Can Christians Be Threatening?

Can Christians be threatening? Damn right, they can!

Many Christians today are frightened of Muslims. They see Muslims as dangerous, a threat. These Christians would disagree but I feel they suffer from Islamophobia and Islamophobia can prove dangerous to Muslims. Almost an entire Muslim family in London, Ontario, was killed by a young Christian man who drove his car into the family while they were out for a summer evening stroll.

Listening to these frightened Christians go on and on about Muslims inspired me to look into Christians and fear of the other. I did not have to look farther than the Second World War. There are more recent examples I could have examined but being I was born just a few short years after the war, the question of German Christians and their involvement in the "Final Solution" has always been an open question. I decide to look for an answer.

The answer is ugly, nasty and disheartening. Christians can be, and often are,  absolutely terrible people. This comes as no surprise to lots of folk. The United States, a country many claim has a long history as a Christian nation, is not known only for its good deeds. At best, the United States has a very checkered history when it comes to adhering to and promoting Christian values.

But, I am not talking about the Yanks here but about the actions of the Christian Germans before and during the Second World War. Throughout this period, Germany was overwhelmingly Christian, easily over 90% of the population. In comparison, in 1933 it is estimated there were only about 500,000 German Jews or less than 1% of the population.

The fear, suspicion, prejudice and open hostility of the antisemitic Christians toward the Jews has a long history in Europe. For centuries, Jews were portrayed as "Christ-killers", moneylenders and untrustworthy businessmen. In these Christians' eyes, Jew was synonymous with greedy.

As the Nazis ramped up their attacks on the Jews, the Christian leadership in Germany and in much of Europe mostly failed to speak out strongly against the rampant and growing violence towards Jews. In Germany,  a faction calling itself the "German Christians" made every effort to Nazify the church. Even the mainstream churches remained largely silent or, worse, were actively complicit.

If there were only 500,000 Jews in Germany, how did the Nazis slaughter millions and million of Jews in pursuit of the "Final Solution"? The answer is obvious. For the most part, Christian countries controlled by the Nazis collaborated.

By the end of the war, approximately two-thirds of all European Jews had been murdered. Poland alone accounts for about 3 million of the deaths. Hungary adds another 560,000 or so. The German Nazis provided the leadership and physical support for the Final Solution operation, but it took the cooperation of millions of European Christians to make the operation successful.

 Sadly, and shockingly, as one learns more, it becomes clear that the Final Solution only succeeded to the degree it did because it was conducted in countries where nearly everyone was Christian with a long tradition of antisemitism.

Danish Christians see religion as a matter of national identity.

Were there any countries that did not quickly fall inline? Yes. Denmark. The Lutherans, which made up the majority of Danish Christians, were able to save almost all Danish Jews. The government and the Danish citizens organized the escape of  approximately 7,000 Jews to Sweden in 1943. The Danes showed some spine.

 

At this point, my inquiry takes a surprising turn -- there is a lesson here for today's Muslim-fearing Christians, the oh-so-pious Bible thumpers.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark was a broadly inclusive state church. It wasn't highly dogmatic but instead it was a cultural as well as a religious movement. Most of its pastors combined traditional Christians beliefs with an adherence to civic duty overlaid with national pride.

The Danish Lutheran Church's actions were rooted in their belief in a shared humanity. Jews were seen as fellow human beings and not just feared as members of another religious group. The Danes were able to skirt the fear-of-the-other.

The Danish church showed true Christian generosity by providing

 crucial assistance by hiding Jews and by protecting their sacred religious symbols such as Torah scrolls.

 

Are All Christians Christian? Maybe not.

I have relatives who openly and constantly proclaim their strong Christian beliefs. You might say they are continually  bearing witness, publicly declaring their great love for Jesus. They believe they are confirming their deep commitment to God but are they?

 

I was raised a Christian. I taught Sunday school in my teens, and yet I am repulsed by self-admitted sinners who readily accept Jesus's gift of imputed righteousness. They put their faith in Jesus and this faith is, in their eyes, the conduit for God’s grace—a grace available to all sinners.

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor killed by the Nazis, had a word for this. He called it "cheap grace"—forgiveness devoid of true repentance or transformation. If a sinner is truly "in Christ", they must forsake their evil ways. Sinners cannot persist in their sinning ways confident that Christ forgives all.

 

Bonhoeffer practised what he preached: "costly grace". Bonhoeffer saw cheap grace as one of the greatest dangers to Christianity. He went so far as to help form a church in opposition to the mainline German Christians movement which supported the Nazis.

 

For his efforts, Bonhoeffer was arrested in April 1943. He spent about two years in jail where he suffered greatly. Just weeks before the war ended, he was hanged.  Bonhoeffer's death was true to his message: “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”

 

Most evangelicals have not been asked to put their lives on the line for Christ but they were asked to get vaccinated against covid-19. Many refused. When vaccination was mandated they saw this as an attack on their God-given freedom of choice.

 

This attitude is not in keeping with the Christian religion of my youth. Back then, I would have argued that Saint Paul taught personal freedom ends where the danger to another begins. If refusing the covid-19 vaccine puts the old and the weak at risk, then the choice to not get vaccinated appears to be driven not by Christian values but by selfishness with an overlap of pride. 

 

But the covid vaccine is the least of my concerns. A big concern, one of many elephants in the room, is the truly horrifying war in the Middle East. On October 7, 2023, Hamas crossed the border into Israel, killing about 1200 Israels and others and then retreated with about 250 hostages.

 

The Israelis responded with an all out attack on Hamas with massive collateral damage. As of the middle of September, some 65,000 Palestinians have died. About 39,000 are women and children.

 

I believe Jesus would be appalled. Jesus said: “When he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.’”
— Luke 19:41–42

 

What were the things that made for peace? I believe they were, and are, compassion, forgiveness, generosity, and trust in God, in stark contrast to the violence, division, and hard-heartedness encountered as a rule.

 

Palestine and the war are complex situations but, no matter, this war must stop. The monstrous number of dead is shocking but the number of injured and the types of injuries are truly horrifying. Today, hell flourishes in Palestine.

 

Like many on the extreme-right, my relatives are not appalled. They don't even believe the widely reported casualty numbers. They are insulated from reality by a mix of theological conviction, political ideology, and media distrust.

Sources such as the NYT or the CBC are discounted as "fake news". 

Today's state of Israel is seen as a direct fulfillment of God’s promise. Its survival and expansion since its birth in 1948 are signs that all is unfolding according to God's plan. As God's plan does not included the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, the reports must be fake news. The New York Times, CBC, BBC and even UN reports are all part of the fake news conspiracy.

 

How would Jesus react to the fake news conspiracy story? It is hard to say but let me hazard a guess. He would see this refusal to see truth as the sin of wilful blindness. The Jesus of my youth was discerning, not gullible. He would not have been taken in by either Roman spin or manipulation by the Pharisees. He would not have dismissed all the MSM with one broad brush stroke.

 

In a related situation, Jesus confronted those who shut their eyes to what was immediately in front of them. Quoting the prophet Isaiah, he said: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand… their hearts have become calloused, they have closed their eyes” (Matthew 13:13–15).

Working for three decades in the media did not give me credibility. 

There is so much amiss with today's extreme right-wing Christianity that I will begin wrapping up this post. Otherwise, I might go on and on almost endlessly. Instead, I will leave you with this thought: For all the talk of love, Christians on the extreme-right are fear-driven, anger-filled and insulated by hate.

 

They demonstrate fear of losing their culture (replacement theory), fear of religious displacement (Christians are under attack) and fear of the other (gay people, Muslims, immigrants) just to name three.

 

Anger is also a mixed into this nasty brew and there is a lot of anger to go around. Liberals, progressives, Muslims, gays, immigrants, woke folk and all-too-often blacks quickly come to mind. These are all easy targets for right-wing hate.

 

In this worldview, love isn’t absent—right-wing Christians still talk about it and talk about it incessantly—but in practice love is restricted, contained and finally stripped of the compassion of Jesus.