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Posted on 01/26/2002 1:14:46 PM PST by Paul Ross
The Cross vs. the Swastika
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The Cross vs. the Swastika |
I vividly remember a high school conversation with a friend I’d known since we were eight. I’d pointed out that Hitler was essentially a pagan, not a Christian, but my friend absolutely refused to believe it. No matter how much evidence I presented, he kept insisting that Nazi Germany was an extension of Christianity, acting out its age-old vendetta against the Jews. Not that he spoke from any personal study of the subject; he just knew. He’d heard it so many times it’d become an article of faith — one of those things “everyone knows.”
Flash forward 25 years. A few weeks ago my last column (http://www.boundless.org/2001/regulars/kaufman/a0000528.html) refuted a number of familiar charges against Christianity, including the Christianity-created-Nazism shibboleth. Even though I only skimmed the subject, I thought the evidence I cited would’ve been hard to ignore; I quoted, for example, Hitler’s fond prediction that he would “destroy Christianity” and replace it with “a [pagan] religion rooted in nature and blood.” But sure enough, I still heard from people who couldn’t buy that.
Well, sometimes myths die hard. But this one took a hit in early January, at the hands of one Julie Seltzer Mandel, a Jewish law student at Rutgers whose grandmother survived internment at Auschwitz.
A couple of years ago Mandel read through 148 bound volumes of papers gathered by the American OSS (the World War II-era predecessor of the CIA) to build the case against Nazi leaders on trial at Nuremberg. Now she and some fellow students are publishing what they found in the journal Law and Religion(www.lawandreligion.com), which Mandel edits. The upshot: a ton of evidence that Hitler sought to wipe out Christianity just as surely as he sought to wipe out the Jews.
The first installment (the papers are being published in stages) includes a 108-page OSS outline, “The Persecution of the Christian Churches.” It’s not easy reading, but it’s an enlightening tale of how the Nazis — faced with a country where the overwhelming majority considered themselves Christians — built their power while plotting to undermine and eradicate the churches, and the people’s faith.
Before the Nazis came to power, the churches did hold some views that overlapped with the National Socialists — e.g., they opposed communism and resented the Versailles treaty that ended World War I by placing heavy burdens on defeated Germany. But, the OSS noted, the churches “could not be reconciled with the principle of racism, with a foreign policy of unlimited aggressive warfare, or with a domestic policy involving the complete subservience of Church to State.” Thus, “conflict was inevitable.”
From the start of the Nazi movement, “the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement,” said Baldur von Scvhirach, leader of the group that would come to be known as Hitler youth. But “explicitly” only within partly ranks: as the OSS stated, “considerations of expedience made it impossible” for the movement to make this public until it consolidated power.
So the Nazis lied to the churches, posing as a group with modest and agreeable goals like the restoration of social discipline in a country that was growing permissive. But as they gained power, they took advantage of the fact that many of the Protestant churches in the largest body (the German Evangelical Church) were government-financed and administered. This, the OSS reported, advanced the Nazi plan “to capture and use church organization for their own purposes” and “to secure the elimination of Christian influences in the German church by legal or quasi legal means.”
The Roman Catholic Church was another story; its administration came from Rome, not within German borders, and its relationship with the Nazis in the 1920s had been bitter. So Hitler lied again, offering a treaty pledging total freedom for the Catholic church, asking only that the church pledge loyalty to the civil government and emphasize citizens’ patriotic duties — principles which sounded a lot like what the church already promoted. Rome signed the treaty in 1933.
Only later, when Hitler assumed dictatorial powers, did his true policy toward both Catholics and Protestants become apparent. By 1937, Pope Pius XI denounced the Nazis for waging “a war of extermination” against the church, and dissidents like the Lutheran clergyman Martin Niemoller openly denounced state control of Protestant churches. The fiction of peaceful coexistence was rapidly fading: In the words of The New York Times (summarizing OSS conclusions), “Nazi street mobs, often in the company of the Gestapo, routinely stormed offices in Protestant and Catholic churches where clergymen were seen as lax in their support of the regime.”
The Nazis still paid enough attention to public perception to paint its church critics as traitors: the church “shall have not martyrs, but criminals,” an official said. But the campaign was increasingly unrestrained. Catholic priests found police snatching sermons out of their hands, often in mid-reading. Protestant churches issued a manifesto opposing Nazi practices, and in response 700 Protestant pastors were arrested. And so it went.
Not that Christians took this lying down; the OSS noted that despite this state terrorism, believers often acted with remarkable courage. The report tells, for example, of how massive public demonstrations protested the arrests of Lutheran pastors, and how individuals like pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (hanged just days before the war ended) and Catholic lay official Josef Mueller joined German military intelligence because that group sought to undermine the Nazis from within.
There is, of course, plenty of room for legitimate criticism of church leaders and laymen alike for getting suckered early on, and for failing to put up enough of a fight later. Yet we should approach such judgments with due humility. As Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett write in their book Christianity on Trial (to repeat a quote used in my last column), “It is easy for those who do not live under a totalitarian regime to expect heroism from those who do, but it is an expectation that will often be disappointed. . . . it should be less surprising that the mass of Christians were silent than that some believed strongly enough to pay for their faith with their lives.”
At any rate, my point is hardly to defend every action (or inaction) on the part of German churches. In fact, I think their failures bring us valuable lessons, not least about the dangers of government involvement in — and thus power over — any churches.
But the notion that the church either gave birth to Hitler or walked hand-in-hand with him as a partner is, simply, slander. Hitler himself knew better. “One is either a Christian or a German,” he said. “You can’t be both.”
This is something to bear in mind when some folk on the left trot out their well-worn accusation that conservative Christians are “Nazis” or “fascists.” It’s also relevant to answering the charge made by the likes of liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd: “History teaches that when religion is injected into politics — the Crusades, Henry VIII, Salem, Father Coughlin, Hitler, Kosovo — disaster follows.”
But it’s not Christianity that’s injected evil into the world. In fact, the worst massacres in history have been committed by atheists (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot) and virtual pagans (Hitler). Christians have amassed their share of sins over the past 2,000 years, but the great murderers have been the church’s enemies, especially in the past century. It’s long past time to set the historical record straight. 
The complete text of this article is available at http://www.boundless.org/2001/regulars/kaufman/a0000541.html
You've yet to explain how evolution is viable theory when there isn't ONE transititional fossil that proves macroevolution. Where the hell is the evidence? There should be millions of transititional fossils. There are none. Rats provide the largest group of mammal fossils and there is absolutely no evidence of eviolution in rats. Where's the proof?
The first and second laws of thermodynamics prove the universe was created and evolution did not occur. The universe could not have created itself. Spontaneous generation has never been observed. Nor could the universe have always been here, because all available energy would be used up and everything in the universe would have died if it had.
Evolution is based on the absurd idea the universe is going from disorder to order. But the second law of thermodynamics proves otherwise: The Second Law proves, as certainly as science can prove anything whatever, that the universe had a beginning. Similarly, the First Law shows that the universe could not have begun itself. The total quantity of energy in the universe is a constant, but the quantity of available energy is decreasing. Therefore, as we go backward in time, the available energy would have been progressively greater until, finally, we would reach the beginning point, where available energy equaled total energy. Time could go back no further than this. At this point both energy and time must have come into existence. Since energy could not create itself, the most scientific and logical conclusion to which we could possibly come is that: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth."
No one can explain how a whale or dolphin evolved because they didn't. A credible theory can't even be made how they did evolve.
How did the duckbilled platypuss evolve? Got any answers. Or will the 10,000 year answer be it?
The Duckbill Platypus
The explorer who first saw a hide of the duckbill platypus thought that it was composed of the hides of several different animals sewn together as a joke. Later, when a preserved specimen was brought to him for dissection, he finally declared it outrageous, but genuine! × It lays eggs, yet suckles its young.
× It has a ducklike bill, which has built within it a heat sensitive worm finding radar.
× Its tail is flat like a beaver's, yet furry.
× It has webbed feet in front, clawed feet in the rear.
× The reproductive systems are uniquely different from the rest of the animal world, but mostly mammalian in nature.
× The only other known monotreme, or egg-laying mammal is echidna or spiny anteater. Except for the fact that it lays eggs, it is about as different as you can get from the platypus.
Can you imagine what a pre-platypus might have looked like? Nothing in the fossil record gives us a clue about the origin of this animal, which is an outrage to evolutionists. This animal does very well in its natural environment in spite of its unusual features. To look at it, it would appear that this animal was pieced together from a variety of completely different animals.
I assume you posted that in the absence of any reasoned counter-argument to what I stated. In other words, unable to refute what I wrote, you felt compelled to insult me. How sad.
It is unfortunate that you cannot see the logical fallacy in your reasoning, as I have already pointed out for you, and feel you must resort to insulting anyone who disagrees or points out errors in your argument.
National Socialistic Democratic Workers Party
If that sounds like a leftist term, it is. NAZIism has been described (accurately) as Communism with a Nationalistic face. It's early motto in pre-war Germany was "Bread and Work."
From a historical perspective, Bolshevism and NAZIism were enemies, but I believe it was more from an "approach" to their goals of dictatorship, rather than common threads of purpose.
Both Communism and NAZIism are evil, anti-Christian, and totalitarian.
The left was confronted with such evil by NAZIism, it chose to call it "right-wing" in hopes of deflecting such terrible truths about itself. For a large part, they have been successful, aided by media and sympathizers. In the case of Stalinism, they simply ignored his murders and crimes, and then refused to apologize when the truth was known.
Evolution completely contradicts established laws of science. So, the evolutionist, on blind faith, is forced to believe 1)some natural law canceling out the Second Law prevailed far back in time, or (2) some natural law canceling out the Second Law prevails far out in space. When he makes such assumptions, however, he is denying his own theory, which says that all things can be explained in terms of presently observable laws and processes.
Where's the proof for evolution? No fossil record. No evidence. Animals that could not have evolved. Species too complex to have evolved step-by-step. As a result, you must rely on blind faith to believe in evolution because there is absolutely NO proof.
Evolution is based on the absurd idea the universe is going from disorder to order. But the second law of thermodynamics proves otherwise: The Second Law proves, as certainly as science can prove anything whatever, that the universe had a beginning. Similarly, the First Law shows that the universe could not have begun itself. The total quantity of energy in the universe is a constant, but the quantity of available energy is decreasing. Therefore, as we go backward in time, the available energy would have been progressively greater until, finally, we would reach the beginning point, where available energy equaled total energy. Time could go back no further than this. At this point both energy and time must have come into existence. Since energy could not create itself, the most scientific and logical conclusion to which we could possibly come is that: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth."
Have you considered the possibility that the total energy in the Universe is zero (or very close to zero)?
There is nothing in the 2LoT that prohibits natural processes from generating localized decreases in entropy of part of a system as long as the total entropy of the system and its surroundings experiences a net increase.
Again, there is absolutely no fossil record. No proof of evolution. Animals that could not possibly have evolved and complex species that could not have evolved in an evolutionary manner. Why do you continue to promote and blindly believe this fairy tale while claiming to be a Christian?
If Evolution is true, there must be an extremely powerful force or mechanism at work in the cosmos that can steadily defeat the powerful, ultimate tendency toward "disarrangedness" brought by the 2nd Law. If such an important force or mechanism is in existence, it would seem it should be quite obvious to all scientists. Yet, the fact is, no such force of nature has been found.
Hitler not only was brought up a Roman Catholic Christian, but he expressed his Christian views into adulthood, including his period as Chancellor of the German Third Reich.
Although some might counter that Hitler's admission to Christianity, by itself, does not make one a Christian, how else can an individual convey to another his religion except from their own confession? One of the tenants of Christian belief, indeed the definition of a Christian, comes from the Pauline epistiles in regards to faith in Jesus:
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. -Galatians 2:16
To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. -Romans 3:26-28
Mein Kampf
Volume 1, Chapter 1, In the House of My Parents
"I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal."
-Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
-Romans 3:26-28
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