"While some Christian apologists are fond of asserting that but for the existence of their god, humankind would lack any real basis to criticize (must less do something about) Hitler and his Nazi regime, they all seem to forget that their holy book, the New Testament, unqualifiedly commands subjection and obedience to government as an instrument established by their god. Christians who would criticize or overthrow the Nazi government (or ANY government) would have to violate their god's unqualified commandment in order to do so. Therefore believers are on the horns of a dilemma here: act on their god's purported "objective morality" and in the process violate their god's commands as set forth in Romans, 1 Peter, and Titus OR obey their god's commands and be forced to stand by watching a horrible regime persecute and kill people."
God Appointed Hitler? (The New Testament, Government, & Morality)
by whereami 13 Replies latest jw friends
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3Mozzies
Yep, the bible what a great inspired book! (not)
3M
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BurnTheShips
Therefore believers are on the horns of a dilemma here: act on their god's purported "objective morality" and in the process violate their god's commands as set forth in Romans
Remember that when Romans is written (in this case, he cites Romans 13:1-2), Christians were enemies of the state. Romans was written to Christians living in the Imperial capital, hiding for their lives from a secular authority that wanted them dead.
The Romans killed Jesus, and then killed almost all the Apostles, including the author of Romans himself, Paul.
This was the time of the lions, and Christians, in the arenas. So this is advice for a persecuted religious minority that refused to obey certain laws of the State.
So it is not as if Paul was not aware that some of the rulers might be terrible.
Also, and more importantly, Peter and the Apostles said:
We must obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:29)
Christians must obey the authorities as far as they do not contradict with God's law.
Where government exercises legitimate authority and where it does not compel Christians to go against morality, they should be good citizens.
Had enough people disobeyed Hitler's commands to murder their neighbors, there would have been no Third Reich.
To underscore this, the Youtuber cited Romans 13:1-2, but look at what Romans 13:9 says:
The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
1 Peter
1 Peter 2:13-14 shows that God's plan for civil government is to punish evildoers and to protect and praise those who do right:
Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good.
When government steps outside of God's law and persecutes good people, promotes evil, or does injustice to the innocent, then it has lost its moral authority and Christians are free to disobey.
So Hitler did not act legitimately in the Christian idea. He violated the divine purpose for civil government.
Pastor Dietrich Boenhoffer understood this, when he helped an assasination attempt against Hitler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer
And so, that was a shallow and poorly thought out attack on the part of that Youtuber.
And, by the way, the video you posted generated a video response:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpbjP5juKao
So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.
BTS
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BurnTheShips
http://www.shoaheducation.com/bookofromansnazi.html
Why the Book of Romans Troubled the Third Reich
Book of Romans & the Nazis-II |Nazi BeliefsWhile he was certainly not alone in being a clergy member persecuted by the National Socialists, a Pastor named Zedlacher was arrested not just for breaking Nazi policy, nor for protesting Hitler's treatment of the Jews, the Church, or the mentally retarded and others, but for doing something Lutheran pastors had done for years: teach the Book of Romans, just as it had always been taught since the first days of the apostles.
The Book of Romans, written by the apostle Paul, or Saul of Tarsus, was to the Christians of Rome (Rms 1:7) around the year A.D. 56-57, from Corinth. (bible.org). The book encompasses more than one topic, including morality, the Plan of Salvation, the Civil duties of the Christian and the State, divine election, and a number of chapters focusing on the Mystery of the Jews. The Epistle was written toward the end of Paul's journeys and life, although the exact means and place of Paul's death is debated, ranging from dying in Spain during a later journey to being executed in Rome by Nero after being blamed for the the fire which consumed Rome. Whatever the true account is, the Book of Romans has been a mainstay of Christianity from the beginning of baseline doctrine, and both a blessing and troubling to heads of State for just as long.
This was no less true for the Third Reich, which in its twisted attempts to sedition the Bible towards their political/social aims and objectives, both used the book of Romans in part to garner 'befehlsnotstand' or blind obedience to the State and which also sought to erase the effect of teaching in Romans particularly about the Jews.
Paul and the Nazis
Grundman, a theologian and cohort of Gerhard Kittel, was a man fundamentally responsible for changes in doctrinal and theological education in the Third Reich as well as being a member of Kittel's subcommittee of the Reichinstitut fur Geshichte des Neuen Deutschland , the Reich Institute for the History of the New Germany, which dealt with the 'Judenfrage' or "Jewish question". Grundman also authored a number of passages in Kittel's Lexicon, the 'Worterbuch', for the New Testament, and was the man fundamentally responsible for the concept of the 'Aryan Jesus': a heretical change in viewpoint of Jesus Christ.
Goebbels, Kittel, Grundman and others began to redefine and interpret, or perhaps more accurately 'morph' traditional Lutheran doctrine and a basic understanding of the Gospels and rest of the Scriptures into an acceptable form for the Reich which would not contradict Reich teachings. While Jesus was retained as an example of the Aryan prototype of a 'Superman' and reinterpreted as having
Aryan/Greek lineage via his speaking 'Aramaic' and living in the mixed Northern area of Israel near what was before Hazor, in Galilee and Nazareth, Paul was much more ostracized doctrinally and relegated to the level of a degenerate Jewish influence on the gospels, a self-effacing, introverted rabbi who was not in line with the thinking of the 'New Germany' which the Reich sought to bring about.
By those who wished for an untainted and pure 'Nazi' doctrine in the German Church (DC), Paul, then in all his epistles was at the very least 'suspect' and was thought by the worst to be leading the German spirit into degeneration and a lack of national sense and pride, by teaching such decadent concepts as
"...for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. Phil 1:21"
It was then in this general context, that Paul, suspect anyway in his teaching and jewish 'infusion' in the Scriptures was allowed but frowned upon, save for a few passages. Among the writings which the Nazis retained in allowable teachings were passages such as Romans 13 on the Civic responsibility of Christians to the then Roman State, and the teachings of the 'Old Man vs the New Man', although both were horribly twisted to meet the approval of the DC and its theologians. Most notably though, as Zedlacher and other pastors discovered too late, it was the teaching on the 'Mystery of the Jews' in Romans that the Nazis found so deeply troubling as to cause the arrest and persecution of pastors who taught it at all, or at least in a non-compliant state.
Acceptable Passages the Nazis 'morphed'.
While there are numerous 'reinterpretations' of doctrines by the Deutsche Christen, two that are eminent are that of Romans 13, and the teaching of the sin nature (e.g Rms 6:6).
Romans 13
Romans 13 begins with the following passage:
"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. 2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinace of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."
The passage goes on to talk about being afraid of the 'power' and declares that the rulers or authority of a nation are 'ministers' of God, meaning not clergy, but powers that retain the order of the world appointed by God. Now, this passage is a standard teaching of Christianity, that the State in which one dwells, has God-given authority, and we are to obey that authority as one obeys God. Drive the speed limit, following building codes, live out the Ten Commandments, etc, are all examples of divine appointments of the authority of civil law which we are to obey. For all of Christianity, though there is a constant dialogue regarding obedience when the laws of man, of the State contradict or conflict with the laws and obedience to God as they so often have in history. Zealots who tore the eagle off the Temple in the first century, Christians who refused to toss coins or light incense to Emperors, or even modern day pastors who refuse State registration of churches have all encountered those times when to obey God meant to disobey the State. The Nazis, however left no option for that latter issue.
Romans 13 was used by the Nazis to inculcate the perfect obedience Germans were to strive for. Bonhoeffer, who with Niemoller and others resisted the DC, wrote
The church has three possible ways it can act against the state. First, it can ask the state if its actions are legitimate. Second, it can aid the victims of the state action. The church has the unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering society even if they do not belong to the Christian society. The third possibility is not just [to] bandage the victims under the wheel, but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself. [narrated by Klaus Maria Brandauer: excerpt- 2003 documentary film, Bonhoeffer}
However while Hitler applied the tenets of Rms 13 to bring about the 'führerprinzip' in the German Church and people, and while Robert Ley declar
"The Party lays total claim to the soul of the German people...and hence we demand the last German, whether Protestant or Catholic..."
There was nonetheless fervent opposition, and the observation early that Hitler and his men meant to replace the Christian Church and headship of Christ with 'another Gospel' and the headship of the State: To those Church circles that raised their voices in protest this totalitarian structure of the Nazi regime presented a double threat to the very existence of the Church. First, the pseudo-religious and pseudomessianic character of Nazism was calculated to weaken the Church from within and to mislead the Christian community, especially its youth. It became increasingly clear to these circles that the Nazi racial doctrine - which Hitler and also the "Deutsche Christen" had called positive Christianity in their first formulation as early as 5 May 1932 - constituted a kind of additional gospel of messianic redemption that ostensibly strengthened Christianity as an institution and as a religion of revelation. Secondly, this pseudo- messianic and pseudo-religious authority that the Nazi regime arrogated to itself was able by means of its repressive measures to curtail the influence of the Church and even to reduce it to silence. This danger was perceived at an early date by the "Bekenntnissynode der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche" in its Botschaft (Part I, par 2, 5) adopted by the Conference held in Berlin-Dahlem 19-20 October 1934, which stated:
"The National Church that the Reich's bishop has in view under the slogan: One State - one People - one Church, simply means that the Gospel is no longer valid for the German Evangelical Church and that the mission of the Church is delivered to the powers of this world.... The introduction of the Fuehrer principle into the Church and the demand of unconditional obedience based upon this principle are contrary to the Word of Scripture and bind the officials of the Church to the Church regiment instead of to Christ... [3]-(Manybooks: The Grey Book by Johan M. Snoek)
Romans 13 is significantly misinterpreted two ways: one is to believe that it teaches blind obedience without regard to even right or wrong or the laws/Word of God, and the other is to believe that it is so flexible that a Christian is not obligated to the State. Romans 13 is the most misused passage by despotic governments and churches to bring people into line with their objectives often to the point of dismissing the headship of Christ, or by groups who take out of context both Romans 13 and the statement by Jesus "then are the Children of the Kingdom free", his response when asked if taxes should be paid. It should be noted that he also taught to 'render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's". Romans 13, then was used and referred to by the Nazis to support the Führerprinzip wherein if one obeys regardless of the moral quality of the event or question, then the responsibility for the action rests on the next 'lordship' up, the next higher step in authority, ad infinitum until the Fuhrer is reached. This removes all moral responsibility from the German citizenry called to obeyed in heinous ways, and misapplied, uses the passage to put authority before moral sense.
Romans 13 then was acceptable to the Nazis in verses 13:1-8, the edicts to obey the State as divinely ordained, but Hitler had no thought of sharing his 'lordship' with Christ or anything or one else: Fosdick noted Hitler's declaration in On Being Fit to Live With: Sermons on Post-war Christianity
We want no God but Germany
And Bonhoeffer, the Confessing Church pastors and others such as Barth in writing the Barmen Declaration upon the requirement of an absolute loyalty oath, declared what sounds odd now, but was oft repeated by resistors: "No Fuhrer but Christ", i.e. No Lord but Christ. Indeed the Barmen Declaration of those who opposed Hitler declared:
We reject the false doctrine that there could be areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ but to other lords, areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.
3. "Let us, however, speak the truth in love, and in every respect grow into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body is joined together." Eph. 4:15-16
and
....We reject the false doctrine that, apart from this ministry, the Church could, and could have permission to, give itself or allow itself to be given special leaders [Führer] vested with ruling authority.[Barmen Declaration]
Equating the Jew with the Sin Nature
Another portion of Romans the Nazis accepted with re-interpretation, and a major fallacy of the Nazi paradigm over the doctrine of the church was the equating of the 'Jew' with the sin nature. In Christian doctrine, it is taught that when we come to the Messiah and receive the Holy Spirit, the earnest of Redemption, we enter into New life: there is an 'old man' and a 'new man', the old is under the mastery of sin and death, the new under the mastery of Christ. The old man is equated with sin and corruption and the unregenerate state.
2Cr 5:17 Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. Eph 4:22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
And in Romans, the relationship of sin to the 'old man' is noted.
Rom 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
The Nazis however infused the doctrine of the 'Old Man' of sin and corruption with the 'Jew' and an earlier root race. Since the 'old man' is unregenerate, and the Jew is unregenerate in their eyes, the twisted logic is that the 'old man' is the 'Jew Within'. In Nazi doctrine of the DC, when a believer comes to Messiah and is made new, into a 'new man', he 'eradicates' the 'Jew Within'. While it is only a movie, the doctrine is alluded to in a movie called the Ninth Day, the story of Father Jean Bernard, who is allowed out of Dachau to attend a funeral, but must return or his fellow prisoners will be killed. In a discussion asking him to recant his beliefs during his brief time out by a Nazi official, the discussion alludes to the eradication of the 'Jew Within'. Further indication is in the following passage:
...the Jew still abides within us, and that as long as we have not annihilated the Jew within ourselves, our survival will remain in the balance...cited in The Cult of art in Nazi Germany By Eric Michaud, Janet Lloyd
the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) cited at http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm
"The internal expurgation of the Jewish spirit is not possible in any platonic way. For the Jewish spirit as the product of the Jewish person. Unless we expel the Jewish people. Unless we expel the Jewish people soon, they will have judaized our people within a very short time." - Jackel, Hitler's Worldview, p. 52; from a speech at Nuremberg, January 13, 1923
This is a serious heretical position though one of the parts of Romans that the Nazis accepted once morphed into Reich acceptability. Christian doctrine was from the beginning a sect of Judaism, even according to the Book of Acts, and in no way referred to a Jewish nature replaced by a Christian or any other nature. It refers to a new nature which accompanies eternal life, or better is integral with it, which eradicates the curse of the Fall of man, not Jewish remnants of a former 'self'. The theologians of the Third Reich attempted to make the 'second birth', the idea of being 'born again' into the newness of life, into the Kingdom of God, instead a purging of a Jewish nature or spirit, which is never taught anywhere in the New Testament.
We will continue with Part II of "Why the Book of Romans Troubled the Nazis" and examine why so many were persecuted and imprisoned or worse for teaching it, and whether there are implications for today's political climate. ekbest
Part II: The Book of Romans and the Nazis © 2009 Elizabeth K. Best, PhD at 8/20/2009 12:24:00 AM Apostle Paul, Bible in Nazi Germany, Book of Romans, Epistle to the Romans, Gospel, Nazis, Paul, Romans, Third Reich
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Ding
Romans 13 is not an absolute.
It must be considered in the context of other passages such as Jesus' own words about rendering to God what is God's (Matthew 22:21) as well as the apostles' statement in Acts 5:29 that "we must obey God rather than men."
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Amazing
Burn The Ships,
Your response to the YouTube attack is outstanding ... great work! Even the JW religion understands the basics, and relative subjection taught by Paul to the Romans, and by Christ himself. It is a shame that the YouTuber makes such wild claims without doing the most basic research. Thanks again for taking time to set the record straight with solid sources and excellent logic.
Jim
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Leolaia
Remember that when Romans is written (in this case, he cites Romans 13:1-2), Christians were enemies of the state. Romans was written to Christians living in the Imperial capital, hiding for their lives from a secular authority that wanted them dead.
Just a little nitpick, but my impression re Gentile Christians in Rome at the time Romans was written (even before Paul's imprisonment) was far more benign than it was later, with mass executions occurring not until AD 64 during Nero's reign (during the reign of Claudius, Jews in general were merely expelled from Rome, Acts 18:2). When Paul was imprisoned in AD 61, instead of Christians hiding for their lives from the secular authority, there were Christians right in the Imperial household (Philippians 1:13, 4:22).
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PSacramento
Nothing can be added to what BTS said :)
Other than to note the dangers of taking a verse out of context and trying to make it say something that it doesn't say or to justify some act that goes against the very teachings of who said it.
You'd think that former JW's would have had enough of that.
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Leolaia
With respect to the video's claim in the OP that the Bible views the Roman government as "appointed by the Christian god", this ignores the fact that Revelation has a very different scenario; it portrays the Roman government and its emperor as receiving their authority directly from the Devil and it rather subversively portrays Christians who resist enforced idolatry (i.e. the Imperial cult) as holy warriors who look forward to the coming destruction of Rome. It doesn't recommend Christians to rebel, attack, or overthrow the Romans, but in light of the historical context (the failed attempt by Judeans at just this thing in AD 66-70), the relative powerlessness of Christians under persecution, and their theological orientation, this is understandable. As a midrash on Daniel in part (which views the fourth kingdom in ch. 2, 7 as Rome, which is destroyed by a bolder carved "not by human hand"), the book looks forward to the divine destruction of the empire. Indeed the author of the Hebrew portion of Daniel had a quietistic stance with respect to political action, viewing the Maccabean revolt as only a "little help" and criticizing the Jews who had earlier (during the Fifth Syrian War) tried to "fulfill the vision". But this is not the only message in biblical literature; the books of 1-2 Maccabees give the Maccabean point of view (recognized as deuterocanonical scripture in the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Russian Orthodox canon), which is one of resistence, attack, and overthrow of the Syrian control of Judea.
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Amazing
Leolaia: Good catch ... and just a little more nit-pick. From the time that the Romans executed Jesus Christ until Nero in 64 AD, Christians were viewed as a nuisance Jewish sect, were the butt of periodic persecution. While Nero did "officially" sanction persecution of Christians shortly after Paul wrote the book of Romans, persecution against Christians already existed by Roman and local authorities. It was not always consistent or universal, but it was there. This is why Paul was ultimately under house arrest for his Christian activity. Persecution was an off and on affair until the Edict of Milan in the early 4th century, resulting in much persecution for an accumulated total of about 130 years out of about a 230 year period. During this time the early Christians were able to hear the letter to the Romans read as it was circulated about, and understand its implications during both periods of persecution and peace.
PSacramento: Amen! Great point