This Day in History August 25

August must be a special month. We have another day when a number of exciting things took place.

For one, this is the day that the famous actor, Sir Sean Connery, was born on this day in 1930. Sean Connery is one of my all time favorites. If a movie comes out that he is in, then it is one I want to see. He became famous as one of the early James Bonds.

Also on this day the city of Paris was liberated in 1944. I was not aware that the liberation of Paris took place only two months after the invasion at Normandy. The Free French were allowed to roll into Paris first and of course, they were more than glad to take the credit for the deliverance of the city. It is sad that the French have forgotten who delivered them from the Nazis. Apparently a short-term memory issue.

On this day an American named John Birch was executed by the Chinese Communists in 1945. He was an American intelligence agent and an American Baptist Missionary. As a result of his death an organization, very right wing, called the John Birch Society, was born. I had a professor in seminary who was a staunch believer in the John Birch Society, so we heard a lot about the organization. Although I never belonged to the Society or agreed with all it had to say, it opened my eyes to the media manipulation of the news. It showed how situations had actually been staged by the media to deliver a message that was exactly the opposite of what was really happening. Of course we gullible Americans believe that if it is on TV then it must be the truth. How can pictures and video lie? After that I always watch the news with a jaundiced eye. I am not sure that what I am seeing is true because I am well aware of the capability of the media to change the story.

For people who refuse to read and who refuse to check out other sources of news such as BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor, they are going to be led astray on what is really going on.

In 1900 Friedrich Nietzsche died. He was a great contender for the "God is Dead" theory. But he also developed the "Superman" concept suggesting that there should be a superior race that would rule over the rest of the world. Adolf Hitler would take his theory and attempt to accomplish that. During WW II Hitler had breeding camps where he put his SS troops in with the most beautiful women he could find with the purpose of breeding this superman race. Of course they had to be blonde haired and blue-eyed. Hitler himself was brown eyed and had black hair. Nietzche became the spokesperson for the prevailing attacks on the Bible and Christianity and his thinking is still very much alive to this very moment.

The first Tsar (Czar) of Russia, Ivan IV was born in 1530. He had the distinguished title of "Ivan the Terrible."

Finally, on this day in 325, the Council of Nicaea brought to an end the controversy over the relation of the Son to the Father. The outcome was the trinitarian concept with which we are familiiar--the Son is equal to the Father. The controversy developed when a group let by Arius and called Arians claimed that the Son was inferior to the Father. The Jehovah's Witnesses today still hold to the Arian position rather than the traditional one. Either by translation or by explanation they remove all references to the deity of Jesus Christ from the Bible and their material.