People often debate whether a person is a fascist and whether a movement is fascist.

What defines a fascist person and a fascist movement?

There are many clues.

Is the leader a megalomaniac?

Do they establish a cult of personality?

Do they suppress and oppress people who disagree with them?

Do they gain popularity by blaming and oppressing scapegoats from a different race, nationality or religion?

However, I prefer to identify a fascist person and a fascist movement by whether they work to unify the Power of Money, the Power of Religion, and the Power of the Kingdoms of this World.

Today, such fascist leaders and fascist movements dominate Russia, North Korea, and Iran, and threaten to dominate many more nations, including China and the United States.

Such a fascist leader and movement ally themselves with rich people who exploit people and control great wealth.

Such a fascist leader and movement ally themselves with religious (and ideological, e.g., Marxism and Racism) leaders and movements who lie to people to secure their allegiance.

Such a fascist leader and movement ally themselves with the military-industrial complex to secure control over kingdoms of this world.

In contrast, people (such as me) who oppose fascist people and fascist movements start (as Jesus did) by rejecting the Power of Money (Matthew 4:1-4); the Power of Religion (Matthew 4:5-7); and the Power of the Kingdoms of this World (Matthew 4:8-10).

Instead of following the Way of Fascism to establish the Power of Money, the Power of Religion, and the Power of the Kingdoms of this World, we need to follow the Way of Jesus to establish the ideal America first discovered in the hearts of Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

In this ideal America:

—ALL people will be blessed (Abraham; Genesis 12:3);

—ALL pharaohs will be challenged to set ALL people free (Moses; Exodus 8:1); and

—ALL hurting people will be healed (Luke 10:25-37).

How shall we establish this ideal America?

By unifying ALL people (in every nation, including Russia, North Korea, Iran, China, and the United States) who want to bless ALL people, set ALL people free, and heal ALL hurting people.

We face a moment of dire perils and immense opportunities such as Abraham Lincoln faced when slavery was growing in the 1850s.

As I recounted in my book Visions of America (published in 2004 in one volume with my book Visions of the Church), at pages 71-75:

There were calls for “an organization of men of whatever politics, of Free Soilers, Whigs, and Democrats, who should bury past animosities, and . . . unite in hurling down the gigantic evil which threatened even their own liberty” (Visions of America, at 73).

Lincoln waited several years to discern the wisest course of action. But by 1856, he had made up his mind. In a speech “full of fire and energy and force”, he “pledged that he was ‘ready to fuse with anyone who would unite with him to oppose slave power.’” (Visions of America, at 75).

Similarly, people from ALL Humanity who want to establish the ideal America must bury past animosities and unite (“fuse”) to oppose the Way of Fascism—the unified Powers of Money, Religion, and the Kingdoms of this World.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Why should people who follow the Way of Jesus reject the temptations of the Powers of Money, Religion, and Kingdoms of the World? In their lives? In the United States? Throughout Humanity? How?

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For related ideas, please read my blogs “Beware the Union of the Power of Money, the Power of Religion, and the Power of the Kingdoms of the World”; “Jesus Climbs the Temple Mount”; “Alcatraz: Escaping by Using ‘Countervailing Forces’ Wisely”; and “Nationalism Is Patriotism Gone Astray”.