Jesus and Hitler
The classic case for separation of church and state
© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
7/4/06
Der Spiegel magazine had a piece last spring about a 70 year old church in
Berlin that was in need of some renovation and financing. Nothing too
extraordinary about that, except that this was Germany’s only remaining
“Nazi-era church.”
The piece, by David Crossland, described the “Martin Luther Memorial Church” in
vivid terms, noting the black Iron Cross chandelier, and that “The pulpit has a
wooden carving of a muscular Jesus leading a helmeted Wehrmacht soldier and
surrounded by an Aryan family. The baptismal font is guarded by a wooden statue
of a stormtrooper from Adolf Hitler's paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA) unit
clutching his cap.”
I bet the “muscular Jesus” looked very Aryan, much like the blond-haired and
blue-eyed image the Mormons claim to be the true image of Jesus, with little
about him to suggest that his mother was Jewish.
The church isn’t unchanged since the war. The bells, according to Crossland,
were melted down for the war effort, and the swasticas removed after the war
when the symbol was declared illegal.
The resident Dean of the parish, Isolde Böhm, isn’t unreservedly enthusiastic
about his church’s legacy, and Crossland quotes him as saying, “When you hold
sermons in this church your words clash with the symbols around you. It's hard
work talking about human dignity when you're constantly aware that your
surroundings evoke a system that trampled on dignity. Sometimes I had the
feeling that the symbols overpowered the words.” Despite that, Böhm wants to see
the church preserved, both for its historic interest, and as a warning to future
generations of what happens when political madness and religious belief combine.
Just as well they removed the swasticas. They don’t really convey a message of
peace, love and compassion, do they?
That many German Christians – and their churches – in the 1930s were locked in
an enthusiastic embrace with Hitler and the Nazi party is no secret, of course.
Hitler represents a failure of German Christianity as much as it represents a
failure of German culture and the German people themselves.
But Hitler recognized that by embracing Christianity and making it his own, he
could easily alleviate moral qualms that his vicious policies might incur in the
German people. Thus, he deftly equated loyalty to him and his party not only
with patriotism, but with godliness. Saying “I believe that I am acting in
accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator; by defending myself against
the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord.” made him, not a hater and a murderer, but
a mere instrument of the lord’s will. “Loyalty and responsibility toward the
people and the Fatherland are most deeply anchored in the Christian faith.”
ensured that it was ok for ordinary German citizens to become instruments of
that same will.
Christianity didn’t cause Hitler’s ascendency and the moral collapse of German
culture, but the nature of organized religion – any organized religion –
certainly enabled it. Any group of humans can be swayed and led by demagoguery,
but religion is particularly susceptible because of the strong constraints that
religion necessarily has against challenging authoritarian pronouncements. It’s
much easier to oppose a poisonous politician than it is to oppose a politician
who, according to both himself and the authorities of your own church, is
carrying out the will of god.
Can it happen here? Of course! Some people – myself included – believe it is
happening right now. And yes, it could be as evil. Read the writings of Ann
Coulter, and any place she uses the word “liberal”, replace it with the word
“Jew” and see if you can tell any difference between her and Adolf Hitler.
Ann Coulter, in her latest book, characterizes all liberals as being “Godless”.
Presumably godless means evil, and therefore, it’s ok to kill them. You may have
noticed that while elected Republicans aren’t waving her book in the air and
cheering, they aren’t lining up to condemn it, either. Attacking Coulter would
be like attacking Jesus because the people Ann doesn’t like are godless.
The religious right has always been a threat to American freedom. Clear back in
the early 1950s, Robert Heinlein postulated that America would fall – in the
year 2000 – to a repressive police state that carried religious and state
symbols side by side, a merging of the two. Bertrand Russell considered it
necessary to divide the two because politics was the art of the possible, with
ever-malleable truths, whereas religious was the art of what is, with unchanging
truths. Each would badly corrupt the other if merged.
But it predates Heinlein by over 150 years. The founding fathers saw the
implicit threat religious fervor presented to freedom, and took the strongest
steps they could to avoid it. Most people know of the most frequently cited
example of this. That would be the First Amendment – Jefferson’s “wall of
separation”.
What most people don’t know is that there is one sentence in the Constitution
that, by its very wording, is not subject to the mechanisms available for
amending the rest of the Constitution. The founders realized that America would
change, and outgrow the original document, and that the document would need to
be flexible to adapt to those changes.
With one exception. There was one standard that the founders held that should
never change, and that would be the need to keep religion and state carefully
apart. So, on a nearly unamimous vote, they agreed to Madison’s wording in the
penultimate sentence in the Constitution: “[...]No religious Test shall ever be
required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United
States.”
What did Madison have in mind? The following quotes of his are illustrative:
“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has
done, in showing that religion and Govt (sic) will both exist in greater purity,
the less they are mixed together.”
“It was the Universal opinion of the Century preceding the last, that Civil
Government could not stand without the prop of a religious establishment; and
that the Christian religion itself, would perish if not supported by the legal
provision for its clergy. The experience of Virginia conspiciously corroboates
the disproof of both opinions. The Civil Government, tho' bereft of everything
like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its
functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the
morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly
increased by the TOTAL SEPARATION OF THE CHURCH FROM THE STATE.”
Madison didn’t just want no law saying only Episcopalians could run for office;
he wanted a system whereby a candidate for office should not reveal what, if
any, religious beliefs he held!
The founders, by a huge margin, agreed with him. Even those who didn’t like it
agreed to the necessity. The Reverend Isaac Backus wrote, “And let the history
of all nations be searched, from that day to this, and it will appear that the
imposing of religious tests hath been the greatest engine of tyranny in the
world. And I rejoice to see so many gentlemen who are now giving in the rights
of conscience, in this great and important matter.”
It’s fashionable among the religious right to say that America was meant to be a
Christian country, and that the founders didn’t want government without Jesus.
That is utterly false. They had seen what a government “with Jesus” was like,
and after 300 years of carnage in Europe, they wanted no part of it. And they
created a nation that was noticeably freer of pogroms and religious persecution
than any in history.
The religious right also like to pretend that patriotism is valid only if it
includes a higher power. I would like to invite them to go and visit Martin
Luther Memorial Church in Berlin, and gaze around and see what a blending of
patriotism and godliness leads to. Not “could lead to” – “WILL lead to.”
The founders knew that. That’s why the “religious test” clause, uniquely,
contains the word “ever”.
And that’s why, on this holiday of American Independence, it’s so important to
remember that one of America’s greatest strengths and greatest glories has been,
and hopefully always will be a strong separation of church and state.