Christian Nationalism

[Praxis+Theodicy]

I think this “heritage narrative” oversimplifies the reality.

That's kinda the point. History always has to oversimplify things, and overly-propagandized history greatly oversimplifies things to fit into a preferred narrative.

they did not understand themselves as Christians. The regime created the so-called “German Christian” movement...

I will agree with an assessment that they weren't "truly" Christian, but to say they didn't see themselves as "Christian" is just flat-out false. It's contradicted in these two adjacent sentences quoted above.

an antisemitic, Aryanized distortion of Christianity that sought to purge its Jewishness,

This is also evidence that they saw THEMSELVES as a Christian Nationalist movement. An oversimplified telling of history tends to paint them as just blind, irrational, hateful anti-semites. The truth was they hated Jews (and others), not for irrational reasons, but because they wanted very much to create a monoculture based on a shared religious narrative (Christian identity), and the Jews were a diaspora who clung to a different cultural narrative. They clung to a worldview that was so disparate that the party felt they were not compatible with a true Christian Nation. If we look at history very honestly, we can see that there is VERY LITTLE difference between the anti-semitic actions of the party and the anti-semitic writings of the founder of the national German Church (Martin Luther, "On the Jews and Their Lies"). Antisemitism was not seen (by them) as a DEPARTURE from Christianity, it was seen as the CULMINATION of Christianity.
It's important to realize that this need for a shared narrative and identity was at the core of their ideology. If they did not see themselves as Christian or claim to be Christian, than all Christians in Germany would have suffered the same fate as the Jews. They didn't. Only those Christians who directly opposed the government (on religious or political grounds) were oppressed like the rest of the "undesirables". The vast majority of Germans saw themselves as Christians and still supported the party's aims, because TO THEM (again, not to us today, but to them at the time), they did not see a contradiction between the Christian faith and the Christian Nationalist project.

not as an act of faith, but an exercise in control.

And this is, in my opinion, the real end game of EVERY Christian Nationalist movement. Everyone who supports Christian Nationalism needs to face the reality that what they are really after is not an increase in faithfulness to Jesus, but an increase in power, in control.

In practice, many Nazi leaders embraced a kind of neo-pagan or occult nationalism, blending Germanic folk religion, racial mythology, and conspiracy theory into a quasi-religious worldview.

This is called "syncretism", and most of world Christianity has been involved in this to some degree for over 1500 years. The Roman Catholic church is infamous for it. When it spread, it tended to "baptize" pagan culture instead of replace it, so the idea of blending pagan and Christian culture was, in fact, seen as an essential and valuable element of Christianity, not a contradiction.

It wasn’t a continuation of Christian theology, but a replacement with blood-and-soil mysticism.

It wasn't a continuation of Anabaptist theology, but it was absolutely a continuation of the syncretistic, Christian Nationalist theologies of Augustine and Charlemagne. It was a VERY DIRECT continuation of Lutheran theology, as again evidenced by Luther's writings. Again, to say it's not a continuation of ANY Christian theology is to employ a "no true Scotsman" argument. To read Luther's writings in the 1500s and then see what the Lutheran church and the German government would do in the 1900s and claim it was "not a continuation of Christian theology" is entirely revisionist history.

[Ernie]

What’s more it’s a bananas to suppose that the Nazis were animated Christian Nationalism.

Whether you want to believe it or not, that is what THEY claimed to be. It was also how they captured the heart and won the consent of an entire nation.

Yes. Including most of the Mennonites in their nation...

[barnhart]

I was reticent to bring up the Nazi movement because everyone likes to go to extremes to support their claims but we, as mennonites, should be very humble about our ability to resist Christian themed Nationalism that is tailored for our taste or need. Emerging scholarship about Mennonite history of the era is clear, we were not equipped to resist that trial. American mennonites, being more distant from European politics were generally resistant but not completely. A mennonite choir sang at a Nazi rally in Winnipeg in the 30's.

In other threads here on MN there are a vigorous defence of nativism including a reframing of Jesus' command to love neighbors as a command to love those like you or near you first. This chilled my bones as it is the identical argument made by Nazi aligned Mennonites in the 30's.

[JohnL]

Christian themed Nationalism

I like this new way of describing this. It gives me a sense that it’s Nationalism that’s been deliberately PR-packaged to appeal to Christians which I have seen happen both in history (like the crusades and the nazis) and in real time.

In other threads here on MN there are a vigorous defence of nativism including a reframing of Jesus' command to love neighbors as a command to love those like you or near you first. This chilled my bones as it is the identical argument made by Nazi aligned Mennonites in the 30's.

I haven’t seen Jesus’ words used that way to defend nativism per se. I know that when we as a church are talking about our real time neighbors as a means to fulfill that commandment it’s usually either
1. We’ve had a recent disaster ourselves and/or local needs are urgent.
2. We don’t have the money or manpower to contribute to addressing problems farther away like the borders or foreign places like Chicago.

On the other hand most folks I know in real time don’t spend a lot of time “doom scrolling” either. But then just because I haven’t seen it or heard it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. It just means that around here we see Jesus’ commandment as working itself out locally with very real needs.

[Szdfan]

I think this “heritage narrative” oversimplifies the reality.

That's kinda the point. History always has to oversimplify things, and overly-propagandized history greatly oversimplifies things to fit into a preferred narrative.

they did not understand themselves as Christians. The regime created the so-called “German Christian” movement...

I will agree with an assessment that they weren't "truly" Christian, but to say they didn't see themselves as "Christian" is just flat-out false. It's contradicted in these two adjacent sentences quoted above.

an antisemitic, Aryanized distortion of Christianity that sought to purge its Jewishness,

This is also evidence that they saw THEMSELVES as a Christian Nationalist movement. An oversimplified telling of history tends to paint them as just blind, irrational, hateful anti-semites. The truth was they hated Jews (and others), not for irrational reasons, but because they wanted very much to create a monoculture based on a shared religious narrative (Christian identity), and the Jews were a diaspora who clung to a different cultural narrative. They clung to a worldview that was so disparate that the party felt they were not compatible with a true Christian Nation. If we look at history very honestly, we can see that there is VERY LITTLE difference between the anti-semitic actions of the party and the anti-semitic writings of the founder of the national German Church (Martin Luther, "On the Jews and Their Lies"). Antisemitism was not seen (by them) as a DEPARTURE from Christianity, it was seen as the CULMINATION of Christianity.
It's important to realize that this need for a shared narrative and identity was at the core of their ideology. If they did not see themselves as Christian or claim to be Christian, than all Christians in Germany would have suffered the same fate as the Jews. They didn't. Only those Christians who directly opposed the government (on religious or political grounds) were oppressed like the rest of the "undesirables". The vast majority of Germans saw themselves as Christians and still supported the party's aims, because TO THEM (again, not to us today, but to them at the time), they did not see a contradiction between the Christian faith and the Christian Nationalist project.

not as an act of faith, but an exercise in control.

And this is, in my opinion, the real end game of EVERY Christian Nationalist movement. Everyone who supports Christian Nationalism needs to face the reality that what they are really after is not an increase in faithfulness to Jesus, but an increase in power, in control.

In practice, many Nazi leaders embraced a kind of neo-pagan or occult nationalism, blending Germanic folk religion, racial mythology, and conspiracy theory into a quasi-religious worldview.

This is called "syncretism", and most of world Christianity has been involved in this to some degree for over 1500 years. The Roman Catholic church is infamous for it. When it spread, it tended to "baptize" pagan culture instead of replace it, so the idea of blending pagan and Christian culture was, in fact, seen as an essential and valuable element of Christianity, not a contradiction.

It wasn’t a continuation of Christian theology, but a replacement with blood-and-soil mysticism.

It wasn't a continuation of Anabaptist theology, but it was absolutely a continuation of the syncretistic, Christian Nationalist theologies of Augustine and Charlemagne. It was a VERY DIRECT continuation of Lutheran theology, as again evidenced by Luther's writings. Again, to say it's not a continuation of ANY Christian theology is to employ a "no true Scotsman" argument. To read Luther's writings in the 1500s and then see what the Lutheran church and the German government would do in the 1900s and claim it was "not a continuation of Christian theology" is entirely revisionist history.

I agree that Christian nationalism is not about faith, but power and control. My objection is that you are collapsing 500 years of complex history into a single narrative that I think misses more than it reveals.

I think several things can be true.

1. There is a lineage of deep antisemitism in German culture stretching from Luther to Hitler. The Nazis drew on old prejudices as justification.

2. Antisemitism isn't unique to Christianity. While Luther's antisemitic writings are abhorrent, he still believed in a Christian God and the sanctity of Scripture. The Nazis rejected all of that, substituting an Aryan "blood and soil" mysticism that was a racial theology for Christianity. While I agree that there is a cultural link between Luther and Hitler, I don't agree that there's a direct theological continuation.

3. It is true that in 1933, 95% of Germans identified themselves as Protestant or Catholic. There were many Christians who were Nazis. But there were also Nazis who weren't Christians. Most of the top Nazi leadership (Hitler, Himmler, Rosenberg, Bormann) were virulent anti-Christians who opposed anything that originated outside of the Nazi Party. For example, Nazi theologian Alfred Rosenberg argued:

• Paul destroyed the racial values that existed in Greek and Roman culture.
• The concept of hell in the Middle Ages destroyed the "free Nordic spirit."
• Original sin and grace are ideas that corrupt Nordic blood
• Germans should reject the Old Testament and return to Nordic mythology.
• Jesus wasn't a Jew because he had Nordic blood.

None of this is a continuation of Christian theology or doctrine. "German Christianity" (also called "positive Christianity") is not syncretism, but rather a hollowing out of Christianity in order to fit another ideological framework.

Like Communism in the Soviet Union, Nazism was a political religion, a totalizing system that sought to imitate faith, but replace it with its own quasi-religious framework and beliefs.

Christian nationalism is when faith seeks political domination. Political religion is when political movements hijack religious symbols and corrupt them for their own purposes.

[HondurasKeiser]

I think this “heritage narrative” oversimplifies the reality.

That's kinda the point. History always has to oversimplify things, and overly-propagandized history greatly oversimplifies things to fit into a preferred narrative.

they did not understand themselves as Christians. The regime created the so-called “German Christian” movement...

I will agree with an assessment that they weren't "truly" Christian, but to say they didn't see themselves as "Christian" is just flat-out false. It's contradicted in these two adjacent sentences quoted above.

an antisemitic, Aryanized distortion of Christianity that sought to purge its Jewishness,

This is also evidence that they saw THEMSELVES as a Christian Nationalist movement. An oversimplified telling of history tends to paint them as just blind, irrational, hateful anti-semites. The truth was they hated Jews (and others), not for irrational reasons, but because they wanted very much to create a monoculture based on a shared religious narrative (Christian identity), and the Jews were a diaspora who clung to a different cultural narrative. They clung to a worldview that was so disparate that the party felt they were not compatible with a true Christian Nation. If we look at history very honestly, we can see that there is VERY LITTLE difference between the anti-semitic actions of the party and the anti-semitic writings of the founder of the national German Church (Martin Luther, "On the Jews and Their Lies"). Antisemitism was not seen (by them) as a DEPARTURE from Christianity, it was seen as the CULMINATION of Christianity.
It's important to realize that this need for a shared narrative and identity was at the core of their ideology. If they did not see themselves as Christian or claim to be Christian, than all Christians in Germany would have suffered the same fate as the Jews. They didn't. Only those Christians who directly opposed the government (on religious or political grounds) were oppressed like the rest of the "undesirables". The vast majority of Germans saw themselves as Christians and still supported the party's aims, because TO THEM (again, not to us today, but to them at the time), they did not see a contradiction between the Christian faith and the Christian Nationalist project.

not as an act of faith, but an exercise in control.

And this is, in my opinion, the real end game of EVERY Christian Nationalist movement. Everyone who supports Christian Nationalism needs to face the reality that what they are really after is not an increase in faithfulness to Jesus, but an increase in power, in control.

In practice, many Nazi leaders embraced a kind of neo-pagan or occult nationalism, blending Germanic folk religion, racial mythology, and conspiracy theory into a quasi-religious worldview.

This is called "syncretism", and most of world Christianity has been involved in this to some degree for over 1500 years. The Roman Catholic church is infamous for it. When it spread, it tended to "baptize" pagan culture instead of replace it, so the idea of blending pagan and Christian culture was, in fact, seen as an essential and valuable element of Christianity, not a contradiction.

It wasn’t a continuation of Christian theology, but a replacement with blood-and-soil mysticism.

It wasn't a continuation of Anabaptist theology, but it was absolutely a continuation of the syncretistic, Christian Nationalist theologies of Augustine and Charlemagne. It was a VERY DIRECT continuation of Lutheran theology, as again evidenced by Luther's writings. Again, to say it's not a continuation of ANY Christian theology is to employ a "no true Scotsman" argument. To read Luther's writings in the 1500s and then see what the Lutheran church and the German government would do in the 1900s and claim it was "not a continuation of Christian theology" is entirely revisionist history.

I agree that Christian nationalism is not about faith, but power and control. My objection is that you are collapsing 500 years of complex history into a single narrative that I think misses more than it reveals.

I think several things can be true.

1. There is a lineage of deep antisemitism in German culture stretching from Luther to Hitler. The Nazis drew on old prejudices as justification.

2. Antisemitism isn't unique to Christianity. While Luther's antisemitic writings are abhorrent, he still believed in a Christian God and the sanctity of Scripture. The Nazis rejected all of that, substituting an Aryan "blood and soil" mysticism that was a racial theology for Christianity. While I agree that there is a cultural link between Luther and Hitler, I don't agree that there's a direct theological continuation.

3. It is true that in 1933, 95% of Germans identified themselves as Protestant or Catholic. There were many Christians who were Nazis. But there were also Nazis who weren't Christians. Most of the top Nazi leadership (Hitler, Himmler, Rosenberg, Bormann) were virulent anti-Christians who opposed anything that originated outside of the Nazi Party. For example, Nazi theologian Alfred Rosenberg argued:

• Paul destroyed the racial values that existed in Greek and Roman culture.
• The concept of hell in the Middle Ages destroyed the "free Nordic spirit."
• Original sin and grace are ideas that corrupt Nordic blood
• Germans should reject the Old Testament and return to Nordic mythology.
• Jesus wasn't a Jew because he had Nordic blood.

None of this is a continuation of Christian theology or doctrine. "German Christianity" (also called "positive Christianity") is not syncretism, but rather a hollowing out of Christianity in order to fit another ideological framework.

Like Communism in the Soviet Union, Nazism was a political religion, a totalizing system that sought to imitate faith, but replace it with its own quasi-religious framework and beliefs.

Christian nationalism is when faith seeks political domination. Political religion is when political movements hijack religious symbols and corrupt them for their own purposes.

SZD, you've done a fine job at describing the relationship, or lack thereof, between Nazism and their latent Christian culture. Not to put too fine a point on it; I simply think there is no connection between Nazis and Christianity. The leaders of Nazism, going back to the formation of the party in 1920 were animated by Kultur, a rejection of secular idealism, war for its own sake, idealized agrarian Germany and technical progress. They looked to Nietzsche for their philosophical underpinnings. They hated Christianity for the same reasons (slave morality and the universal brotherhood of man) that Nietzsche hated Christianity. That they coopted "Christian language" at times to win over the largely "Christian" populace is certainly on record. That does not though make Nazis qua Nazis, Christian Nationalists but rather, good propogandists. The Nazis, were to a person, anti-Christian. I would recommend Modris Eksteins' book Rites of Spring which follows the events of WWI through to the rise of the Nazis. The final chapter does an exhaustive dive into Nazism and its animating ideas. Christianity, even heretical forms thereof, are noticeably lacking.

[Praxis+Theodicy]

I agree that Christian nationalism is not about faith, but power and control. My objection is that you are collapsing 500 years of complex history into a single narrative that I think misses more than it reveals.

Again, this is their narrative, not mine. I agree that Christian Nationalists almost always tell a narrowly focused, over-simplified version of history that I do not agree with. But it's important to highlight what they think and declare about themselves, even as we also analyze it from a detached, more realistic viewpoint. Because the Christian Nationalists of today are telling a similar overly-complex version of history, and if we can look back at what was declared back then, we can take a more critical eye to what is being declared today.

We have lost the history of what the Nazis were saying to the German people, because we are afraid to repeat their messaging. But by erasing it, we have created a narrative that they were "anti-Christian". That is dangerous mis-history.

Christian nationalism is when faith seeks political domination. Political religion is when political movements hijack religious symbols and corrupt them for their own purposes.

I would suggest, then, that the former of these two things has never truly existed without the latter. Name a time in history when faith has sought political domination without becoming corrupted and coopted by political power.

The problem with delineating these two things is that both are examples of a partnership between faith and politics, and both of them get intermixed to such a degree that both are changed. If I mix grape juice and apple juice together, we can argue all day about how this cup is "grape flavored apple juice" and this other cup is "apple flavored grape juice," but in the end we have to admit that both flavors are affecting the other and fundamentally changing it from what it once was.

[barnhart]

HK, were the German Mennonites drawn to them for the paganism?

[HondurasKeiser]

HK, were the German Mennonites drawn to them for the paganism?

Why was anyone drawn to the Nazi party that wasn't himself animated by Nazism? I couldn't possibly say with certainty why some of our confreres in 1930's Germany were drawn to a political party that was itself grounded in an anti-Christian philosophy. I could hazard a guess that it was a mix of disgust with the Weimar government, the libertine culture emanating from Berlin, and the spiraling economy along with the Nazis' appeals to "traditional German Kultur" that drove some but certainly not all Germans (Mennonites included) into support for the Nazis. The leaders of Nazism were good propogandists. I think there's a category error that's made though when the regular Germans, in their spectrum of support for the Nazis (for various reasons) are conflated with the Nazis, animated as they are by pagan Nazism.

[Ernie]

Christian nationalism is when faith seeks political domination. Political religion is when political movements hijack religious symbols and corrupt them for their own purposes.

That they coopted "Christian language" at times to win over the largely "Christian" populace is certainly on record. That does not though make Nazis qua Nazis, Christian Nationalists but rather, good propogandists.

And so it is today!
We have:
1. Christian Nationalists (folks who are devout believers in the God of the Bible)
and
2. Christians with Nationalist ideals (God and Country folks who are devout believers in the God of the Bible but try to make a separation of church and state)
and
3. Political/Religious/good propogandists (folks who aren't devout believers but are coopting Christian language and symbols at times)

And the three groups all work together to promote their shared values and political causes. And its a scene we've seen happen many times before!