Posted on 01/11/2002 8:09:59 AM PST by It'salmosttolate
Agreed. I think it is worth stating, however, that some nazi officials, soldiers, etc. would have been torn in their loyalty between the Church and its moral obligations and their obligations to the nazi pogroms and ideology. The SS, which was the militant and ideological force of the National Socialists, was fundamentally pagan in its teachings and indeed strongly discouraged Christian sentiments and Church attendance. This didn't stop, some SS members from running off to church from time to time to assuage their consciences momentarily, get married, etc. It is therefore facile to state some officials were Christians, or at least churchgoers (for one is not denying there is no necessary spiritual and logical relationship between going to church and being a Christian, i.e., going to church doesn't make you a Christian) without a great big caveat as to what this entailed. In the end, as the article states, the fundamental pogrom of nazism was to have all members of the new Reich shed every vestige of Christian sentiment. Thus could be born the Nietzschean Ubermensch (superman) notions which Hitler was fond of. For in this sense, while Nietzsche considered Judaism bad he thought of Christianity as worst whereas Hitler saw Christianity only derivatively bad as it was spawned out Judaism. Either way, both were to be eradicated.
it's the rotten cabbage they're so found of eating that is the root of the problem.
We all do, Mary. I don't know why, but very few of us come to understand the grace, mercy, and love of God until we're in the middle of some suffering that is way beyond our ability to control. For some, it's a serious illness; others, it's a psychological illness or addiction; or the loss of a loved one; or the loss of one's material security.
I will say, though, that everyone I've ever spoken to who has gone through this "crucifying of the self" or flesh, has come out of it with a deeper appreciation and love for God. The thing is that "flesh" cannot cast out "flesh," so the crucifying of the "old man" is God's work, and His alone. We only submit. And with our eye on Him as He does it, we come out looking more like the kind of people He intends us to be. This isn't just dry theology, but I know this from experience.
In the meantime, I'll remember you when I meet with my prayer group this coming weekend. God bless.
Wise, wonderful post.
This is what the Nazis hated about the Judeo-Christian worldview. That God or Jesus has authority that transends the power of government and the laws of man. The Nazis wanted a state church that would serve the needs of the state and to fold all the Christians into it. If you did not join their Nazified church, you would go to a concentration camp. All real Christians are a threat to Fascisim because they answer to a higher authority than the state. When the Nazis were done with the Jews they were going to go after the Christians. They didn't want to do that until later after the war, so they never got that far in their religous program.
And this is also the reason that leftists in the media and in politics in this country had religious conservatives. They refuse to acknowledge as legitimate any religious convictions that run contrary to or oppose their political agenda.
Not always at gun point, but it was made clear, in subtle and not so subtle ways, that Christianity and Nazism were incompatable. Based upon personal testimony that I've read, any SS man w/ the guts to attend a Chrstian service at a minimum put his career in jeopardy and quite often much more.
Nevertheless, this slender loop hole doesn't even provide a fig leaf of cover for your salacious accusation that the atrocities of the Third Reich are attributal to Christianity. Especially when it was the Christian Churches that provided the only resistance to nazism in Europe for years, how else to explain the 100,000s of pastors, priests, and other witnesses to Jesus Christ that were murdered by the nazis for that profession of faith. Or the 100,000s of other, everyday Christians, that risked their own lives to protect those hunted by the nazi animals.
It is true that many Christians failed the searing test of faith presented by the nazis, and surely that was the nazi intent, but pray (if you can) that your own character is never tested so steeply less you too fail to live up to the test.
Give it up Lex, you've allowed your hatred of Christ to lead you into a blind alley.
anti-Semitism.
"but the rank and file Nazis, the ones who actually carried out the atrocities, were church-going Christians"
This statement is an indictment not merely of the general Christian population of Germany but w/ the use of the adjective "church-going" it clearly refers to those people that are schooled in and practice Christianity. It is not then a stretch to infer that Christianity itself bears culpability w/ the atrocities carried out by the Nazis and indeed, I believe, that was your intent.
I have pointed out that the atrocities of the Nazi regime were carried out almost exclusively by the virulently anti-Christian SS. Rather than acknowledge this simple historic truth, you instead imply that just because the SS hierarchy didn't issue written orders expressly forbidding Christianity your statement somehow retains validity. I assure you, it does not.
And so, in desperation, you drag out the old, tired strawman gambit thinking, no doubt, to slip the hook. Alas, that too will not work because your original statement remains untenable. Your attempt to link Christianity w/ Nazism is clear; and it is false.
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