May 17

The Origins of the Second World War, by A.J.P. Taylor ★★★★★

It is often said that history is written by the winners, and certainly such is the case with World Wars 1 and 2. At least for the second world war, there was a sense of public shame in Germany regarding Hitler and the events of his era, and memory of the Hitler era was understandably suppressed. Should Germans write a war history at this time, it would be meaningless and probably concur with everything written in the past by the “victors”. Yet, one cannot expect the English speaking world to write a fair and balanced history of the war. From the inception of the Great War (World War 1), the British masterminded propaganda regarding the Germans. Germans were painted as blood-thirsty savages that raped women and slaughtered babies, and who had absolutely no regard for human life, being brute beasts that lacked any form of dignity or humanity. The hypocrisy of the English was profound in painting the Germans as such, since their own lineage of Queens and Kings were of German origin, even resulting in them quietly changing their name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to that of Windsor. Their royalty was more proficient at speaking German than English. Oh well! This fact must be securely hidden and forgotten. Perfidious propaganda and defaming characterizations persisted well after both wars against the Germans. I was reading about the meeting of some British and German climbers high in the Himalayas in the 1970s, and a German noted to a Brit that the Brits were recently beaten by the Germans in their national sport of soccer, to which the Brit replied that they just beat the Germans twice in their national sport of war. This ignores the fact that the Brits had been in constant war for at least the past two centuries in their attempt to rule the world. Oh well again! This current book was written in the early 1960’s by a Brit that has gone against the standard line which started back then and persists. This book is not revisionist history since it was written soon after the end of WW2 and based entirely on documents made public and publicly available evidence.

AJP Taylor provides a slightly different type of history of the events leading up to WW2, in that it is history almost entirely spent in recounting the work of ambassadors and statesmen from England, France, Germany, the Soviet Union, and other involved European countries. In this book, you are told what was said, and just as importantly what was not said in trying to negotiate a lasting peace. What is clear (but often vehemently denied) was that the second world war reallystarted in 1918/19 at the signing of the treaty of Versailles and was just a continuation of what we call the first world war. The British and French both eventually developed a sense that the treaty of Versailles was pathologically flawed, yet flailed at resolving how to undo this treaty as well as other treaties that were made in the interim before the world war resumed in 1939.

Taylor notes that we have abundant documents from Germany since they were left in the rubble after the war and used in the Nürnberg trials. He also notes that we don’t have that luxury of obtaining essential documents from the Soviet Union since they have kept to this day most of their records as secret. The British and French have been selective in what records they have allowed to be seen. Thus, there will remain an intrinsic bias to any account as to the cause of world war 2. Regardless, the unearthed German documents tell a much different story than the current party line as to why there was a continuation of the war into what we call world war 2.

It would be weary for me to recount on a chapter by chapter basis the reiteration of what was said so eloquently by AJP Taylor. But a summary of the main thesis is simple. It is clear that Versailles demanded another war. It is clear that there was massive ineptness on the part of ambassadors and their states in trying to resolve the slow unraveling of the Versailles treaty, which by this time was looked on dimly by all parties. Hindsight is a wretched curse on all of us, yet we can now see that the war could have been prevented or made far more limited would the British and French had not wished to maintain their illusion of their being the prevailing super-power in Europe and honestly sought for reconciliation of the bad decisions at Versailles. The Germans were accused of frequently lying to the Brits and French, though Taylor has been able to show that both sides maintained an equal wealth of lies in their statesmanship. Most importantly, it can be shown quite clearly that the Germans (and especially Hitler) did not have a plan to conquer Europe or the world, and for that matter, had no interest in going to war with either Great Britain or France. Most certainly, the records from Germany demonstrate quite adequately that much of what happened in the events of 1936-1939 was unplanned and happened off the cuff; they were not the demonstration of a well thought out over-arching plan to stepwise conquer Europe. That the teaching still exists that Hitler was some evil mastermind going by a well-crafted script is testimony of how people wish to retain their own narratives regardless of the factual content of those narratives.

I’ve been told that the above recounting of the origin of WW2 is only one man’s opinion, and the debate continues and will never be resolved. It seems strange that those who say that simply wish to deny the evidence out there, their thinking being cemented in place by the fictional narratives that have created both world wars. Other authors have supported the thesis of Taylor by writing of the grave errors in the statesmanship of the Germans, British and French, specifically referring to Patrick Buchanan (Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War) which I had previously reviewed. Unfortunately, because we refuse to see the past clearly, we most certainly will persist in our errors in the future. More world wars can be expected, and blame will be fixated on the vanquished, regardless of the actual facts.

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May 03

J.I. Packer: A Biography, by Alister McGrath ★★★★★

I was recently given a biography of JI Packer written by Leland Ryken, and written within the last few years. It was an excellent account of the man Packer, but Ryken frequently referred to an earlier biography of Packer written by Alister McGrath, and that is the book that I’ll be reviewing now. McGrath wrote his biography in 1996, at the time of Packer’s retirement from Regent College (and the time that I took Systematic Theology from Packer), thus leaving out the last 24 years of Packer’s life. Within the last 24 years, Packer did not remain inactive, but was quite busy in a number of activities including writing, leading a protest against the Canadian Anglican Church for their stance on gender confusion and LGBTQ+ issues. Also, he was the lead for the new translation of the Bible presented as the English Standard Version of the Bible. McGrath will definitely need to write an addendum or second edition to this book!

McGrath takes a completely different approach to JI Packer than that of Ryken. In McGrath’s text, the chapters are entirely chronological. McGrath’s biography is much shorter, but provides better detail into the thought processes of Packer, as well as detailing the events that transpired with the major controversies and battles that Packer needed to contend with. I was left with a much better feel for the legacy of what Packer left us through his various battles. Specifically, McGrath did a wonderful job of outlining Packer’s fight for the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. McGrath also gave a much better feel for Packer’s desire to stay in the Anglican Church (much to the chagrin of Martyn Lloyd-Jones) and desire to maintain a rapport with “co-belligerents” in the Catholic Church, leading to a falling out with RC Sproul and many others. I have a far greater sympathy for what Packer stood for by reading McGrath’s book. McGrath can correctly state that the current status of the evangelical world today has been influenced greatly by Packer, and perhaps it was Packer that most heavily influenced how Evangelicals now behave and think. Certainly, Packer led the charge for doing theology well, noting that many heresies are the natural result of zealous Christians who are not interested in theology.

In my life, I owe much of my Christian thinking to two people, Francis Schaeffer and J.I. Packer (St. Francis and St. James!). As far as I can tell, the two men lived somewhat contemporary to each other (Schaeffer dying in 1984 and Packer being still alive but now completely incapacitated by blindness and hard hearing) but probably never met each other. Both men are giants in resetting “fundamentalism” and “evangelicalism” from being a description of brain-dead, only-believe morons, to re-energizing a scholarly, thoughtful Christian faith community, capable of contending with the secular world at large. Both men rose above their own circumstances to influence the world around them. Just as almost nobody realizes that Francis Schaeffer was a devout, committed Presbyterian, few people think of JI Packer as a devout, committed Anglican. Both men had an extraordinary ability to interact with the broad Christian (and secular) world out there. Both were humble men, and extraordinary in their ability to treat those who were even their “enemies” with kindness, graciousness, and love.

I do not view either McGrath’s or Ryken’s text as a better biography. They are both complementary descriptions of the life and thinking of James Innes Packer, both honor him as truly one of the great Christian thinkers of the end of the 20th century, but both books provide a different flavor to Packer — the man. Thus, I highly recommend reading both biographies to better understand St. James.

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