot stand by to let pseudo-scholarship and folly rule the days ahead just so our deceived, unbelieving neighbors will be comfortable on their way to judgment. Our lack of action exposes a fear of human scorn and rejection that outweighs the reverent fear of the only one righteous enough to save us all. Unless our faith is real enough to motivate sincere and sustained action, I fear that many who consider themselves secure in Christ will find that their so-called faith was outdone even by the demons who shuddered with fear at the name of Jesus (James 2:19). The Amplified translation of James 2:19 says the demons bristled in awe-filled terror at the mention of his name.

If we have true faith, it's time to stop retreating! We have silently watched the culture collapse right before our eyes. Is that a manifestation of faith? If we don't engage the culture and do it right now, the national disgrace that follows will not be the fault of unbelievers. It will be ours. Our nation will become a vague and distant memory.

1

Background

The Threat

Study any genocidal campaign from history, and you'll learn that genocide never starts out looking like the pictures in your mind when you hear the word. It always starts off looking like something helpful. Something that reasonable, intelligent people wouldn't oppose. Yet history shows that when society is not infused with Christian perspectives, those helpful notions never deliver as promised. They always seem to lead to abuses by those in power.

We—the church—are the ones charged with making sure our communities and governments are injected with the conscience-stimulating medicine of Christian perspective. Unfortunately, we have abandoned the culture through our fearful, comfort seeking apathy. I argue that Christian apathy in the United States of America is, right now, ushering in an era where abuses against human autonomy will become frequent and acceptable. In fact, the shift has already begun. We might soon be shocked at what our elected officials and their appointees present to us as solutions to social, healthcare, and economic challenges. By the time their abuses come into focus we will have already lost our right to object. Decades of apathetic silence will have become our testimony. The secular culture will refer to decades in which the church neglected and marginalized people with autism and other vulnerable populations. They will point to how we neglected our own doctrines on human worth and dignity. I fear that our apathy will seem to justify even the most devious plans.

If we don't change the status quo now, the vulnerable will be condemned by our secular leaders because we failed to care for them first. The abuses of the ruling class will simply become the next logical step after decades of church indifference and neglect. If we let that day come, we will experience the heavy sorrow of knowing that our place of influence was not taken from us but that we surrendered it. The opportunity to change the outcome will have been lost.

What we now call the Holocaust was preceded by decades of hostility toward Christians and biblical perspectives. Rather than respond, Germany's Christians quietly hid themselves away, thinking the threat would pass. It didn't. Neither will the threat facing us. We cannot let ourselves repeat this error. The good news is, there is still time for us. We can benefit from the warnings of history and change our country's future—perhaps the world's future. Alternatively, we can keep doing nothing. If we take that path, however, I fear this book will become a testimony against our nation and its church—a church that could have helped but didn't. I fear we are much closer to that day than any of us dares to imagine.

If the local church does not mobilize with power, people with autism and other vulnerable populations will soon be judged by secular views on humanity and will be seen as disposable in the eyes of a culture that does not recognize their God-given worth as intentionally created, wholly loved humans who bear the image and likeness of our Creator, God. If we let that happen, the image of genocide that haunts our imaginations will come fully into view. By then, it will be too late to do anything about it.

The inspiration for this book began when my son was diagnosed with autism. As I learned about his specific challenges, I began to understand the sensory issues that made him so miserable in social situations, especially at our busy church. I began to understand that my son would not be able to participate in church or do other things the way other children did. After explaining this to a pastor, I requested some simple accommodations that were recommended by my son's new therapist and was stunned when that request was flatly denied.

Our church's own mission statement read (in part), To welcome and love all people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. It became clear that when the mission statement was written, they were not thinking about people like my son. When I pointed out how the denial of accommodation conflicted with the church's very own mission statement, the pastor suggested that I was being argumentative and unreasonable. If I was so unhappy, he said, perhaps I should take my son and find somewhere else to attend church. So, in the pastor's mind, the solution was, Send the autistic kid away—problem solved.

I couldn't believe it. The people I thought would be the first to help and strengthen us were the very first ones to cut us loose. My confusion turned to anger, and it became my full intent to do exactly that: I would find somewhere else to attend church. After months of visiting churches, I began to understand that the problem wasn't just in my church; it seemed to be all over. It was a problem for the whole church. There was nowhere to go. As much as I didn't want to, I knew the Lord was sending me back to my own church with instructions to stay there until he told me otherwise. I had to keep going and keep serving. That meant my wife and I had to take turns attending church with our eldest while the other stayed home with our boy. Every other week, I had to listen to the pastor recite our mission statement and talk about how everyone was so loved while my wife and son had to sit at home because my son was (functionally speaking) not welcomed—it didn't matter what the pastor, or the policies said.

The pastors had convinced themselves that although autism was clearly a real problem, it did require special care in ministry, and according to them, our church was simply not called to that kind of ministry.

Not called? Seriously?

We were members—not just attenders. My son was born to us while I was a serving deacon in that church. By being born to our family; by our family being members in good standing; wasn't this a calling? To conclude that there was no call to answer such a specific need, you had to ignore a lot of biblical teaching. Excuses like We aren't called to that ministry function like a parasite. They work under the skin, quietly diminishing the strength of the church and its example. When important matters call for the church to respond with strength, only then does it discover that its strength has left it. The legitimacy of its example has already been tarnished, and our conduct exposed while onlookers scoff at our so-called beliefs. How can they take our beliefs seriously when we won't even attempt to live by them?

As I continued to study biblical teaching in the preparation for this book, a vision formed in which I saw the church's relationship with people on the autism spectrum and the larger culture. It wasn't a pleasant vision and I tried to ignore it. At one point, I was determined to put the whole project down and not finish it. I feared what else I might learn. No matter which way I tried to turn away, it seemed that God himself was grabbing my face in both hands to overpower my straining neck as I attempted to look away from what I did not want to see.

The Vision

I saw a church bus (a symbol of the church) stalled on a train track. Off in the distance, a heavy locomotive with a mile of train cars behind it barreled down a mountainside, headed for a collision with the crippled bus. The train was a symbol of bureaucratic systems and their power. It was loaded with explosives. The engineer was a bureaucrat with a false sense of confidence in the speed, weight, and strength of his locomotive. He has no intention of stopping. The people in this little town see the bus and the train but figure this isn't their problem to solve. Each one goes about their business and keeps their distance. All their reasons seem good to them in that moment, but none can see what I see—that the problem of one is the problem of all.

Some were busy.

Others were afraid.

Many had other priorities that they thought couldn't wait.

Many more felt inadequate to the task, as if they needed help from an expert.

I am close enough to see that there are people on that bus, but as the train whistle begins to sound, many adults and children evacuate the bus to board another one nearby. Many others, however, don't evacuate. They just sit there while those running away don't look back or attempt to help the others off.

I start running toward the stalled bus, scanning down the row of open windows to notice many children. As I draw nearer, I realize that none of those left on the bus understand the danger they're in. Then I see it: they all have autism and their abandonment was intentional. I choke with dread as I notice a single face looking directly back at me from one of the windows. It's my own son! He sees me and leans out the window, smiling and waving at me with that big toothy grin of his—he's happy to see me. I want to scream in terror, but I force a smile while leaning into my sprint, squeezing every little drop of speed from my body. He doesn't notice my tears. He is just glad his daddy is coming for him. I seem to be the only one who notices that we can't just evacuate the bus—we have to get that bus (the church) off the tracks! We must get it moving again or calamity will be the result for the whole town. If that train ploughs through the bus, everything (the train, the bus, the people, the buildings—everything in that town) will be vaporized in a fiery explosion. The chapters to follow will show how this vision represents our nation's future and why the church must respond with urgency.

The History

Just ten years after the fall of Germany in World War II, Milton Mayer interviewed German citizens who lived during the rise, reign, and ruin of Hitler's Third Reich (Mayer 1955). Mayer wanted to know how intelligent, well-educated people could have allowed a monster like Adolf Hitler to come to power. One of those interviewed told Mayer that the years leading up to Hitler's atrocities were filled with habituation (Mayer 1955, p 166). He described habituation as a process in which the people of Germany got used to being governed by surprise. He supposed this was partly enabled by the public's inclination to believe that those in authority were somehow especially qualified to lead and that common people were not. The fact that things always seemed so urgent confirmed that governing was best left to the experts.

When common people could understand the matters under consideration by their leaders, there was still the issue of national security. The need to protect Germany's national interests seemed to be a frequent excuse for why even simple things could not be divulged to the public. Germans who remembered the humiliations of World War I were inclined to accept that explanation as a necessary precaution to prevent future sufferings (Mayer 1955).

When asked about how they allowed the growth of the more egregious threats to human dignity, Mayer's interview subjects insisted that to live under such conditions was the very reason they could not see it growing up right in front of them. The terrible trends they recognized in hindsight always looked like isolated incidents rather than indications of a growing threat. One person compared it to a farmer who raises corn. In farming, he said each change is small and unnoticeable. Then, one day, the farmer looks out to notice the corn has grown over his head. In this same way, he said that each political or social change seemed so small and justifiable that most people didn't pay much attention. Then, one day, the German people realized that their troubles—like the corn—had grown over their heads.

By then, however, most dared not say a thing. What could they say? They had all tolerated it so long that their tolerance had become complicity. They had all quietly benefited from the status quo and the suffering it caused others (Mayer 1955). Mayer concluded that most Germans did not necessarily like Hitler as much as they didn't object to him—at least, not in time. Even if they viewed him as a threat, many talked themselves out of that conclusion since it seemed in the beginning that his policies were