Posted by
Bob Siegel on Monday, March 16, 2009 5:45:24 PM
Today's biggest atheist talking point loudly claims that Christianity is
responsible for most of the evil in the world. When Christians retort
by mentioning a certain German movement of national, godless
Socialists, called Nazism, the quick response is, "Oh yeah? Well Adolf
Hitler was a Christian!"
One would think that such an absurd statement needed no reply.
Unfortunately, it is one of many lies which today's generation is
swallowing like a Ben and Jerry's hot fudge sundae. Ironically, Hitler himself used to say, "If you are going to tell a
lie, tell a big one." Evidently, the more audacious the untruth, the
less likely it is that people will think you could have had the
unmitigated gall to make it up. But I am not accusing all of my atheist
friends. Indeed, many of them are sincere when they repeat this
distortion of reality. But they, of all people, (since they love to claim the intellectual higher ground) should know better than to repeat something without investigation.
There is a great moral divide in America today, but, at the moment, the
historical revisionists have not yet succeeded in painting the NAZI's
positively. This is evident in Hollywood, where terrorists are still
NAZI's. (Today's directors wouldn't dare talk about Muslim terrorists.)
In any event, since (for now) we all agree that Hitler was the epitome
of evil, neither side wants to claim him and calling Hitler a Christian
is a wild card which many an atheist has attempted to play while
debating me.
Allow me to set the record straight in as blunt and honest a manner as
possible: Adolf Hitler was not a Christian! Anybody who says Hitler
was a Christian, knows nothing about Hitler, or nothing about
Christianity, or nothing about either.
Now, it's true that Hitler was born into a Catholic family. At the
risk of making an outrageous understatement, being born into a Catholic
family in Europe is not an uncommon phenomenon. No, Hitler did not ever
formally denounce his Catholicism, but neither was he practicing it anymore by
the time he came into power.
At times, Hitler made positive comments about Christianity. After
all, he did not wish to alienate the church. The Lutheran and Catholic
churches (to their shame) supported Hitler in the beginning, partly because he did little to interfere with church life. In time, many
Christians of Germany did rise to the occasion and resist the godless tyranny of the Nazi Party by forming the underground Confessional Church. One such pastor, Deitrich
Bonhoeffer, was hung in a German prison for his beliefs.
Although supporting the church may have been politically expedient early on, Hitler was not shy about his true beliefs. First of all, the man did not believe in God at all. He was a follower
of Fredrick Nietzsche, famous for the "God is dead" poem. By his own
confession, the closest Hitler came to accepting the notion of a deity
was through nature. I. E. He believed in Pantheism (that nature and God
are one and the same). Certainly this can be called a religion, but it
has nothing to do with the God of the Bible or any general concept of
God as a creator, or as a thinking, feeling entity (Monologues, 11-12
July 1941).
As for Christianity itself, Hitler considered it a heavy blow to mankind (Monologues 25 1941). He denied that Jesus was a Jew, (which, at the very least, proves his complete unfamiliarity with the New Testament). He went even
further, calling Jesus the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier
(Monologues 21, October 1941).
CONCLUSION: If you are an atheist, I respect your skepticism. I really
do. I was an atheist myself once. Just a word to the wise: Find a
better argument than this one. Hitler was a Pantheist and a follower of
Nietzsche. He also believed in the illegitimate birth of Christ,
claimed publicly that Christianity was not good for the world, and demonstrated zero understanding of the New Testament. This is not much
of a credential for Christian authority. Of course, we are dancing around the most obvious observation of all: Hitler did not live the Christian life commanded by Jesus! (And that, Sweet Virginia, is another understatement, perhaps the understatement of the century.)
Also by Bob Siegel:
Questions and Concerns About Christianity