User talk:Fox/Christian Antisemitism

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foxey, Baby--sorry for crapping of the caption like that--but it was pretty wrong. PFoster 11:48, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * Nema problema - I have been working on the text and not paying attention to the pics, really =/ I had a *momentary* pause when looking at the face the source labelled as Ratzinger, but then, he's such an ugly fuck I dismissed it. In hindsight, that guy is too old to have been him anyway. Fox 11:56, 27 November 2008 (EST)

Holding
Just dumping a line here so I remember later. Fox 11:58, 27 November 2008 (EST)

It is not quite clear to me
if the page attached to this is a User page, an essay or just an article. I'm thinking the former. In any case you might want to check out James Carroll's, Constantine's Sword: The church and the Jews, A History, for more opinions, insights and of course the more rational stuff, quotes, footnotes and the like. Carptrash 13:06, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * Eventually an article..? Needs a lot of work though. And thanks for the tip, I've found a link to a review copy of it here. Fox 13:35, 27 November 2008 (EST)

Confused
Do you actually believe this? MarcusCicero 14:26, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * "Belief" is a word I would associate with a theory or an opinion. This is a matter of historical fact, unfortunately. Do I wish it wasn't so? Of course - the pain and inner-turmoil of the Jew who has come to belief in Messiah Yeshua is searing. We understand fully why other Jews hate us and equate us with the Nazis, and simultaneously we know that our "fellow believers", Christians, think of us in these terms. Why do you think that revisionist Christians today are so determined to obfuscate the Third Reich's connections with Christianity? To use the well-known phrase, they always resort to the logical fallacy of No True Scotsman... but what makes a Christian? If someone other than Hitler were baptized, educated, and trained as a Christian, often spoke privately and publicly as a Christian, admired Jesus, quoted the Bible, and so on, would he not be considered a Christian? Fox 14:55, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * CP is perhaps a great case in point of this. There are many among them who know that what this article addresses is undeniable. But rather than accept that, and accept the ugliness of Christianity's starring role in the Shoah, they will do whatever they can to paint Hitler as a Darwinist. Yes, Social Darwinism had a part to play, but only as an afterthought, a way of rationally, scientifically, justifying what their Western European Christian culture had drummed into them over centuries. Look at Ken's contortions even as we speak. Fox 15:02, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * "This is a matter of historical fact". Wrong. There is a huge debate among historians on this subject, which is extremely complex. I can see that you're quite competently presenting one side of this debate, but that doesn't mean the other side doesn't exist. -- 15:04, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * I don't have the draft finished yet, but as I'm sure such a learned man as yourself knows, it will contain direct quotation from the New Testament through the Church fathers, and Vatican right up to Wagner and subsequently Hitler himself. Peter Fritzsche: "Germans became Nazis because they wanted to become Nazis and because the Nazis spoke so well to their interests and inclinations." (Germans into Nazis (Cambridge, MA 1998 p.208–9.) Nationalism and economic reform may have been more important than antisemitism in attracting large numbers of Germans to vote for Hitler—after all, most German political parties carried antisemitism as a plank in their platform. Nevertheless, Christian theological and racist antisemitism prepared, conditioned, and encouraged a larger number of Germans—led in their religious prejudice by Catholic and Protestant Church authorities - to collaborate with Hitler's regime and to accept Hitler's Final Solution to the Jewish Problem, and a smaller number actively to collaborate. The Gestapo itself would have been ineffective if the general public had not voluntarily collaborated with government officials.(Robert Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945 New York 1990.) A 1947 report from American occupation authorities in Germany indicated that those most infected with antisemitism were those who practiced the two Christian Confessions.


 * "Perhaps the attitude of the majority of Germans was like that of the philosopher Martin Heidegger. He did not sympathize with and then join the Nazi Party only because of his antisemitism, but neither did the Nazis’ anti-Jewish brutality deter him from supporting them. He accepted it all. Likewise, the eminent Protestant theologians Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch were intelligent and respectable men as well as supporters of Adolf Hitler. (Long after the war and Holocaust had ended, Althaus' son asked him how he could have considered Hitler "a gift and miracle of G-d" and how he could have accepted the mass murder of millions of Jews? "You have not experienced the Jews," Althaus told his son.) For them, and for the Nazis, and for most Germans, G-ds curse on the Jews was clear, and they would not oppose the Nazi government’s policy toward the Jews. Historian Robert Erickson concluded that these theologians felt themselves "on the same side as Hitler... these three theologians saw themselves and were seen by others as genuine Christians acting upon genuine Christian impulses." (Michael, Robert Holy Hatred)


 * Historical fact? Yes. Fox 15:22, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * No. Your selective and biased interpretation. As I have argued elsewhere, the National Socialist movement was highly complex entity that drew inspiration from a wide range of different sources. One of those sources was Christianity, certainly, but there was also a very strong anti-religious current in Nazism, which was especially strong in the SS (cf. e.g. Wolfgang Dierker: Himmlers Glaubenskrieger. Der Sicherheitsdienst der SS und seine Religionspolitik 1933-1941 (Paderborn, 2002). Will this "historical fact" feature as prominently here?


 * And are you going to consider that Christianity also in many cases served as an inspiration for opposition to Hitler and the Endlösung, such as in the case of the Bulgarian Church's opposition to the deportation of that country's Jews, or the decision of the Roman Catholic Church to give sanctuary to the Roman Jews (at considerable personal risk to the otherwise often maligned Pius XII and the rest of the Vatican leadership)?


 * Basically, I guess what I'm saying is that I would ask you to consider this very carefully: Which is more important to you - is it to properly understand the full extent and nature of National Socialism and of the events during the 1930's and 40's, or is it to blame it all on the Christians? If it's the latter, I wish you the best of luck with your little essay here, and I'm sure that you'll find an enthusiastic audience here. Just don't expect me to respect you for it. -- 15:52, 27 November 2008 (EST)


 * Saying, proving that some individual Nazi - or even a hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand - were not Christians - does not lessen the argument that Christianity since the first century has actively promoted antisemitism. And even felt quite comfortable - holy, in fact - in carrying out mass exterminations of the Jews. And it does not remove the direct causal relationship between 2000 years of Christian antisemitism and the Shoah. Now, you can dress it up in whatever clothes you wish, but all I'm seeing is more of the obfuscation to which I alluded above. Talk to me about,hm, let's see, Karl Barth... Perhaps the most influential Protestant theologian of the twentieth century? Agreed? Let's see what he had to say about all this. "The Jews deserved their fate." (Die Kirche und die politische Frage von heute 1945) Judaism was "outmoded and superseded." Jews had revolted against G-d and therefore experienced "the sheer, stark judgment of God... The Jews of the ghetto... have nothing to attest to the world but the shadow of the cross of Christ that falls upon them." (Church Dogmatics 1957.) When the Moonies spoout that kind of thing, you call it for what it is. When it comes from closer to home..? Respect? If I felt the need for it, RW would be the last place I'd look. Moreover, this is an issue that puts such individual concerns into the shade. Your notional respect for me vs 2 milennia of antisemitism and millions of murdered innocents? I LOL'd IRL at the sheer presumption involved in all that. Fox 16:44, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * Whatever. Enjoy your little rant. It will join a long, if not very proud tradition. -- 17:16, 27 November 2008 (EST)

[outdent]It is cold and raining and miserable here. Thank you for raising a smile with such a peurile response =) Of course, Jews have no proud traditions in your sanitized Aryan religion. And critical analysis of 2000 years of Christianity is but a mere rant. Sleep well, my friend. Dream the dreams of the blissfully ignorant. Fox 17:20, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * Might I ask you to explain in a little greater detail what exactly you mean by "in your sanitized Aryan religion"? -- 17:24, 27 November 2008 (EST)


 * Play nice, ladies... The thought occurs that, if you combined your efforts, you might just come up with a helluva good article. That is all. --Robledo 17:33, 27 November 2008 (EST)


 * Acts - "Men of Israel... this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men" (2:22–3); "You [Jews] denied the Holy and Righteous One, ... and killed the Author of life..." (3:l3–l5); "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you... And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered..." (7:5l–2). Matthew - "Kingdom of God will be taken away from you [Jews] and given to a nation producing the fruits of it [the Christians]" (2l:43); "Let him be crucified... His blood be on us and on our children" (27:23,25). John - "Your father is the devil and you choose to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and is not rooted in the truth.." (8:44–5) Do you honestly believe that the Jewish talmidim of the Jewish Messiah Yeshua wrote those things? Or do you side with the Aryan interpretation that Messiah Yeshua - "Jesus", because let's not give him his real, kikey, name - called for the genocide of G-d's Chosen people? If the shoe fits, as Bugler/Auld Nick says, wear it. Fox 17:36, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * Hey, quote mining! That's lways fun. Let's have some more.
 * Jeremiah:
 * "As a thief is disgraced when he is caught, so the house of Israel is disgraced, they, their kings and their officials, their priests and their prophets" (2:26).
 * "Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there" (3:6).
 * "I will put obstacles before this people. Fathers and sons alike will stumble over them; neighbors and friends will perish" (6:21)
 * Isaiah:
 * "When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood" (1:15)
 * "Those who guide this people mislead them, and those who are guided are led astray. Therefore the Lord will take no pleasure in the young men, nor will he pity the fatherless and widows, for everyone is ungodly and wicked, every mouth speaks vileness." (9:16-17)
 * "You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ear has not been open. Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth." (48:8)
 * Ezekiel:
 * "Your altars will be demolished and your incense altars will be smashed; and I will slay your people in front of your idols. I will lay the dead bodies of the Israelites in front of their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars. Wherever you live, the towns will be laid waste and the high places demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and devastated, your idols smashed and ruined, your incense altars broken down, and what you have made wiped out. Your people will fall slain among you, and you will know that I am the LORD." (6:4-7)
 * "The sin of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of injustice. ... So I will not look on them with pity or spare them, but I will bring down on their own heads what they have done." (9:9-10)
 * "This is what the LORD says: I am against you. I will draw my sword from its scabbard and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked.Because I am going to cut off the righteous and the wicked, my sword will be unsheathed against everyone from south to north. Then all people will know that I the LORD have drawn my sword from its scabbard; it will not return again." (21:3-5)
 * Hosea:
 * Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites, because the LORD has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, [a] lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed." (4:1-2)
 * Wow. It looks like the shoe fits the ancient prophets pretty nicely, too, because this is some pretty anti-Semitic stuff. Guess that means Judaism is "Aryan" as well. Or what? -- 18:19, 27 November 2008 (EST)


 * LoL. Now you're just playing to the gallery, the Biblically illiterate. Anybody familiar with scripture can discern the difference between the examples above. Are you that desperate to try to justify your position? Shame on you. If you cannot continue from a historical or even an honest theological viewpoint, then please stop wasting my time here. I'm guessing it must be late for you, and you are probably just tired, hence the Schlafly/Poor-esque response above. Come back tomorrow, after cafe et le petit dejeuner Fox 18:41, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * Well, I was just trying to follow your lead in presenting a few quotes, violently torn out of their historical and textual context and conscripted into serving a highly biased, ideological interpretation. I'm sorry that you feel I'm wasting your time, but maybe going down to the local for a few pints would provide you with a debating forum more suited for your particular approach, anyway. -- 19:00, 27 November 2008 (EST)
 * The church must have eyes and words for the threat that Jewery poses to German folkdom. a "scholarly theologian is quoted as saying at the 1927 (i.e. pre nazi Germany) Evangelical Congress. Thinking (opinion) that the Nazi's created German anti-semitism is like imagining that a surfer is creating the wave that s/he is riding. Carptrash 11:03, 28 November 2008 (EST)

Edmond Paris? Really?
Let me just quote the very first paragraph of The Secret History here, from the "Publisher's Introduction" (p. 5):

''There is no other person more qualified to introduce Edmond Paris' book, ''"The Secret History of the Jesuits," than Dr. Alberto Rivera, a former Jesuit ''priest under the extreme oath and induction, who was trained in the ''Vatican and briefed on the history of the Jesuits.

Edmond Paris? Alberto Rivera? So when is Jack Chick himself going to make an appearance? -- 07:43, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * Lame response. Fox 07:56, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * Just an observation on your use of the classical tactic of piling up footnotes to pass off hate writings as legitimate scholarship. I just urge readers to take a look at the kind of literature that's actually found in those footnotes and decide for themselves. -- 08:18, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * More grandstanding?? Anybody can look up the references on their preferred sites via the ISBN and reach their own conclusions. As for singling out Paris - why don't you instead direct folk to Luther? A good Protestant writer and theologist, whose calls for "Jewish homes to be destroyed, synagogues burned, money confiscated and liberty curtailed were revived and used in propaganda by the Nazis in 1933–45" ref... And any other of the references you want to try and smear? Fox 08:28, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * Add: Oooh, nice Schlaflyism with the "deceit" link lol. I bet you wish this was CP so that you could block and revert. Fox 08:29, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * "Smear" the references? Oh no, you do that perfectly fine on your own by trying to use them as support for this. Take Léon Poliakov, for instance. The WP article that you just linked to says that "The contribution of Leon Poliakow enlightens the great role played by the Church in saving Jews. Mentioning financial aid brought by Pius XII to help the Jews pay the contribution ordered by the Nazis" Do you honestly think he would agree with this? Do you even read this stuff before you link to it? -- 08:41, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * LOL Of course I've read it, and I've also read the books from which I'm drawing the supporting quotations. Have you read the article from which the above quote is taken? Do I think he would agree with this? Yes, because that is the thrust of his works. That single quotation, from a magazine article entitled "The Vatican and the Jewish Question: The Record of the Hitler Period — and After" does not in any way refute the causal relationship between the Holocaust and Christian antisemitism. Fox 09:01, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * ADD: Ah, I just noticed that you say: "to pass off hate writings as legitimate scholarship..." I think you need to lie down and put a damp flannel over your forhead, you're getting hysterical. And hysterical. Fox 09:31, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * Yes, thank you very much, I have read Poliakow's article previously, and I have re-read it just now, and I find myself once again impressed with his careful and measured approach to the subject only five after the war. It is quite interesting how he manages to point out that the Catholic Church has acted historically as both a threat and a source of protection for the Jews, that the Vatican acted very differently under the respective papacies of Pius XI and XII for reasons that can't be reduced simply to "Pius XII supported Hitler", and that it is necessary to distinguish carefully between what the Vatican did and what the different national Churches did, because the Vatican did not necessarily have as complete control over them as is often assumed.


 * In fact, that is how one does proper historical scholarship of such a contentious subject - presenting both sides of the issue, clearly outlining and analysing all facets of the problem, and then drawing as measured and unbiased a conclusion as is possible based on that analysis. In utter contrast to that, what you're trying to do here is just an anti-Christian polemic trying to pass itself off as scholarship, and no amount of references or footnotes is going to change that. -- 09:40, 28 November 2008 (EST)

(outdent) This isn't an article about the Vatican. It is about Christian antisemitism and the Holocaust. There isn't really a way of saying that "Yes, the ideology of Christian antisemitism was the prime cause of the Holocaust" and then also offer an alternative view that "No, it wasn't". It was one or the other, not both. The individual acts of Christians who opposed it, the acts of Christians who helped rescue Jews, the position of the Vatican, official and otherwise, on any given day during 33-45, none of those things matter or alter the basic precept. As for motives, what you're trying to do here is cover up 2000 years of hatred spewed from the pulpits of Christian churches and the pens of Christian writers. And no amount of obfuscation by you is going to remove the historical record which demonstrates in black and white that that is exactly what they did. Fox 09:50, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * Anyway, I'm off to prepare for shabbat, so will not likely respond here for 24 hours or so. Fox 09:59, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * I'm not trying to "obfuscate" anything. I do not deny that there exists a long tradition of ani-semitism in Christianity, and that Nazism drew on this to a considerable extent. What I'm critisising is exactly the opposite: Your attempt to obfuscate that Christianity is a much more complex than that, one which historically both for and against Jews (and other threatened groups of people, for that matter). And when you write that "...none of those things matter or alter the basic precept...", I disagree in the strongest possible terms, because they show exactly this complexity - that some Christians supported Nazism while others opposed it, both of them drawing on different aspects of Christian thought. When you try to have the negative consequences of Christianity during 1933-45 be the result of the preceeding 2000 years of practice, but refuse to consider the positive consequences during the same period at all, that is obviously because the latter don't support the ideological conclusion that you have already decided upon.


 * In any case, enjoy your shabbat. -- 10:08, 28 November 2008 (EST)


 * Fox, you seem to be forcing multiple false dichotomies here. Firstly, several comments here suggest that you believe anyone who disagrees with you on this issue must be a Nazi &/or Christian apologist.  That logic doesn't make much sense, & it's not a good way to persuade people to your opinion.  Also, you say the actions of Christians & position of the vatican during the Third Reich make no difference to your argument - so what would?  Are you trying to construct an argument that can't be refuted, because whatever people said & did they were hiding their true beliefs & motives?  Those kind of theories don't make for good history.  & You say that either Christianity caused the holocaust or it didn't, as if there's no middle ground.  & That the article can only present interpretation.  Why?  Any good article on a contentious historical subject should acknowledge different possible interpretations of causes or events.  As AKJ said above.
 * I think an argument that Christianity was the prime cause of the Holocaust, as you say above, can't stand up to scrutiny. The prime cause was in Hitler's racialist views, which he believed to be "scientific".  Hitler was fairly uninterested in religion, & seems to have made many negative comments about Christianity.  I believe that his antisemitism was indirectly influenced by a historical tradition of antisemitism, which in turn had been influenced by Christian policies & doctrines, so there is a long-term indirect causal link, or at least historical precedent, but Hitler was not directly inspired by Christian zeal.   w easeLOId [[Image: Weaselly.jpg|15px]]~ 10:47, 28 November 2008 (EST)

Explain it to me in terms a six-year-old can understand.
Fox, I don't "do" religion, but I do "do" history. To be frank, I don't have the time to deal with the debate above--though i do see a lot of wrong in it. You might start by addressing Arendt on the links between colonialism and the Holocaust.

But I'm really stumped at why you would bother with the whole "Jews for Jesus" thing if you well and truly believe that Christianity is at its very core anti-Jewish. Messianic Judaism is a hard enough road for people who embrace the Jesus myth unquestioningly. But to embrace it with a belief that its exterminationist against the very ethnic group that you belong to is doubly messed-up. If you need religion that bad, wy not transcend the whole question and pick Hinduism, Buddhism, or pray to the Sun-Gods or something? They're all pretty much the same thing, according to Reverend Lovejoy from the Simpsons. PFoster 10:05, 28 November 2008 (EST)

The problem with history
Its obvious to anyone who has ever opened a history book that Jews have been oppressed by Christians since the early days. What I want to know is how you suppose you profit by rehashing this dark chapter of human history.

The problem with history is that people end up living it. Forgive and forget. Take it from someone reared in the northern part of Ireland - let the past be the past and don't let it interfere in your life. MarcusCicero 10:31, 28 November 2008 (EST)


 * Wow. As a historian I have a number of problems with that. Like being put out of work. PFoster 10:35, 28 November 2008 (EST)


 * As a historian myself, I see it as a good thing. Deducting the evidence detachedly is exactly the kind of skills that make a good historian. If you want to sell books though... MarcusCicero 10:42, 28 November 2008 (EST)


 * Well, there are clearly limits to how detached and objective one can be, and I personally actually see that as a good thing. I think historiography can only profit from getting numerous different subjective interpretations of a given subject, rather than just an "objective" treatment. But obviously, it should be done in a sober manner. Good old Marc Bloch wrote something about working towards understanding history, rather than sitting in judgement over it as if in some court of law. And it's important to understand where our societies are coming from. Now, I really hate that old cliché about repeating history if you forget it, but still... -- 10:47, 28 November 2008 (EST)

Geoffry Elton put it better when he declared history has no purpose. I couldn't agree more. People who try to assign purpose to the present in history often drown in their own hypotheses.... MarcusCicero 10:49, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * Perhaps, although I get the impression that Elton really took that idea way too far, rejecting hypotheses altogether. Not that I've read much by him, coming from a different historiographical tradition altogether, but he seems very old-school traditionalist to me. -- 10:59, 28 November 2008 (EST)

He came from a fine tradition of British Empiricists (Although he is Czech, I think) He didn't reject hypotheses altogether, but the 'grand theory' syndrome which grips the Marxist school in particular, but all other schools to some extent as well. He especially disliked the use of the social sciences in interpretating history - and couldn't stand the use of mathematics (Cliometrics). He talked a lot of crap but on these points he's spot on, I think. I'm a traditionalist myself in that sense so I'm obviously biased. MarcusCicero 11:12, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * Hmm. Well, personally, I think that social constructivism and the influx of social scientific theories are two of the best things to happen to history for a long time, so I might have to disagree slightly there. -- 11:25, 28 November 2008 (EST)

Also, I didn't know there were so many academic/amateur historians here. What field do you work in? I already asked Pfoster but didn't realise you were into it as well. MarcusCicero 11:14, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * Early to high medieval history, mostly political and religous aspects, but I've resisted the inevitable specialization so far. I'm at York doing their MA in Medieval History at the moment, before going back to Copenhagen to finish my MPhil (or local equivalent) thesis next year. You? -- 11:25, 28 November 2008 (EST)

Trying to get funding for a PHD in modern history wrapped up. In a state of limbo at the moment. Also, I've decided to specialise in modern Irish history (As in, 1910ish to 1925ish) MarcusCicero 11:50, 28 November 2008 (EST)
 * I'll toss my hat into the ring as another (amateur) historian. I'm mostly an art historian (American sculpture and architectural sculpture in particular) and my daughter is getting a doctorate in history doing mostly women's and gender stuff. It's actually fun having a kid who corrects me. Carptrash 12:50, 28 November 2008 (EST)


 * OK, so which of you is pretending to be Bugler then?  Lily Ta, wack! 08:42, 29 November 2008 (EST)
 * It ain't me babe, no, no, no, It ain't me babe, it ain't me your lookin' for. I pretend to be Bob Dylan. . Carptrash 11:11, 29 November 2008 (EST)