Mark Tabata’s Weekday Devotionals
Thursday July 16 2026
More Bible Studies Available @ http://www.marktabata.com. To Receive
Free Bible Studies And Updates Via Email, Contact Mark Tabata @ 606-216-1757 (SMS Only) or mailto:markatabata@gmail.com (Email). Follow me on Substack: http://substack.com/@marktabata. Also please visit my author page: http://amazon.com/author/marktabata
John 8:44-You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
How does a seemingly intelligent culture become persuaded to hate an entire ethnic group?
That is a question that I have been pondering for quite some time, and it really came to a head on July 4 of this year. A good friend of mine, Kriss, was raised in a town not far from where I myself lived as a youth. He and I shared many experiences as natives of West Virginia. However, I was shocked to read the following on his Facebook account (and shared here with his permission).
July 4th is a weird day for me. 250 years ago, braver men than I decided to form a new country and sign their own death warrants. 33 years ago on the baseball diamond in Hundred at the 4th of July festivities, I was beaten with a metal baseball bat by a kid 3 years older than I was, all while yelling at me calling me n****r. Pictures were taken of my injuries, but even though the attack was witnessed (with no assistance from any onlookers, even though no one had cell phone cameras back then), nothing was done because the guy hadn’t quite turned 18 yet. People don’t believe me when I field the stories of growing up back home (and it’s STILL home to me). It was rough. But you know what? Adversity makes you or breaks you. I would never riot in the streets. I would never burn down buildings and police cars due to my actual victimhood. Not gonna lie, I hunted that guy the rest of the day but didn’t find him before, take a guess, the state police found ME. I was a beaten 14 year old boy with a broken mop handle in my hand for when I found him. I’m not proud of that. (I also remember my mom taking up for me to the officer. If that were my kid, I don’t know if I could’ve had the restraint.) But I forgive young Kriss. I was doing the best I could. But never for a minute did I hate my town or my country. Sure there are ugly people in our world. Sometimes they need to be handled. But don’t throw the entire country out with the bath water. July 4th, 1993, was a memory I’ll never forget. It was a formative day in my life. July 4th, 1776, was one of the greatest days in the history of the planet. I’d rather be beaten than British. 😁.
My respect for my friend, as well as my repulsion of racism that he experienced, is difficult to express.
So, it leads back go the question: how does a seemingly intelligent people become so brainwashed as to attack and nearly beat a young man to within an inch of his life?
A big part of the answer lies in propaganda.
ChatGPT provided the following when I asked for a good working definition of the word propaganda.
A good, balanced definition of propaganda is: Propaganda is the deliberate use of information, ideas, images, or emotional appeals to influence people’s beliefs, attitudes, or actions, often by presenting a one-sided or selective view of the facts. Here are a few well-known definitions: General definition: “Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.” Communication definition: “Systematic efforts to shape perceptions, manipulate thoughts, and direct behavior to achieve a desired response.” Simple definition: “Persuasive communication designed to influence how people think or act.” Important points about propaganda. Propaganda often: Appeals to emotion more than careful reasoning. Presents only one side of an issue. Repeats messages frequently to reinforce them. Uses symbols, slogans, stories, or images to shape public opinion. May contain truth, half-truths, or falsehoods—it is the intent to persuade in a one-sided way that makes it propaganda, not necessarily whether every statement is false.
As an example of modern day propaganda, think about the way that the Nazis brainwashed the German people into hating, imprisoning, torturing, deporting, and trying to exterminate the Jewish people.
Hitler believed that books could never bring about a revolution; only the spoken word, delivered by a person who could connect with his audience could convert them to a radical agenda. He said that when you want to tear down a world and build another in its place you must first of all separate the supporters and the members. The function of propaganda was to attract supporters, and change people’s minds so that they would be in agreement with the aims and philosophy of the movement. A member was one who has taken a further step and not only supports the movement but is willing to fight on its behalf. Notice what he wrote in Mein Kampf: The first task of propaganda is to win people for subsequent organization … The second task of propaganda is the disruption of the existing state of affairs and the permeation of this state of affairs with the new doctrine, while the second task of the organization must be the struggle for power, thus to achieve the final success of the doctrine.1 Hitler knew that propaganda must be used to prepare the people for something much more drastic, namely, a revolution that would send them down a different path. “The most striking success of a revolution,” he wrote, “will always have been achieved when the new philosophy of life as far as possible has been taught to all men, and if necessary, later forced upon them.”2 Yes, what begins as information turns out to become the law of the land, and woe to those who dare to oppose the law! “Hate,” he said, was “more lasting than dislike.” Hitler said he uses emotion (hatred) to rile up the masses and he reserves reason for just a few.(Erwin W. Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn From Nazi Germany, 831-860 (Kindle Edition): Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers)
Adolf Hitler used every tool at his disposal to infect the German people with his vision of hatred for the Hebrews.
What made the Nazis special was their pursuit of propaganda not just as a tool, an instrument of government—which had in fact often been the case in history before—but as the totality, the idea through which government itself governed. They saw public opinion as something that could be created, commodified and re-made. Nor was there really a distinction between policy and propaganda: the two were the same instrument, the one unintelligible without the other. The Third Reich was a laboratory. No regime had taken persuasion this far. There were groups to strengthen rumours, groups to spread graffiti, and the breadth of propaganda mediums—from sculpture to weaponry—and the mediatisation of all artefacts were possibilities that had never been realised before, nor have they been realised since. So the distinction between propaganda and non-propaganda can never be maintained in any analysis of Nazi Germany, and this is what makes the regime unique in history. The Nazis were technological innovators in communication and in the hardware of warfare also, and to some extent these even meant at times the same thing, at least to them. Propaganda was simply one of the things you did in order to function as a paladin of the Third Reich and compete for Hitler’s attention: they all possessed their own propaganda cadre, Rosenberg, Himmler and so forth. In the Reich everything could be interrogated for its propaganda potential, every surface inscribed with polemical meaning, every building block of public consciousness from typeface and newsprint to the expression of military communiqués to the architecture to the very design and deployment of weapons themselves. Every medium carried the propaganda, not just art or film. No regime had ever done this before. (Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, Selling Hitler: Propaganda and the Nazi Brand, 10 (Kindle Edition): C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd)
Propaganda reduces human beings into a stereotype.
The newspaper images, graffiti, radio broadcasts, and other forms of media in Nazi Germany, depicting Jewish people as primates (based on Darwin’s foolish theory of evolution ) captured the hearts and imaginations of the otherwise intelligent German people. And like a master manipulator, Hitler tapped into the anger and rage of his people and channeled that with his propaganda into hating one group that he blamed all of societies woes upon: the Jewish people.
My friends, it is the same strategy repeated throughout history.
Propaganda dehumanizes and blinds people to the intrinsic worth of each human being as being made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27).. When ignorant propaganda goes unchallenged, you end up with otherwise intelligent but brainwashed persons hating, demonizing, and persecuting entire ethnic groups.
That is what leads to black kids being beaten with baseball bats and police officers pursuing the specie instead of the perpetrators (and no, not all police officers are like that).
That is how you foster bigotry and prejudice towards entire ethnic groups and populations.
That is how you get concentration camps.
It begins and continues with propaganda.
My friends, Christians must always be on guard against propaganda. We hear all the time about “fake news.” This is nothing new! Satan was the inventor of “fake news” (Genesis 3:1-6; Revelation 12:9). We “test all things” and “hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Let us always be diligent to stand against propaganda that leads to racism, as God’s Word reminds us that He expects better of His people. .
John 13:34-35-A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Acts 10:34-35-Then Peter opened his mouth and said: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. 35 But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.
Romans 2:11-For there is no partiality with God.
What are some examples of racist propaganda and stereotyping in our day and age?
How can we as Christians stand against these things and promote unity and the love of God for all people?
Lord Jesus, help us to follow in Your footsteps and to fight propaganda with Your truth. Amen.