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From: yiri@ucf-cs.UUCP (Yirmiyahu BenDavid)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Were the German people in Nazi Germany Christians?
Message-ID: <1695@ucf-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-Nov-84 09:14:46 EST
Article-I.D.: ucf-cs.1695
Posted: Thu Nov  8 09:14:46 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Nov-84 06:46:34 EST
Organization: UCF, Orlando, FL
Lines: 42

An interesting question has come up on the Jewish net which seems to me
to be of a more general interest so I'm offering it to net.religion for
comment. 

In discussing the undercurrents of antisemitism in America, I asserted
that the German people in Nazi Germany were primarily Christians and as
church-going as most countries (stated a little differently but same
idea). I had never run across any serious attempts to show evidence to
refute this notion. Larry Bickford has offerred some quotes which the
reader may wish to review on the jewish net to which I will address
myself.

Two of the three quotes offerred (the first and the third) are
apparently nothing more concrete that stated goals of the a small elite
in the German government. Granted that I was not aware of this, however
at least at this point, I am still not at all persuaded by this scant
evidence that this was even remotely true for the masses of German
people in Nazi Germany. Furthermore, since the Fourth Reich was to have
been the Fourth Holy Roman Empire, I find these quotes somewhat
contradictory to the German goals which were also widely published.

The second quote, when read carefully, can be taken to support my
assertion that this was a church-going Christian people which forced
Prof. Hauer to "confess the primal religious will of the German people".
This seems to me to support what I've been saying rather than contradict
it. The quote that "the struggle between Christianity and the German
faith in the German soul is thus an event of unexpected depth" really
says nothing decisive on the matter. Further, it would be appropriate to
supply references when there is some question as to the validity of the
source. Since there may well be questionable sources on this topic, I
would like references on the quotations submitted by Larry in his last
article as well. 

I'd be interested if there is hard evidence beyond the usual "THEY
weren't REALLY Christians" drivel. This does NOT mean opinion, beliefs,
convictions, suppositions, etc. that we usually hear.  (The quotations
are hard evidence, but haven't enough weight to be convincing at this
point.) Also, I will not accept the usual Christian methodology of
presuming it is right, offering some flimsy half-relevant argument and
then concluding "See, you can't PROVE I'm wrong THEREFORE I'm right!"
Oy!