How Are Osama Bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, and the U.S. Alike?

Here are a five ways in which Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler were alike.   Both men held personaly to an ideology containing the following ingredients that contagiously breed relentless followers.

  1. Their way and or kind of people are elite, and those in opposition must be eliminated.  Ends justify the means.
  2. The value of life, or the determination of which lives should be taken, is determined by the elite (those in that ideology).
  3. The “cause” for stealing/killing a life of another is more important than the life or lives taken.
  4. Those who oppose are viewed as weak, unintelligent, inferior, and of no value at all.
  5. God’s word, the Bible, is disregarded and mocked.

You may have more to add, but here is where it hurts.

Before we in the United States puff out our chests, deepen our voices, and speak powerfully about our position, I think we need to seriously look at the log (as a Nation) that is lodged in our own  eye (as a Nation) before we point our finger at another Nation (or person) and try to change it (Matthew 7:3-5).

For example, how are these commonalities in ideology with Hitler and bin Laden any different from those who endorse and participate in abortion?  Dare we ask “How many of our ‘own’ people have we killed in this country compared to the number of our own people terrorists and other countries have killed?” I do not, in any way, support Hitler or bin Laden, or what they stand for.  Nor do I support or accept what our country does to its own.

God’s word is clear that human life, a person, begins at the point of conception (Psalm 51:5) and that God formed us in the womb (Psalm 139:13-14).  God values human life which He has created (Gen.1:26).  Additionally, to take a life of an unborn child is wrong (Exodus 21:22-23).

It’s time we look in the mirror and point the national finger at ourselves and change what we have the greatest ability to change.

Andy Woodall
Andy Woodall served as the Pastor of Student Ministries at Faith from 1999-2012.