Indeed! It’s the ol’ “I’ve been ‘born again’ and washed in the blood…blah, blah, blah.” convenient Fundie meme. The optics nationwide, however, could not be more horrid to have this travesty associated with the GOP; their odious leadership is trying desperately to appeal to more voters ___ while a number their candidates horrify many of those same voters who then run as far from the GOP as possible.
The bleating gaggle of Christofascist sheeple that rally to Davis’ support horrify mainstream voters and only the most fringe loons, like Cruz and Huckabee, dare go near her. And they go for the attention and the grift.
The GOP courted this TEAlibangelical crowd over the decades and now are stuck with trying to control them…a job they have failed at and will continue to fail at miserably. The TEAtards, fringe cons and fundies, are the loudest and most energized of the GOP’s odious ‘base’…and they promise to be the suicidal whirlwind, if I may take a biblical metaphor, that has arisen from the wind the GOP has sowed.
The GOP establishment certainly wants their votes but desperately wants these aging, racist and bigoted howler monkeys to pipe down.
Yes, she replaced “Koran burning pastor” Terry Jones.
Yes! And one need only read “Mein Kampf” to gleam the profound influence of Christianity on Hitler. Hitler did not have to parade his belief in “God,” as so many of these crazy azz’ Fundies do now. Nor did he have to justify his ‘godly’ beliefs against atheism. He took his beliefs for granted just as most Germans did at that time. His thrust was certainly aimed at politics, not religion, but through his political and religious reasoning he established in 1933, a German Reich Christian Church, uniting the Protestant churches to instill faith in a national German Christianity.
Future generations, and certainly these screeching pseudo-theocrats who shout their love and devotion to the American flag “…and the republic for which it stands,” should remember that Hitler could not have come into power without the support of the Protestant and Catholic churches and the German Christian populace.
Terry Jones was a lot more fun when he was still working with Monty Python.
Yes and no. The quotes are from the 1920s, when it was not in Hitler’s interest to alienate the churches or the believers. This is basically propaganda. Also, he needed the contrast against atheist communism. Later on the tune changes. Esp. during the war Hitler’s “Table Talks” (which are available in English) are full of rants against religion.
There is no doubt that the Nazis wanted to take care of the problem of churches and religion as soon as the war was won. During the war it would have led to too much unrest in the population.
Alfred Rosenberg in his “Myth of the 20th Century” explicitely proposed to exchange the “Jewish Jesus” for a “nordic Jesus”. Catholicism for him is the second biggest enemy (after the Jews, of course). Streicher’s “Stürmer” has targeted plenty of Catholic priests over time. And I have already mentioned Himmler and his ideas about reinstalling Wotan.
While the churches are far from blameless during the “Third Reich”, there were plenty of priests in the concentration camps and/or murdered by the Nazis. Both in Germany and esp. in Poland. They fumed at princes of the church like Clemens August Cardinal Count von Galen, the bishop of Münster, who (according to Goebbels) could not be touched during the war but was targeted for execution immediately afterwards. Among Lutherans, the Bekennende Kirche (“Confessing Church”) had their share of martyrs; most prominently Dietrich Bonhöffer (executed 4/9/1945, just weeks before the end of the war).
Members of the NSDAP were encouraged to describe themselves as “gottgläubig” (“believe in God”), but not as Lutheran or Catholic. For SS-members, a church wedding as actively discouraged and counted against them in their personal files.
And “Gott mit uns” (“God is with us”)? That does not mean anything at all. “Nobiscum Deus” is already a battle cry during the Roman Empire. The German Order has used it in the Middle Ages, and since 1701 it is the motto of the Prussian monarchy, including World War I. Removing this centuries old phrase would have caused more anger that it was worth to the Nazis. It is more telling that it was NOT emblazoned on the belt-buckles of the SS soldiers, who instead had the slogan “Meine Ehre heißt Treue” (“My honor is Loyalty”).
To call Hitler a Christian is not correct, except in the most formal sense of the word. Sorry for this long history lecture 
Once again, I am sorry, but this is mostly historically inacurate. And while I don’t want to “pull rank”, you can trust me that as a German professor for political science and history, I know a bit about these things from my own research and teaching. And I do not have an agenda here, except for setting the record straight. BTW, I am also an atheist. So, no church friendly agenda from me.
The very founding of the “Deutsche Christen” (“German Christians”) was an indication that Hitler did not trust the regular churches. In terms of sheer numbers, this new group was a dismal failure, both with regard to leadership and to the mass membership of the Lutheran church. They never went beyond the status of a splinter group.
And it is simply incorrect that the churches were in any form involved in Hitler seizing power. In fact, throughout the last years of the Weimar Republic the Nazi percentage of the vote were the lowest in staunchly Catholic areas of the Reich. That’s why the Concordate came as such a huge surprise. There were plenty of factors which led to the “coup d’etat in four steps” (as I have called it in many a published article), culminating in January 1933, but the churches were not one of them.
And even the voters were less responsible than one might think; at the last free election in late 1932 the Nazis had lost a huge number of votes. If you look at the papers and journals of December/January 1932/33 (which I have done), you’ll find an amazing number of writers rejoicing that the days of Hitler are finally coming to an end. But that is a different story.
From the article…“But that won’t end the culture wars, if only because the supposed tribunes of “religious liberty” really want dominion.” [emphasis added] So that’s the answer to so many questions… Much more specific than “Because Jebus”
- Why is Kim Davis being lauded? Because Dominion.
- Why is Huckabee running for prez? Because Dominion.
- Why is Cruz so freakishly scary? Because Dominion.
Most of the Nazis were Lutherans, the rest Catholics and less than 5% others or atheist). You can spin it all you like but Hitler the fact ram in that the Nazis, like most of Germany at the time were Christian. And the virulent anti-Semitism was largely based on religious (Christians) views of Jewish people as being collectively guilty of deicide. Hell Hitler explicitly cites it Mein Kampf.
“The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his
nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who
then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties– and this against their own nation.” – Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, Vol. 1, Chapter 11
You also seem to be ignoring the fact that it was the official position of the Catholic Church that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion and the Church didn’t change it’s stance and “forgive” the Jews (with the Nostra aerate) for the claimed crime of sending Jesus to his death (at the hands of the Romans) until Vatican II which didn’t occur until two decades after the war ended in 1965.
The “well he was just pretending for political purposes” is simply a “No True Scotsman” dodge and flies in the face of the facts and reality.
“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so” – Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941
That is true- but it was also on the German military belt-buckles in the First World War ( with the Tommies replying “We got mittens, too” ). Himmler had his own weird religious practices, I believe one or two of his temples are still around.
Which underscores my point. Nazi Germany was a Christian country (mostly Lutherans), lead by a Catholic in good standing, who came into power plying the centuries old ingrained anti-semitism that was so ingrained into culture, from Martin Luther to the Catholic Church of the time (who still blamed Jews for Jesus being crucified) …the it is almost comical the lengths at which people try to make out that the Nazis were not Christian, and that it was all the work of atheists, or that of pagen-Norse worshipers.