Posted on 01/12/2002 4:36:37 AM PST by JohnHuang2
One popular myth about the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust is that the persecution of the Jews was fundamentally a Christian enterprise, the anti-Semitism of Luther trading its pen and cross for a rifle and swastika.
This view assumes that, since millions of Germans, many Christians, followed the fuhrer's folly, their religion played a part in the murder of countless Jews and Dolf's tyrannical vision of conquest that left much of Europe looking worse than usual.
You can flush this view down the chute with just a general look at Hitler's rise to power and comparing the views he espoused with those of orthodox Christianity. But previously unavailable documents, reports prepared by the U.S. government for the Nuremberg war trials, further discredit this idea.
"The fragile, typewritten documents from the 1940s lay out the Nazi plan in grim detail," writes Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Edward Colimore: "Take over the churches from within, using party sympathizers. Discredit, jail or kill Christian leaders. And re-indoctrinate the congregants. Give them a new faith – in Germany's Third Reich."
Hitler made certain the church was well under his thumb and in support of his crackpot racial dogmas. One group of Nazi ideologues who had infiltrated German churches went by the mundane moniker, "German Christians," almost as if they were holding themselves aloft as the standard by which fellow Germans should judge true Christianity. They were no such thing, recommending as they did scrapping the entire Old Testament and including the insidious "Aryan Paragraph."
The ideologues prevailed, and the churches voted into their confessions the paragraph, which barred from the pastorate any Jewish converts or those married to Jews. The misnamed German Christians argued, in radical disagreement with the Scriptures, that Jews could not be saved. Their goal, in short, was to undermine the Scriptures and doctrinal standards in favor of Nazi propaganda. The party line was to become the 28th book of the New Testament, the Gospel according to Adolf.
"A lot of people will say, 'I didn't realize that they were trying to convert Christians to a Nazi philosophy,'" observed Julie Seltzer Mandel, editor of the Nuremberg Project for the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion. "They wanted to eliminate the Jews altogether, but they were also looking to eliminate Christianity."
"Important leaders of the National Socialist party would have liked to meet this situation [church influence] by complete extirpation of Christianity and the substitution of a purely racial religion," said one of the documents highlighted by the Nuremberg Project, a July 1945 report by the OSS (the wartime intelligence predecessor of the CIA). The report further points to the "systematic nature of the persecution" as "the best evidence now available as to the existence of an anti-Church plan."
The report goes on to say, "Different steps in that persecution, such as the campaign for the suppression of denominational and youth organizations, the campaign against denominational schools, the defamation campaign against the clergy, started on the same day in the whole area of the Reich ... and were supported by the entire regimented press, by Nazi Party meetings, by traveling party speakers."
I'm not one to call Hitler a smarty, but the mini-mustachioed monster was no moron, either. He knew Christians would interfere with his plans if they were not hoodwinked first.
The Apostle Paul said Christians should obey the state whenever they can, yes, but Germany was moving into can't territory, and fast. Christians have always held that obedience to God trumps obedience to the state. "We must never put any of man's laws before the first commandment: 'I am the Lord your God … you shall have no other gods before me,'" writes Gary DeMar in "Ruler of the Nations." "Adherence to the first commandment protects us from those who would rewrite it to read, 'I, the state, am your God. You shall have no other gods before me.'"
Likewise, writes theologian R.C. Sproul, "There are times when we not only may but must disobey earthly authorities. Whenever the earthly authority commands us to do something God forbids, or forbids us from doing something God commands, it is our duty to disobey the earthly authorities."
Thus, while the proper Christian response to tyranny may not be a middle finger, it amounts to about as much.
One German theologian and pastor who embodied this refusal to bow the knee to Hitler was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, leader of the Confessional Church, an underground group defending the faith against Nazi corruptions. He was arrested and eventually hanged by the Nazis for his efforts to uphold the faith and undermine der fuhrer.
Of course, Hitler made appeals to Christianity to validate his views. In a predominately Christian country – if only culturally – you've got to make at least a few token gestures besides the back of your hand.
But many recognized them as only tokens and that the rest of Hitler's vision was radically anti-Christian. Hitler had to corrupt as many as possible and eliminate the rest before their duty to disobey got in the way.
The megalomaniac required absolute loyalty to himself. He would share no room in the souls of men with God. Hitler's plan was the establishment of the First Church of National Socialism, and since true Christianity would stand in the way, Hitler declared war on the church as well as the world.
Related column:
While, in a more just world, it should, the harsh reality is that the canard that Hitler and his band of madmen were espousing any form of Christianity is just altogether too useful a dart in the quiver of the secular humanists for them to abandon...
the infowarrior
And the propaganda that The Religious Left (Marxists/P.C. fascists) in America are espousing any form of Christianity is just too ludricrous a canard to ignore also.
Indeed, like Hitler, they have also infiltrated and undermined the Christian church. An important work that succinctly reveals who they are is entitled "The Coercive Utopians" written by Rael Jean Isaac and Erich Isaac.
The Isaacs' book documents how these "utopians" have infiltrated, indoctrinated and used American mainline Protestant and Catholic churches as propaganda instruments.
"Since 1960, large cracks have appeared in the political and social thinking of many educated Catholics as various idealogies such as neo-Marxism, the New Left, and democratic socialism becan to have greater impact. The 1985 Pastoral Letter on the American economy published by the American Catholic bishops was one indication of how things were going within the hierarchy of the American Catholic church, too. The Bishop's letter was essentially a neo-Marxist critique of capitalism coupled with a plea for the expansion of the liberal welfare state and continued distribution of wealth. Many Protestant members of the Religious Left ... welcomed that document." [Excerpt from pg.23 in the book, "Why The Left is Not Right - The Religious Left: Who They Are and What They Believe" by Ronald H. Nash (Ph.D. Syracuse University)
Everything you ever wanted to know about what Karl Marx' "useful idiots" (who actually do believe that human nature can be changed and therefore, "utopia really IS an option") believe:
Fascism: [1] A political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forceable suppression of opposition. [2] A tendency toward or actual exersize of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.
Fascista (Plural-Fascisti): A member of an Italian political organization under Mussolini governing Italy 1922-1943 according to the principles of fascism.
Nazism (or Naziism): The body of political and economic doctrines held and put into effect by the National Socialist German Workers' party in the Third German Reich including the totalitarian principle of government, STATE CONTROL of all industry, predominance of groups assumed to be racially superior, and the supremency of the fuhrer (Hitler).
Socialism: [1] Any *of various* economic and political theories advocating collective or GOVERNMENTAL OWNERSHIP and ADMINISTRATION of the means of production and distribution of goods. [2] a.) A system of society or group living in which there is NO PRIVATE PROPERTY. b.) A system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state. [3] A STAGE of society in Marxist theory TRANSITIONAL between capitalism and COMMUNISM and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.
Socialistic Realism: A MARXIST *aesthetic theory* calling for the didactic (instruction through entertainment and other pleasureable experiences) use of literature, art, and music to develop social consciousness in an EVOLVING SOCIALIST STATE.
Communism: [1] a.) A theory advocating elimination of private property. b.) A system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed. [2] cap a.) A doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the U.S.S.R. b.) A totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production with "the professed aim" of establishing a stateless society. c.) A final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably.
Communist: One held to engage in left-wing, subversive, or revolutionary activities. (Could be *a member* of a Communist party, government, or movement, or an adherent, advocate, sympathizer or supporter of such).
Communize: [1] a.) To make common. b.) To make into state-owned property. [2] To subject to Communist principles of organization.
Bump
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