In talking with Aidan about Bonhoeffer it struck me how similar some within the American evangelical movement have become to the German Christian movement, the group Bonhoeffer and others resisted so strongly as a part of the Confessing Church. Specifically, the German Christians, called the German Evangelical Church, were evangelicals in Germany who wanted to align the church with the aims of the National Socialist Party, fusing Christianity with the Nazi regime.
Now, to start, I'm wary to make this comparison between the American evangelical movement and the German Christians. For a few reasons. First, American evangelicalism is diverse and complex. It's perhaps better to speak of American evangelicalisms. And yet, the most thoughtful leaders of American evangelicalism are themselves deeply worried about what is happening to their movement. So something deeply concerning is going on. This series is about that specific area of concern.
Second, even within this most concerning part of evangelicalism I am not saying these evangelicals are Nazi or are becoming Nazis. To be sure, there are some worrying parts of evangelicalism that have mixed with neo-Nazism and the alt-right. But whatever evangelicalism is becoming in its most concerning aspects it is different from what the German Christians were. For example, I think the pro-Israel sentiment within evangelicalism will keep it away from neo-Nazism. Where the German Christians sought to "dejudify" Christianity, many American evangelicals are blowing shofars. Red, white and blue shofars, but shofars nonetheless.
So this series isn't an argument that some evangelicals are becoming Nazis. This series is, rather, a reflection upon how Christianity becomes twisted and distorted by nationalism and politics. Because a lot of what we're seeing among evangelicals has been seen before. We saw something similar happen with the German Christians. And the parallels are striking.
To start, let me revisit a comment I've made before on this blog. Specifically, I once described the quest for Christian nationalism among some evangelicals as paganism.
The reason I've described nationalism as paganism has to do with the witness of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the gods of the nations surrounding Israel were locations of idolatry. Israel worshiped the true God where Israel's neighbors were pagans who worshipped their national gods. As it says in Psalms 96.5, "For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens." In the New Testament, these national gods, these idols, become identified with the demons. As it says in 1 Corinthians 10.20, "The sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God."
The point here is simple: worshipping a national god is paganism, a form of false worship, idolatry.
Now, of course, neither evangelicals nor the German Christians explicitly believed that they were worshipping a god other than the God revealed in Scripture. Something more subtle is going on with nationalism. In nationalism the prospects of the nation state become sacralized by the faith of the nation, in this instance Christianity. God and country become fused. In this sense, Christian nationalism isn't paganism proper, but is a newer twist on paganism. More properly, then, Christian nationalism is an expression of neo-paganism.
That both the German Christians and many American evangelicals fuse God with the nation state should be obvious. One can see the conflation of God and country, the cross with the swastika, in the flag of the German Christians:
In a similar way, you can see the same neo-pagan dynamic at work among American evangelicals with their red, white, and blue shofars and other sorts of flags and signs as observed among the January 6th insurrectionists:
Again, to be clear, I'm not comparing Trump to Hitler. That comparison is irresponsible and ridiculous. But what I am pointing out is that the dynamic observed among the German Christians, connecting Christ to Hitler, is also at work among many evangelicals: "Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my president."
The neo-pagan worship of the nation state is also very clear when we observe how various patriotic displays become integrated into Christian worship. Again, this is exactly what the German Christians were trying to achieve. And similar fusions of patriotic displays with Christian worship are widely observed among evangelicals. Below, compare the Nazi symbol on a church altar:
Both of these are examples of neo-paganism.
Two things by way of conclusion.
First, another reminder. To repeat: The point here isn't to say some evangelical Christians are or are becoming Nazis. The point is to note a parallel corruption, the neo-pagan move toward nationalism. What happened to the German Christians has happened to many within the American evangelical movement. The origins and ultimate trajectories of the German and American evangelicals are different, but they share a common neo-pagan distortion.
Second, I claim no originality here. That sectors of evangelicalism have fallen into nationalistic idolatry (and biblically-speaking idolatry is paganism) is well trod territory. But when drawing historical comparisons between the German Christians and worrisome trends within American evangelicalism this drift into neo-paganism was the obvious place to start.
