Posted on 10/09/2014 7:28:17 AM PDT by LeoMcNeil
Every so often someone will make the claim that Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party is both conservative and Christian. National Socialism is neither. It isn’t conservative, certainly not on the American political spectrum. National Socialism is closer to Obama’s outlook than anything else. Each believed government should dictate the economy but allowed private business to carry out the orders of the state in a for profit manner. Obamacare would fit right into National Socialism. Government dictates what healthcare policies will look like, creates mountains of paperwork to be filled out and then allows private companies to sell what the government allows them to sell.
In this piece I’m more interested in the claim that National Socialism was a Christian movement. No doubt Hitler and other National Socialists used the generic term God on a regular basis, just like most American politicians do. The National Socialists had a plan for the church, just like they had a plan for every other organization in Germany. They sought to centralize it, eliminate its leaders, replace the leaders with National Socialists and ultimately transform the teaching and purpose into something that benefited the National Socialist movement. This is exactly what Alfred Rosenberg did with the National Reich Church. He sought a complete take over of the German Church. Opponents were weeded out, the German Confession Church leaders were murdered. Worse, the National Socialists sought to fundamentally alter church teachings to conform with their ideology.
Rosenberg had a 30 point program for the National Reich Church. Among these points are the following:
1. The National Reich’s Church of Germany categorically claims the exclusive right and the exclusive power to control all churches within the borders of the Reich; it declares these to be national churches:
2. The German people must not serve the National Reich Church. The National Reich Church is absolutely and exclusively in the service of but one doctrine: race and nation.
4. The National Reich Church does not force any German to seek membership therein. The Church will do everything within its power to secure the adherence of every German soul. Other churches or similar communities and unions particularly such as are under international control or management cannot and shall not be tolerated in Germany.
5. The National Reich Church is determined to exterminate irrevocably and by every means the strange and foreign Christian faiths imported into Germany in the ill-omened year 800.
7. The National Reich Church has no scribes, pastors, chaplains or priests but National Reich orators are to speak in them.
10. The National Reich Church irrevocably strives for complete union with the state. It must obey the state as one of its servants. As such, it demands that all landed possessions of all churches and religious denominations be handed over to the state. It forbids that in future churches should secure ownership of even the smallest piece of German soil or that such be ever given back to them. Not the churches conquer and cultivate land and soil but exclusively the German nation, the German state.
12. National Reich Church orators hold office, government officials under Civil Service rules.
13. The National Reich Church demands immediate cessation of the publishing and dissemination of the Bible in Germany as well as the publication of Sunday papers, pamphlets, publications and books of a religious nature.
14. The National Reich Church has to take severe measures in order to prevent the Bible and other christian publications being imported into Germany.
15. The National Reich Church declares that to it, and therefore to the German nation, it has been decided that the Fuhrer’s “Mein Kampf” is the greatest of all documents. It is conscious that this book contains and embodies the purest and truest ethics for the present and future life of our nation.
16. The National Reich Church has made it its sacred duty to use all its energy to popularize the coeternal “Mein Kampf” and to let every German live and complete his life according to this book.
18. The National Reich Church will clear away from its altars all crucifixes, Bibles and pictures of Saints.
19. On the altars there must be nothing but “Mein Kampf”, which is to the German nation and therefore to God the most sacred book, and to the left of the altar a sword.
20. The National Reich Church speakers must during church services propound this book to the congregation to the best of their knowledge and ability.
21. The National Reich Church does not acknowledge forgiveness of sins. It represents the standpoint which it will always proclaim that a sin once committed will be ruthlessly punished by the honorable and indestructible laws of nature and punishment will follow during the sinner’s lifetime.
22. The National Reich Church repudiates the christening of German children, particularly the christening with water and the Holy Ghost.
24. The National Reich Church abolishes confirmation and religious education as well as the communion the religious preparation for the communion. The educational institutions are and remain the family, the schools, the German youth, the Hitler youth, and the Union of German girls.
28. The National Reich Church rejects the customary day of prayer and atonement. It demands that this be transferred to the holiday commemorating the laying of the foundation stone of the National Reich Church.
30. On the day of its foundation, the Christian cross must be removed from all churches, cathedrals and chapels within the Reich and its colonies and it must be superseded by the only unconquerable symbol of Germany the “Hakenkreuz” (swastika).
In other words, the National Reich Church serves the state and focuses on blood and race over all else. The Bible is replaced with Mein Kampf. The Christianity imported to Germany around 800ad is to be abolished, presumably in favor of the pagan religions that existed in what is now Germany at that time. Baptism and communion are eliminated as well as the Christian doctrine of forgiveness of sin. Gone is the cross, in is the swastika. Does this sound like a Christian church in any way? It is quite clear the National Socialists sought to keep the title of church as little more than a name.
The church was to be transformed into an indoctrination vehicle for National Socialism. In this case, it sought to turn National Socialism into a religion. Adolph Hitler replaced God, Mein Kampf replaced the Bible and the Swastika replaced the cross. Gone is the doctrine of forgiveness of sins, to be replaced with the eugenic notions of blood and race pushed by the National Socialists. Those Germans who were truly Christians and did not wish to participate in this new religion were banned from participating in truly Christian Churches. Those believers did leave the National Reich Church, creating the Confessing Church. The National Socialists murdered thousands of pastors and believers from the Confessing Church. There was to be no protestant church in National Socialist Germany but the Reich Church.
There is nothing Christian about Hitler’s National Socialism. His destruction of the church via the National Reich Church makes that plain. There simply isn’t anything within the Reich Church that resembles the Christian faith. All of the Biblical sacraments are eliminated, the Bible replaced with Hitler’s rantings, God replaced by Hitler. The fundamental doctrines taught by Christ were eliminated in favor of ruthless legalism. There simply isn’t anything Christian about the National Socialists church. Which of course means that those claiming Hitler and the National Socialists are Christians either are ignorant or lying. Any quotations by the National Socialists concerning God or Christianity have to be viewed through the lens of the National Reich Church and the broader philosophy of National Socialism. Their motives are clear, Christianity had to be destroyed in Germany. The Church was only valuable as an organization which could be used to further National Socialism and the cult of Hitler. Otherwise, Christianity and the Church had no value to the National Socialists.
It must be that you do not recognize when people are being disingenuous to further their ill-intended purposes, and so feeding disinformation to others. I do recognize such things.
It must be that you do not recognize when people claiming support and justification for their contemplated actions from someone unable to respond - difficult to do when you have been dead for 400 years - are to be accorded any credibility.
Do you believe that the authors and signers of the Constitution attempted to embed racism in American society forever? Do you also believe that the majority population of the USA is bigoted and therefore happy to return blacks to the days of slavery?
Go drink your Kool-Aid.
And the popes practiced AS world wide, it was church policy, in a time FAR closer to Hitler’s rise. While a lot of Nazi leaders claimed Catholicism, maybe that’s where their AS arose, as if they needed a reason. Luther was a man, he held no secular power, the Popes on the other hand did. Perhaps being that Nazis were nominal Catholics, they used the JATL the same way you appear to be, as an method of attack on the Reformation. Not in anyway calling you a Nazi, I believe you are Catholic, just like you believe Streicher, a Nazi is credible. I have no agenda, what’s yours?
I like your style.
It seems to me you just did .
I believe you are Catholic, just like you believe Streicher, a Nazi is credible. I have no agenda, what’s yours?
Telling the truth about Martin Luther, which, it seems to me, is like sprinkling holy water on ...
That you choose to accept what a Nazi says as Gospel truth doesn't surprise me since the Word of God is only on par with Tradition in the Catholic world. Perhaps this belief in Nazis is a new Tradition, as is blaming some one else for your own sins. Oh wait, you got that practice from Adam and Eve, that nice story in Genesis.
Telling the truth about Martin Luther
Tell it, sing it out, I have no problem with it. A truthful man would provide context and acknowledge similar sin in the pantheon of leadership of his own org if he is truly decrying the sin., glass houses and all. And at the same time would get better witnesses than Nazis unless you were out of Communists as well.
It seems to me that if there were no problem with it we would not be having this conversation. I view Lutherans as separated brethren. I know some of them laid down their lives to save Jews, others, well we must all account for our works. I harbor no resentment for Germany; the same crimes can happen anywhere there are such ingredients. I see Martin Luther as culpable, a man with a monstrous appetite for evil and whose spiritual legacy includes not only the Holocaust but the Thirty Years' War.
Indicting or defending Luther, as a man,seems somewhat akin to doing the same with Mohammed.
Obama does apparently. U.S. President in ABC Prime Time: ‘Right to Bear Arms’ in Constitution and ‘So Was Slavery’., af_vet_1981 are you really 0bama? I mean you argue like him and all, now this story.
Sorry for the length of the title, but the Catholic church's AS has a long history. Maybe a reason for your deflection to Luther? Please note these dates as they lead up to WWII:
1921 Speaking for Pope Benedict XV, a Vatican spokesman informed representatives of the Zionist Movement htat they did not wish to assist "the Jewish race, which is permeated with a revolutionary and rebellious spirit" to gain control over the Holy Land
1925 At a conference of Catholic academicians in Innsbruck, Austria, Bishop Sigismund Waitz calls the Jews an "alien people" who had corrupted England, France, Italy, and especially America
1933 In a series of Advent sermons, Cardinal Faulhaber of Munich defends the Old Testament against Nazi attacks but emphasizes that it is not his intention to defend contemporary Jewry, saying that a distinction has to be drawn between Jews living before and after the crucifixion of Jesus
1933 In a pastoral letter on January 23, Bishop Johannes Maria Gföllner of Linz, Austria, declares that while the radical anti-Semitism preached by Nazism is completely incompatible with Christianity, it is the right and duty of Christians to fight and break the harmful influences of Jewry in all areas of modern cultural life. The Austrian episcopate condemns the letter in December for causing racial hatred and conflict
1933-1939 The general consensus among the Catholic papers in Poland is that Jewish influence should be reduced in all areas of life, that the Polish and Jewish communities should be separated as much as possible, and that the most desirable option is mass emigration of the Jews from Poland. St. Maximilian Kolbe is an active promoter of antisemitic literature
1935-1936 The Polish Catholic Church gives full support to a government policy encouraging Jewish emigration from Poland
1936 Cardinal August Hlond, the primate of Poland, issues a pastoral letter, stating: "I warn you against that ethical attitude that is fundamentally and uncompromisingly anti-Jewish. It is contradictory to Catholic ethics. It is permissible to love your nation more than others, but it is not permissible to hate anyone. Not even the Jews... You should close yourselves to the harmful influence of Jewry... But you may not attack Jews, beat them, hurt them, slander them. In a Jew you should also respect and love a human being and your neighbor"
1937 Austrian bishop Alois Hudal publishes a book defending Nazi racial ideology, supporting laws preventing a flood of Jewish immigrants, and criticizing the "Jewish" press for playing off Austrians against Germans. His book receives the support of Archbishop (later Cardinal) Theodor Innitzer of Vienna
1938 In a speech before Belgian pilgrims, Pope Pius XI denounces antisemitism and says: "Spiritually we are all Semites." His comments are reported in various newspapers but not in the Vatican's L'Osservatore Romano
1939 Josef Tiso, a Catholic priest with a doctorate in theology, became president of independent Slovakia. An extremist hater of Jews, he allied Slovakia with Nazi Germany and, with strong objections from the Vatican, deported most Slovakian Jews to their deaths in the camps. He declared: "It is a Christian action to expel the Jews, because it is for the good of the people, which is thus getting rid of its pests." Monsignor Tiso was executed after the war as a war criminal
I see Martin Luther as culpable, a man with a monstrous appetite for evil and whose spiritual legacy includes not only the Holocaust but the Thirty Years' War.
I'm sure you see no culpability here, got to go back 400 years.
Indicting or defending Luther, as a man,seems somewhat akin to doing the same with Mohammed.
Interesting, more hyberbolic equivalency, did you get a degree at Glavlit? So a man who never denied his Savior is the same as Mohammed. Gotcha! Explains why Catholics are so quick to excuse Christ denial in Islam, 'at least they are not Luther'.
Decent of you to reveal your true agenda: Bash Martin Luther’s reputation in order to advance the Catholic Church’s.
You might want to contemplate Luke 18:9-14. You should even be able to find it in your Roman Missal, since it is a lesson intended to be understood and lived.
Martin Luther was a wicked man who hated the Jews and plotted their death like Haman. It seems to me anyone personally invested in the man Martin Luther is going to experience cognitive and spiritual dissonance trying to rehabilitate his reputation.
Haman had secular power, you know like the Catholic church as it practiced its AS.
Seriously though, your faux outrage at Luther over his anti-semitism is getting old. You hate Luther, got it. But you apparently don't hate AS unless Luther did it. Luther is dead, the historically AS RC lives on.
rehabilitate his reputation.
He has no need of it, Lutheranism is based on the Bible and the Book of Concord, not Luther.
It seems to me
Sure does, talk about dissonance.
af_vet_1981 wrote:
“It seems to me ...”
Indeed, and therein lies the problem.
My directing you to your own missal seems to have touched a nerve.
Also, it is instructive to hear you pronounce the judgment of wickedness on Martin Luther. Does it not occur to you that our Lord specifically commanded his disciples not to judge the hearts of others? He told His disciples that such judgment is reserved to God alone ... alone. Do you not hear him?
Did Luther murder anyone? Did he hold any office that was so empowered to take the life of anyone, and can you show that he did indeed do so? Did he have anyone burned at the stake? Sir, you ought not go here for reasons that many others who read FR threads will recognize even if you do not. You either do not know what you are talking about - and that is the charitable view (I choose to take) - or you do not care that you are acting directly contrary to the will of Him who alone is head of the Church and Savior of all. Do you not hear?
There, I have abided by the rules of FR vis-a-vis you.
Oh, by the way, I am not “personally invested in the man Martin Luther.” I am, however, invested in the one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ, and that entirely by grace, for He first invested Himself in me ... and, yes, also in you. Do you not hear?
God be merciful to me a sinner.
I used the word scrum because I assumed the correct word might be inappropriate here. Assumed people might be smart enough to understand that. Guess I was wrong.
The churches of Germany enthusiastically supported the Nazis.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005206
To not understand that Martin Luther played a role in the underlying attitudes in Germany before the advent of the Nazi movement is comical, ignorant, or both.
To try and deny the truth of history by claiming that Christians were not supporters of Hitler is revisionism.
It happened, though I understand that you and some others are bothered by this.
Do you think that the Nuremberg Trials were against the commandments because they judged the evil in men ? It seems to me your interpretation seeks to shield men from their crimes. Martin Luther indicted himself in his own writings. One might as well defend a confessed child molester in the Church by claiming we should not judge his heart.
So, Martin Luther and Julius Streicher are of a piece in your mind?
I have never encountered anyone as willfully benighted as you, almost proudly so. I would say in parting, “dosvedanie,” “nasledanou,” “do zobaczinia,” “do pobachinya,” “au revoir,” “arrivederci” or even - dare I say it for fear of being equated with Julius Streicher - “auf wiedersehen,” but it would be hypocritical. So, goodbye.
Your focus is too much on the Jews. No doubt, they suffered most under National Socialism. However, Luther’s opposition to Judaism and Hitler’s opposition to Jews are two different things. Luther opposed the Jewish faith on religious grounds, mainly that they rejected Christ. Hitler opposed them on economic and political grounds. Furthermore, Hitler’s views on blood and race went well beyond the Jews. He viewed Eastern Europeans, who were largely Christians of one variety or another, as members of lesser races. Thus the cult of National Socialism, as set up by the Reich Church, focused on the superiority of Germans over not just Jews but also their Eastern European Christian neighbors. This is well beyond Luther’s religious opposition to the Jews.
You use the words of Nazis to indict Luther I don't, because I trust them like Communists.
You decry AS in Luther and and yet don't in anyone else of the period or since absolving Germany in #46.
History records many Nazi leaders as nominal Catholics, factual. Are they Catholic, not in any sense of the word. Did the Lutheran church in its history or proclamations doctrine or operating rules ever condone or practice AS? No they didn't. Did the Catholic church? Yes they did as shown by links to non-Nazi sources.
Given the preceding is true, where would these nominal Catholics most likely have heard AS sentiments in their youth, in their social group, at church or at Martin Luther study?
As for 'faux', the only thing 'faux' is your outrage at AS. Too selective to be believable. That you and the Nazis share a hate of the Reformation doesn't make you a Nazi.
For the comparison between Mo and Luther it doesn't surprise me at all you see no difference between them, your hate has blinded you to the fact that one believed in Christ for his salvation, the other didn't.
Blueprint for the Holocaust: another piece of hyperbole! From the post #48, a chronology of AS behavior by the 'Catholic' church. A cursory reading leading to the 16th century will show that Luther couldn't 'blueprinted' anything (been first author) as AS had been practiced in almost every way by the Catholic church. Arson of synagogues, looting, damning sermons, murder were practiced and condoned by many you now call saints.
With all that in mind, thank you for letting me get that info out to any lurkers out there. The difference between an honest broker and one who uses fake outrage to condemn his religious enemies. Churchmen have sinned through the millenia and continue today. I sin, I am responsible for what I do and don't do. Despite your efforts otherwise, the Nazis are responsible for their sins as well.
I understand well, scapegoating. Lutherans have never had as doctrine or practice ASl claiming so is called a lie. Figured people would know that.
To claim a man dead 400 years is responsible for the actions of Nazis is a reach even for you. Them Germans must have only read that one book, but then how would they have known who Luther was? That's right, Nazis, and they always tell the truth.
As for your link it doesn't support your assertion. Not surprising.
Super Joe would KYA.
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