Christian Nationalism: War Theology in Weimar Germany (Book Notes: The Holy Reich)

Christianity is proclaimed by its adherents as a religion of peace which transcends national borders in a manner that unites humanity. The reality, though, is that Christianity has been deeply involved not only with ideologies of nationalism, but also ideologies of war and violence. It's happened before and it could happen again.

In The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945, Richard Steigmann-Gall explains how Christianity became integrated with nationalistic and violent ideologies in Germany:

If Germany before November 1918 had been a “Christian state,” afterward it looked to many people like a godless republic. For most of Germany’s Christians, and certainly for German Protestantism, it was a time of deep insecurity. The Summus Episcopus, secular guarantor of the Protestant Church’s prerogatives, had been overthrown. The churches’ constitutional rights, as well as the professional security of the German pastorate, were similarly thrown into question. The brief tenure of Adolf Hoffmann (a member of the future Communist Party and strong advocate of the separation of church and state) as Prussian Minister of Culture further strained relations between the churches and the Weimar “system.”

However, the strains were not just institutional. Indeed, more important was a larger crisis of Germany’s Christian culture. For many Christians, Weimar’s very existence signaled a profound assault on God’s order. Christians of both confessions had stood at the forefront of nationalist agitation during World War I. The growing inclination among Protestant theologians in particular to view Germany as God’s favored nation, a theological trend that began in the latter half of the nineteenth century, culminated in 1914 in “war theology.” This theology was fostered by an ethical interpretation of Christianity, by which God worked providentially through history to liberate humanity from materialism in order to realize his moral kingdom on Earth. War theology reduced ethical activity to the nation, conceived as the means through which God revealed his will. [emphasis added]

Before November 1918, Christian churches had wide privileges in Germany — and Protestant churches benefited most of all from a system which made Christianity one of the foundations of society. In the Weimar Republic, many things changed. It’s not as though Christian churches lost all of their privileges, but they did lose a great many. This, coupled with the recent loss in the war and the apparent decline in general social morality put Christians on the defensive.

Christian leaders argued that the power and righteousness of Germany could be restored by returning Germany to its Christian roots. Only when Christianity was re-established as the foundation for society would it be possible to defeat the rampant crime, sexual license, breakdown of the family, and all of the other problems that had been plaguing Germans.

The notion that God sanctioned the nation as one of his orders of creation was similarly a theological departure within mainstream Christianity that, although significantly radicalized by the longevity of the Great War, in fact predated it by many years. The result was that most Christian clergy condemned Germany’s adversaries in harsh moral terms, elevating the war into a type of crusade in which God had chosen Germany to punish his enemies.

This may have qualified as a “departure from mainstream Christianity” for the time, but it’s not such a huge departure anymore. What Steigmann-Gall describes here is remarkably similar to the attitudes of Christians in contemporary America. Mostly conservative evangelicals, but also Christians of other denominations and political leanings, regard the United States of America as an instrument of God’s will here on Earth. God uses America and Americans to spread democracy, Christianity, and righteousness.

This perception of America as a “new Israel” is not the least bit new — it has been integral to beliefs about America since the earliest colonists. This, in turn, was developed from ideas about Israel and Jews constituting a “nation” and a “people” fulfilling the will of God. In that sense, perhaps Steigmann-Gall is mistaken in saying that belief in God sanctioning a nation as one of the orders of creation is a “departure.” Germans may have taken the idea farther than others have ever done, but they weren’t the first and they won’t be the last.

 

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