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Articles from the Web (continued)
Pakistani Journalists May Face Death for Publishing Letter: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/19/world/19PAKI.html NY Times, Feb. 19, 2001. . . . When a long letter to the editor arrived via e-mail, he barely read past the title, which seemed to him harmless enough: "Why Muslims Hate Jews."
Pakistan is a Muslim country. "I thought if the letter was negative to anyone, it'd be negative to Jews," the editor, Munawwar Mohsin, said . . . [That should make it acceptable to Muslims?]
Mr. Mohsin and six of his colleagues at The Frontier Post have been charged under the nation's blasphemy law, which can carry the death sentence. The wordy letter, published on Jan. 29, turned out to be a sacrilegious attack on the holy Prophet Muhammad. A furious mob was soon on its way to the newspaper's offices, with outraged policemen not far behind.
The authorities immediately shut down the paper. . .
Leaders of fundamentalist political parties urged dramatic displays of dismay. On Jan. 30, as outnumbered policemen looked on, protesters torched the Frontier Post's printing press, with piles of unsold newspapers serving as fodder for the fire.
At this juncture, the nation's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, made public his own consternation, though it did not include any condemnation of the mob. His disapproval focused on the abuse of "press freedom" [What press freedom?] that had allowed the blasphemous letter into print.
To many of his critics, his response seemed indicative of the general's inability or unwillingness to take on the Islamic fundamentalists — and yet another portent of the nation's drift toward religious intolerance. [Drift? It is already there!]
Pakistan, with 150 million people, is a near-bankrupt country with a nuclear arsenal and explosive problems. In October 1999, the army seized power in a coup, and General Musharraf declared himself the steward of a modern and tolerant state. He promised social reforms, but whenever he has met opposition from the fundamentalists, he has backed down. . . .
. . . portrayed Muhammad as a liar, a murderer, an anti-Semite, a "nazi" and a male chauvinist with a formidable libido.
Such heresy rarely sees the printed page in Pakistan. The style of The Frontier Post, like that of other newspapers, was never even to mention the Holy Prophet without parenthetically adding the reverent phrase "peace be upon him."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The above is just one more example of why we should never allow any religious belief nor any religious organization to gain even the slightest degree of political power or acknowledgement or endorsement by the State. That Canada has a reference to a "Supreme Being" in its Charter, and that it subsidizes the saying of prayers in Parliament goes too far and represents a blemish upon Canadian society.
As for Muhammad being called a Nazi, that is being too generous considering the murderous statements of the Koran and the actions of its followers -- both of which call for torturing people to death. These were not just equal to the atrocities of Hitler -- they were worse! So were those of Christianity. Am I being blasphemous? So be it!
Christianity paved way for Holocaust
So, why do so many people still honor those same teachings of the New Testament and Jesus * that spawned these atrocities, and still continue to spawn a form of anti-Semitism everywhere?
* Jesus says, in Luke 19: 27:
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
This is not an isolated statement. Its logical consequences have been carried out for centuries by devout Christians -- as part of their religion -- not just as rogue individuals, as the Vatican would have us believe in its so-called recent apology -- in the Crusades, Inquisitions, genocide, and the Nazi Holocaust. It is a keystone of Christianity to show utter intolerance in condemning all non-Christians to an eternity of torture by a "loving" God. Lest one imagine that Jesus supports only the teachings of the New Testament, but not of the Old, He asserts in several places His support of all of the barbaric teachings of the Old Testament -- including, for example, stoning to death for blasphemy or adultery. This is one of the reasons that the USA does not cave in to the pressure by Christians to have the Ten Commandments posted in schools and courthouses; the USA no longer imposes stoning to death as a penalty (an integral part of several of those Commandments) -- although several countires still do, under religious law! That is why you are not likely to hear of me visiting Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Nigeria, or a few other barbaric nations very soon. They are too religious for the comfort of some -- especially the stonees!
Rather than accept just my opinion, as summarized in the above, or that of some extremely pituperative atheist, I present the following article written, presumably, by a religious scholar, Shmuel Golding.
I have added emphasis by highlighting his text in red, and have added my comments in [red] or [black] in brackets, as per my usual convention.
First, do not think of the following image as being possibly or primarily blasphemous (which it may very well be -- but so be it -- it is my choice to put it here) just for the sake of blasphemy -- consider it as being the posing of a genuine and serious question.
Are you sure that you know, with historical accuracy, the answer to the question that this picture raises?
Another way to phrase the question is to ask: "Would the world have been better off without Nazism?". I say, "Yes it would".
Then ask: "Would the world have been even better off without Christianity?. I say, "Yes, it would, because in addition to the millions of deaths caused directly by Christianity, and continuing today, we would not have had the six million deaths caused by Hitler, whose main reason for being able to succeed was the direct support of organized Christianity and its devoted Jew-hating followers and teachings, in the "proud" tradition of the Jew-hating Martin Luther ** and several saints and popes. They would have admired Hitler for having the courage to carry out what they had preached -- even though Hitler did not use torture nearly as widely and cruelly as did the Christians".
[** See below for a justification given by the present-day Lutheran Church for the virulent anti-Judaic and anti-Semitic statements of Martin Luther given below.]
That we in the Western democracies have ensconced in law a relatively high standard of ethics is due in large part to the retreat of Christianity from its barbaric origins under the pressure of secular influences and to a limited extent from some within the churches. No democratic state today would dare impose upon society the barbaric strictures of Christianity as it has been practiced for its first 1800 or 1900 years.
One major example, apart from anti-semitism, was the reluctance of the Christian religions to relent to secular pressures to abolish the institution of slavery -- an institution fully endorsed by Jesus and the Old and New Testaments. (Jesus endorsed all of the barbaric teachings of the Old Testament.) Several recent popular concordances of Biblical commentary employ a form of revisionism and do not even have the word slavery in their indexes -- substituting, instead, the term servant. This is a false rewriting of history, although one not as extreme as the efforts of some hate groups to employ revisionism in relation to the Nazi Holocaust to try to either deny its existence or to downplay its degree of horror. That Jesus and the Old and New Testaments fully endorse *** slavery (not just servitude), the ownership of slaves as personal property, the signification thereof by piercing the ear of each slave to certify ownership, and the severity with which one can whip one's slave (quite harshly, according to Jesus' quoted words), is quite evident from the Bible.
[*** Beating and Killing Slaves: Although an owner could beat a male or female slave, she/he would have to avoid serious injury to eyes or teeth. The owner would have to avoid beating the slave to death. But it was acceptable to beat a slave so that he/she was mortally injured and died a day or so later: (What the Bible says about slavery: http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl.htm). There are no passages in the Bible which plainly condemn or criticize the institution of slavery. Nor are there are any verses which clearly denounce slave owners.]
Antisemitism in the New Testament: http://www.messianic-racism.mcmail.com/ca/antisem/g2.htm By Shmuel Golding, Jerusalem Institute of Biblical Polemics, Jerusalem. See also: . . .
. . . index: http://www.nt-antisemitism.ic24.net/antisem/idx.htm Christianity and antisemitism Home page. It is important when considering the possible role of the "New Testament" in the establishment of modern antisemitism to ask the right questions. . . .
. . . index: http://www.nt-antisemitism.ic24.net/antisem/g2.htm Antisemitism in the New Testament By Shmuel Golding.
Because of copyright laws and a Notice, I present only the following extracts from the articles Antisemitism in the New Testament.
Extracts:
. . . many books have been written on the subject of anti-Semitism. Most of those books blame the church for its hostile teachings which encouraged ignorant devotees to harass, and even to violently assault Jews in the name of Christ and his church. Many Christian writers have openly acknowledged this fact and have called upon the church to make amends. . . .
Yet, apologise as they may, none of them attack the root cause of Christian anti-Semitism, which in my opinion lies in the New Testament itself. Let history itself be our witness, and let history be the judge as to whether or not the roots of Christian antisemitism lie within the New Testament.
It will not be hard to prove that the roots of antisemitism he [lie] in the New Testament . . .
These anti-semitic accounts in the New Testament have taught mankind to hate the Jew. As long as the New Testament continues in print (at least in its present form) the Jew will be hated. [If a secular group had published the New Testament, it would probably have been classified as hate literature, which, of course, it very surely is!] Here are but a few verses from where Christianity borrowed its anti-semitic sentiments.
"The children of the kingdom (referring to the Jews) shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt 8.12)
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is left unto you desolate" (Matt 23.37,38)
"That upon you (Jews) may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias..." (Matt 23.35)
"Then answered all the people and said, his blood be on us, and on our children" (Matt 27.25).
"But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you to councils, and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten" (Mark 13.9)
"He that believeth not shall be damed" (Mark 16.16)
"Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. which of you convinceth me of sin? And I say the truth, why do you not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God" (John 8.43-47)
"Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so you do. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers" (Acts 7.51-53)
"It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you (Jews): but seeing you put it from you and judge yourself unworthy of everlasting life, we turn to the Gentiles" (Acts 13.45-51)
"For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake ... wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men, that turn from the truth". (Titus 1.10-14).
"The Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God and are contrary to all men: forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost". (i Thess 2..14-16)
"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is an antichrist, that denieth the father and the son. Whoever denieth the son, the same hath not the father" (1 John 2.22,23)
These vicious and treacherous New Testament teachings, have given the impression that the Jews in the time of Jesus were degenerate and cruel and that they are a deicide race. They have been spread by the church for the last two millennia, and have not been rooted out of Christian thinking to the present day. Even those Christian lovers of Israel, only love the Jews in order to save them from the punishment awaiting them for not having accepted Jesus. . . .
Moses Bazes, author of "Jesus the Jew, the Historical Jesus", after examining the anti-semitic statements in the New Testament writes: "I believe that . . . Christianity introduced contempt for the Jew and is thus responsible for what happened in the Second World War at the Dachau Concentration camp in Germany and at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. What was started at the Church Council at Nicea in 325 CE was duly completed in the concentration camps and crematories of Christian Germany where six million Jews perished".
We will now examine the words of some Christian 'saints' and leaders and notice how their anti-Jewish expressions are based on New Testament verses listed earlier in this article.
Origen: "Their rejection of Jesus has resulted in their present calamity and e)dle. We say with confidence that they will never be restored to their former condition. For they have committed a crime of the most unhallowed kind, in conspiring against the saviour".
St. Gregory: "Jews are slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophets, enemies of God, haters of God, adversaries of grace, enemies of their fathers' faith, advocates of the devil, brood of vipers, slanderers, scoffers, men of darkened minds, leaven of the Pharisees, congregation of demons, sinners, wicked men, stoners and haters of goodness".
St Jerome: "...serpents, haters of all men, their image is Judas ... their psalms and prayers are the braying of donkeys.."
St John Chrysostow: "I know that many people hold a high regard for the Jews and consider their way of fife worthy of respect at the present time... This is why I am hurrying to pull up this fatal notion by the roots... A place where a whore stands on display is a whorehouse. What is more, the synagogue is not only a whorehouse and a theatre; it is also a den of thieves and a haunt of wild animals... not the cave of a wild animal merely, but of an unclean wild animal ... When animals are unfit for work, they are marked for slaughter, and this is the very thing which the Jews have experienced. By making themselves unfit for work, they have become ready for slaughter. This is why Christ said: "ask for my enemies, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them and slay them before me'(Luke 19.27)".
St. Augustine: "Judaism is a corruption. Indeed Judas is the image of the Jewish people. Their understanding of the Scriptures is carnal. They bear the guilt for the death of the saviour, for through their fathers they have killed the Christ".
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". [This from one of the most revered theologians of Christianity to this day.]
"Know, 0 adored Christ, and make no mistake, that aside from the Devil, you have no enemy more venomous, more desperate, more bitter, than a true Jew who truly seeks to be a Jew... a Jew, a Jewish heart, are hard as wood, as stone, as iron, as the Devil himself. In short, they are children of the Devil, condemned to the flames of hell".
"O Lord, I am to feeble to mock such devils. I would do so, but they are much stronger than I in raillery, and they have a God who is a past master in this art; He is called the devil and the wicked spirit.. They have transformed God into the devil, or rather into a servant of the Devil, accomplishing all the evil the Devil desires, corrupting unhappy souls, and raging against himself: in short, the Jews are worse than the devils".
"What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honour of God and of Christianity, in order that God may see that we are true Christians. Secondly, their homes should be likewise broken down and destroyed. Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer- books and talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught. Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threats of death to teach anymore."
"Now whoever wishes to accept venomous serpents, desperate enemies of the lord, and to honor them, to let himself be robbed, pillaged, corrupted and cursed by them, need only turn to the Jews. If this is not enough for him, he can do more: crawl up into their... and worship the sanctuary, so as to glorify himself afterwards for having been merciful, for having fortified the Devil and his children, in order to blaspheme our beloved lord and the precious blood that has redeemed us. He will then be a perfect Christian, feed with works of mercy, for which Christ will reward him on the day of judgment with the eternal fire of hell (where he will roast together with the Jews)".
"In truth, the Jews, being foreigners, should possess nothing, and what they do possess should be ours".
"... Cursed goy that I am, I cannot understand how they manage to be so skillful, unless I think that when Judas Iscariot hanged himself, his guts burst and emptied. Perhaps the Jews sent their servants with plates of silver and pots of gold to gather up Judas' piss with the other treasures, and then they ate and drank his offal, and thereby acquired eyes so piercing that they discover in the scriptures commentaries that neither Matthew nor Isaiah himself found there, not to mention the rest of us cursed goyim.."
"If I find a Jew to baptize, I shall lead him to the Elbe bridge, hang a stone around his neck, and push him into the water, baptizing him with the name of Avraham!.. I cannot convert the Jews. Our lord Christ did not succeed in doing so; but I can close their mouths so that there will be nothing for them to do but to lie upon the ground".
"I hope I shall never be so stupid as to be circumcised; I would rather cut off the left breast of my Catherine and of all women!.." "If we are to remain unsullied by the blasphemy of the Jews and not wish to take part in it, we must be separated from them and they must be driven out of their country".
The anti-semitic words uttered by popes, priests, pastors and laymen, were put into action by unruly Christian mobs and later by Hitler's followers.
[ Lutheran Church still justifies Luther's statements.
Do you think that the modern Lutheran Church is apologetic about the teachings or these specific words of its hero, Martin Luther? Not in the slightest! The following gives its justification for all of Martin Luther's virulent words, explaining to its satisfaction why it considers his statements to be not anti-Semitic -- only anti-Judaic. That makes all the difference?
Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne: http://www.ctsfw.edu/ ]
Adolf Hitler: "I believe that I am today acting according to the purposes of the Almighty Creator. In resisting the Jew, I am fighting the Lord's battle."
Now let us apply these sayings to deeds committed by Christians who took their New Testament literally.
The crusaders's sword found its justification in the words of Matt 10.34, "I have not come to bring peace on earth but a sword".
The Inquisitor's fire found its justification in the words of John 15.6,'If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned".
The cancellation of debts owed to Jews, found its justification in the parable recorded in Luke 16.
The first blood libel was made by Jesus himself where in Matt 23.35, he states "that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar".
. . . But the fundamentalists are hindering and harming the progress that has been made in Christian-Jewish relationships. By their (fundamentalists) desire to convert the Jew, they prove themselves to be the most anti-semitic of all Christian groups, for the whole idea of conversion is anti-semitic.
At the time of the World Pentecostal Conference in Jerusalem in 1961, Hull, a Canadian Missionary, . . . discussed the significance of the Eichmann Trial, which was then being held in Jerusalem. . . . at his request he had been appointed by the authorities as Eichmann's confessor.
Hull visited Eichmann in his cell 14 times, and tried to convert him to a belief in Jesus as the saviour, . . . However, Hull's efforts proved fruitless. . . . Hull had promised Eichmann that God would forgive his sins if in a written statement he would declare his acceptance of Christ. In Canada, Hull told the correspondent of a Toronto newspaper that the six million Jewish victims of the Nazis were doomed to perish in hell, and would not enter paradise, because they had not accepted the belief in Christ. Moreover, he said, Eichmann's sins were not as great as those of the average man who denied Jesus as the redeemer . . .
Christian love for the Jew is a kind of hatred. It loves the Jew, yet hates him for being what he is. It sees him as blind and in need of being changed into a believer. When missionary efforts failed, or are fobbed, the love for the Jew quickly turns to hatred and contempt.
We are not deceived by the 'new Christians' of today's hand-clapping Jew-loving fundamentalists. They teach the same anti-semitic doctrines as the church of yesteryear. Their tactics are different but we know that the message is the same. Any Jew who can pay homage to the New Testament or allow himself to believe in it, is, in my opinion in the same category as a Jew who tries to justify Hitler's Mein Kampf or, as one who covers up for the deeds of the Nazis.
More Jews have been affected, hurt or killed, in the name of Christ and his church during the last two thousand years than those massacred by the Nazis. Yet there are Jews, who being so alienated from their own people, have overlooked this fact and have joined themselves to the church with its built-in antisemitism.
Other anti-Semitism links:
Anti-Semitism and Holocaust: http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo.html Canadian Friends, International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem. Has many links, including the following:
. . . The Guilt of Christianity Towards the Jewish People - Anti-Semitism and Holocaust: http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/guilt.html By Sister Pista, Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, Darmstadt (an international and interdenominational Christian fellowship). Drawn from Christian and Jewish historical sources in English and German, the following is a brief résumé of the horrific history of Christianity's dealings with the Jews -- dealings which paved the way for the Holocaust. . . .
Hitler's Christianity: http://www.humanismbyjoe.com/hitler.htm
Some persons claim that Adolf Hitler was an atheist. The historical record clearly shows, however, that Hitler not only believed in God but was convinced he was carrying out God's will.
Hitler served as an altar boy in the Catholic Church. Growing up in that environment, he undoubtedly learned something of the centuries of discrimination and persecution -- and sometimes pogroms -- that the Catholic Church had supported against Jews in Europe.
Moreover, former Jesuit theologian Peter de Rosa describes the influence that Catholic theology had on Hitler and the Nazis by stating: "[Catholicism’s] disastrous theology had prepared the way for Hitler and his ‘final solution.’ [The Church published] over a hundred anti-Semitic documents. Not one conciliar decree, not one papal encyclical, bull, or pastoral directive suggest that Jesus’s command, ‘love your neighbor as yourself,' applied to Jews."
It is not surprising, then, that Hitler wrote in his book, Mein Kampf: ". . . I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work." He proclaimed essentially the same thing in a speech before the Reichstag in 1938. . . .
When Hitler was asked in 1933 what he planned to do about the Jews, he answered that he would do what Christians had been preaching for centuries. And the Nazis carried out their first large-scale pogrom of Jews in honor of Luther's birthday.
Also noteworthy is the fact that Nazi Germany's soldiers wore belt buckles having the inscription, "Gott mitt uns" ("God is with us"). That slogan sounds eerily similar to Ohio's present motto, "With God, all things are possible." . . .
Hitler's Henchmen and Nazi Sympathizers: http://jews-for-allah.org/messianic-jews/christianhistorywithjews/henchmen.htm
Quotes from Hitler's fellow Christian Henchmen and Christain Nazi Sympathizers
This text provides a few quotes from Hitler's henchmen and from other Nazi sympathizers and how Christianity influenced their lives. Most of Hitler's henchmen, along with the vast majority of German citizens, were brought up Christian, and thought themselves as such. And except for a few who rejected Christianity (like Bormann and Rosenberg), they used their influence (whether through belief or political action) to support both Catholicism and Protestantism.
Nizkor Your Holocaust Educational Resource: http://www.nizkor.org/ Dedicated to the millions of Holocaust victims who suffered and died at the hands of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. A major resource for those fighting revisionism.
Canadian Friends, ICEJ - Temporary Page: http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/wiesenex.html Link to Simon Wiesenthal Center, at:
. . . Simon Wiesenthal Center: http://www.wiesenthal.com/
The History Place - Holocaust Timeline: http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/timeline.html#1945 Detailed text and many photos.
Institute for Historical Review: http://ihr.org/index.html The IHR offers revisionist perspectives about the Holocaust (including Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka, Dachau, Majdanek, Sobibor, Chelmno, and Nazi gas chambers), as well as information about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill, WWII, Fred A Leuchter Jr., Stalinism and other topics. Although the Institute does not "deny the Holocaust," over the years it has published detailed books and numerous probing essays that call into question aspects of the orthodox Holocaust extermination story. A major revisionism site.
IDOLATRY: THE IMPACT OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM ON THE CHURCHES OF NAZI EUROPE: http://www.j-cinstitute.org/Articles/Lyons_Idolatry.htm The Ecumenical Institute for Jewish-Christian Studies was founded in 1982 by Rev. Dr. James R. Lyons to provide an atmosphere for study in Jewish-Christian relations that would impact local churches and synagogues as well as the larger community.
How are we to understand the failure of the churches? As we shall see, with rare exception, the churches fell into idolatry, and that idolatry so consumed them that moral, prophetic, godly responses were clouded if not completely hidden. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik gives a simple definition of "idolatry": "Idolatry is not only the worship of objects of metal or wood; the most dangerous idolatry is the idolization and deification of man." (Besdin, 1979, p. 68) One might only add in addition to "the idolization and deification of man" the "idolization of nation."
What are the lessons we can learn from the churches of Nazi Europe? Under the impact of their idolatry, we shall see that 1) the churches idolized (and at time deified) a particular political leader; 2) there was a tendency to identify a political system with their religion; 3) there was a failure to recognize the dangers they faced early enough to act, even if there had been the will or the courage for such action; 4) churches did not speak out on behalf of the Jews; 5) there was a failure to ask if religious institutions were leaders or followers of social currents; 6) the churches did not recognize the importance of the ecumenical movement. . . .
There were people like Reverend Julius Kuptsch, who could idealize Hitler in the most idolatrous of terms, arguing that, "The similarity between the spirit and struggle of Christ and that of Hitler is in my opinion completely undeniable."
Or again, a prayer:
O Fuhrer, my Fuhrer, sent to me by God
Protect and maintain my life
Thou who has served Germany in its hour of need
I thank thee now for my daily bread
Oh! Stay with me, Oh! Never leave me
Fuhrer, My Fuhrer, my faith and my light.
The adoration is on-going:
Adolf Hitler! We are linked and united with you alone! In this hour we seek to renew our vow to you: we believe on this earth in Adolf Hitler alone. We believe that National Socialism alone is the redemptive faith for our people. We believe that there is a God in Heaven who has created us, who guides us, who leads us and who visibly blesses us. And we believe that this Almighty God has sent us Adolph Hitler, so that Germany shall have eternal security.
The same kind of false adulation directed toward Hitler was given to Marshall Petain in Vichy France. A very curious adaptation of the "Lord’s Prayer" was offered by a Georges Gerard:
Our Father,
Who art over us
May your name be glorified.
May your kingdom come
May your will be done
On earth so that we may live.
Give us our bread each day forever.
Give life back to France,
Don’t let us fall again
Into vain dreams and lies.
And deliver us from evil.
O Our Marshall!
Lest we think that the dangers of such idolatry are past, we need only reflect on the election campaign when Ronald Reagan sought office for the second time. Without in any manner intending to compare Mr. Reagan to either Hitler or Petain, it is notable that some within the "religious right" in the United States have given adulation to Mr. Reagan similar to what we have seen in Nazi Germany and Viche France. Mr. Reagan was called "The greatest Christian since Jesus Christ" (though Christ was never a Christian!). "The greatest born-again Christian who has ever lived" is but another example.
Bishop Wilhelm Berning of Osnabruck, who was active in the drawing up of the concordat between Germany and the Vatican, which was signed in 1933, could state with enthusiasm, though not complete accuracy:
The German bishops have long ago said Yes to the new state, and have not only promised to recognize its authority . . ., but are serving the state with burning love and all our strength.
Speaking in the Sports Palace to a crowd of 20,000 people, the German Christian Reichsbischof Ludwig Muller argued, "There is no discord between the German Evangelical Church and the Third Reich. The people of the Third Reich and those of the Evangelical Church are one and the same people." Even more, "we are certain the time will come when only National Socialists will occupy the pulpits of our churches, and only National Socialists will occupy the pews."
Moreover, in what was an anti-Catholic theme often found during this period, Muller appealed to Luther in seeking to justify the "unique" relationship between the Protestant church and the state.
I therefore reject the notion that our position relative to the State may be equated with that of the Catholic Church. As German Protestants, our position toward the State is radically different from that of the Roman Church, and we are proud to take this radically different position. Our relationship with the Third Reich – quite in accordance with Luther’s view – is not a relationship of distrust, but one of absolute and implicit trust. Therefore, as I have said, we do not need a concordat, for a concordat is not a German, but an explicitly Roman invention. It presupposes the existence of discord, i.e. "dis-cord," between State and Church, which must be "con-corded" by a concordat.
Otto Dibelius understood that for Hitler and the Nazi movement, "The church was to be the spiritual sword of the Fuhrer." Dibelius’ use of a military term accurately reflects the language of many of the German Christians who saw their movement as "heroic and kampferisch."
. . . particularly during the first days of the Third Reich, there was a period when expectations of Hitler were high and indeed an euphoria about the future under the new Nazi regime was rampant in the churches. Some of this enthusiasm remained to the very end of the war, although later, individual clergy not only broke with the regime, but also actively fought against it. Officially, the churches failed! Unofficially, individuals showed great courage.
Questions about the ability of churches to lead both their members and society in general are as real today as they were in the Nazi period!
CONCLUSION
Was there ever a "Church Struggle" in Nazi Germany? If so, what was the struggle about? Did the churches speak out forthrightly on the burning questions of the day or did they concern themselves only with church structure and church government? In forty years, will the same questions be asked of the churches of our day? If so, will the judgement be that we have been more interested in church bureaucracy and church politics than the burning moral questions of the day? . . .
Could the churches in Nazi occupied Europe have made a difference? If they had not succumbed to idolatry, paganism, anti-Semitism, and isolationism, could they have saved six million Jews? Or millions of others? One can never answer such hypothetical questions. Yet, this much is clear – if the churches had had the courage of some of their clergy and laity, they would have saved their own integrity, maybe even their own souls!
There are many possible hate groups and directories of them on the Net. I, at least for now, do not list any of them here until I have reread the terms and conditions of this Web-site host. However, they are easy to find, under such terms as hate group, Christian Identity, Klux Klan, National Front, Stormfront, White Pride, and many more.
STOP the HATE.org: http://stop-the-hate.org/rel-hate.html RELIGION BASED HATE PAGES. "I hate you because you worship the wrong religion and besides, my religion is better." Many links, including:
. . . Christian Guide to Small Arms Online v.1.0: definitive source on this subject, http://www.frii.com/~gosplow/cgsa.html CGSA is not intended to be THE definitive source on this subject, but rather a primer for the Christian who is beginning to reject the false theology that requires him to be a pacifistic patsy in the face of heathen hordes.
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