Positive Christianity (not so positive)

[OingoBoingo]

Screw Godwin's Law. When you have an extreme historical example like Nazism, its daft to believe that history can't repeat itself.

Been reading a bit about Positive Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity), which was the Nazi's attempt to slowly replace Christianity, bit by bit, with a Neo-Pagan state-sanctioned religion. Here are some quotes from the Wikipedia article that I found fascinating.

Various historians credit the origins of "Positive Christianity" more to the political acumen and opportunism of the Nazi leadership. Leading Nazis like Himmler, Rosenberg, Bormann and Goebbels, backed by Hitler, were hostile to Christianity and ultimately planned to de-Christianize Germany.[8] However, Germany had been Christian for over a thousand years, and Hitler recognized the practical reality of the political significance of the Churches in Germany and determined that any moves against the churches must be made in stages. In the words of Paul Berben, "Positive Christianity" therefore came to be advocated as a "term that could be overlaid with any interpretation required, depending on the circumstances" and the party declared itself for religious freedom provided this liberty did not "endanger the State or clash with the views of the 'Germanic Race'".

In opposition to this movement was the Confessing Church,

Is it possible that something like this will happen again? Is it happening somewhere already?

[Darth Executor]

It is, only with liberals instead of NAZIs.

[Andius]

That a repetition of the precise nature of Positive Christianity may occur, admittedly a bit ludicrous true.

However, what is not ludicrous to expect, is the constant apparitions of different world views all claiming to sport the "Brand of the Teachings of the Christ". Ever since the Gnostics kickstarted the trend of hijacking the brand of the Church, it has been one group after another over the course of the centuries always attempting to claim to be or part of the Church. It is no different from some chump attempting to pass off in giving fine Real Esteli cigars, only to find out that the leaves themselves come from cheapened tobacco leaf (and I can tell rubbish leaves from good ones), utter bootlegs. The brand that IS Christendom, Church has been hit and miss in "protecting" it's brand so to speak.

That it can happen again, oh yes, and in many many forms. The teachings of the Christ are ever so easily bootlegged in anything a person wants, and those Germans of decades past were no different. And anyone committed to the cause of the Christ and the Church, has to be able to distinguish him or herself after the teachings of the Christ, and be critical from whatever group "pops up" claiming to be "Christian". Or else we are going to keep getting outsiders having trouble making the distinction, (Much the same way that anyone who has zero experience with cigars, is going to be unable to tell a proper cigar from a bootlegged one).

[Paprika]

Is it possible that something like this will happen again? Is it happening somewhere already?

Observe China

[firstfloor]

Is it possible that something like this will happen again? Is it happening somewhere already?

[Paprika]

That a repetition of the precise nature of Positive Christianity may occur, admittedly a bit ludicrous true.

There is nothing new under the sun. Since Constantine, one main strategy has been this: if you can't beat Christianity, sublimate it by making it official and thus put it under your influence. In addition, European monarchs have tried to assume divine right of rule. Hitler merely took the general approach to the extreme, and it is extremely naive to believe that it hasn't happened before or that it won't happen again.

[Andius]

There is nothing new under the sun. Since Constantine, one main strategy has been this: if you can't beat Christianity, sublimate it by making it official and thus put it under your influence. In addition, European monarchs have tried to assume divine right of rule. Hitler merely took the general approach to the extreme, and it is extremely naive to believe that it hasn't happened before or that it won't happen again.

I was referring to the particular of Positive Christianity, I don't seeing it happening any time soon (although admittedly soon being key word), but the general trend (as you adequately put with Constantine's meddling with Church matters, very good example), agreed. Precisely one of the reasons why I loathe when the Church as an organization gets a little too involved in matters of State (For example, in Russia, it ticks me off to no end how Patriarch Aleksey II was so obnoxiously compliant with Putin).

[OingoBoingo]

I was referring to the particular of Positive Christianity, I don't seeing it happening any time soon (although admittedly soon being key word), but the general trend (as you adequately put with Constantine's meddling with Church matters, very good example), agreed. Precisely one of the reasons why I loathe when the Church as an organization gets a little too involved in matters of State.

What's scarier, I wonder? When the Church gets too involved in matters of State, or when the State gets too involved in matters of Church.

[Andius]

What's scarier, I wonder? When the Church gets too involved in matters of State, or when the State gets too involved in matters of Church.

Interesting ponder. None of them good as far as I am concerned.

Church gets too involved in matters of State, we become co-responsible of their SNAFUs, it's bad enough outsiders cling to a particular fetish of accusing the Church all sorts of wrongs inconsistent with it's own principles (Some of the Church's involvement in the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the Americas come to mind, and some of their compliance of the unnecessary bloodshed that occurred... ). Too intimate of that relation only brings shame to the Church, and fails to hold up to Paul's exhortations to be known for our good actions.

State get involved in matters of the Church, and we allow non-Church members to influence in things that do not even merit their influence. Case in point, it bothers me to no end how much Putin's regime intrudes ever so much in matters of the Russian Orthodox Church (especially when hunting down anyone they view as a threat to their regime). Then again, it doesn't help that their leaders insist in maintaining such a close relationship with it.

I am not a fan of the State as an institution (slow, inefficient, destructive, etc.), but ignoring it as a whole is not a prudent thing either, especially when members of the Church run and acquire positions of office within the State. No such prohibition within Christ's teachings in the first place.

[Epoetker]

I'd say the more American problem is less that politics becoming religion than private religion becoming political, and ruling public politics:

The transition from thinking of themselves as Christian, and indeed much holier than those horrid hateful reactionaries, Jesus and the Disciples, to thinking of themselves as anti Christian, took place after left wing power became centered in America.With the emancipation of women, they really had to ditch Christianity and started doing so, for while the New Testament is mildly disapproving of slavery, it endorses stern patriarchy in no uncertain termsSince women, unlike men, bring their bastards home, with disastrous consequences, and women are, according to the right of that time (the reactionaries of our time) the uncontrollably lustful sex, it makes perfect sense to control female sexuality, rather than male. The double standard rests on biology. There is nothing hypocritical about it, and the then right and the present day reaction have never been the slightest bit ashamed of the double standard. It was those proposing to both suppress vice and also protect women from the consequences of vice, that were hypocritical. And indeed are hypocritical, for the same hypocrisy stands today, when women are encouraged to get drunk with strangers, but should they wake up with a stranger and a terrible hangover, it is rape, the stranger is the rapist and the poor innocent woman the rape victim.

Similarly, the temperance movement had massively overlapping personnel and postal addresses with the female emancipation and female suffrage movements, and their personnel, organizations, and postal addresses were in part descended from the anti slavery movement.Tracing the English speaking left all the way back, we see continuity of personnel and ideology, the ideology slowly changing from Puritan Christianity to Unitarian Universalism to modern leftism, but changing slowly and continuously without any abrupt change, though over time every detail of the ideology changed, except for the war on Christmas, desecration of marriage, and the emancipation of women, which remained the whole time, even though sometimes justified by the argument that Christmas was too pagan, and at other times justified by the argument that Christmas was not pagan enough, and sometimes, strangely, both arguments simultaneously, while the desecration of marriage never got an explanation, for they never admitted that that was what they were doing, nor did the emancipation of women for as long as they thought themselves Christian, for Paul unambiguously tells the Church to socially enforce male authority over women.

Firstfloor, this is what you mean by Christian Dominionism, right?

[KingsGambit]

Rodney Stark distinguishes between the Church of Power, which views Christian religion in terms of temporal benefits on this Earth, and the Church of Piety, which views it in terms of eternal benefits. Excessive entanglement between the state and the church has historically led to the Church of Power having the upper hand. Stark argues that it took the Counter-Reformation to wrest control of the Roman Catholic Church and have it returned to the Church of Piety, where it has remained to this day.

This blog post happens to explain the concept in a little more detail - the specific musings about Catholic theology are not relevant to my point here (I'm not even Catholic myself). http://robertgotcher.blogspot.com/20...-of-piety.html

[OingoBoingo]

Thanks for the link. Checking it out now.

[Darth Executor]

I'd say the more American problem is less that politics becoming religion than private religion becoming political, and ruling public politics:



Firstfloor, this is what you mean by Christian Dominionism, right?

The author fails lethally by pimping the virtues of freedumb before the article even starts.

[Epoetker]

The author fails lethally by pimping the virtues of freedumb before the article even starts.

You should have read to the end:

All governments are in some sense theocratic, though the ideology may pretend to have no gods, or, like communism, actually have no gods. You can restrict theocracy to only apply at the local level, as the United States used to do before the War Between The States, or, like the Ottoman Caliphate, tolerate other religions as subject states within an empire, in which one religion exercises imperial domain over subject religions, like an emperor exercising imperial domain over subject Kings. The only way to not have theocracy is to have some form of anarchy.

If there is going to be a government, that government is going to control the schools, and openly or furtively control the churches, and make them teach a particular viewpoint. The question then is, what shall that viewpoint be?

If the official belief system bans too many heresies, as it does today, science and technology stagnates, because the scientific and technological way of thinking comes to be deemed hostile, subversive, and low status. Thus, for example, evidence is forbidden in Wikipedia. Only the voice of authority is deemed relevant. On the other hand, too much tolerance for hostile theocratic alien outside belief systems is likely to result in the official theocracy being infiltrated and overthrown by a more passionate, more self righteous, and more repressive belief system, as happened to theocratic Anglicanism.

I'm as much for harping on libertarian blindness as the next guy, but the ones who most effectively counter them and expound reactionary philosophy are...former libertarians. Reactionaries are merely libertarians who didn't stop thinking about political philosophy once they reached a point that was comfortable for them and their social circle. But then, that's the difference between truthful thinking and evolutionary thinking.

[Darth Executor]

I did read the whole thing. The article is a diatribe against freedom, but for some reason the title complains that liberals are against freedom. It's like starting a racist article with "I'm not racist but..." He obviously doesn't believe in the virtues of freedom, and should not pretend that he does with a dishonest title.