Goebbels’ reference to “Christ Socialists” (Christussozialisten) as opposed to “Christian Socialists” (Christliche Sozialisten) emphasizes the nearly evangelical nature of the struggle: An unadulterated return to Christ’s teachings, free of the temporal church, is the only way to German salvation. “The modern man is intrinsically a seeker of God, perhaps a Christman.... We modern Germans are something like Christ Socialists.”Even in private, without the requirements of political expediency that otherwise might have compelled him to cynical posturing, Goebbels similarly wrote: “Speaking does not help. Action! Be socialists of action. There is too little of that. Be true Christians!”’ This emphasis on an active morality, a “practical” Christianity, would be a continuous theme for Goebbels well into the Third Reich.
Many Christians today may have trouble understanding how sincere Christians could also be sincere Nazis, but it was far more common than people know — it was even true about Adolf Hitler:[I]n a private meeting on Nazi economics with his inner circle, held in 1930, Hitler elaborated his ideas on “real” socialism once again, but now with explicit reference to Christ: “It is such a far-reaching and complete conversion that the adult is no longer capable of it. Only youth can be converted, newly aligned and adjusted to the socialist sense of obligation toward the community. For almost two thousand years the Gospel of Christ has been preached, for two thousand years the sense of community has been taught. . . . But today, at the end of these two thousand years, economic liberalism flourishes as never before!” ...For Hitler, the answer to the current state of affairs lay in a resurrection of Christ’s ideas: “As Christ proclaimed ‘love one another’, so our call — ‘peoples’ community’, ‘public need before private greed’, ‘communally-minded social consciousness’ — rings out through the German fatherland! This call will echo throughout the world!” Without reference to a particular variety, “positive” or otherwise, Hitler insists that Christianity is at the center of Nazi social thought. As with Buch and Goebbels, Hitler regards the teachings of Christ as direct inspiration for the “German” socialism advanced by the party.
Agora, claro que isto não depõe sobre os cristãos, do mesmo modo que muçulmanos não podem ser responsabilizados pelos atos de terroristas. Mas, que o socialismo cristão que inspirou nazistas é tão estúpido quanto o fundamentalismo político islâmico, isto é. E a particular similaridade de ambos é que são coletivistas, i.e., descartam a esfera individual, do dissenso, da democracia e do salutar conflito que só são compreendidos dentro do diapasão da filosofia liberal.
