Talk:Positive Christianity/Archive1

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Positive Christianity and immaculate conception

I see that we have a fact tag against the statement: "In Hitler's view, however, Jesus was immaculately conceived by God as an Aryan". The only thing I have been able to find quickly is here, were we are told:

• "Hitler was not the kind of person who would have accepted the precepts of the immaculate conception or the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ, in all probability. Indeed, his own comments suggest this much; however, his non-dogmatic, transcendental approach to the faith, as well as his belief that Christ was resurrected through His followers via ‘resurrection’ of His teachings after His death, does not make him any less Christian than any other type of non-traditional, unorthodox Christian."

So I'd say it should be re-worded, unless we can find another ref.--Bob^{bing up} 06:12, 26 November 2008 (EST)

Bob, you might want to, uh, look that site over a little more carefully first. ;-) --AKjeldsen^{Cum dissensie} 06:28, 26 November 2008 (EST)

You mean their somewhat disguised mission statement: We present positive scholarship on the subjects of, and related to: Adolf Hitler, National Socialism, the Third Reich, “fascist” socio-political movements and culture, and all persons and movements affiliated with Hitler or the Third Reich—including Allied partners and sympathizers. We do not offer negative scholarship on these subjects because there are already tens-of-thousands of negatively biased web sites dealing with these subjects available to the public. We feel that it is in the best interest of the public to convey the positive aspects of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialism.

So I take your point. I suppose you could argue it two ways though: a) Because they are Hitler sympathisers, nothing they say is to be trusted. b) Because they are Hitler sympathisers, they should have a good idea about what his opinions were.

But, I agree - it's really not the sort of place we would want to be getting our information about Hitler from. We need to look elsewhere.--Bob^{bing up} 07:15, 26 November 2008 (EST)

Let be that they're Nazis. That's one thing. But referring to "...Steigmann-Gall’s (2003) succinct and compelling assessment of Adolf Hitler’s attitude towards Christianity and the churches..." - that is inexcusable. --AKjeldsen^{Cum dissensie} 09:08, 26 November 2008 (EST)

I added both that statement and the fact tag. I remember hearing that somewhere, but I've no idea where to look for a citation. I remember quite clearly that Hitler thought Jesus was Aryan, even though his mother was Jewish. Wazza (Not Wazzock, Wazza)^{Approach the Presence} 09:34, 26 November 2008 (EST) No, his mother wasn't Jewish but Alois Hitler was half-Jew. --Let Them Eat Cake (talk) 17:24, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I've started searching through Mein Kampf & Table Talk & found a few mentions of Hitler believing that Jesus was Aryan - descended from Gallic Legionaries stationed in Gallillee - & was opposed to the Jews. I can't find any mention of him believing that Christ was divine. In fact, in the Table Talk, there are a lot of negative comments Hitler (allegedly) made about Christianity - linking it with Bolshevism, stating Christianity is incompatible with National Socialism, & that it would die out because it can't stand up to science & nature. Based on this, it's sounding like Positive Christianity was more of a propaganda tool than something Hitler believed in sincerely. I will add all this in, here or on the Hitler article, but it will take me a while & it'll probably be a few days before I get round to it. If anybody wants to go ahead, the sources are Mein Kampf and Hitler's Table Talk. I've just been using the search function to search for words (e.g. Christ). Don't access them if you're in Austria. Check the legal position if you're in another central European country as some have laws against reading Nazi literature. weaseLOId~ 11:12, 26 November 2008 (EST)

"...it's sounding like Positive Christianity was more of a propaganda tool than something Hitler believed in sincerely." I think that is very close to the truth, and we can go even further than that. One has to remember that despite being a totalitarian and autocratic ideology, the Nazi movement can't just be reduced to what Hitler did or thought. It was a complex organization with many different branches and factions, which were often in competition with or even direct opposition to one another.

That is particularly obvious in the case of their stance towards religion, which ranged from the idea of e.g. the Deutsche Christen faction that Nazism and Christianity could be unified in Positive Christianity, over the various pagan and esoteric beliefs which were prevalent especially in the SS, to the idea that religion should be dismantled altogether and perhaps even replaced with Nazism (something that I believe was widespread in the early days of the party but later downplayed because it didn't have public support.

And of course, the Nazi leadership were divided among similar lines, with various top figures found everywhere along this spectrum. However, the fact that the Positive Christianity project of the Deutsche Christen never got anywhere at least strongly suggests that this is not really something that the top levels of the Nazi movement cared a great deal about. --AKjeldsen^{Cum dissensie} 11:42, 26 November 2008 (EST)

This article tells me little about the subject...

..and instead gives a detailed history of the relationship between Nazism and the Catholic Church. There's like one sentence on positive Christianity today. Does anyone know anything about this stuff--or should I pull an Andy and write a book about it instead of reading one? DeadHead 10:47, 26 November 2008 (EST)

Basically, if you know its past, you can figure out its present... Wazza (Not Wazzock, Wazza)^{Approach the Presence} 10:49, 26 November 2008 (EST)

No seriously--I'm interested in this shit. Are they US-Americans? Euros? Are they explicitly anti-semitic and call for extermination of unwanted groups--or are they more subtle about these things? Do they run with other white-supremacist groups? What are their ties with the nation-state, seeing as nazism was imbricated in nationalist discourse--or are they trying for some sort of trans-national racial appeal? DeadHead 11:23, 26 November 2008 (EST)

Good point. What I think we should do is take all this stuff about "Hitler/Nazism and religion" that has been accumulating across various articles and just put it in one big, consolidated article by itself. Then we can deal with that there and leave these other articles to focus on their specific topics. --AKjeldsen^{Cum dissensie} 11:58, 26 November 2008 (EST)

Well there is a link to a modern-day Positive Christianity group on the article. It certainly looks like it follows the "Hitler was right" idea.--Bob^{bing up} 12:46, 26 November 2008 (EST)

National Socialism came to power not in spite of Christianity, but because of Christianity" and a load of similar racist stuff. What would Ken make of all that?  Lily ^{Ta, wack!} 13:14, 26 November 2008 (EST)