Posted on 08/12/2011 9:18:54 AM PDT by fishtank
The Christian Nazi myth refuted
A review of: The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity by Bruce Walker
Outskirts Press, Parker, CO, 2009
by Lita Cosner
Many anti-Christians turn to the Nazis for an example of the sort of evil that can be committed in the name of Christ. The myth that the Nazis were Christian is so common that many Christians cannot adequately answer it. If the Nazis had been Christian in name, all this would have proved is that not all who claim to act in Christ’s name are consistent with His teachings. But far from being Christians, the Nazis were opposed to Christianity and sought to stamp it out.
In less than 100 pages, Bruce Walker, in The Swastika Against the Cross, sets out to document the Nazi’s opposition to Christianity using sources that were mainly written before and during the Second World War. As Walker points out, “The authors of these books had no idea how history would unfold; they did not know that the world would be plunged into a global war or that six million Jews would be exterminated in horrific fashion” (Introduction).
(More at link.)
There's a lot of validity in what you posted - however the Creation Journal article made some valid points that partially address these issues. It is true that Germany in the 18th Century was at the vanguard of the 'Higher Criticism' movement. They tore down Scripture, and turned it into some Grimm's Fairy Tale myth, that contained some nuggets of truth. They denied the infallibility and inerrancy of the Word of God, and by so doing - they built their houses on shifting sand rather than solid rock.
In addition, they were also on the vanguard of the evolution movement (goo to you). They embraced Darwinism. One German Biologist of the times, Haeckel, came up with some fairy tale of recapitulation - and basically forged diagrams of different embryos to show how similar all animals were during their early stages (diagrams that existed in many biology books until recent times) - to 'prove' evolution.
So what you had in this environment (the 1920s and 1930s), were Christians who weren't able to stand on the Word of the God. They might have had some 'fuzzy feelings' about God - but they just went through the motions of attending a Church and singing hymns, but not knowing what their faith was built upon. So, when you had some charismatic man show up on the scene - rebuilding the pride of a Nation and espousing the name of 'God' in some of his speeches - many 'Christians' gravitated towards him. Hitler may have blasted Jesus' Sermon on the Mount - but since the Bible was 'unreliable' - who were they to criticize the Fuhrer? Without the Bible as a Reference, and a Light to get them through this dark world - they were lost. Any Christian who believed the Bible was the Word of God - no matter how prideful they were of their Country - would have instantly recognized that this Hitler was evil, and speaking and working in a way contrary to God's Word. And that is where they failed.
Psalm 11:3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?
Well the ‘devil’ is up to what he does best muddy clear running water. There is NO secret to finding the WORDS of Christ, and of course anybody and every body can claim to be Christian. BUT other than Christ not one of us born in the flesh ever leave this earth as living life in the ‘perfect’.... although I would contend that those NOT of the age of accountability do come very close. Some people are born to be liars.... as it is Written....
“We are a people of different faiths, but we are one. Which faith conquers the other is not the question; rather, the question is whether Christianity stands or falls.... We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity... in fact our movement is Christian. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people.” Adolf Hitler
“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice” Adolf Hitler
Then he should have kicked out Himmler.
But this isn't about a “No true Scotsman” fallacy - it is about history.
The history of the Nazi movement is that their leaders attracted Christians with such rhetoric as calling Jews the killers of Christ - and these men drawn to their cause went to war with Crosses on their tanks and planes - and Bibles in their pockets.
I understand the impulse to declare them “other” and certainly not “Christian” - but the vast majority of rank and file Germans who supported the Nazis and/or fought in that war certainly considered themselves Christian.
Historic revisionism isn't a good thing.
Himmler: “Let us assume that the Turkish Muslim armies would have conquered Vienna and Europe in 1683...”
Five days later, Himmler told Kersten that he regretted the fact that the Turkish Muslim armies had not been able to conquer Europe in 1683:
“Let us assume that the Turks in whose ranks Europeans were fighting as well, even in high positions, would have conquered Vienna and Europe in 1683 instead of having been forced to withdraw. If the Mohammedans would have gained the victory at the time and Islam would have swept victoriously over Europe, then the Christian churches would have been depoliticized. (...) For the Turks were religiously tolerant, they allowed each religion to continue to exist, provided it was no longer involved in politics – otherwise it was finished.”
Valuable quote.
Now, who does that REALLY sound like?
The real Jesus?
I think not.
That drivel sounds like the flip side of James Cone, Jeremiah Wright and Brother Hussein, i.e. BLT (black liberation theology), except AH would call it WLT.....
Indeed.
But not all those who would feast on sheep are good shepherds.
;)
Very few Christians, percentage wise, went to concentration camps because most of them went along with the Nazis. Many joined the ranks of the German army. Few "rocked the boat".
Almost none from Germany.
Incorrect! Germay's official church was Lutheran.
The Nazis figured there wasn’t much they could do about the current generation of Christian Germans, they figured once they died off, that would be the end of Christianity. In the meantime, just throw them a bone or two to keep them on their side.
Bavarians, where most of the early Nazi leadership came from, were Catholic.
The rest came from Germany, where the folks were largely protestant, mostly Lutheran.
The point is: Few Christians in Germany spoke out against the Nazis. The fear level was too great. The German military ranks were full of Christians. Do you recall stories of the Krauts singing Christman Carols when opposite the 101st at Bastone? That was common.
Certainly by that time most of the Wehrmacht hated Hitler and the Nazis’ guts.
Sure as crap wasn’t that way initially.
Yes, the silence was deafening.
I suspect I know what you think the definition of a Christian is....
..but I also suspect you haven't a clue.
Corrie ten Boom was a Christian......and she could have settled peacefully in her little world & continued to be safe & probably unbothered....
..but her Christian conscience wouldn't let her....
...Corrie, her sister, her brother, her nephew and her elderly father were arrested (her father died shortly after) and the remainder of the family were sent to a concentration camp....
...her sister died, her nephew either died or was killed....and his dad within two years....
..this is a microcosm of what a Christian did during Hitler's reign....
...and I resent your broadbrush attempt to malign the name of Christ.
Your 'small percentage' of folks who lived their lives for Christ & tried to help their brothers and sisters in peril made huge gains for their countrymen and for the kingdom of God.
By Hitler's own words he's clueless as to why Christ died. ("How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross.") Christ didn't die to rid the world of the so-called "Jewish poison." Christ died to pay for all sin.
Here is the truth:
[Everyone sins] "All have sinned and come short of the Glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
[Realize the penalty for sin] "For the wages of sin is death[, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.]" (Romans 6:23)
"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." (Rev 21:8)
[God doesn't want anyone to suffer eternal torment in Hell] "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
[Believe and live] "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
"Verily, verily, I say unto you: He that heareth my words, and believeth on him that sent me, hast everylasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." (John 5:24)
"...I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?" (John 11:25,26)
Do you believe this?
(Just in case the ellipsis isn't obvious)
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