Is it possible there exists an ancient mystery that lies behind the events of the modern world, an object connected to everything from the rise of Adolf Hitler to the spread of Marxism, socialism and communism, the two world wars, nuclear destruction, the Cold War, and even the future of the world?

Could a mystery that began in the last book of the Bible be a key to some of the greatest evils and calamities ever to fall upon our world? It sounds like something out of a movie, a science-fiction novel, or a Hollywood fantasy — but it’s real.

Thus Hitler addressed the enormous Nazi rallies at Nuremberg from a structure deliberately modeled on the ancient monument some have identified with the ‘throne of Satan.’

For more than a decade, the Pergamon Altar — a massive monument built more than 2,000 years ago in what is now Turkey — has been inaccessible to visitors as Berlin’s Pergamon Museum undergoes a vast renovation. When the museum partially reopens next year, the altar will once again be revealed.

‘Satan’s throne’

To most visitors, it will be an archaeological treasure, admired for what it reveals about a long-gone civilization. But the altar has another history — one that begins in the last book of the Bible and, I believe, runs through some of the darkest events of the modern world.

The ancient city of Pergamon was one of the great centers of the Hellenistic world. In the second century B.C., its rulers constructed a monumental altar on its acropolis, on a foundation roughly 35 meters square. A huge staircase led upward through a colonnaded structure, while a marble frieze depicted a violent cosmic struggle: the Olympian gods crushing the rebellious giants.

Centuries later, Pergamon would appear in the book of Revelation.

In a message to the Christians living there, Christ declares: “I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is.”

What exactly was “Satan’s throne”?

Scholars have proposed several possibilities. Pergamon was a center of pagan worship and of the Roman imperial cult. But one interpretation has long identified the phrase with the city’s enormous altar, whose architecture itself resembled a giant throne.

I believe that identification is significant.

Sinister discovery

With the advent of Christianity and the passing of the ancient world, the altar fell into ruin. Eventually parts of it were incorporated into later structures, and for centuries it disappeared from history.

Enter a German engineer named Karl Humann. Humann first encountered the ruins in the 1860s while working in the Ottoman Empire. He saw ancient marble sculptures being broken up and burned for lime and alerted the museums in Berlin. With permission from Ottoman authorities, German archaeologists began excavating Pergamon in 1878.

They soon uncovered the remains of the great altar.

Thousands of fragments emerged from the earth, including much of its enormous sculpted frieze. Under arrangements with the Ottoman government, the finds were transported on the backs of animals, then by ship and train, until pieces of the ancient altar began arriving in Berlin in 1879.

What would we expect to happen with the return of “Satan’s throne” to the world?

Germany had now become its new home. And as the ancient altar was being pieced together there, an old evil was taking a new and ominous form as well: anti-Semitism. In 1879, as pieces of the altar began arriving in Berlin, political agitator Wilhelm Marr popularized the term Antisemitismus and founded the League of Antisemites, helping transform a centuries-old hatred into a modern racial and political movement.

Altar of anti-Semitism

A decade later, in 1889, Adolf Hitler was born. The coincidence alone proves nothing. But the two threads — the ancient altar taking shape again in Germany and the country’s increasingly racialized anti-Semitism — would converge with remarkable literalness after Hitler came to power.

After coming to power in 1933, Hitler commissioned his chief architect, Albert Speer, to transform the Nazi Party rally grounds at Nuremberg. Between 1935 and 1937, Speer constructed the massive grandstand at Zeppelin Field. His architectural model was the Pergamon Altar.

Thus Hitler addressed the enormous Nazi rallies at Nuremberg from a structure deliberately modeled on the ancient monument some have identified with the “throne of Satan.”

From that stage, Hitler raged before the world as his regime plunged Europe into war and carried out the Holocaust and the murder of millions.

And this was not the end of the altar’s strange journey.

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Andrew Jones/Anadolu/Getty Images

Stalin’s prize

As the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, the Red Army entered Berlin and took possession of the altar’s friezes. Along with enormous quantities of German cultural property, they were carried east into the Soviet Union, where they remained for more than a decade. The ancient sculptures that had traveled from Pergamon to imperial Germany and witnessed the rise and fall of Nazi Germany had now passed into Stalin’s Soviet Union.

In 1958 and 1959, the Soviet Union returned approximately 1.5 million cultural objects to communist East Germany, among them the frieze panels of the Pergamon Altar. By 1959, they were once again on display in Berlin — this time behind the Iron Curtain.

Pergamon. Imperial Germany. Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union. Communist East Germany.

And this is only part of the mystery. In my book “The Altar of Pergamon: The Mystery of the Dark Angel and the Future of the World,” I explore what I believe are further connections between the altar and the forces and events that shaped the modern age — Marxism and communism, the Holocaust, the Cold War, the Atomic Age, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and even events that may yet shape the future of our world.

Pergamon’s return

When I wrote it, I had no idea that the altar itself would soon be revealed to the world again. But I believe that timing is itself part of the mystery.

It can be hard for our modern sensibilities to grasp the possibility of such a thing as a “throne of Satan” altering the course of history. But the connections are grounded in concrete facts and remarkable historical convergences — more than 200 of them.

Though we like to imagine that we are in control of the world’s destiny and that we can solve our problems through our own resources, powers, and technologies, the Bible tells us something else: There is more to the world and to our lives than what we can see with our eyes. There is another realm, a spiritual realm, that can shape the course of our lives and our world.

What will happen when the altar is once more revealed to the world? We cannot say. But the ancient object connected to some of the greatest evils and cataclysms of the modern age may not be finished with history yet.

​Adolf hitler, Albert speer, Ancient greece, Antisemitism, Bible, Book of revelation, Christianity, Cold war, Holocaust, Jonathan cahn, Joseph stalin, Karl humann, Pergamon altar, Prophecy, Soviet union, Throne of satan, Wilhelm marr, Faith 

“I complained because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”

We have all heard that expression. I happen to live with someone who has no feet.

Yet during my decades of marriage to a bilateral amputee, there have been plenty of times when I complained that my feet hurt. I have limped around the house nursing a blister while living with a woman who leans her prosthetic legs next to the nightstand.

You would think that daily reminder supplied all the perspective I needed. It did. Perspective was never the problem. Gratitude was something else.

We live in a culture that has industrialized comparison. Social media serves it to us by the scroll: Someone has more than we do, and someone else has less. The algorithm knows how to make us envious, aggrieved, or smug. It cannot make us grateful.

Seeing someone with greater challenges can put our difficulties into perspective. It may even stop us from complaining out loud for a while. We say, “I don’t have anything to complain about.” But we usually do. We simply tamp it down for decorum’s sake before returning to our regularly scheduled grumbling.

Perspective may embarrass us into silence, but silence is not gratitude. Besides, what kind of gratitude requires another person’s misery? “I was feeling sorry for myself, but then I looked at your life and felt much better” probably will not land the way we intend.

Gratitude is not looking across the room and saying, “At least I’m not you.” It is looking at mercy and saying, “You saw me.”

I learned something about that during one of Gracie’s hospitalizations.

One afternoon, I drove home from the hospital for clothes and supplies before heading back. Some friends called and asked me to stop by their home. They ushered me into their kitchen, where a place had been set for one person.

There sat a bowl of homemade vegetable beef soup, a thick slab of cornbread, and a tall glass of sweet tea. As a Southerner, it was about as fine a meal as I could imagine.

My friends quietly said, “Your boys are safe with their grandparents for spring break. Gracie is safe at the hospital. And you are safe here. Sit down, eat, and rest. We’re watching over you.”

They saw what I had not yet recognized. I had spent so much of my life watching over someone else that I did not know how to admit I needed someone to watch over me.

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I have eaten costlier meals I can barely remember. Decades later, I still remember their kitchen, the table, the chair, and that meal with clarity.

What produced gratitude in that moment? Not perspective. I already had perspective by the truckload from countless hours in hospitals and surgical waiting rooms. What moved me was not that someone else had less. It was that my friends saw the burden in my stooped shoulders.

C. S. Lewis wrote of being “Surprised by Joy.” That afternoon, I was surprised by mercy. My friends prepared a place and came toward me before I asked.

That is a picture of the gospel.

God did not rescue us by pointing to someone whose sins were worse than ours. He saw us stooping beneath a burden we could neither understand nor remove. He did not wait for us to straighten ourselves, find the right words, or properly explain our condition. He saw us, and then He came toward us.

Paul writes, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Luke tells of 10 lepers whom Jesus healed. All 10 received something beyond their reach, but only one returned to thank Him. Receiving something, even something miraculous, does not automatically produce gratitude. One man connected the mercy he received with the One who gave it.

Jesus asked, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine?” I find that question uncomfortable because I have spent a good bit of my life among the nine.

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I have too often received mercy and hurried on to the next problem. I have prayed for provision and complained about the packaging. I have asked God to open a door and grumbled because it squeaked.

My problem was not a lack of perspective. My problem is gospel amnesia.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul,” David wrote, “and forget not all his benefits” (Psalm 103:2). Gratitude requires remembering.

Self-centeredness says, “I deserve more.” Perspective says, “Someone else has less.” Gratitude says, “I have received mercy.”

My friends did not solve our crisis that afternoon. The hard road still waited outside their home, and it continues to this day. But for a little while, I rested while someone else stood guard.

I never knew grace could smell like vegetable beef soup and warm cornbread.

That afternoon, gratitude tearfully accepted a second bowl.

​C.s. lewis, Caregiving, Christianity, Envy, Faith, God, Gospel, Grace, Gratitude, Love, Mercy, Opinion & analysis, Perspective 

Kathy Griffin hasn’t learned a single lesson since crashing her own career.

The “D-list” diva shared a horrifying image of herself holding a fake, bloodied head of President Donald Trump, ISIS-style, in 2017. The backlash proved swift and furious. She apologized (then took it back) and watched her stand-up gigs evaporate.

Country singer Jelly Roll famously shed a whole lotta weight in recent years. Good for him! Now he’s hoping to shed fans.

It took years to rebuild a semblance of a career, and she eventually leaned into her Trump derangement syndrome.

Now she’s playing the Victim Card™ via the “Talk Your Head Off” podcast with Gen Z host Adam Mockler. Mockler complained of the “chilling effect” created when President Trump goes after his critics in the media and the legal arena.

Griffin’s response? She knows the feeling.

“I actually was a victim of that myself in 2017 when I released a controversial photo that I thought everyone else would agree with me,” Griffin said, referring to BloodyHeadGate. “I was very, very wrong.”

That last sentence might be the first wise thing she’s said in ages …

Hostin-ator

AI just got dumber.

“The View” host Sunny Hostin just sold her likeness to AI startup Fountain O. That means the company can use Hostin’s name and brand for AI-based TV shows and movies based on Hostin’s novels.

Wait … she has enough time to share TV’s most idiotic opinions and write novels? Respect!

The deal means her fans can not only see AI reproductions of her stories but watch Hostin herself in them.

“To be able to bring my novels to life in movie and TV form, and actually have my image inserted in the productions, so that audiences can relate to me through my stories beyond my role as an author, is incredibly exciting to me.”

Maybe those “Terminator” films depicting computers conquering humanity didn’t anticipate the Hostin factor …

Jelly rolled

Is anything more fickle than pop music stardom? The list of one-hit wonders may literally be a mile long, and even today’s red-hot stars could run cold in a New York Minute.

Remember Jewel? Right Said Fred? Young MC? That should keep today’s chart-toppers hungry and humble.

Not Jelly Roll. The country singer famously shed a whole lotta weight in recent years. Good for him! Now he’s hoping to shed fans. How? He hosted “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” this week and read straight from the far-left show’s cue cards.

Trump bad. Trump dumb. Trump [fill in the blank]. “Funny” rarely enters the equation on the show, and Mr. Roll did nothing to change that approach. And, naturally, some of the singer’s fans recoiled at his liberal lurch.

He is a country crooner, after all. His response? To paraphrase he Critical Drinker, “Go away now.”

“For those who threatened to stop listening to my music based on my comments last night, I just want to say with conviction: go right ahead.”

Sounds like a plan. In related news, look for Jelly to join Chumbawamba on their 2027 “That One Song You Kinda Liked” tour.

RELATED: VICTORY NAP: Rosie O’Donnell’s back — with the same tired Trump trash talk

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Ali who?

Sacha Baron Cohen was king of the comedy world following his gonzo 2006 film “Borat.” It’s been downhill ever since.

Even worse, Cohen went woke, tackling predictable targets (Trump!) and demanding that the real estate mogul be kicked off of social media.

Sad.

Still, there’s always hope for a creative rebound. And Cohen’s next project is a film-length “documentary” based on his classic Ali G character. “Ali G: Who Iz I” hits theaters this fall, and while the trailer isn’t a hoot, perhaps the best bits are being saved for the film itself.

We’ll see come the film’s release day — Oct. 23. Right now, some comedy pearl-clutchers are coming after Cohen.

A media “watchdog” group, NewsCord, is trying to coax movie houses to ban the film. His routines, it claims, have “enforced harmful stereotypes across marginalized communities through his characters.”

Will that effort get traction? It’s not 2020 any more, thank goodness. For now, Cohen is leaning into his old bad-boy shtick, ignoring how he abandoned his principles over time. Maybe he thinks being unwoke is cool (it is … but not thanks to him).

“In an age when a single comedian’s career can be ended by a single un-PC joke, I thought I’d play it safe and bring this guy back,” he shared on social media.

​Jelly roll, Jimmy kimmel live, Kathy griffin, President donald trump, Sacha baron cohen, Sunny hostin, Trump derangement syndrome, Ai, Entertainment, Hollywood, Lifestyle, Culture, Toto recall