The Historical Suffering Church: Its Image, Its Faith Extending Over Our Tomorrows: 2- Paul Schneider & Stephen Miller

 

I did not intend for this to be a part of my new small series on the persecuted church but as I began to write I realized it would be.

Sometime after Hitler came to power, in 1934, pastor Paul Schneider, the first Confessing Church martyr officiated at a funeral for a young man of the Hitler Youth. It was supposed to be a Christian funeral. During the rite a deputy of the Hitler Youth spoke of fate gathering him to his fathers and said the young man, “had now crossed over into the storm of Horst Wessel.” This was said twice and Schneider protested because this was a Christian ceremony. In a letter to his superintendent he wrote, “I protest. This is a church ceremony, and as a Protestant pastor I am responsible for the pure teaching of the Holy Scriptures.”[i]

This led to Schneider’s first arrest. He would be arrested several times, lose his churches, be beaten in prison and finally poisoned to death.

But what is the storm of Horst Wessel. And who is he.

He was a soldier in the German army who was shot and became a mythical creation of the paganized Nazis. They used his death to unite their rallies and turn their followers as much as possible away from their Christian faith. Goebbels speaks of Wessel’s immortalization.  The storm of Horst Wessel was meant to evoke a pagan eternity earned by Germanic patriotism. Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist, used this idea in at least two of his speeches. He began the myth with a speech, Raise High the Flag, the first part of a poem written by Wessel.

The author of Paul Schneider writes:

National Socialism wanted to introduce its worldview to the German people openly but it did so surreptitiously because it knew it was incompatible with a biblically based faith. Its “national” faith was not permitted to know anything about the “full reality of sin so deeply rooted in the heart and life of man” because it alone felt chosen to set the standard and did not tolerate any critical discussion.

This can be seen in many of Goebbels’ and other Nazi speeches and writings. There was always the righteous, (the Nazis) and the despicable (all others who rejected Nazism). It is constantly there as here in an early Nazi speech; The Storm is Coming:

You, men, women, and comrades, are the bearers, witnesses, builders, and finishers of this unique people’s uprising. Our policies have not been popular. We have served the truth, and only the truth. For twelve years, they have insulted and outlawed and slandered and persecuted us. Now that we are standing at the doorway to power, Marxist lies have joined with bourgeois weakness to fight us. Were we only a party like all the rest, we would collapse under the offensive of our opponents. But we are a people’s movement. That is our good fortune. Here and everywhere else in the land, the red shining Swastika flag flies over people of all camps, parties, classes, occupations, and religious confessions. Our opponents laughed at us in the past, but they laugh no longer.

You men and women standing before me, a hundred or two hundred thousand in number, with heads high, upright, proud, and brave, the carriers of Germany’s future, in your eyes it is written:

We think no longer in terms of class. We are not workers or middle class. We are not first of all Protestants or Catholics. We do not ask about ancestry or class. Together we share the words of the poet:

“People, rise up, and storm, break loose!” …

So our dead comrade Horst Wessel wrote, and we are fulfilling his prophesy. The others may lie, slander, and pour their scorn on us — their political days are numbered.

Adolf Hitler is knocking at the gates of power, and in his fist are joined the fists of millions of workers and farmers. The time of shame and disgrace is nearly over.

You are the witnesses, the builders, the will-bearers of our idea and our worldview.

So this is the pattern; (1)a great need, (2)a hero to lift up, (3) enemies who are worthless, (4)the righteous who are the builders. This is the Fascist’s method of propaganda. But it came up against biblical truth which declares all humanity sinners and only one solution the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who gifts humanity with mercy, forgiveness and rather than immortalization, eternal life and bodily resurrection.

As I have placed the suffering church in contrast to a despotic government in my last posting, The Historical Suffering Church: Its Image, Its Faith Extending Over Our Tomorrows:, I will place this image of a suffering pastor and a despotic government beside a government official who now pushes the same propaganda. Stephen Miller, President Trump’s deputy chief, speaking at the memorial service for Charlie Kirk, uses, often the same words and concepts as Goebbels.

The image of storm is often used in Nazi speeches—Miller—"The storm whispers to the warrior that you cannot withstand my strength and the warrior whispers back I am the storm.” He then calls Erika Kirk the storm, but hardly; she is the forgiving Christian. The praise of the hero; Miller’s speech, “You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk. You have made him an immortal.”

The praise of the Nazi followers is often wrapped up in the title builders, “You are the witnesses, the builders, the will-bearers of our idea and our worldview.” Miller, “We are the ones who build, we are the ones who create, we are the ones who lift up humanity.”

There is always the enemy in the Nazi propaganda, for Miller that is also true:

You have nothing, you are nothing, you are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy. You are hatred, you are nothing, you can build nothing, you can produce nothing, you can create nothing.

Here is the anti-Christian attack on Christianity too often used by Miller. Taking MAGA’s supposed Lineage all the way back to Athens and Rome he places their humanity and goodness in a racial context which eliminates the other. He adds righteousness to them because of their supposed lack of sinfulness. He glorifies what is sinful and so shuts them out of the Kingdom of God for the sake of the kingdom of man. At this funeral he shuts the door on Christian faith never mentioning it—yes, he mentions angels whose tears put fire into the hearts of the supposed righteous ones. That is unbiblical but also borders on the edge of paganism as does his words of awaking a dragon in them—in MAGA—in those who follow Trump. “you have no idea of the dragon you have awakened, you have no idea how determined we will be to save this civilization, to save the west, to save this republic …”

The book of Revelation filled with metaphors speaks of a dragon. His war isn’t good, he attempts to kill Jesus, he lives in rage and gives his power to a despotic being—he ends in hell.

The Christian, those who pray to always put Jesus above any worldly ruler, needs no propaganda in its cruder form, they have the Holy Scriptures—the Word of God, the promises of God.

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where is Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life is revealed then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. (Colossians 3: 1-4.)

 

 

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[i] Rudolf Wentorf, Paul Schneider: Witness of Buchenwald, (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing 2008) 152-153.