The Evil of Theocracy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Religion being a matter of the will, it cannot be forced on anyone; in this matter it is better to employ words than blows.Of what use is cruelty? What has the rack to do with piety? Surely there is no connection between truth and violence, between justice and cruelty . . . .

It is true that nothing is so important as religion, and one must defend it at any cost It is true that it must be protected, but by dying for it, not by killing others; by long-suffering, not by violence; by faith, not by crime.

 

If you attempt to defend religion with bloodshed and torture, what you do is not defense, but desecration and insult. For nothing is so intrinsically a matter of free will as religion

- Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius "The Divine Institutes (V:20)

The Inquisitions, or the Supression of Heresy as it was formally known, were a prime example of the failing of Theocracy in the extreme. And the Inquisitions were not the first undertakings of heretical cleansing that involved torture. As we see, Lactantius wrote as early back as A.D 308 to plead with the church leaders and implore them to cease using the rack to extract confession or penance.

According to a religious census taken in 1925, of the overall German population ( 65 million), 40 million belonged to the main Protestant (Evangelical Lutheran) church. Most of the rest (21 million) were Roman Catholic. These people made up the base of the Nazi Party, the majority being from the Evangelical Protestants. It is often asked how could an entire country be brought to be swayed into "total war" and the Nazi ideology. The answer however is evident to any student of the era. Religion mingled with government. Hitler was the new messiah. His thousand year reign represented the thousand year reign of Christ on earth, and the churches of Germany slowly dissolved into the septic pool of Nazism. The Nazi movement wasted no time moving its ideology into the pews of the local churches. Church leaders showed little resistance, and many went along willingly with the new Nazi party. Religious dogma was introduced into Nazi ideology. "Gott Mitt Uns" (stamped on the belt buckle of ever Wehrmacht soldier) was the cry of the land. In many respects, Germany became a theocracy, as the membership in the Nazi party became synonymous with piety. Hitler himself even appointed a "Reich Bishop"

 

The Nazi's leveraged the political patriotism but also the religious collectivism and dedication of the people by carefully mingling their ideologies with the predominant Christian faiths throughout Germany. And it worked. Corrupt the religion and the followers will follow you anywhere. And Nazi Germany taught us that lesson, all too well. One religion, the Christian religion was considered acceptable, but the rest, the Jews, Atheists and Muslims, did not fare so well and found that membership in them was an unhealthy prospect. At first it mean merely meant a little public insults, maybe a beating in an alley or two. Bullying. But gradullay it became something much worse, and ended up in the death camps of Auscwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, Buchenwald and many, many more. But it didn't start there. It started in the early indocrination of German people, including the youth.