Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the twentieth-century pastor, theologian, conspirer against Nazi Germany, and martyr, has been admired since his death by Christians of various traditions. Eric Metaxas’s popular (though poorly-regarded-academically) biography of Bonhoeffer and the recent film based on it have especially succeeded in reinvigorating his legacy among evangelicals. Over the last several years, Metaxas has also repeatedly attempted to invoke Bonhoeffer and the events of World War II in support of Donald Trump and to warn against what he perceives to be the Nazi-like dangers of contemporary leftism.

Now, Bonhoeffer’s attempts to construe Bonhoeffer’s resistance to Nazism as analogous to conservative evangelical opposition to progressivism has been roundly criticized by both Bonhoeffer scholars and Bonhoeffer’s own descendants. But Metaxas is right that a comparison of Bonhoeffer’s broader ecclesiastical and political context with our own has the potential to be tremendously illuminating—if not perhaps in the way that he thinks. In fact, taking a look at the 1930s debates between the Confessing Church and the pro-Nazi German Christians, however, reveals several illuminating historic parallels to the current debates on Christian nationalism or Christian fascism.

The Nile winds through fields of green,
a slow-moving mirror for the sky.
Papyrus sways, reaching against the current,
while beyond the banks, stone rises—
temples, palaces, the weight of rule
pressed into the land like a seal.

The second of a two-part article. The idea of loyalty to one man was used by Lutherans who harkened back to their founder’s stance against the Peasant Revolt of the 1520’s by evoking the Pauline claim to respect authority and the leader. This was also remembered as having occurred in history when the Roman emperors, once the great “anti-Christs” or persecutors, became hailed as protectors of the faith. In Germany the idea was focused on the relationship between the Holy Roman Emperor as the chief political entity and the Pope as the main religious official in Western Europe. Here again the old pre-Enlightenment idea of divine right of kings came into play as the rulers were men of God chosen to shepherd the German people. With the collapse of the Second Reich in 1918, the democratic Weimar Republic took effect. Many theologians criticized this democratic government’s replacing the monarchy than Germany had been familiar with for centuries if not millennia. Lutheran theologian Paul Althaus saw the Weimar regime as only a temporary institution before a greater, yet-to-come government created by Germans for Germans.¹ Fr. Phillipp Haueser detested the regime, leading to his involvement with the Nazi Party. Many theologians found their idea of a new monarch in Adolf Hitler. Albus Schlachlieter saw himself as John the Baptist for Hitler’s rise to power.² Haueser also echoed that idea. Paul Althaus saw Hitler as a “pious and faithful sovereign” and National Socialism as “a government with discipline and honor.” Emanuel Hirsch also saw Hitler in such terms as a Heaven-sent Christian leader. Hitler was seen as akin to the old Emperors of the First Reich who upheld Christian values of the German people. Hitler was not only the political leader of a new Germany but also a spiritual leader, seen as sent by God to reignite the Christian soul of the German people.

The first of a two-part article. Christianity and Nazism have been contrasted as opposing movements. Yet theologians and clergy in Germany supportive of the Nazi Party went to great lengths to make both agreeable to each other. In some instances, Christian priests and theologians became the best of collaborators with the Third Reich. Their rhetoric supported the regime and made it acceptable to the German public in a religious context, alluding to traditional Christian values, which the Nazis claimed they were returning to. The ideas for authoritarianism, antisemitism, and belligerence were allegedly found in Biblical scholarship and the tradition of the Catholic and Protestant Churches. This helped the Nazi regime run more smoothly in Germany, as the public felt comfortable with a political movement that did not appear to be radical to the ideas of their faith. However, many of these priests and theologians did not realize the monster they had helped grow until it was too late, and Europe was destroyed in the misery of a cruel and unjust war. A reflection on the ways in which theologians supported the rise and consolidation of power offers important clues for how Christian Nationalism serves to support the growing tide of American authoritarianism now at the beginning of the twenty-first century.