Christian Opposition To The Nazis
Bruce Walker has a follow up essay to the one I linked the other day and another must read.
The notion that somehow Christianity was connected with Nazism has its roots in powerful forces. The world is increasingly secular, and when secularists talk of the "dangers" of religions, they really mean the "dangers" of Christianity. Because the Nazis were anti-Semitic, there is a false assumption that Nazi anti-Semitism arose out of the bigotries of Christians. It emphatically did not.
Far from being a totalitarian "danger," Christianity, like Judaism, is a bulwark against totalitarianism. What follows is hidden history - facts once well known, but which have fallen into the memory hole: the unique, Christian opposition to Nazism within Nazi Germany. Katherine Burdekin, in her 1937 dystopian classic, Swastika Night, foresaw that the only indigestible part of a future Nazi empire would be Christians, who would also be utterly despised by the Nazis, denied all rations and considered the lowest form of life.
13 comments:
The secularists also overlook how many Christians, such as the legendary Corrie Ten Boom who wound up in concentration camps.
Goat, I'm sorry but I intensely disagree with you here. The Nazis were secular and hated Christianity and yes, many Christians saved Jews and were motivated by Christianity, but Hitler drew his inspiration from the Church. Hitler addressed the world at the passion plays of Oberammergau in 1942. He said: "his blood be on us and our children... [Matt 27:25], maybe
I’m the one who must execute this curse... I do no more than join what has been done for more than 1,500 years already. Maybe I render
Christianity the best service ever!” The Pope didn't argue but silently agreed with him! And the Church had a secret line to get Nazi war criminals out of Europe after the war, plus Church bells rang every time the last Jew out of every town was deported. The blame for the Holocaust can be placed squarely on the Church's teachings and on the Christian Bible.
Hitler did hate Christianity but he used it as a tool to spread anti-semitism. His ideology was well received in Germany because of their long history of Church anti-semitism. Hitler's quote form the Passion Play shows that.
"There is no basis in Christian theology for that opinion."
I realize today that many Christians reject anti-semitism but this is a ridiculous thing to say since throughout most of Christian history, anti-semitism has been the norm. Jews were thought to be the Witness, debased to show G-d's rejection of them and the suffering of those who don't accept JC.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee,” (Matthew 23:27 and Luke 13:34 KJV)
“…all the people [Jews] will stone us” (Luke 20:6)
“Then took they [Jews] up stones to cast at him” (John 8:59)
“Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.” (John 10:31)
“His disciples say unto him, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee” (John 11:8)
“…they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned.” (Acts 5:26)
“…cast him out of the city, and stoned him…And they stoned Stephen” (Acts 7:58-59)
“And there came thither certain Jews …and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city” (Act 14:19)
“Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, (2 Corinthians 11:24-25)
Since the advent of Christianity the clergy and other church leaders, having been constantly taught the above and much more, were fueled by these thoughts and would tell the people such as shown below:
(Pope) Clement I: (year 101 CE) blamed the Jews for Nero’s persecution of the Christians.
(Saint) Justin Martyr: (year 116 CE) that: “The Jews were behind all the persecutions of the Christians.”
Tertullian of Carthage: (150-225 CE) “Only those who were baptized [Christians] and followed the prescribed course of penitence could hope for release from punishment” and “Divine revelation, not reason, is the source of all truth.”
Quintas Spetimus Florens Tertullian: (160-230 CE) Latin Church Father who bruited that: “The Jews formed the breeding ground of all anti-Christian actions.”
(Saint) Hippolytus: Roman Priest (170-236 CE) “the Jews were receiving and would continue to receive God’s punishment for having murdered Jesus.”
(Bishop) Cyprian: (200-258 CE) A pupil of Tertullian. “Outside the Christian Church, there is no salvation.”
Origen: the greatest theological scholar of the early church. ‘On account of their (the Jews) unbelief and other insults which they heaped upon Jesus, the Jews will not only suffer more than others in the judgment which is believed to impend over the world, but have even already endured such sufferings.
Eusebius of Caesarea: The first historian of the Christian Church (265-339 CE); “the Jews would be destroyed by fire and the city would be inhabited no longer by Jews.
(Saint) Hilary: (315-367 CE) “The Jews as a people who had always persisted in iniquity [sin] and out of its abundance of evil glorified in wickedness.”
(Saint) Gregory: (330-395 CE) got his material from the NT – “The Jews slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophets, adversaries of God, men who show contempt for the Law, foes of grace, enemies of their fathers’ faith, advocates of the Devil, brood of vipers, slanderers, scoffers, men whose minds are in darkness, leaven of the Pharisees, assembly of demons, sinners, wicked men, stoners, and haters of righteousness.”
(Saint) John Chrysostom: (344-407 CE) The strongest attacks on Jews and Judaism by the Church Fathers are found in the homilies of Chrysostomin his Antioch sermons.
(Saint) Augustine of Hippo: (354-430 CE) Church Bishop and Father of the Roman Catholic church who characterized the Jews as ‘willfully blind to Holy Scripture, lacking in understanding, and haters of truth.’ Further, he affirmed: ‘The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the Scriptures and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus.’
St. Jerome: “...serpents, haters of all men, their image is Judas ... their psalms and prayers are the braying of donkeys..”
St. Thomas Aquinas: “It would be licit to hold Jews, because of the crimes, in perpetual servitude, and therefore the princes may regard the possessions of Jews as belonging to the State”.
(Saint) Ambrose: (340 CE) He defended a fellow Bishop for burning a Synagogue at Callinicum and asked: “Who cares if a synagogue -- a home of unbelief, a house of impiety, a receptacle of folly, which God himself has condemned -- is burned?”
(Pope) Valentinian III: “I do not wish Christians to serve such persons, lest by their office they find occasion to corrupt the venerable Christian’s faith.”
(Emperor) Justinian: (527-564 CE) Author of The Justinian Code which negated civil rights for Jews including loss of Synagogue, loss of reading the Hebrew Bible, loss of social gatherings, and loss of holiday celebration [Passover].
(Pope) Gregory VII: He was the Pope (from 1073-1085 CE) who forbade Jews to have power over Christians and forbade them to hold office.
(Saint) Bernard of Clairvaux: Eleventh Century medieval saint who was partially responsible for the Crusades that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Jews.
(Pope) Innocent III: In 1205 CE he announced: “God is not displeased, but, rather, finds it acceptable that the Jewish dispersion shall live under Catholic kings and Christian priests. Because of the Jews intolerable sin I will be your [Jews] Lord since imperialist authority opposed everlasting servitude on the Jews from ancient times as punishment for the Christ-killing.”
(Pope) Gregory IX: Italian Cardinal (1170-1241 CE) who, in 1233, announced to the Dominican order that their main goal was to “convert Jews to Christianity.”
(Pope) Sixtus IV: Italian Pope (1414-1485 CE) who encouraged and approved of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella’s (Spain) expulsion of the Jewish Community.
(Pope) Clement VIII: Italian Pope (1536-1605 CE) who professed that: “All the world suffers from the usury of the Jews, their monopolies and deceit. They have brought many unfortunate people into a state of poverty, especially the farmers, working class people and the very poor.”
(Pope) Paul IV: His “Cum Nimis Absurdim” (1555 CE) was a powerful condemnation of “Jewish usury.” It embodies a legal code to curb “Jewish power”.
(Pope) Pius V: Counter-Reformation Cardinal (1504-1572 CE) who disclosed his views on Jews in ‘Hebraeorum Gens’ (1569) when all Jews were expelled from the Papal States.
(Pope) Gregory XIII: He was the Pope from 1572-1585 CE who declared that the Jews‘ continue to plot horrible crimes against Christians with daily increasing audacity.’
Martin Luther: What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:
First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly - and I myself was unaware of it - will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.
"The inherited guilt of the Jews:
Some members of the Jewish puppet government collaborated with the occupying Romans to put Jesus to death. Therefore all Jews down to the present day (not just the descendents of the collaborators) have inherited the essence of their guilt.
Does this sound crazy? Well it was official infallible Vatican doctrine until 1965 (No, I haven't got the 9 upside down. I did mean 1965 not 1665. The Middle Ages ended later for some people than for others)
Not surprisingly, in view of the geographical location of the Vatican, the present day Romans have somehow escaped inheriting this sin."
From http://www.aboutulverston.co.uk/metaphysics/essentialism.htm
I'm not going to get in the middle of a disagreement on whether Christianity was connected to Nazism or not, because quite frankly, I don't know. I've never heard that before, but it doesn't surprise me. It seems very little surprises me any more.
You know I'm an Episcopalian, and I don't know whether or not I've told you before or not, but I've said many times that the liberal question has not raised it's ugly head in my church. Well, it did last Sunday and I blew my top! I stood up and gave the liberals hell and I've probably got a lot of people angry at me, but I don't give a damn. They will have to put up with me, like it or not. I've had it with all this total crap. (It's a bit off topic... sorry... I'm still angry.) The Ft. Worth Diocese just left the American Episcopal church because of this, and I wish the Houston Diocese would follow suit.
What flipped my lid was this arrogant Lawyer who thinks he runs the church because he tythes more than anyone else, said that he thought it was wrong for us to pray for our troops during the service! ARRRGGGGG! I was so mad I saw red, and I don't even remember what I said, but you've gotta know it wasn't pretty!
BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!!
http://johnofgwent.blogspot.com/2007/11/marcus-brigstokes-take-on-abrahammic.html
Bar, good points and well taken but the point of the essays was that religious Christians were more likely to oppose the Nazis than support them and were instrumental in helping some Jews escape. Hitler did play off old fears in a nation that had long lost belief in God. Not all Christians are pure and neither are all Jews.
Gayle, I wish I could have been there to see it. I am Anglican as well and the Episcopal Church out here is not worth attending and it saddens me as that was the only Church I was comfortable in, from kindergarten on. Maybe I should go and be heard, I miss my little Church in Alabama.
Goat, of course and I agree that Hitler was anti-Christian and extremely secular. Many righteous gentiles were motivated by their Christian faith to save Jews but so were many anti-semites who hated the "C-killers". that's why Hitler was accepted so quickly in Germany; Jew-hatred had been an essential part of Catholic and Protestant doctrine for centuries. Anyways, the point is that Christianity had to clean up its act but I think that most of the Evangelical Churches make up for that (though the Church still has some to go).
Bar, I think we have far more in common than different, both our faiths have come a long, log ways in understanding and working together to further our shared values. Yes, some of the retoric of the Dark Ages was bad but that is why we call it the Dark Ages. I can't hold the modern Catholic Church to words spoken a millinia or more ago, or quotes pulled out of context. We are brothers under God and I am proud to say it. We know who the true enemy is and it comes for both of us.
Though of course it is a problem when the these words were spoken by saints or the "Son" of G-d.
Thanks Goats and I am proud to stand with you and all other Christians.
BTW maybe drop by the local Chabad to find a good Torah study class. I'm sure that they'll be very accepting.
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