Some described the atrocity as a “wake-up call” – but what sort of sleep was America in that required a catastrophe to end it? This was not elaborated on. Also, once awakened, what was America supposed to do? Were we “awakened” only so that we might go back to sleep, and resume shopping and our individual pursuits of happiness as usual? Or to attack Iraq and Afghanistan maybe?

Others described 9-11 as a lesson teaching us that we are not guaranteed any length of life, and can be called to leave this world at any time – but that lesson can be learned from a car crash or a heart attack. Was such a spectacular manifestation of horror necessary to teach us this simple truism?

Still others blamed 9-11 on America’s open and flagrant sins, and pointed to abortion, pornography, the ACLU, and immorality of various sorts – but weren’t many innocent people killed in the attacks? And, didn’t Jesus condemn false religious teachers more than he condemned anyone else? Some of the most iniquitous places in America today include church pulpits and seminaries where the truths of God in Christ are trampled underfoot and openly despised. Why didn’t the hijackers crash their planes into a more obviously sinful place, if it was God’s intention to punish America for its most notorious evils?

One well-known church leader prayed that God would give us victory in our struggle for liberty, and “God bless America” was a theme commonly sounded in those dark days – but wasn’t 9-11 a very conspicuous demonstration of the absence of God’s blessing? And is America such a nation today that we can ask God to bless us, as if we deserve it just because we are Americans, no matter what the moral and spiritual state of our nation might be?

Finally, some referred to 9-11 as part of the larger problem of evil: How can a good God create a world with evil in it, and how can he sit on the sidelines when evil is done? This is something we Christians do not claim to fully understand – but still, cannot we say something more relevant to this problem? To what extent are our biblical teachings (if we really believe in the Bible), our Spirit of God (if we have the Spirit), and our mind of Christ (if we have the mind of Christ) able to enlighten us on this problem? Is biblical Christianity relevant to specific issues, or are we confined to general truisms that could apply to many different situations?

Biblically, we can attribute this evil deed to Satan. To the prince of darkness, catastrophes and horrors are things to be desired as good in and of themselves. Secondly, we can describe the perpetrators of 9-11 as servants of Satan. This does not mean they are excusable because “the devil made them do it.” They chose of themselves the path of destruction, and were of themselves suitable agents of the devil’s wiles. They imagined they would earn God’s favor by their wicked deeds, but in fact earned his condemnation, and will have their part in the lake of eternal fire prepared for, among other people, murderers. There will be no paradise for them, only everlasting destruction.

Yet, the question of God still remains. We as Christians do not need to consider the possibilities of God’s impotence, or lack of awareness, or indifference, or full approval. We know that God was not helpless to prevent the tragedy; that the event did not take him by surprise; that he was not remote and uncaring, like the ancient philosophical idea of the unmoved mover. We also know that the terrorist acts were not carried out by men acting in faithful obedience to the teachings of Christ, and hence meeting with God’s approval.

So, where was God? He could easily have frustrated the conspiracy in many ways, had he chosen to do so. That he chose not to do so means that it was his will that Satan be given some power and authority to act. But how can this be!? No, let’s ask a much better question: What right did America have, on September 11, 2001, and in the days preceding, to ask for protection from God? And what right did we have to expect to automatically receive such protection without even asking, as if it were our birthright? Are Americans so special? Is God’s blessing something we deserve because America used to be so religious a long time ago?

If the president of the United States in the preceding years was more concerned with chasing women than he was with national security, was God obligated to intervene? And hasn’t America consistently and systematically sought to remove God from its courts, its government, its entertainment, its news media, and its educational systems? Haven’t practices, entertainments, and attitudes that would have offended unbelievers 50 years ago become the norm among us? Haven’t even many outwardly bible-believing churches fallen asleep, and failed to adequately represent the Christ of scripture and the straight and narrow biblical way of the cross to a lost world?

Instead of the pathetic spectacles of the United States Congress singing “God bless America”; of theologians and spiritual leaders floundering out of their depth; of people trying to understand “Why do they hate us?”, a much more suitable response would have been that found in the book of the prophet Daniel.

Daniel, considering the devastation that had been wrought upon God’s chosen people, their great religious heritage notwithstanding, sought wisdom from God with fasting and deep self abnegation (practices unknown to many Christians today). He then confessed his nation’s sins, and stated “we have sinned . . . we have rebelled . . . we have disobeyed God . . . Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us . . . we have done wickedly.”

Many times in his prayer he says “we.” He did not point to notorious evil doers, but to the nation as a whole, including its religious people, and of course himself. In the same spirit Christians after 9-11 might have said “We have sinned . . . we have failed to die to self and take up the cross of Christ . . . we have failed to be light and salt . . . we have dozed in front of our TV sets while the culture went down the wrong path . . . we have not been concerned with God’s righteousness, but have been happy with our material comforts. We have been asleep while false teachings swept through the church; while iniquities were institutionalized as the law of the land; while our children were corrupted with the most contemptible and ignorant entertainments and educational programs.”

Some will object that America is not ancient Israel, that God dealt with Israel in a special way, and that is undoubtedly true – but do they want to say that the events of the Old Testament are not relevant to us? That contradicts the New Testament, which directly states that Old Testament events are for our example. Do they want to deny that God governs the nations? Just what sort of a God is it many Christians have nowadays anyway? A God who saves individual souls and deals with specific requests, while he allows the world to go on its way independently, and does not interfere because we humans are the sovereign lords of the earth?

God in the past gave America liberty, prosperity, and security – and he that gave them can also take them away. He is taking them away even now. We have less of those blessings than we had in the past, and without significant change we can expect further diminishing in the future, because America today is not a country that deserves God’s blessings.

Some people in America are fearful lest a phenomenon like Naziism will repeat itself here. They anxiously scan the horizon, looking for the next party of fanatic extremists to appear. They are especially concerned about the “religious right” (as opposed to the “anti-religious left”) because they mistakenly think Hitler came from there. Their paranoid fears of people like Jerry Falwell proved, not surprisingly, to be totally misguided.

I agree that we need to try and learn from the past. I agree that we need to be on the lookout for extremist movements that will destroy our democracy and bring catastrophe on our nation. I also agree that there is a real, present and growing danger, one that needs to be mightily opposed. Since my identification of that group will arouse disbelief in some and contempt or anger in others, I beg for a careful consideration of my reasoning. The group that I identify as a new Nazi-like movement that will, if successful, destroy (or help to destroy) American democracy is the homosexual rights movement.

Recognizing that there are other more easily identifiable threats – uncontrolled illegal immigration; Islamic extremism; Red China; the U.S. governments financial policies and its ever-expanding power – let us examine some significant similarities  between the homosexual rights activists and the Nazis. 

1. Both relied / rely on a Darwinian understanding of human origins to justify their beliefs.

To the Nazis, people were animals in a pitiless struggle for survival that rendered traditional ethics meaningless. To the gay rights activists, people are animals in a pursuit of gratification for which traditional ethics are meaningless. They are driven not to extremes of violence, but to extremes of indulging sexual appetites without reason or restraint. Like the Nazis, they point to animal behavior as justification for human behavior. If animals do it, then is “natural,” so we can do it too – and why not, if, as Darwin taught, we are only animals?

2. Both relied / rely on legal chicanery to frustrate the will of the majority and impose their views on others.

The Nazis never won a majority in a national election, but benefited from sympathetic courts in their years of struggle, and won the chancellorship by behind the scenes wheeling and dealing. Similarly, the gay rights activists know they stand no chance whatever of achieving their far-reaching goals by democratic means, so they seek to dishonestly force their will on the majority by trickery and legal manipulations. Like the Nazis, they have contempt for democracy and resent the very existence of people who contradict them.

3. Both groups accused / accuse others of doing what they did / do themselves.

The Nazis accused the Jews of being cruel, evil, aspiring to domination, stirring up wars, and destroying society, when it was the Nazis themselves who were guilty of those very things (needless to say, the Jews were innocent of such bizarre and fantastic accusations). Similarly, the gay rights people depict those who reject their agenda as being motivated by hate, fear, and ignorance, and of trying to deny people their rights, when in fact it is the opposite. It is the gays with their bitter and angry denunciations who are motivated by hatred, fear, and ignorance. I mean, hatred of normal people, hatred of ethics, and hatred of decency and morality; fear of truth, and of any light that would expose their false and miserable condition; and ignorance of healthy, normal, and decent living. And, they want to deny rights to people who do not want to conform to and cannot agree to the homosexual lifestyle. 

4. Both groups relied / rely on hysterical accusations, propaganda, and even violence to silence and demonize the opposition.

Nazi violence and intimidation (even before Hitler came to power in 1933) do not need to be documented – and it is now well-known that those who oppose the homosexual agenda too publicly are vulnerable to both verbal assault, damage to property, and disruption of meetings. Gay violence is still in its beginning phases, and we can confidently expect it to increase. “Tolerance” is for them only a weapon they use to disarm the opposition – not something they extend to those who are different from them

5. Both groups aspired / aspire to total domination.

Hitler aimed at complete control over everyone, and would tolerate no opposition. “Today Germany and tomorrow the world” was his goal and he worked tirelessly to achieve it. Similarly, the gay rights activists aspire to a complete and total domination of society, in which dissent, criticism, or unwillingness to conform will not be allowed. Their goal is a queer society and even “a queer planet,”[1] in which all gender barriers and traditional understandings of masculinity and femininity, home, marriage, and family, will be eliminated.

6. Both movements were / are socially destructive.

Just as a nation built on contempt for traditional ethics and relying only on  force, power, lies, and violence brought ruin and misery in the end, so also a society based on contempt for traditional ethics and seeking only the uncontrolled gratification of sexual lusts will fall apart, as ours has already begun to do.

7. Both Hitler and the homosexual activists (with their sisters and natural allies the radical feminists) recognized / recognize the importance of indoctrinating the children with their values.

Hence the public schools became / become a means not of educating children, but of indoctrinating and transforming them. The rights and wished of the parents were / are disregarded, and children became / become wards of the state, raised up in a false value system that is inimical to human happiness and societal health.

8. Both movements engaged / engage in bizarre theorizing that is totally void of any connection with reality.

“Heteronormativity . . . institutionalization of the patriarchy . . . the state is male, in that objectivity is its norm . . . androcentric bias . . . the liberation of all by abolishing existing social institutions”[2] – such stuff has as much intellectual validity as the pontifications of Nazi race theorists.

9. Both movements sought / seek to radically transform the human race, and introduce new values in a manner unheard of in all of human history.

A society in which all gender distinctions are eliminated holds as much promise and hope for humanity as a society in which the blond, blue-eyed Aryans are the masters.

10. Both movements played / play the victim card to win sympathy, disarm the opposition, and justify their own extremism.

Hitler liked to harp on the injustices Germany suffered as a result of the Versailles Treaty, and the “gays” like to present themselves as the victims of “oppression.” In fact, they can do whatever they like, and people in other parts of the world who really are oppressed would be delighted if they had all the freedoms now enjoyed by the homosexuals. The “oppression” that really bothers them is the awareness that many people see their activities as morally wrong. This disturbs their guilty consciences. In their hearts they know they are not healthy and not normal. Their solution to this problem is to stifle all reminders of opposing points of view.

11. Both movements pursued / are pursuing their false philosophies to the farthest possible extremes.

We are all familiar with the bizarre extent to which the Nazis lived out their perverted delusions – and the same tendency is now increasingly evident by those who do not know what masculinity and femininity are, and in fact hate and fear such distinctions. Women having their breasts cut off? Sex change operations? Unisex bathrooms? Gay bathhouses, where extremes of sexual experience are proclaimed as a legitimate “culture” or “lifestyle”? Demands that everyone be required to submit to the gay agenda? Glorification of even the sexual abuse of children as essential to freedom? All of this is only the beginning of a mad rush to chaos and destruction that will only end in the nation’s ruin (if other threats don’t get us first).

12. Both ideologies were / are hostile to traditional Christianity.

Once in power, Hitler used every available means to keep expressions of Christian belief out of society and confined to the sanctuaries. No expressions of belief that contradicted his sick ideology were allowed. The homosexuals have the same agenda. They know perfectly well that the teachings of the bible hinder their progress and they are now seeking to stifle the free expression of beliefs contrary to their own personal values. They don’t even know what “democracy” means – unless it be Chairman Mao’s “internal democracy,” democracy for those within the party only.

13. In spite of the fact that both Naziism and the gay rights movement were / are contrary to many plain biblical teachings, both found / are finding Christians, including pastors, “theologians,” and ecclesiastical dignitaries to support them.

There were “Christians” who claimed that National Socialism was compatible with their faith (after they had scrapped all of the Old Testament and almost all of the New); and in an identical fashion there are those today who argue that homosexuality is compatible with Christianity. There are now gay churches and gay pastors, just as there were Germanic churches and Germanic pastors who believed that it was their duty to follow Hitler faithfully.

None of these 13 points are invalidated by the response that “The Nazis persecuted gays!” The Nazis persecuted Communists as well, yet the many profound similarities between Hitler and Stalin, Naziism and Communism, have been commonly noted. Parenthetically, until Ernst Roehm became a political threat, Hitler had no trouble cooperating with him, in spite of the Roehm’s well-known and open homosexuality.

Much more could be said on these subjects. How have we reached a point where what was shameful a mere fifty years ago is now rapidly moving toward cultural dominance? What should our response be, if we are Christians who believe in the bible and want to base our lives upon it? As this entry is already quite long, perhaps I can address those questions separately at another time.

[2] Ibid., various pages.

It is necessary to look at some other ideas about the Jews expressed by Nietzsche in his book. For one thing, he stressed the racial toughness of the Jews: “Psychologically, the Jews are a people gifted with the very strongest vitality . . .” (24). The Jews have “the most profound national instinct, the most powerful national will to live, that has ever appeared on earth.” (27). Hitler had the same idea:

The mightiest counterpart to the Aryan is represented by the Jew. In hardly any people in the world is the instinct of self-preservation developed more strongly than in the so-called ‘chosen.’ Of this, the mere fact of the survival of this race may be considered the best proof. Where is the people which in the last two thousand years has been exposed to so slight changes of inner disposition, character, etc., as the Jewish people? What people, finally, has gone through greater upheavals than this one-and nevertheless issued from the mightiest catastrophes of mankind unchanged? What an infinitely tough will to live and preserve the species speaks from these facts! [Mein Kampf vol. I chapt. 11].

This was by no means unique to Hitler and Nietzsche. How else to explain the mysterious survival of the Jews in strictly human terms? Christians and Jews can explain the mystery as the result of the will of God and his covenant with Abraham. Let those who scoff at this try to present a more credible empirically verifiable and falsifiable alternative. They can’t.

Although I have confined myself so far almost exclusively to one of Nietzsche’s books for the sake of clarity and simplicity, some of Nietzsche’s comments from Beyond Good and Evil are useful in this context. This book too, by the way, was published by Nietzsche before his collapse, so his sister’s influence is not relevant. Anyway, Nietzsche says “But the Jews are undoubtedly the strongest, most tenacious, and purest race now living in Europe. They understand how to assert themselves even under the worst conditions (better even than under favourable conditions) . . .” (Part Eight, 251).[i] In the same context Nietzsche added that it was necessary for thinkers concerned about the future of Europe to “take the Jews as well as the Russians into account as, for the time being, the surest and most probable factors in the great interplay and struggle of forces” (251).

This is rather peculiar. The Jews are the strongest race in Europe? They know how to assert themselves? A sure factor in the great struggles of the day? Even before his breakdown, Nietzsche revealed himself here as a man with a very strange way of looking at things. Significantly, Nietzsche says in this same section that no more Jews should be allowed into Germany because they were a threat to the survival of Germany:

That Germany has a richly sufficient number of Jews, that the German stomach and German blood have difficulty (and will still have difficulty for a long time to come) absorbing even this quantum of “Jew” in the way the Italians, the French, and the English have absorbed them, as a result of a stronger digestive system—that is the clear message and language of a general instinct which we should listen to and according to which we must act. “Let no more Jews in! And especially bar the doors to the east (also to Austria)!” So orders the instinct of a people whose type is still weak and uncertain, so that it could be easily erased, easily dissolved away by a stronger race (251).

Nietzsche’s strangeness becomes even more evident when he says “That the Jews, if they wanted to—or if people were to force them, as the anti-Semites seem to wish to do—could even now become predominant, in fact, quite literally gain mastery over Europe, is certain; that they are not working and planning for that is equally certain” (251).

The Jews could gain mastery over Europe if they wanted to? No sensible person would claim that Jewish butchers, bakers, candle-stick makers, Talmud scholars, lawyers, and teachers had the ability to gain mastery over Europe. Nietzsche is here showing an idea of the Jews that was completely divorced from reality. Within a few years he would progress in his understanding from the perception that the Jews could have the mastery of Europe but were not aiming for it, to the perception, stated in The Antichrist, that they were undermining European civilization to ensure their own survival.

Maybe someone who studied Nietzsche in more depth (not that I recommend this) could show how the progression of his insanity was evident in his writings. That seems to be the case, in this instance at least. Obviously, the man was not the picture of mental health one month and stark raving mad the next month. But, such speculations aside, let us examine Nietzsche’s final view as expressed in The Antichrist. There Nietzsche wrote that the Jews used decadence to ensure their own self-preservation by undermining and weakening people who would otherwise be a threat to them:

Psychologically, the Jews are a people gifted with the very strongest vitality, so much so that when they found themselves facing impossible conditions of life they chose voluntarily, and with a profound talent for self-preservation, the side of all those instincts which make for decadence–not as if mastered by them, but as if detecting in them a power by which “the world” could be defied (24).

The cunning, tricky, and devious Jews are not decadent themselves—they are, after all, “gifted with the very strongest vitality.” No, they use decadence to achieve their goal of domination:

The Jews are the very opposite of decadents: they have simply been forced into appearing in that guise, and with a degree of skill approaching the non plus ultra of histrionic genius they have managed to put themselves at the head of all decadent movements (–for example, the Christianity of Paul–), and so make of them something stronger than any party frankly saying Yes to life. To the sort of men who reach out for power under Judaism and Christianity,–that is to say, to the priestly class–decadence is no more than a means to an end. Men of this sort have a vital interest in making mankind sick . . . (24).

Notice that the Jews are at the head of all movements of decadence. This was the view stated by Wagner, whom Nietzsche deeply admired for a long time. Democracy, a free press, socialism, bad music, capitalism, worker unrest, failure to admire Nietzsche, Christianity—anything that conflicted with an imaginary ideal could be attributed to Jewish corruption. Of course, Bolshevism was unknown in Nietzsche’s day, but someone who could blame the Jews for all forms of decadence, including socialism, would have no difficulty in linking them to whatever else might come up.

Nietzsche went on to point out that the Jewish problem was a racial problem: “The whole disaster was only made possible by the fact that there already existed in the world a similar megalomania, allied to this one in race, to wit, the Jewish . . .”(44). All of this “is not an accident due to the chance talents of an individual, or to any violation of nature. The thing responsible is race. The whole of Judaism appears in Christianity as the art of concocting holy lies . . .” (44).

Defenders of Nietzsche ignore or minimize his comments about the Jews, sometimes even stating the exact opposite of the truth in this matter—whether through ignorance, or through sincere inability to recognize their hero’s faults, or through deliberate deception to protect Nietzsche’s reputation I won’t presume to guess.

It is interesting that the Chinese Communists also saw Christianity as a trick devised to oppress people. They claimed that the American imperialists were “using the Bible to anaesthetize people in order to enslave them.”[ii] This does not mean that they were influenced by Nietzsche—though some Chinese intellectuals were (and are) more well informed about Western philosophical trends than many realize. That religion was used by the capitalists to keep people satisfied with their oppressed state was a basic idea of Marxism long before Nietzsche. He had a similar idea, only he blamed not the capitalists, but the Jews.

[ii] Stephen Wang, The Long Road to Freedom: The Story of Wang Mingdao (Tonbridge 2002), p. 32.

For Nietzsche, Christianity began with Paul. The rabbi Paul, whose Jewishness is stressed by Nietzsche (25)(23), wanted only power for himself (22). To gain power, he invented a false philosophy so as to bring people under his control. This was identical to the earlier methods and motives of the Jewish priests when they fabricated the Bible (26)(29). Paul’s rewriting of history to suit his own ends was a typically Jewish trick (24). In short, Paul was not only a Jew, he was “the Jew, the eternal Jew par excellence . . .” (58).

Paul then used his new doctrine to mobilize the losers, the failures, the people at the bottom, to bring down the Roman Empire. His motivation was resentment and hatred “against everything noble, joyous and high spirited on earth . . .” (43). Since Nietzsche uses the word “us” in that context, “against us,” it is clear (as if evidence were needed) that Nietzsche considered himself among the spiritually favored few—indeed, elitist contempt for common people is a recurring theme of the book. In other words, Paul and the Christians set out to destroy the Roman empire just because it represented real life. If Nietzsche considered the Christian destruction of Rome as revenge for the crucifixion of Christ, that is not stated in this particular book.

In elaborating on these ideas, Nietzsche has comments referring to the Christians as vampires, parasites, and bloodsuckers (49) (58). It needs to be stressed that this included Jews and applied to Jews (except for the few independent spirits acceptable to Nietzsche). He makes this clear when he states that, although the original God of one chosen people became the God of the whole world, the democratic God, the cosmopolitan God, yet nevertheless “ . . . he remains a Jew, he remains a god in a corner, a god of all the dark nooks and crevices, of all the noisesome quarters of the world!” (17).

Unlike some today, Nietzsche understood that there was such a thing as the “Judaeo-Christian moral system” (24). That there is one God, a God of moral laws and rules that we must submit to and obey; that happiness in life comes not from exaltation of the self but from obedience to God; that God is a moral God who rewards good and punishes evil—often in this life but certainly in the next—Nietzsche understood that, in the European context of his day, this came from Christianity and initially from Judaism.

Nietzsche declared war on these concepts and sought to destroy them. Although his ideas are more acceptable now, they will fail in the end—and his own personal campaign ended in his destruction. As Jesus said, “. . . whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” None of his contemporaries exalted themselves more highly than Nietzsche, the overman, the spiritual elitist who despised common people, the first man to speak the truth in many centuries—and none were more horribly abased (as the sordid descriptions of an insane Nietzsche amply illustrate). Howling, raging, weeping, singing, smashing windows, writing nonsense, making barking noises, groaning, raving and making wild gestures, dancing naked, uttering long incoherent monologues, roaring, begging for help, childlike and docile, silent with vacant eyes, moaning, and unable to control his bodily functions—such was the fate of this pitiful loser who thought of himself as an “overman,” a superior being.

I hope no one will imagine I am gloating. I am stating the facts, and would have been much happier if Nietzsche could have repented of his sinful ideas, come to a real understanding of life, and found the happiness that always eluded him—but, Nietzsche did not want to do that. He fought against God, and he lost. I can agree with Stefan Steinberg’s comment that “In a certain respect Nietzsche’s tragic end is itself a metaphor . . .”—though Steinberg did not mean this in a Christian context, and explained his metaphor in a secular way.[i]

Also examined is the secular nature of Hitler’s thought. Hitler’s hostility to Jewish-inspired Christianity is shown, and his philosophical roots in German philosophy, secular racial anti-Semitism, and German interpretations of Darwinism are explored. It was human wisdom, not the Bible, that opened the door to Hitler.

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Title: Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible: A Scriptural Analysis of Anti-Semitism, National Socialism, and the Churches in Nazi Germany Author: Joseph Keysor Release Date: Hitler’s Birthday, April 20th, 2009. Updated Hard Cover: March 8th, 2010. Soft Cover ISBN: 978-0-9822776-5-2 Hard Cover ISBN: 978-0-9822776-4-5 Pages: 488 Publisher: Athanatos Publishing Group Amazon Link – Hard Cover: Order on Amazon Amazon Link – Soft Cover: Order on Amazon Order soft cover from Publisher: Click Here Order hard cover from Publisher: Click Here Cover Design: Sojourner Design

Author’s Biography:

Joseph Keysor currently teaches English at a private school in Oman, where he has been for over five years. He taught English at private schools, a college, and a university in mainland China for eight years. He has a BA in Russian and East European Studies from MacMurray College and a masters degree in adult education from Northern Illinois University.

In his book Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible, Joseph Keysor seeks to attack the notion that the path to Treblinka starts in the gospels and in the Pauline literature. The author shows the naivety of such a claim pointing to pre-Christian antisemitism, characterised by the Egyptian pharaohs and the machinations of the Amalekite Haman. Keysor also puts the alleged antisemitic passages of the New Testament within their axiomatically cultural, historical and undoubtedly theological context. Keysor also gives a much fairer analysis of the writings of Chrysostom and Luther. He is both moderate and thoughtful in his analysis. While not trying to justify their opinions on the Jews, he explains how in the light of their other writings, they would never have supported or condoned the treatment of the Jews under Nazi rule. In addition to this, the author draws an important distinction between nominal Christianity and Biblical Christianity showing a clear incongruence in Weimar and Nazi Germany. While his marginalising of Hitler’s popularity amongst the German people is perhaps slightly dubious, Keysor is balanced in his castigating of the church for its silence, acquiescence and toleration of many Nazi policies.

Keysor also discusses how historical factors alone cannot explain the plans and actions of the National Socialist regime. Only within a theological context of understanding man’s depravity and sinfulness can the true rationality of their crimes be explored in a meaningful way. This is couched within a discussion of the strong philosophical traditions of Germany, characterised by the likes of Kant, Wagner, Haeckel and Nietzsche. Strong evidence is put forward that these, rather than Christianity, form the basis of much of Nazi ideology.

Keysor’s book is thought-provoking in the extreme, extensively researched and referenced and written from a clearly intellectual, rather than polemical standpoint. It is a welcome addition to a wide and controversial historiography and is worthy of serious consideration.

Michael Gray

Attempting to dispel criticisms of his remark, Harris first gives on the internet the relevant passage from The End of Faith. Then he concedes that he did not express himself as well as he might have-”Granted, I made the job of misinterpreting me easier than it might have been”-and goes on to claim that saying he wants to kill people for their ideas “remains a frank distortion of my views.” He explains:

When one asks why it would be ethical to drop a bomb on Osama bin Laden or Ayman Al Zawahiri, the answer cannot be, “because they have killed so many people in the past.” These men haven’t, to my knowledge, killed anyone personally. However, they are likely to get a lot of innocent people killed because of what they and their followers believe about jihad, martyrdom, the ascendancy of Islam, etc.

At this point we can breathe a sigh of relief-if he only wants to kill some terrorists then it’s alright-and Harris (who wears a white hat) can go back to his hobby of demonizing theists (who wear black hats). A closer examination of his explanation reveals, however, a couple of difficulties.

For one thing, millions of people share Osama bin Laden’s ideas. Should they be killed? If Sam Harris says “Yes,” then he wants to slaughter millions of people not because they have done anything wrong, but because they might do something wrong someday. That was Lenin the atheist’s reasoning in a nutshell. It’s easy for people who deny the immortal soul to advocate-and do-such things. If, on the other hand, Harris says millions of people should not be killed for their ideas, but should only be killed if they put their ideas into practice, or if they enable and cause others to put those ideas into practice, then he has shifted ground considerably, and did express himself poorly.

A second problem with this is that in his aforementioned book The End of Faith, Harris has repeatedly identified not only Islamic extremists, but also Christians who believe in the Bible, as threats to the survival of humanity. According to him, belief in the Bible is a threat to civilization and Christians, not just Osama bin Laden, could easily be included among those whose dangerous ideas require their elimination.

Many quotes could be given to show that Harris sees theism, including biblical Christianity, as a danger.

our religious differences-and hence our religious beliefs [emphasis in original]-antithetical to our survival [emphasis added]. We can no longer ignore the fact that billions of our neighbors believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom, or in the literal truth of the book of Revelation . . .Words like “God” and “Allah” must [emphasis added] go the way of “Apollo” and “Baal,” or they will unmake our world. “[iii]

. . . faith is still the mother of hatred . . . The only salient difference between Muslims and non-Muslims is that the latter have not proclaimed their faith in Allah, and in Mohammed as his prophet. [Harris is imprecise in his use of language here-he says "non-Muslims" when he means "non-Muslim theists like Christians and Jews," not "all non-Muslims"-but his meaning is clear from the preceding words and from the whole thrust of the chapter.][iv]

Words like “the fall of civilization,” “could ultimately destroy us,” “driving us toward the abyss,” “life-destroying gibberish” (this of both the Koran and the Bible)[v] tell us that Sam “The-sky-is-falling” Harris wants to save the human race from religion-and what might not be done if the fate of humanity is at stake? Wouldn’t it be justified to kill some people to save humanity-especially if they have no immortal souls and are nothing but matter?

Harris does not just want to save humanity-he wants to “create the world anew.” This requires “the building of strong communities”[vi] where everyone will think the way Sam Harris wants them to. Wouldn’t life be so much easier in a “unified” community where everyone marched to the beat of the same drum? That was Hitler’s and Lenin’s dream exactly. To achieve this secular paradise religion, especially Christianity and Islam, needs to go. It is urgent for the future well-being of humanity. Religious faith “must” disappear. “Religious tolerance . . . is one of the principle forces driving us toward the abyss.” Along with this clear call for intolerance, Harris advocates “uprooting” religion, which he falsely describes as “the most prolific source of violence in our history.”[vii] Somehow he blames the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the War of 1812, drug related ghetto violence and World Wars I & II on religion.

Sam Harris has a strong incentive to “uproot” the ideas that “must” disappear-the salvation of the human race. Do I need to point out that the word “uproot” has connotations of violence? Harris openly said people with dangerous ideas should be killed, and then, when questioned, said “Oh, I just meant a few terrorists.” He has identified theists, including Bible believing Christians, as people with dangerous ideas that menace the human race. That Christianity is dangerous is one of the main themes of his Letter to a Christian Nation. What is to prevent him, or those with his “values,” from believing that killing Christians, or any other believers, is necessary for the good of mankind?

“The world would be a much better place if we could just get rid of (a) the capitalists and kulaks; (b) the Jews; (c) people who believe in God. They are to blame for all our problems. They are enemies of humanity, and we are doing the world a favor by getting rid of them.”

Once an atheist accused me of “paranoia” on this point-but I am not the least bit paranoid about Sam Harris. I realize he may just be talking without knowing what he is saying-though I doubt it. I realize he will probably never get his hands on the levers of power. I only want to suggest that he may, like Hitler, be pointing at other people as the source of evil when he is a source of evil himself. Certainly the atheists Lenin, Stalin, and Mao make Osama bin Laden look like a Boy Scout. Hitler also gave plausible explanations to those who were concerned about his radical statements.

Perhaps, since the idea that bloodshed follows from secular ideas is one of the main ideas of this study, it might not be too much of a digression to look at another place where Sam Harris advocates a policy that could lead to the deaths of millions. Referring to the SARS scare that emerged out of China in 2003, Harris states that the consequences of China’s irrational and politically motivated policies did not lead to catastrophe-that time. He goes on to say that it is “not difficult to imagine” a situation where inability to properly handle such a health crisis would be too dangerous for the entire world. In that case, “There is little doubt we would ultimately quarantine, invade, or otherwise subjugate such a society.”[viii]

This is a remarkable statement. If a truly world-threatening epidemic were to emerge from China, the Sudan, Burma, Mexico, Rumania, or some other country whose health-standards were less than adequate, Harris thinks it might be necessary to “invade” or “subjugate” such a country. Oh, he allows for the possibility of a quarantine as well, but he can calmly and rationally advocate a policy-including subjugating China or, who knows, even Russia-that would cause unimaginable suffering and slaughter.

Sam Harris has a vision of an ideal world. In this world, there would be no irrational health policies and no security threats, because everyone would have basically the same ideas (his ideas naturally). In order to attain this vision, some people will have to go. Religious people have to go, and threats to the general well-being must be subjugated, by force and invasion and full scale war if necessary. Sam Harris is a good example of how the road to secular Utopias leads through swamps, bogs, and quagmires of human blood and bones-and in the end proves to be unattainable, so all of the suffering was in vain.

[ii] Sam Harris, “Response to Controversy,” http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/; accessed September 2008.

[iii] Harris, The End of Faith, pp. 13-14.

[iv] Ibid., p. 30.

[v] Ibid., pp. 26, 26, 15, 23.

[vi] Ibid., pp. 24, 21.

[vii] Ibid., pp. 14, 15, 27.

[viii] Ibid., p. 233

The failure to understand the dark reality of original sin has nullified from the outset the vast majority of attempts to come to grips with the evils of the Third Reich. People with no firm convictions concerning righteousness, holiness, sin, or evil wander in a maze when they try to understand these matters. They are certain that the Nazis were evil, but are unable to provide any convincing or coherent explanation of the delight in cruelty that is one of the most outstanding features of the Holocaust. A real explanation is possible within a biblical framework. For those who see human nature as basically good, Hitler will forever remain an insoluble riddle—as will many of life’s other problems.

For example, in Daniel Goldhagen’s book Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, a scholar who tries to understand these things without reference to that reality of God which alone gives meaning to ethics and moral standards lists conventional secular explanations for the cruelty of the Nazis.[i] Those who persecuted Jews were (a) coerced, forced to go along to avoid death or imprisonment; (b) blindly following orders with no moral sense; (c) conforming to peer pressure; (d) petty bureaucrats concerned only with their careers; (e) unaware of the big picture, committing individual acts without having a sense of the enormity of the whole.

Goldhagen rightly senses that although these explanations apply to varying degrees in individual cases, they are all somehow inadequate. He suggests that the criminals did evil because they wanted to do so. This is getting closer to the truth—but what is it that makes some people enjoy evil, revel in it, and pursue it to the farthest possible extremes? This question is totally beyond the reach of conventional secular scholarship. It is the problem of sin and evil in the human heart, and the Bible says the human heart is wicked by nature. Thus, any serious attempt to explain the Holocaust must take into account not only its uniquely German characteristics, but also evil itself.

Parenthetically, the title of Goldhagen’s book—Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust—implies that ordinary Germans were slaughtering Jews. This omits the fact that the majority of Germans never voted for Hitler and in fact voted against him. Finding themselves in a dictatorship not of their making, they went along to varying degrees (with rare exceptions), but only a small percentage of Germans were directly involved in the Holocaust.

Victor Klemperer, a Jew who was able to remain in Germany due to his Aryan wife, does not in any way minimize the cruelties of the Third Reich, but also records examples of Germans who went out of their way to demonstrate that they had nothing against him personally. In the second volume of his diary, I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1942-1945, Klemperer states that in the factory where he was forced to work, “ninety-nine percent of the male and female workers are undoubtedly more or less extremely anti-Nazi, well-disposed to the Jews, opposed to the war, weary of tyranny . . .” He adds “but fear of the one percent loyal to the regime, fear of prison, ax, and bullet binds them.”[ii]

To really understand the crimes of the Nazis we need more than stereotypes about Germans. We need coherent concepts of sin and evil. These are provided by biblical teaching. Satan and human wickedness are spiritual realities, not just Bible words, and these powers of sin and evil that drove Hitler and his followers did not disappear when Hitler killed himself. I knew an American years ago who enjoyed bullying people beneath him and then presented a false front of injured innocence when people objected. He once told me “I wish I could have been in the SS,” and I had the distinct impression he wasn’t joking. Those who do not have a convincing explanation for human evil in general can never have a convincing explanation for any particular manifestation of evil—be it Auschwitz, the Soviet Gulag, the Cambodian killing fields, or the abduction and murder of a single child by a random serial killer. Those who are nothing more than indifferent to others also show the power of sin, as do those who knowingly do what is wrong, or even just keep silent because they are afraid of persecution or disapproval.

The present situation

Christianity is being attacked in America today as never before. On TV shows and in movies, in the news media, in academia, in best-selling books, etc., Christians are being increasingly portrayed as narrow-minded, intolerant, ignorant, hypocritical, and even evil. This goes beyond mere ridicule. The basic teachings of Christianity are being condemned to an extent previously unimagined in this country.

It is being increasingly said that Christianity has had a negative impact on America’s history and culture-not just because of abuses, but because of fundamental characteristics of the religion. It was the Christians, it is argued, who enslaved the blacks, exterminated the Indians, oppressed women, burdened people with guilt and denied them sexual freedom, and forced the gays to stay in the closet.

Christianity has even been blamed for pollution and the destruction of the environment. God’s commandment in Genesis to “subdue” the earth and “have dominion” over the creatures is said to be a license for ecological plundering and pillaging. Never mind that the destruction of the environment only emerged as a serious problem in the modern era, nearly two thousand years after Christ died and rose again. Never mind that those who make the most noise about the destruction of the environment continue to enjoy their wasteful and environmentally destructive modern lifestyles while they attack the Bible.

Part of this negative trend has been increasing attempts to link Christianity and the Bible to Adolf Hitler and the crimes of the Nazis. While it will seem incredible to some that the teachings of Christ and the Bible should be linked to Aryan supremacy, German militarism, the horrors of the death camps, and the extermination of six million Jews, such is sadly the case.

Christianity linked to Naziism

In the recent past, it was much more commonly assumed that Christianity had nothing to do with National Socialism. It was believed that Christianity was basically benevolent, while National Socialism was basically evil, that Hitler was as far removed from the Sermon on the Mount as it is humanly possible to get. The great majority of Americans would have assumed that the Jewish experience in America was the norm, the result of the Christian influence on American culture.

The cultural climate has changed in the last fifty years, however, and the growing power of secularism makes people less inclined to view Christianity so tolerantly. The well-known support of German Christians for Hitler; statements about God, Christianity, and the churches by Hitler and by leading Nazis, including strong opposition to atheism; Hitler’s Catholic upbringing and his Concordat with the Vatican; the fact that Hitler never officially withdrew from the Catholic Church; the official support for “positive Christianity” in the Nazi party platform; the supposed fact that Hitler came to power in an overwhelmingly Christian country; centuries of Christian anti-Semitism; verses in the New Testament that seem hostile to Jews; the massacres of the Canaanites in the Old Testament-all of these and even other arguments have been emphasized by those who see more and more evidence of connections between Hitler and Christianity.

Reputable scholars and historians have studied Hitler’s ideology more objectively. George Mosse’s The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich; Daniel Gasman’s The Scientific Origins of National Socialism; Peter Viereck’s Metapolitics: The Roots of the Nazi Mind; Richard Weikart’s From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany; Michael Mack’s German Idealism and the Jew: The Inner Anti-Semitism of Philosophy and German Jewish Responses; Paul Lawrence Rose’s Revolutionary Antisemitism in Germany from Kant to Wagner-these all show from different perspectives and with different emphases how the 19th century’s secular philosophies opened the door to the emergence of horrors unprecedented in the history of the human race. John Conway’s The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945 does not deal with the origins of National Socialism, but it demonstrates that Hitler viewed Christianity as a rival for the allegiance of the German people and sought to eliminate its influence as much as possible, his devious political rhetoric notwithstanding.

The work of these and other authors too numerous to name have had a significant impact, but unfortunately there remain those who seem to relish attacking Christianity. Oblivious to historical realities and misinformed or even hopelessly ignorant of biblical teachings, they continue to try to link Christianity to Hitler. They have had an impact as well, and we should not underestimate them. Too few Christians understand the extent to which what they perceive as a beneficent religion of grace, peace, and forgiveness is increasingly associated by many with the cruelties of the Third Reich.

A Holocaust video checked out from the local library asserts that centuries of Christian anti-Semitism made Jews Hitler’s natural target (completely omitting all of 19th-century secular and racial anti-Semitism). A popular biography of Hitler agrees with a Holocaust scholar that Hitler was just carrying out the policies of the Roman Catholic Church when he slaughtered the Jews. An in-depth academic analysis of the Holocaust published by a prestigious university press and acclaimed by scholars from top American universities refers to the false and “venomous” anti-Jewish teachings of the New Testament and asserts that by demonizing the Jews Christianity played a significant role in laying the foundations for the Holocaust.[i]

The debate over what Hitler believed and where he got his ideas has not merely continued over the years, it has intensified. This is true to such an extent that Richard Evans, editor of the prestigious Journal of Contemporary History has written, “The relationship of German National Socialism to religion in general, and Christianity in particular, has recently moved to the forefront of historical inquiry.”[ii] Partly this is due to a natural human desire for deeper spiritual understanding that the countless secular books about Hitler have not satisfied and will never satisfy. Partly it is due to the fact that linking Hitler to Christianity is an increasingly common tactic in the culture wars. If Naziism can be convincingly blamed on Christian influence, then obviously Christians are potentially dangerous fanatics who deserve to be marginalized or even excluded from the political process as much as possible. This reasoning explains why some believe they are protecting American liberty and democracy by working to eliminate Christian influence. There are those who sincerely believe that they are defending democracy by attacking and marginalizing Christianity.

…

As groundless as such arguments are, they are effective with people who know little about history and nothing about Christianity. In more than one internet debate, I have been referred to Walker’s website for proof that Christianity leads to hatred, cruelty, and fascism. Such accusations have gone for far too long without a direct response. As was the case in Germany, the Christians in America have been too passive and inert while the forces of darkness grow in strength and intensity. The spread of such ideas will affect us directly and has already begun to affect us. We are mistaken if we think that because God has blessed America with liberty in the past, we are therefore guaranteed of this blessing forever.

[ii] Richard Evans, “Naziism, Christianity and Political Religion: A Debate,” Journal of Contemporary History 42, no. 1 (2007), p. 5

Keysor’s book is thought-provoking in the extreme, extensively researched and referenced and written from a clearly intellectual, rather than polemical standpoint. It is a welcome addition to a wide and controversial historiography and is worthy of serious consideration. READ THE WHOLE REVIEW

From the Messianic Times:

On the face of it, the premise that Hitler was a practicing Christian seems to reside in the gutters of the same dark, dead-end road as eugenics, Holocaust denials, and The Protocols of Zion. The conclusion seems so absurd, that an entire tome dedicated to its dismantling feels like overkill. Unfortunately, a modicum of investigation shows that it is necessary to refute this notion.

In the last fifteen years or so, the idea that from birth to bunker, Hitler was a Christian, has gained enough traction as to be taken seriously in academic circles— so much so, that author Joe Keysor felt compelled to definitively counter this absurd misconception in his new book, Hitler, The Holocaust, and The Bible.  [Full review available only to subscribers.]

From Don Hank writing at the John Birch Society:

Keysor notes something that no other historians seem to have noticed despite the fastidious research into the Third Reich, namely, the salient effect of secular influences on Hitler and the major secularizing influence of modernist theology on biblical Christianity in Germany long before Hitler emerged. Keysor points out that the secular philosophers who influenced Hitler most were Kant, Fichte and Hegel, as well as certain others. But the Folkish tradition, “with its uniquely German interpretations of Darwinism, added immensely to the respectability of the movement” as “…articulated in the writings of the eminent German Darwinist Ernst Haeckel.”

Keysor writes that, while historians constantly point to supposed religious fanaticism (Crusades, Inquisition) as a dangerous ingredient in politics, no one points out that “the atrocities of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro and Pol Pot, are much more relevant to our own times and even some centuries ago, and much greater in terms of the numbers slain…” and yet they “are not held up as examples of the dangers inherent in trying to organize society by reason alone.”

From Sntjohnny.com:

Extensively researched with an immense bibliography to boast, Mr. Keysor’s book exhaustively mines the writings that Hitler himself cited as influential (if anyone care’s about Hitler as an authoritative source on the matter, of course) and writings that perhaps were not expressly cited but clearly reflected in Hitler’s ideology.

Mr. Keysor astutely observes, “Odd, that for so many people the 16th century and the 1st century had so much to do with the Holocaust, and the 19th century had nothing to do with it.” (pg 70)

This completely jibes with my assessment of the situation, too.

From Atheism is Dead (an exhaustive review!)

Overall, Joe Keysor’s “Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible” is a great read which combines the excitement of a thriller, the intellectual satisfaction of carefully considered historical information and logic, the dichotomous nature of polemics, along with an emotional roller coaster.

This is a very serious book on one of world history’s most serious subjects and yet, I have never laughed so often whilst reading such seriousness as Joe Keysor’s commonsensical approach exposed the sheer nakedness of the pseudo-skeptic propagandists time and time, and time and time again with a touch of gentle “irreverent” whit with an occasional touch of sarcasm.

Surely, it is an important contribution to the historical study of Adolf Hitler and Nazism, the discernment of polemics and propaganda, the sensitive nature of multi-cultural relationships, and the essential importance of treating the Bible and Christianity in a fair and hermeneutically appropriate manner.

From James Hannam at Quodilbeta:

I’m no specialist on the Nazis but luckily I know a man who is. My friend Edward Bartlett-Jones, while certainly no Nazi himself, does appear to know far more about them than might be considered healthy. Some say he has the score of Wagner’s Die Walküre embroidered into his bathrobe, others claim that he leaves copies of Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra in dentists’ waiting rooms. Needless to say, he lives in Berlin. He is also an agnostic and so I thought I should send him Keysor’s Hitler, the Holocaust and the Bible for an expert opinion. He replied,

Overall I think it’s a good book but it has a strong Christian bias. The research is commendably thorough and without going back through the original sources, I didn’t see anything that struck me as being taken out of context. There is a good summary of Hitler’s philosophy (p48-49) and anyone who still thinks Hitler was a Catholic should be persuaded otherwise by page 87. There is also a good explanation of what Hitler meant by “God” on pages 93 to 94.

From Chris writing at AtheismisDead:

In Joe Keysor’s well-timed book, “Hitler, the Holocaust, and the Bible,” the reader is taken into the intriguing but sobering worldview that drove the machinations of Hitler’s regime. The timing is right, because Joe Keysor recognizes that when Reductio ad Hitlerum arguments against Christianity are packaged in philosophical sophistry and served up by the disarming bespectacled professor, that it is time to call the bluff.