Christian Nationalism

[Praxis+Theodicy]

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

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.

In fact, many people (and the Mennonites in particular) were drawn to support the Nazi party because that party promised to fight back against another political party that was founded in an anti-Christian philosophy: the Bolsheviks. The Russian political party that was outright anti-religion was seen as an existential threat, and the Nazi party, with their support bolstered in the one-party government and the unified protestant church (Deutsche Evangelische Kirche) promised to stand as a bulwark against anti-Christian politics. This is one of the biggest animating incentives for Christians at the time to lend their support to the Nazi party. A bigger animating incentive was just "nationalism". Nationalism itself was seen as a strengthening political position. As long as the "nationalism" included protestant Christianity, may protestant Christians supported it (including the Mennonites there).
https://anabaptisthistorians.org/2021/1 ... te-voters/

[Szdfan]

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.

I'm not saying that Christianity has nothing to do with Nazism. I think you're making the same error as Praxis, but in the other direction. I think this is a lot more complicated than either of you are making it.

I think there was complicity by Christians without continuity with Christianity. Many Nazis were also Christians, and there were Nazis who believed that they were purifying Christianity. But I don't think that Nazism is continuous with Christian theology.

What I would say is that Christianity provided the cultural framework and institutional infrastructure that was exploited by Nazism, but that the ideology itself was a rupture that replaced faith with mythic race-worship. That's a lot more complicated than both you and Praxis are making it.

Many Christians, even if they weren't directly involved with Nazism, were also silent about what was going on. That's also a form of complicity.

[HondurasKeiser]

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

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.

In fact, many people (and the Mennonites in particular) were drawn to support the Nazi party because that party promised to fight back against another political party that was founded in an anti-Christian philosophy: the Bolsheviks. The Russian political party that was outright anti-religion was seen as an existential threat, and the Nazi party, with their support bolstered in the one-party government and the unified protestant church (Deutsche Evangelische Kirche) promised to stand as a bulwark against anti-Christian politics. This is one of the biggest animating incentives for Christians at the time to lend their support to the Nazi party. A bigger animating incentive was just "nationalism". Nationalism itself was seen as a strengthening political position. As long as the "nationalism" included protestant Christianity, may protestant Christians supported it (including the Mennonites there).
https://anabaptisthistorians.org/2021/1 ... te-voters/

Agreed however, the Nazi animus towards communism/bolshevism was not itself grounded in Christianity or even vague Christian principles but rather a competing anti-Christian value system that made ethnicity and the ubermensch transvaluation of all values as their point of departure as opposed to class warfare.

[HondurasKeiser]

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.

I'm not saying that Christianity has nothing to do with Nazism. I think you're making the same error as Praxis, but in the other direction. I think this is a lot more complicated than either of you are making it.

I think there was complicity by Christians without continuity with Christianity. Many Nazis were also Christians, and there were Nazis who believed that they were purifying Christianity. But I don't think that Nazism is continuous with Christian theology.

What I would say is that Christianity provided the cultural framework and institutional infrastructure that was exploited by Nazism, but that the ideology itself was a rupture that replaced faith with mythic race-worship. That's a lot more complicated than both you and Praxis are making it.

Many Christians, even if they weren't directly involved with Nazism, were also silent about what was going on. That's also a form of complicity.

Perhaps I'm explaining myself poorly but I agree with what you wrote. I don't deny Christian complicity, Christians in the ranks or the coopting of Christian language/culture. I simply think it's a gross error to describe the Nazis as being animated by Christianity.

[Ernie]

It’s a lot to sort out for sure. I’m not sure I’m communicating my thoughts adequately but to put a big summary on it I see the labeling of groups as a part of the power-seeking problem that seeks to divide and conquer.

So if someone self-identifies as a Christian Nationalist, what do you propose?
Tell them that they should not be giving themselves labels?
Just call them Christians instead and disregard their own label?

What about the Baptist label? How do you feel about it?

[barnhart]

Perhaps I'm explaining myself poorly but I agree with what you wrote. I don't deny Christian complicity, Christians in the ranks or the coopting of Christian language/culture. I simply think it's a gross error to describe the Nazis as being animated by Christianity.

I don't think PT or I are making that claim.

I am trying to say that Christians who look to the state for succor, protection, security or prosperity are vulnerable to nationalisms that will pose as the solution.

[Neto]

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.

I think you touch on an important point here, the distinction between the 'philosopher' or theoretical Nazis and the rank and file, the latter perhaps including many officers as well. The former Nazis I have met were not anti-Christian, nor had they rejected their traditional 'faith' (that is, their inherited 'faith', not a true pietistic faith). And, if the representatives of Nazism were indeed good at spinning it as somehow supporting Christian ideals, then many people were probably fooled. (We have the benefit of hind-sight.) I think that there are now many 'real Christians' who are fooled by the appeal of what is being called "Christian Nationalism" in the North American political context. Hence my concern for the Church here in America. The Scripture tells us of the danger that even some of the 'elect' will be deceived in "the Last Days". The disconnect that others have pointed out already pages back in this discussion - the deep contrasts between Biblical Christianity and 'Christian Nationalism' is why I have sometimes used a different tern here - "Religious Nationalism". That tern is rather lacking in that it doesn't name what religion is the sort of focus here, that it is focused on Christianity - using the terminology of Christianity. (Marxism in Latin America, 'Liberation Theology' to be more specific, does the same thing.

You also spoke of a 'hollowing out of Christianity' by Nazism, replacing the core doctrines with something entirely different. Catholicism has suffered the same mistreatment in Brazil. In what I have sometimes referred to as 'Folk Catholicism' in the Brazilian North East, the spirits or false gods of African native religions have been given the names of Catholic saints, thus lending this continuation of an African religion some appearance of legitimacy, in an essentially Catholic nation. But the essence of the entity in the minds of the adherents is the African deity, not the saint whose name is used. (There is generally some sort of connection between the two, such as in the 'specialty' of the saint, and that of a particular 'god'.)

[Neto]

Perhaps I'm explaining myself poorly but I agree with what you wrote. I don't deny Christian complicity, Christians in the ranks or the coopting of Christian language/culture. I simply think it's a gross error to describe the Nazis as being animated by Christianity.

I don't think PT or I are making that claim.

I am trying to say that Christians who look to the state for succor, protection, security or prosperity are vulnerable to nationalisms that will pose as the solution.

I wish I could "like" this twice.

[Praxis+Theodicy]

Perhaps I'm explaining myself poorly but I agree with what you wrote. I don't deny Christian complicity, Christians in the ranks or the coopting of Christian language/culture. I simply think it's a gross error to describe the Nazis as being animated by Christianity.

That's fair and I would agree with this. It's an error to think that Christian Nationalism is "a political ideology animated by Christianity".

Nationalism is its own ideology; "Christian" is just an adjective. If I had a blue dog, it would be silly for me to say that the animating feature of the animal is "blue". It's "dog". "Blue" is a qualifier that tells you what KIND of dog it is.

Nationalism is an ideology that preaches conformity of all within its political sphere: those subject to the nation's laws and jurisdiction must be "on the same page" is many, MANY regards in order for the nation to operate smoothly and be "successful". Religion is ONE of these regards, but it is not the only one. Thus, Christian Nationalism (or Hindu Nationalism, or Jewish Nationalism, etc) isn't about the religion being front and center per se. It means that the Nationalists recognize that religion is a fundamental part of identity-building (both individually and collectively), and so they need to get the nation "on the same page" religiously. Christian Nationalism is a Nationalist ideology that chooses "Christianity"; (the religion) to fill that slot. The main architects of the political party that is pushing the Nationalist ideology don't really need to be fully on board with the heart of the religion. They just need to choose a religion to support, and then work on cooperation wherein that religion is slowly molded into a model that is more friendly to the Party's aims, and those religious adherents enjoy special privileges in the public square.

Nationalists choose a religion to promote in the public sphere in order to serve their nationalist agenda and unite people around something. Some political parties (like the Nazis) chose Christianity (very specifically PROTESTANT Christianity) to fill this role. That's all that is meant by Christian Nationalism. Even today, this is what Christian Nationalist pundits are aiming for.

[temporal1]

^^possibly Nazis chose Protestants, but Protestants did not invent state churches/religions.

Perhaps I'm explaining myself poorly but I agree with what you wrote. I don't deny Christian complicity, Christians in the ranks or the coopting of Christian language/culture. I simply think it's a gross error to describe the Nazis as being animated by Christianity.

I don't think PT or I are making that claim.

I am trying to say that Christians who look to the state for succor, protection, security or prosperity are vulnerable to nationalisms that will pose as the solution.

I wish I could "like" this twice.

The irony here could be, the present accused Nationalists, because they use language to recognize God, are attempting to counter-balance decades of increasingly acting out “gov is god” without using those exact words.

Possibly jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Not less than that.