Riccosuave , 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

This is an extremely interesting thought experiment, and one that is not without precedent. I left a comment below about the misrepresented and often repeated claims regarding Hitler’s (as well as Nazism more broadly) views on religion, occultism, and atheism.

I bring this up again here because what happened in Germany was essentially the opposite of the proposition you are suggesting. Instead of throwing Jesus out of Christianity, Hitler made a specific and distinct push to remove any perceivedly Jewish teachings from what became German “Positive Christianity”. This included the removal of the Old Testament, the Pauline epistles, and the framing of Jesus as a dogmatic Aryan ideologue who opposed the teachings of Jewish mysticism.

The notion that the modern crypto-fascist & christian-nationalist movements might take the opposite approach by throwing out or obfuscating the teachings of Jesus which they perceive as liberal or socialist in nature and therefore counter to the authoritarian hegemony they seem to be advocating for is a fascinating proposition. I also happen to believe you are correct, and that we have been seeing this happen in real time over the last several decades at least.

I am sincerely afraid that the most damaging threads of the 20th century will be repeated again, and I’m not so sure that humanity is as prepared as it should be to fight against that potentiality. The destruction of education in this country, and the tears in the facade of infinite-growth-capitalism have made the United States the perfect hotbed for this kind of ideology to rise again…