Originally posted by Sparko
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The nazis were seen by contemporaries as a form of revival and revitalisation of the church, entirely in keeping with the historical vision of Christianity in continual reformation, some even went so far as seeing it as a continuation of Luther's unfinished reformation. Naziism was viewed as within the Protestant historical stream of political expression of authority, Christian authority.
I am not the one who focused on the Nazis, it was brought up as a counter example to my objection to your assertion that dictators always try to do away with religion. I argue that fascism incorporate religion, and that religion's role is even used in defining fascism. <= the point everyone is ducking (not sure how many times i've repeated it)
The Aryan mythos is recognized as nonChristian by you, today, because you inherited a history which includes the errors of the past. It is easy to look back and see the errors, it is another to look ahead and correctly recognize the errors.
The Christian Church offered little opposition, the Catholic Church offered the most opposition, but was able to function as opposition largely because of its supranational character; but even Pope Pius could not stop priests from disappearing into the jails and camps, its schools dismantled, youth groups disbanded, ministries curtailed.
Rogue provided a pretty good bibliography, might want to look at some of the books (warning: such books contain a lot of words, the words are linked to many complicated ideas). Where you see contradiction in the various descriptions (tie itself to political order, co opting churches, founding own church, etc) I see ideas from historians and Christians who write books. Books with a lot of words.
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