WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.120 Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for joining 00:00:02.120 --> 00:00:05.400 us for another edition of The Deep Dive. We are 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:07.639 really thrilled to have you sitting right here 00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:09.599 at the table with us today. Absolutely. Thanks 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:11.380 for being here. And, you know, if you could see 00:00:11.380 --> 00:00:14.119 our visual setup right now, you'd notice the 00:00:14.119 --> 00:00:17.219 digital backdrop behind my co -host has completely 00:00:17.219 --> 00:00:19.620 transformed. Right now, it's displaying these 00:00:19.620 --> 00:00:24.359 massive, towering rows of heavy, leather -bound 00:00:24.359 --> 00:00:27.199 historical encyclopedias. They're resting in 00:00:27.199 --> 00:00:30.190 these deeply shadowed, almost cavernous archives. 00:00:30.449 --> 00:00:32.829 Very moody look today. It really is. It's very 00:00:32.829 --> 00:00:35.509 atmospheric and it perfectly reflects the gravity 00:00:35.509 --> 00:00:38.090 and honestly the sheer historical weight of the 00:00:38.090 --> 00:00:40.149 deep dive we are taking today. Because our mission 00:00:40.149 --> 00:00:42.649 is based on a single, thoroughly fascinating 00:00:42.649 --> 00:00:45.429 body of historical research, we're exploring 00:00:45.429 --> 00:00:48.409 a movement from the 1920s and 30s known as positive 00:00:48.409 --> 00:00:50.670 Christianity. Right. We're going to look at exactly 00:00:50.670 --> 00:00:53.210 how a political regime attempted to take a 2 00:00:53.210 --> 00:00:55.770 ,000 -year -old religion, hollow it out from 00:00:55.770 --> 00:00:58.770 the inside, and entirely rewrite it. fit their 00:00:58.770 --> 00:01:01.909 own agenda. It's really a masterclass in information 00:01:01.909 --> 00:01:04.969 manipulation, weaponized theology, and sheer 00:01:04.969 --> 00:01:07.609 political opportunism. And just to set the table 00:01:07.609 --> 00:01:10.269 for you before we really get going, we are diving 00:01:10.269 --> 00:01:14.250 into some very dark, highly charged history from 00:01:14.250 --> 00:01:16.709 Nazi Germany today. Yes, very important point. 00:01:16.769 --> 00:01:18.730 We aren't here to take political sides or to 00:01:18.730 --> 00:01:20.650 endorse any of these deeply disturbing views. 00:01:20.829 --> 00:01:23.530 We are simply acting as your impartial guides. 00:01:24.299 --> 00:01:27.260 Our goal is to look objectively at the historical 00:01:27.260 --> 00:01:30.840 record to see exactly how this regime tried to 00:01:30.840 --> 00:01:33.480 manipulate belief systems. And, you know, just 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:37.340 to analyze this as historical case study in propaganda. 00:01:37.359 --> 00:01:40.299 OK, let's unpack this. The core concept we are 00:01:40.299 --> 00:01:42.560 looking at is this thing called positive Christianity. 00:01:43.870 --> 00:01:46.049 Broadly speaking, this was a religious movement 00:01:46.049 --> 00:01:49.090 formulated within Nazi Germany. Its entire premise 00:01:49.090 --> 00:01:52.030 was to somehow mix racialistic Nazi ideology 00:01:52.030 --> 00:01:54.909 with elements of traditional Christianity. They 00:01:54.909 --> 00:01:56.530 essentially wanted to use a religious framework 00:01:56.530 --> 00:01:58.849 to justify their obsession with racial purity. 00:01:59.430 --> 00:02:02.010 But where did this even start? Was this something 00:02:02.010 --> 00:02:04.109 Hitler just cooked up after he already had total 00:02:04.109 --> 00:02:06.049 control of the government? Actually, no, it goes 00:02:06.049 --> 00:02:08.469 back much further than that. If you look at the 00:02:08.469 --> 00:02:10.650 historical records, the phrase first officially 00:02:10.650 --> 00:02:12.870 pops up in the very early days of the movement. 00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:16.439 Adolf Hitler actually used the term positive 00:02:16.439 --> 00:02:20.280 Christianity in point 24 of the 1920 Nazi Party 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:23.340 platform. Wow. So way back in 1920. Exactly. 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:26.340 Yeah. The document explicitly claimed that the 00:02:26.340 --> 00:02:28.939 party supported the standpoint of positive Christianity, 00:02:29.159 --> 00:02:32.000 but, and this is key, without binding itself 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:34.659 to any specific Protestant or Catholic denomination. 00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:36.780 So they wanted the label, but not the actual 00:02:36.780 --> 00:02:39.400 church structure. Precisely. They desperately 00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:42.039 wanted the cultural label of Christianity, but 00:02:42.039 --> 00:02:44.020 they demanded it on their own very specific, 00:02:44.159 --> 00:02:46.520 highly conditional terms. What's fascinating 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:49.560 here is the absolute political reality that drove 00:02:49.560 --> 00:02:51.639 this decision. Because Germany wasn't exactly 00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:53.819 a blank slate religiously, right? I mean, it 00:02:53.819 --> 00:02:56.300 was deeply established. Oh, absolutely. You have 00:02:56.300 --> 00:02:58.620 to really put yourself in the mindset of the 00:02:58.620 --> 00:03:02.449 time and place. In the 1920s, Germany had been 00:03:02.449 --> 00:03:05.050 a profoundly, deeply Christian nation for over 00:03:05.050 --> 00:03:08.150 a thousand years. The culture, the educational 00:03:08.150 --> 00:03:10.250 institutions, the daily rhythms of the citizens' 00:03:10.430 --> 00:03:13.569 lives, they were entirely intertwined with the 00:03:13.569 --> 00:03:16.250 Protestant and Catholic churches. Right. Now, 00:03:16.289 --> 00:03:18.530 the Nazi movement, fundamentally and at its core, 00:03:18.710 --> 00:03:21.330 was inherently hostile to those established churches. 00:03:21.550 --> 00:03:24.250 They were building a totalitarian state. They 00:03:24.250 --> 00:03:26.469 ultimately wanted total control over the minds 00:03:26.469 --> 00:03:28.969 of the public, which meant they viewed any competing 00:03:28.969 --> 00:03:31.729 moral authority. like a pope or a unified church, 00:03:31.930 --> 00:03:34.370 as a direct threat. That makes sense. You can't 00:03:34.370 --> 00:03:36.509 have total loyalty to the state if people are 00:03:36.509 --> 00:03:39.169 loyal to a higher power. Exactly. But Hitler 00:03:39.169 --> 00:03:41.389 was politically astute enough to realize he was 00:03:41.389 --> 00:03:43.669 trapped. He knew he could not win a free election, 00:03:43.830 --> 00:03:46.550 nor could he maintain power in the long run if 00:03:46.550 --> 00:03:49.069 he openly alienated the vast Christian majority 00:03:49.069 --> 00:03:52.490 of the country. He needed a bridge, or at least 00:03:52.490 --> 00:03:55.110 the illusion of one, to keep the masses pacified 00:03:55.110 --> 00:03:57.659 while he consolidated power. And that illusion 00:03:57.659 --> 00:04:00.360 is where the pragmatic deception really comes 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:03.620 into play. Historians like Ian Kershaw and Lawrence 00:04:03.620 --> 00:04:06.379 Rees have looked deeply into this, and they characterize 00:04:06.379 --> 00:04:10.199 this whole endeavor as pure cynical opportunism. 00:04:10.199 --> 00:04:13.259 Pure opportunism. Because publicly, Hitler would 00:04:13.259 --> 00:04:16.560 actively identify as a Christian. There is a 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:20.480 famous documented speech from April 12th, 1922, 00:04:20.740 --> 00:04:23.560 where he specifically stands up and claims to 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:25.740 be a Christian. He wanted the public to view 00:04:25.740 --> 00:04:27.699 him as a fierce defender of their traditional 00:04:27.699 --> 00:04:32.019 faith. But privately, he absolutely scorned what 00:04:32.019 --> 00:04:34.560 theologians call Pauline Christianity. Right. 00:04:34.620 --> 00:04:36.259 And we should probably clarify what Pauline Christianity 00:04:36.259 --> 00:04:38.500 means for those who aren't, you know, theology 00:04:38.500 --> 00:04:40.680 majors. Good idea. That refers to the foundational 00:04:40.680 --> 00:04:42.899 teachings of the Apostle Paul, which make up 00:04:42.899 --> 00:04:45.350 a massive chunk of the New Testament. Paul's 00:04:45.350 --> 00:04:47.370 letters focus heavily on the ideas of grace, 00:04:47.569 --> 00:04:50.550 universal salvation, regardless of your background, 00:04:50.730 --> 00:04:52.750 and the idea that all people are equal before 00:04:52.750 --> 00:04:55.230 God. Which obviously completely contradicts a 00:04:55.230 --> 00:04:57.569 racial hierarchy. Entirely. Hitler privately 00:04:57.569 --> 00:05:00.129 despised these concepts. He had no individual 00:05:00.129 --> 00:05:02.410 belief in the basic tenets of the church. To 00:05:02.410 --> 00:05:04.589 put it in a more modern perspective for you, 00:05:04.670 --> 00:05:07.350 it's kind of like a politician who moves to a 00:05:07.350 --> 00:05:10.870 new city and suddenly claims to be the biggest, 00:05:10.930 --> 00:05:14.420 most diehard fan of the local sports team. I 00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:17.360 love this analogy. Right. They wear the jersey. 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:20.399 They sit behind the dugout. They cheer enthusiastically 00:05:20.399 --> 00:05:22.060 when the cameras are pointing at them all just 00:05:22.060 --> 00:05:24.279 to win over the local voters. But they don't 00:05:24.279 --> 00:05:26.040 actually care about the team. They couldn't even 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:28.300 name three players on the roster. That's a great 00:05:28.300 --> 00:05:30.600 analogy. But imagine if that politician didn't 00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:33.699 just pretend to like the team. Imagine if once 00:05:33.699 --> 00:05:35.720 he got elected, they actually fired the coach. 00:05:36.400 --> 00:05:39.480 changed the team colors, and entirely rewrote 00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:41.980 the rulebook so the game was completely unrecognizable 00:05:41.980 --> 00:05:44.639 to the fans. Wow. Yeah, that's exactly what they 00:05:44.639 --> 00:05:47.139 did. The regime recognized that they couldn't 00:05:47.139 --> 00:05:50.139 just abolish Christianity overnight. The social 00:05:50.139 --> 00:05:52.720 backlash would have been insurmountable. So instead 00:05:52.720 --> 00:05:54.620 of destroying the institution from the outside 00:05:54.620 --> 00:05:57.439 with a hammer, they decided to hollow it out 00:05:57.439 --> 00:06:01.420 from the inside like a parasite. They introduced... 00:06:01.579 --> 00:06:04.300 positive Christianity as a linguistic trick to 00:06:04.300 --> 00:06:06.459 allay the fears of the Christian majority. It's 00:06:06.459 --> 00:06:09.939 weaponized semantics. Precisely. By branding 00:06:09.939 --> 00:06:12.639 their version as positive, they subconsciously 00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:15.699 labeled traditional historical belief as negative 00:06:15.699 --> 00:06:19.420 or passive or weak without having to make a single 00:06:19.420 --> 00:06:22.589 coherent theological argument. It was a highly 00:06:22.589 --> 00:06:25.290 calculated branding exercise designed to make 00:06:25.290 --> 00:06:27.689 the Nazi movement appear not only compatible 00:06:27.689 --> 00:06:31.149 with Christianity, but as its ultimate revitalized 00:06:31.149 --> 00:06:33.649 champion. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:06:33.730 --> 00:06:35.569 because they didn't just want to change the public 00:06:35.569 --> 00:06:37.850 perception of the church or, you know, slap a 00:06:37.850 --> 00:06:40.149 new marketing label on it. They actually went 00:06:40.149 --> 00:06:43.610 after the sacred texts themselves. They attempted 00:06:43.610 --> 00:06:46.810 to literally edit the ultimate bestseller. It's 00:06:46.810 --> 00:06:48.990 incredibly bold. Research shows the specific, 00:06:49.250 --> 00:06:51.850 shocking ways the regime tried to alter the Bible. 00:06:52.050 --> 00:06:54.649 They initiated this selective process of redaction, 00:06:54.870 --> 00:06:56.910 aggressively rejecting anything they deemed as 00:06:56.910 --> 00:06:59.370 an impurity. Extreme adherents of this movement 00:06:59.370 --> 00:07:01.750 wanted to completely eliminate the entire Old 00:07:01.750 --> 00:07:03.930 Testament, the Hebrew Bible, from church services 00:07:03.930 --> 00:07:05.889 and theology entirely. Just wipe it out. Just 00:07:05.889 --> 00:07:08.569 gone. Yeah. And they didn't stop there. In the 00:07:08.569 --> 00:07:10.410 New Testament, they went through and systematically 00:07:10.410 --> 00:07:13.230 removed Jewish genealogies. Which is a massive 00:07:13.230 --> 00:07:15.610 deal, because traditional theology relies heavily 00:07:15.610 --> 00:07:18.379 on the Davidic descent. the lineage of King David, 00:07:18.500 --> 00:07:21.420 that Christians believe Jesus claimed. By scrubbing 00:07:21.420 --> 00:07:23.740 that out, you sever the connection to the historical 00:07:23.740 --> 00:07:26.500 prophecies. Exactly. They scrubbed out Jewish 00:07:26.500 --> 00:07:29.860 names, Jewish places, and any references to Jewish 00:07:29.860 --> 00:07:32.360 prophecies that Christians believe Jesus fulfilled. 00:07:32.660 --> 00:07:35.540 They literally tried to redact the foundational 00:07:35.540 --> 00:07:38.560 text of the religion to fit an Arian worldview. 00:07:38.899 --> 00:07:42.319 And this textual purge served very specific theological 00:07:42.319 --> 00:07:45.879 alteration. It allowed for the total rebranding 00:07:45.879 --> 00:07:48.920 of the central figure of the religion. Traditional 00:07:48.920 --> 00:07:51.740 Orthodox Christianity, often called Nicene Christianity, 00:07:52.279 --> 00:07:54.720 placed a heavy emphasis on the miraculous birth 00:07:54.720 --> 00:07:57.339 of Jesus, his suffering, his passive sacrifice 00:07:57.339 --> 00:07:59.740 on the cross, and the concept of an otherworldly 00:07:59.740 --> 00:08:02.410 redemption. Which they didn't like. No. The adherents 00:08:02.410 --> 00:08:04.689 of positive Christianity argued that this was 00:08:04.689 --> 00:08:07.189 the negative, weak aspect of the religion. They 00:08:07.189 --> 00:08:08.970 wanted to replace this with a positive emphasis, 00:08:09.149 --> 00:08:11.069 so they completely redefined the character of 00:08:11.069 --> 00:08:13.449 Jesus. They stripped away the passive, sacrificial 00:08:13.449 --> 00:08:15.649 elements and reconstructed him as an active, 00:08:15.769 --> 00:08:18.529 militaristic preacher and a heroic fighter. A 00:08:18.529 --> 00:08:20.970 fighter against what? Against the rabbinic Judaism 00:08:20.970 --> 00:08:23.250 of his day, which was the foundational religious 00:08:23.250 --> 00:08:26.050 framework of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They 00:08:26.050 --> 00:08:29.759 claimed that opposing this was his primary driving 00:08:29.759 --> 00:08:32.019 purpose. They even went so far as to claim he 00:08:32.019 --> 00:08:34.659 was not Jewish at all which is just a staggering 00:08:34.659 --> 00:08:37.919 historical geographical and theological leap 00:08:37.919 --> 00:08:41.100 to make about a first century rabbi from Galilee. 00:08:41.220 --> 00:08:43.000 It's completely ahistorical. They classified 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:46.350 him instead as a Nordic Amorite. basically claiming 00:08:46.350 --> 00:08:48.750 an Aryan hood for him. And I really want you, 00:08:48.789 --> 00:08:50.830 the listener, to stop and imagine this for a 00:08:50.830 --> 00:08:52.970 second. Think about your absolute favorite, most 00:08:52.970 --> 00:08:55.990 cherished book. Maybe it's a sacred text, or 00:08:55.990 --> 00:08:58.049 maybe it's just a novel that fundamentally shaped 00:08:58.049 --> 00:09:00.269 who you are as a person. Yeah, picture that book. 00:09:00.450 --> 00:09:02.750 Now imagine someone comes into your home, takes 00:09:02.750 --> 00:09:05.769 that book. violently tears out the entire first 00:09:05.769 --> 00:09:08.330 half of the pages, takes a thick black marker 00:09:08.330 --> 00:09:10.850 to redact the remaining chapters, and completely 00:09:10.850 --> 00:09:13.210 rewrites the main character's backstory, their 00:09:13.210 --> 00:09:15.769 motivations, and their heritage. And they do 00:09:15.769 --> 00:09:18.509 all of this not for literary reasons, but specifically 00:09:18.509 --> 00:09:21.889 to manipulate your worldview to align with a 00:09:21.889 --> 00:09:24.049 political agenda. It is a breathtaking level 00:09:24.049 --> 00:09:27.169 of ideological audacity. It truly is audacious. 00:09:27.450 --> 00:09:29.450 And to understand how this was systematically 00:09:29.450 --> 00:09:31.629 pushed onto the public, we have to look at the 00:09:31.629 --> 00:09:34.149 architects of this new revelation. We're talking 00:09:34.149 --> 00:09:36.750 about figures like Hans Kroll and Alfred Rosenberg. 00:09:36.909 --> 00:09:39.250 The extremists. Yes, the extremists within the 00:09:39.250 --> 00:09:41.809 regime. And they made it very clear that they 00:09:41.809 --> 00:09:43.809 didn't just want to tweak the religion. They 00:09:43.809 --> 00:09:46.629 ultimately wanted to replace it entirely. Hans 00:09:46.629 --> 00:09:48.450 Kroll was appointed as the Reich Minister for 00:09:48.450 --> 00:09:51.649 Church Affairs. By 1937, he was calling submissive 00:09:51.649 --> 00:09:53.750 clergy into his office and telling them point 00:09:53.750 --> 00:09:56.049 blank that positive Christianity was not dependent 00:09:56.049 --> 00:09:58.509 upon the Apostles' Creed. He explicitly stated 00:09:58.509 --> 00:10:01.490 it was not dependent on faith in Christ as the 00:10:01.490 --> 00:10:04.139 Son of God. Which is wild because that is the 00:10:04.139 --> 00:10:07.159 very bedrock upon which traditional Christianity 00:10:07.159 --> 00:10:10.059 relies. You remove that and you don't have Christianity 00:10:10.059 --> 00:10:13.440 anymore. Exactly. But Kroll didn't care about 00:10:13.440 --> 00:10:16.379 Orthodox theology. He made this chilling declaration 00:10:16.379 --> 00:10:19.059 to the clergy. He told them the Fuhrer is the 00:10:19.059 --> 00:10:21.360 herald of a new revelation. He essentially tried 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:24.080 to replace divine authority with political authority. 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:27.659 Yes, he absolutely did. And then you have Alfred 00:10:27.659 --> 00:10:30.860 Rosenberg, who was... essentially official Nazi 00:10:30.860 --> 00:10:34.059 ideologist. His actual title was the Führer's 00:10:34.059 --> 00:10:36.179 Delegate for the Entire Intellectual and Philosophical 00:10:36.179 --> 00:10:38.539 Education and Instruction for the National Socialist 00:10:38.539 --> 00:10:41.059 Party. That is quite the title. Very bureaucratic. 00:10:41.179 --> 00:10:43.799 But Rosenberg wrote a massive influential book 00:10:43.799 --> 00:10:46.940 called The Myth of the 20th Century. In it, he 00:10:46.940 --> 00:10:48.899 argued that the Catholic and Protestant churches 00:10:48.899 --> 00:10:51.039 had distorted Christianity over the centuries 00:10:51.039 --> 00:10:54.059 by ignoring the heroic and Germanic aspects of 00:10:54.059 --> 00:10:57.419 Jesus's life. Rosenberg explicitly called traditional 00:10:57.419 --> 00:11:00.320 Protestant and Catholic doctrines negative Christianity. 00:11:00.740 --> 00:11:03.720 But here is the crucial detail. He viewed positive 00:11:03.720 --> 00:11:06.259 Christianity as merely a transitional faith. 00:11:06.500 --> 00:11:08.980 It was just a stepping stone. A stepping stone 00:11:08.980 --> 00:11:11.960 to what? To bringing Christians toward Nazi anti 00:11:11.960 --> 00:11:14.720 -Semitism and eventually transitioning them out 00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:17.799 of traditional Western thought altogether. Rosenberg's 00:11:17.799 --> 00:11:20.659 ultimate vision for Germany was incredibly radical. 00:11:21.159 --> 00:11:23.659 He drafted a plan for the future of religion 00:11:23.659 --> 00:11:26.580 in the Reich that involved the total extermination 00:11:26.580 --> 00:11:29.620 of what he called foreign Christian faiths. Total 00:11:29.620 --> 00:11:32.419 extermination of the faiths. Yes. He literally 00:11:32.419 --> 00:11:34.960 wanted to replace the Bible at the altar with 00:11:34.960 --> 00:11:38.500 Mein Kampf as the supreme holy scripture. Furthermore, 00:11:38.759 --> 00:11:40.960 he planned to replace the Christian cross with 00:11:40.960 --> 00:11:44.080 a swastika or a sun cross as the universal symbol 00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:47.080 of European Christianity inside these Nazified 00:11:47.080 --> 00:11:49.480 churches. Hold on. So he just wanted to gut the 00:11:49.480 --> 00:11:51.679 entire spiritual... foundation and replace it 00:11:51.679 --> 00:11:54.279 with state worship, where does the actual theology 00:11:54.279 --> 00:11:56.519 come in? Like, what were they actually worshiping? 00:11:56.580 --> 00:11:58.940 That's the most bizarre part. For Rosenberg, 00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:01.159 the theology had nothing to do with divine revelation 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:04.080 from old Europe or ancient texts. His theology 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:06.980 was entirely biologically based. For him, the 00:12:06.980 --> 00:12:09.519 Aryan Nordic race itself was divine. God was 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:12.600 in the race. Exactly. He literally believed that 00:12:12.600 --> 00:12:15.620 God was in the blood and that the physical culture 00:12:15.620 --> 00:12:18.159 of this race was the literal kingdom of heaven 00:12:18.159 --> 00:12:20.720 on earth. It was a complete terrifying fusion 00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:23.840 of racial purity laws with religious devotion. 00:12:24.139 --> 00:12:26.039 Which begs a very natural question. Did they 00:12:26.039 --> 00:12:28.620 just invent these theological ideas out of thin 00:12:28.620 --> 00:12:31.159 air? Did someone just wake up one day in the 00:12:31.159 --> 00:12:34.039 1920s and decide to rewrite Jesus as a Nordic 00:12:34.039 --> 00:12:36.539 Amorite and say God is in the blood? Not entirely, 00:12:36.720 --> 00:12:39.129 no. While the political application and the state 00:12:39.129 --> 00:12:41.570 enforcement were new, the underlying ideas had 00:12:41.570 --> 00:12:43.289 actually been bubbling up in European academic 00:12:43.289 --> 00:12:46.009 circles for a while. Historians trace the origins 00:12:46.009 --> 00:12:48.669 back to 19th century higher criticism. OK, can 00:12:48.669 --> 00:12:51.070 you give us an ELI five and explain it like I'm 00:12:51.070 --> 00:12:53.980 five on what higher criticism actually was? Sure. 00:12:54.080 --> 00:12:57.000 In the 1800s, higher criticism was an academic 00:12:57.000 --> 00:12:59.220 school of thought that attempted to look at the 00:12:59.220 --> 00:13:01.620 Bible purely as a historical document, rather 00:13:01.620 --> 00:13:04.980 than an infallible divine text. Many legitimate 00:13:04.980 --> 00:13:07.259 scholars in this movement simply wanted to separate 00:13:07.259 --> 00:13:09.840 the historical Jesus of Nazareth, the actual 00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:12.240 man who walked around Galilee, from the divine 00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:15.279 Jesus of Orthodox theology. They wanted to place 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:17.840 him in his accurate historical and cultural context 00:13:17.840 --> 00:13:20.789 within ancient Judaism. That sounds like standard 00:13:20.789 --> 00:13:24.149 historical research. It was initially. But there 00:13:24.149 --> 00:13:26.269 were some writers who hijacked that framework 00:13:26.269 --> 00:13:28.840 and took it in a very dark direction. Writers 00:13:28.840 --> 00:13:31.840 like Emil Louis Bernouf, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, 00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:34.799 and Paul de La Garde began reconstructing a historical 00:13:34.799 --> 00:13:37.460 Jesus that specifically corresponded to the rising 00:13:37.460 --> 00:13:40.519 racialist and anti -Semitic ideologies of 19th 00:13:40.519 --> 00:13:43.279 century Europe. Ah, I see. Because they were 00:13:43.279 --> 00:13:46.000 rooted in that higher criticism, they felt justified 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:48.620 in minimizing or entirely rejecting the miraculous 00:13:48.620 --> 00:13:51.320 aspects of the gospel narratives. They reduced 00:13:51.320 --> 00:13:53.799 the crucifixion to just a tragic political end 00:13:53.799 --> 00:13:56.799 to his life rather than a prefigured divine culmination 00:13:56.799 --> 00:13:59.500 of salvation. So they essentially stripped out 00:13:59.500 --> 00:14:02.539 the divinity to make him fit a political narrative. 00:14:02.799 --> 00:14:05.240 Exactly. They redefined him as an Aryan hero 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:08.559 struggling against Judaism. Lagarde even insisted 00:14:08.559 --> 00:14:10.820 that German Christianity needed to become national 00:14:10.820 --> 00:14:14.360 in character. So the intellectual and pseudoscientific 00:14:14.360 --> 00:14:16.840 framework for positive Christianity had actually 00:14:16.840 --> 00:14:19.080 been laid decades before the Nazi party ever 00:14:19.080 --> 00:14:21.379 existed. But the rejection of the Old Testament 00:14:21.379 --> 00:14:23.600 goes back even further than the 19th century, 00:14:23.679 --> 00:14:26.000 doesn't it? Did the Nazis pull from older movements 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:28.539 there? If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:31.240 the attempt to decouple Christianity from its 00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:34.179 Jewish roots and reject the Hebrew Bible is not 00:14:34.179 --> 00:14:37.399 unprecedented in history. Historians point out 00:14:37.399 --> 00:14:39.799 that the earliest form of Christianity that resembled 00:14:39.799 --> 00:14:42.200 positive Christianity in this specific textual 00:14:42.200 --> 00:14:45.379 way was the second century Marcionite sect. The 00:14:45.379 --> 00:14:47.940 Marcionites. Right. The Marcionites completely 00:14:47.940 --> 00:14:50.919 rejected the Hebrew Bible's canonicity for Christians 00:14:50.919 --> 00:14:54.090 and associated it strictly with Judaism. Later, 00:14:54.250 --> 00:14:56.850 in the 1200s, you had a group called the Cathars 00:14:56.850 --> 00:15:00.110 in southern France. The Cathars actually viewed 00:15:00.110 --> 00:15:03.129 the Old Testament God as an evil demiurge, which 00:15:03.129 --> 00:15:06.570 is a philosophical term for a lesser, often flawed, 00:15:06.669 --> 00:15:09.509 creator deity who built the physical world. And 00:15:09.509 --> 00:15:12.149 they saw him as a completely separate being from 00:15:12.149 --> 00:15:14.750 the loving New Testament God. But there is a 00:15:14.750 --> 00:15:17.710 massive, crucial distinction here that we absolutely 00:15:17.710 --> 00:15:20.149 need to make clear for the listener. Yes, the 00:15:20.149 --> 00:15:22.629 historical record draws a very strict right line 00:15:22.629 --> 00:15:25.539 here. Those ancient sects, the Marcionites and 00:15:25.539 --> 00:15:27.980 the Cathars, rejected the Old Testament for complex 00:15:27.980 --> 00:15:30.480 theological and Gnostic reasons. Gnostic meaning? 00:15:30.700 --> 00:15:32.759 Gnostic essentially refers to ancient mystical 00:15:32.759 --> 00:15:34.720 belief systems that thought the physical material 00:15:34.720 --> 00:15:36.879 world was evil and only spiritual knowledge could 00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:39.820 save you. It was purely philosophical. In fact, 00:15:39.899 --> 00:15:42.080 the Cathars had very little hostility toward 00:15:42.080 --> 00:15:43.960 the Jewish people themselves. And ironically, 00:15:44.159 --> 00:15:46.360 the Catholic Church actually persecuted the Cathars 00:15:46.360 --> 00:15:48.120 in part because they were seen as too friendly 00:15:48.120 --> 00:15:51.240 towards Jews. That is a stark contrast. It is. 00:15:51.480 --> 00:15:53.720 Positive Christianity. on the other hand, was 00:15:53.720 --> 00:15:56.220 not driven by Gnostic theology or mystical philosophy. 00:15:56.519 --> 00:15:59.360 It was driven entirely by a pseudoscientific, 00:15:59.460 --> 00:16:01.940 racially based hatred of the Jews as a people. 00:16:02.320 --> 00:16:04.860 The Nazis essentially weaponized a historical 00:16:04.860 --> 00:16:07.940 theological quirk to justify a racial ideology. 00:16:08.220 --> 00:16:10.679 So we have this massive, powerful regime with 00:16:10.679 --> 00:16:13.259 all the tools of state control, a manufactured 00:16:13.259 --> 00:16:15.740 intellectual history to back them up, and a plan 00:16:15.740 --> 00:16:19.320 to completely rewrite reality. Did it work? Because 00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:21.799 despite all their power and intimidation, this 00:16:21.799 --> 00:16:24.379 plan actually hit a massive wall. It absolutely 00:16:24.379 --> 00:16:27.200 did. The regime initiated a process they called 00:16:27.200 --> 00:16:29.480 Gleichschaltung, which roughly translates to 00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:31.679 coordination or forcing everything into line. 00:16:31.860 --> 00:16:34.080 They planned to Nazify the Protestant church 00:16:34.080 --> 00:16:37.000 by forcibly unifying 28 historically separate 00:16:37.000 --> 00:16:39.759 state churches under a single monolithic national 00:16:39.759 --> 00:16:42.620 church. One big state church. Right. They wanted 00:16:42.620 --> 00:16:44.799 this new entity controlled by a fiercely pro 00:16:44.799 --> 00:16:47.860 -Nazi faction called the German Christians. But 00:16:47.860 --> 00:16:50.360 when push came to shove in 1933, those radical 00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:52.399 German Christians only managed to control about 00:16:52.399 --> 00:16:56.000 3 ,000 of Germany's 17 ,000 pastors. That is 00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:58.379 a massive shortfall. The vast majority of the 00:16:58.379 --> 00:17:00.519 clergy looked at this and said, absolutely not. 00:17:00.700 --> 00:17:02.759 Right. And the regime's attempts to force it 00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:06.099 through only made things worse. Hitler proposed 00:17:06.099 --> 00:17:09.460 that his friend, a man named Ludwig Müller, who 00:17:09.460 --> 00:17:11.640 was a committed Nazi and a former naval chaplain, 00:17:11.779 --> 00:17:13.960 should serve as the new Reich bishop of this 00:17:13.960 --> 00:17:17.150 unified church. Through aggressive intimidation 00:17:17.150 --> 00:17:19.450 tactics and dissolving competing church organizations, 00:17:19.910 --> 00:17:22.230 they managed to strong -arm Mueller into being 00:17:22.230 --> 00:17:25.309 elected in September 1933. But that backfired. 00:17:25.450 --> 00:17:27.970 Completely. Mueller was an absolute disaster 00:17:27.970 --> 00:17:30.509 for them politically. His heretical views on 00:17:30.509 --> 00:17:32.750 St. Paul and his public arguments against the 00:17:32.750 --> 00:17:34.970 Semitic origins of Jesus and the Bible quickly 00:17:34.970 --> 00:17:37.769 alienated huge, moderate sections of the Protestant 00:17:37.769 --> 00:17:40.769 church. He failed entirely to unite Protestantism 00:17:40.769 --> 00:17:42.529 under the swastika. And that's when the resistance 00:17:42.529 --> 00:17:44.730 actually began to organize in a serious way. 00:17:45.190 --> 00:17:48.150 Pastor Martin Niemöller responded to all of this 00:17:48.150 --> 00:17:50.849 state overreach by founding the Pastors' Emergency 00:17:50.849 --> 00:17:53.369 League. This league was quickly supported by 00:17:53.369 --> 00:17:56.569 nearly 40 % of evangelical pastors. Their entire 00:17:56.569 --> 00:17:59.349 stated goal was to boldly reaffirm the traditional 00:17:59.349 --> 00:18:02.329 Bible against these Nazi edits. A direct challenge. 00:18:02.799 --> 00:18:05.140 Yes, and this movement eventually grew into what 00:18:05.140 --> 00:18:08.339 became known as the Confessing Church. By 1934, 00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:10.640 the Confessing Church officially declared itself 00:18:10.640 --> 00:18:12.500 the legitimate Protestant Church of Germany, 00:18:12.700 --> 00:18:15.640 standing in direct, dangerous defiance of Miller's 00:18:15.640 --> 00:18:18.599 state -sponsored Reich Church. And it wasn't 00:18:18.599 --> 00:18:20.220 just the Protestants pushing back. The Catholic 00:18:20.220 --> 00:18:22.680 Church also resisted the ideological takeover. 00:18:22.740 --> 00:18:25.619 Right. The papal encyclical. Exactly. In 1937, 00:18:25.839 --> 00:18:28.700 Pope Pius XI issued a papal encyclical titled 00:18:28.700 --> 00:18:32.400 Mit Brennender Sorge, which translates to With 00:18:32.400 --> 00:18:35.900 Burning Concern. In it, the Catholic Church explicitly 00:18:35.900 --> 00:18:39.180 denounced the Nazi ideology, stating to the world 00:18:39.180 --> 00:18:41.480 that it contained the idolatry of race, people 00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:45.319 and the state. Now, the regime obviously retaliated 00:18:45.319 --> 00:18:46.930 against this resistance. They didn't just. let 00:18:46.930 --> 00:18:49.809 it happen. In 1935 alone, the Nazis arrested 00:18:49.809 --> 00:18:53.089 700 confessing pastors, throwing many into concentration 00:18:53.089 --> 00:18:56.089 camps. The pressure was immense, and Reich Bishop 00:18:56.089 --> 00:18:58.170 Mueller was eventually forced to resign in total 00:18:58.170 --> 00:19:00.670 failure. But what is truly telling about this 00:19:00.670 --> 00:19:02.950 whole saga is the ultimate collapse of the entire 00:19:02.950 --> 00:19:05.329 positive Christianity initiative. It just fizzled 00:19:05.329 --> 00:19:07.710 out. Yeah. Historian Mary Fulbrook noted in her 00:19:07.710 --> 00:19:10.609 research that as the years went on, the Nazis 00:19:10.609 --> 00:19:12.809 eventually just gave up their attempt to co -opt 00:19:12.809 --> 00:19:15.700 Christianity. It wasn't working. They made little 00:19:15.700 --> 00:19:18.460 pretense at concealing their contempt for Christian 00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:21.539 beliefs and ethics as the war dragged on. I read 00:19:21.539 --> 00:19:24.259 that the situation became so strained that some 00:19:24.259 --> 00:19:26.980 members of the SS actually came to view the pro 00:19:26.980 --> 00:19:29.880 -Nazi German Christians as almost more of a threat 00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:32.259 than the resisting confessing church. Which is 00:19:32.259 --> 00:19:35.940 wild, but true. The SS leadership simply couldn't 00:19:35.940 --> 00:19:38.059 comprehend that anyone would genuinely try to 00:19:38.059 --> 00:19:39.900 combine a commitment to traditional Christianity 00:19:39.900 --> 00:19:42.740 and Nazism. To the SS, you were either loyal 00:19:42.740 --> 00:19:45.099 to the state or you were loyal to a foreign god. 00:19:45.539 --> 00:19:48.599 By the time the regime fell in 1945, positive 00:19:48.599 --> 00:19:50.420 Christianity had failed to replace traditional 00:19:50.420 --> 00:19:53.200 belief and it fell entirely into obscurity as 00:19:53.200 --> 00:19:55.940 a historical movement. So, what does this all 00:19:55.940 --> 00:19:59.019 mean? Why did we take you on this deep dive into 00:19:59.019 --> 00:20:01.839 a failed religious movement from the 1930s today? 00:20:02.279 --> 00:20:04.740 Because this isn't just a history lesson about 00:20:04.740 --> 00:20:08.240 a theological dispute. It is a stark, heavily 00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:11.240 documented case study in how a powerful entity 00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:14.480 can attempt to hijack, hollow out, and completely 00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:17.220 reprogram a society's foundational beliefs. To 00:20:17.220 --> 00:20:20.000 change the labels. Exactly. They didn't try to 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:21.920 ban the religion outright at first. They tried 00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:24.279 to change the labels. They took a concept people 00:20:24.279 --> 00:20:26.859 trusted, called it positive to mask an incredibly 00:20:26.859 --> 00:20:29.759 destructive agenda, and tried to use the comfort 00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:32.240 and familiarity of established traditions. to 00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:35.400 quietly smuggle in a radical exclusionary ideology. 00:20:35.880 --> 00:20:38.200 This raises an important question, and it's something 00:20:38.200 --> 00:20:39.839 I want you to think about long after you finish 00:20:39.839 --> 00:20:41.480 listening today. We've spent this time talking 00:20:41.480 --> 00:20:43.599 about a dictatorship forcing this top down through 00:20:43.599 --> 00:20:46.019 intimidation and arrests. Right. But consider 00:20:46.019 --> 00:20:49.039 the world we live in now, the digital age. If 00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:52.240 a unified digital algorithm slowly started filtering 00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:55.119 out parts of a historical text or suppressing 00:20:55.119 --> 00:20:58.480 specific philosophical arguments across all search 00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:01.890 engines and social feeds over a generation, Would 00:21:01.890 --> 00:21:04.230 we even notice the text was being rewritten? 00:21:04.349 --> 00:21:07.170 Or would we just happily scroll along with our 00:21:07.170 --> 00:21:10.769 own modern, algorithmically curated version of 00:21:10.769 --> 00:21:13.930 a positive truth, completely unaware of what 00:21:13.930 --> 00:21:16.460 had been quietly deleted from our history? That 00:21:16.460 --> 00:21:18.460 is exactly right. The mechanics of manipulation 00:21:18.460 --> 00:21:21.279 change, but the vulnerabilities remain the same. 00:21:21.519 --> 00:21:24.579 It is a powerful reminder to always look past 00:21:24.579 --> 00:21:26.720 the label, no matter how positive someone claims 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:29.119 it is, and examine what is actually written on 00:21:29.119 --> 00:21:31.440 the pages. Thank you so much for joining us at 00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:33.200 the table for this deep dive. We hope it gave 00:21:33.200 --> 00:21:35.099 you something new to think about. Remember to 00:21:35.099 --> 00:21:37.259 always check your sources, look at the deep history 00:21:37.259 --> 00:21:39.599 behind the headlines, and keep asking the hard 00:21:39.599 --> 00:21:41.519 questions. We'll catch you on the next one.