They’ll know we are Christians by …

So, the second installment of “Christians and Nazis”  by Steven Schroeder did not disappoint and once again answered and raised tons of great questions.  Thanks again to Steve for sharing with us not only his great knowledge of the subject, but his keen insight as well.

With the theme of this (mini)series being “Christians and Nazis”, Steve highlighted a few examples both of Christians responsible for atrocities and others who stood against them.  Perhaps more disturbing are the examples of the actions and inactions of the Christian church in Germany which furthered the atmosphere of anti-Semitism.  Some examples of this include …

-  Increased efforts to convert Jews.  In doing so, they created “Jewish-Christian” congregations … the implications of which are obvious – the Jews would never be allowed to fully integrate into the church.
-  They did not protest atrocities (Operation Reinhard, ex.), whereas they did protest the so-called euthanasia program which targeted neighbours and fellow Germans.
-  Supported the Nazi war effort.
-  In some cases were directly involved in atrocities.

With examples given (and many more left unsaid) of self-professed and active Christians responsible on the upper levels for grave atrocities – Franz Stangl … commander of Treblinka death camp, and Maximilian Grabner … chief of Block II in Auschwitz (notorious for being the worst and most sadistic part of an incomprehensibly evil place) –  we are left grasping for ways to understand how this could even be possible.    

Was this behaviour specific and isolated to mid-20th century German Christians?

Were they forced into this activity against their will?

Is it possible that they were swept up by an irresistible force like the Nazi party and therefore not responsible for their actions which were clearly and terribly contrary to a Christian faith?

Were they Christians at all?

That last question seems to provide the most comfort – if true.  If we can classify them as “not Christian”, we can eliminate the uncomfortable next question of wondering if we could be capable of the same things.  How do we know if someone is a Christian?  What are the criteria?  If it is, as was suggested in class, that Christians must possess a certain measure of grace, peace, mercy, and love, can we disqualify these self-professed followers of Christ?  The problem is if actions can disqualify us from Christ’s mercy and grace, then we are all in deep water.  If loving one’s neighbour is the benchmark, we have a serious problem.  If we must always stand up for what is right in every circumstance, we fail again.  If being a peacemaker is the standard … you get the point.

There can be no doubt that followers of Christ should embody those qualities, but the unfortunate facts are that very often we don’t.  Okay, but are we are striving towards those qualities, and is that what makes us Christ followers?  Well – what does striving look like and how often do you have to do it in order to be considered as striving hard enough?

It’s too easy to look backwards through the lens of history and judge people.  The German people grew up ingrained with the belief that Jews were inferior – as Steve mentioned, it was the rare exception to come across someone who was able to transcend that prejudice.  Even in light of that, more of them should have stood up – they should have ignored the consequences and known what was right – but there I am judging again.  What if, laying aside political allegiances and present understandings, history (say 50 years from now) judges the U.S. led war in Iraq to be gravely unjust and immoral – what will those future Christians say about the early 21st century church of Americans?  Will they condemn those Christians who held active high ranking military positions and those Christians who stayed home but voted their approval?  More importantly perhaps, what will they think of American churches which actively supported the war and declared it just and godly?  Could they look back through history and smugly declare that there were very few real Christians present at that time?

Is it a fair comparison – probably not, but the point is not that it is exactly the same but that we are all, throughout our lives, given opportunities to stand up and do the right thing.  If we fail will God reject us?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in April 1933 said, “The church has an unconditional obligation towards the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community”.  His words went mostly ignored.

These are some of the things I think we need to talk about as a Christian community …

- Are we standing up for justice regardless of who the victims of injustice are?

- What makes a Christian, a Christian?  What binds us, what is essential?

- What is more important, loving your neighbour, or evangelizing them?

- Are we as Christians sometimes guilty of burying our heads in the sand and pretending our dark secrets don’t exist?

- Do we as Christians believe we are morally superior to other people?

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