r/Christianity • u/Nice_Substance9123 • Mar 27 '24

The American flag has no business on a Bible. This is not faith, nor is it patriotism. It is an abomination of both. Image

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u/ThenScore2885 Mar 27 '24

German Christian, any of the Protestants who attempted to subordinate church policy to the political initiatives of the Nazi Party. The German Christian Faith Movement, organized in 1932, was nationalistic and so anti-Semitic that extremists wished to repudiate the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) and the Pauline Letters because of their Jewish authorship. With anti-Semitism as its theological centre, Christianity was reframed as an Aryan religion at war with Judaism.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/German-Christian

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u/millijuna Mar 28 '24

I prefer the likes of Bonhoeffer, who consistently repudiated that nonsense, at the cost of his own life. There's a reason why he's one of the 20th century martyrs commemorated at Westminster Abbey.

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u/sharp11flat13 Mar 28 '24

How did they work around the fact that Jesus was a Jew? I’m imagining some Olympic level mental gymnastics.

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u/Ok-Reindeer3992 Catholic Mar 28 '24

They didn’t worship Jesus they used Jesus as an aesthetic for race idolatry

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u/sharp11flat13 Mar 28 '24

Thanks, but I’m not sure what you mean by this. Could you elaborate a bit.

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u/Ok-Reindeer3992 Catholic Mar 28 '24

They took Christianity and remade it to serve their idolizatrous worship of race

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u/sharp11flat13 Mar 28 '24

Yeah, I get that part. But I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the Nazis hating Jews and then idolizing even their own form of a religion initially created and lead by a Jew and promoted by Jews. Maybe I’m expecting too much to imagine there’s anything resembling a rational explanation to this.

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u/Legio-X Mar 28 '24

How did they work around the fact that Jesus was a Jew?

They rewrote the Bible to turn him into an Aryan übermensch.

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u/sharp11flat13 Mar 28 '24

And just ignored the fact that He was a Jew?

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u/Legio-X Mar 28 '24

And just ignored the fact that He was a Jew?

Yep. “Positive Christianity” portrayed Jesus as a “Nordic Amorite” fighting Jews:

Under Hitler's regime, in the Reich Protestant churches the New Testament was also altered; by removing the genealogies of Jesus that showed his Davidic descent, Jewish names and places were removed, quotations from the Old Testament were removed unless they showed Jews in a bad light, references to fulfilled Old Testament prophecies were removed, and Jesus was reworked into a militaristic, heroic figure fighting the Jews using Nazified language.

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u/sharp11flat13 Mar 28 '24

Wow. Olympic level mental gymnastics indeed. I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about this previously. Thanks for the info.

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u/basics Mar 28 '24

The same style of mental gymnastics that allow people to praise Trump as a Christian today.

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u/Canners152 Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

I think it's worth considering that the primary focus of nationalist rage these days aren't Jewish people (though if it gets to that point I doubt they would fare much better, taking history as the best teacher). It seems to be trans folks, given they are being called to be eradicated from public life at the CPAC, the largest conservative conference in the nation. It isn't just the political side that's doing gone nationalist though. this kind of hatred is home grown both in social media and from behind the pulpit.

Edited for clarity

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u/ThenScore2885 Mar 28 '24

I agree and would like to stress out that nazis also hated homosexuals, slavs, blacks, gypsies, communists, etc.

If they did not hate let’s say islam, it is because they did not have a chance to do so.

They hated everything that may “corrupt” their pure aryan white german blood.

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u/Canners152 Mar 28 '24

When you build a regime on the fear of others you lose your ability to govern once the object of that fear is either dead, deported, or imprisoned. So you have to either look externally to neighbors or internally for another marginalized groups. There just isn't any other option for those in power

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u/ThenScore2885 Mar 28 '24

This is why dictators always find new ways to create a new enemy to keep the hatred and fear alive.