THE SDA/NAZI CONNECTION
Journal of Adventist Mission Studies, Vol. 6 [2010], No. 1, Art. 2
(
SDA publication)
It is estimated that a staggering 55 million people perished during WW II, including the six million Jews—men, women, and children—who died in the ethnic extermination camps and ghettos across Europe (US Holocaust Museum:2008)...
(no mention of the 3 million Polish Catholics and 1000+ priests, italics mine)
...churches in Germany, then looking at the interactions of the
Nazi State and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and concluding with some of the lessons learned from this sad chapter of Adventist history so that hopefully our church will not stumble again over the same issues in the future...(
they already have)
It is mind boggling to attempt to understand how the hermeneutical ...contortions of the leading theologians could excuse and even legitimize such actions against any human being; and yet history sadly attests that it happened. The question we need to ask is:
In all this, where did the Seventh day Adventist Church stand?...
...Following in the footsteps of the Christian majority, the Seventh-day Adventist Church cannot be commended for its actions during the Nazi Regime. Echoing the praises for the rise of Hitler to power,
Adolf Minck, President of the Adventist German Church, penned his satisfaction with the election of Adolf Hitler in the August Edition of Advenbote (the offical periodical of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Germany at that time):
...Another example expressing enthusiasm for the Nazi state was
Wilhem Mueller who went so far as to label Hitler as “chosen by God” for the office of chancellor and praising his similarity with Adventism’s health reform:...
...Not only did the Seventh-day Adventist leadership sing praises to the Nazi government, it even went so far as
“strongly recommending” how its members were to vote in every plebiscite of the Nazi Regime...
...Sadly, in spite of all the praise and official stance that the church took in favor of the government, the Nazi state decided to ban the Adventist Church on November 26, 1933. This ban lasted until December 6, 1933 (Blaich 1994:262)... (
2 weeks)
...The Adventist Church’s pro-government PR campaign became much more aggressive after the ban. It went on to support the notion of the Volkisch state,
ascribing validity to that idea and saying it was in accordance with biblical principles. In the December 1933 edition of Gegenwartsfragen, one of the Adventist periodicals, it proudly proclaimed that “we are part of this revolution as well—as individual Christians and also as a corporate denominational body” (Blaich 1994:264). This type of enthusiastic approval of the state
was not an isolated incident. The acceptance of the Volk concept with its racial undertones, its ideology of ethnic purity, and its implicit proscription of the
Jews due to their racial heritage
was accepted by the Seventh-day Adventist Church as part of the gospel proclamation...
... “While continuing the traditional emphasis on healthful living, Adventist publications
soon adopted elements of the Nazi racial agenda. . . . A curious path led from caritas,
the caring for the less fortunate and weak,
to elimination of the weak, as the work of God” (Blaich 2002:180)...
...The church leadership was aware of this twisting of terms and meanings. G. W. Schubert, vice-president of the German Adventist Church, shared his “faint hope” with a fellow vice
-President of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists that “perhaps this might be the way of the Lord to get the same freedom later on for the distribution of our religious literature” (Blaich 2002:182). That freedom never came and time proved that the compromise was not to be “the way of the Lord.”...
...In a circular passed around on April 4, 1938, the German Union recommended that Adventists
hand the Fuhrer “a thankful ‘yes’” (Blaich 1994:265)...
...Furthering its compromise the
Adventist Church also agreed with the forced sterilization policy, also known as the Eugenics Laws (Blaich 2002:176). At first the opposition to such policies was open and general among the church members and leadership as it was viewed to be a violation of Christian principles. However in response to this resistance
the government responded with an educational campaign that used Adventist journals to defend the new eugenics laws...
...Again, hermeneutical acrobatics were used to defend the government’s position that was based on principles that were completely antagonistic to Adventist beliefs...
...As the eugenics policies became law the opposition to such concepts and legislation
was silenced from Adventist publications. Sterilization was only a first step in this racial attack;
the next step involved the elimination of those who were deemed to be hazardous elements to the German gene pool. (Blaich 2002:180)....
...As a result the leadership of the Adventist Church recommended that their members should submit to the authorities and not bring any problems among themselves or the church (Blaich 1994:270). As the state regulations against religion increased year after year,
the church obeyed them closely in order to avoid a second banishment at the hands of the regime (Pratt 1977:4)...
...the church had little choice but to conform to Nazi standards if it wanted to publish . . .
it is also clear that German Adventist leaders eagerly courted Nazi goodwill by accommodating to the new order” (2002:181).by accommodating to the new order” (2002:181). After the war, the Adventist German leadership reacted by closing ranks and resisted all outside pressures from the General Conference to denounce or proscribe their perceived errors. It appears that the actions taken were wholly justified by the German leadership. In a letter to the General Conference President, J. L. McElhany, Adolf Minck expressed this sentiment of self-defense by rationalizing that they had followed church policy, they had maintained the structure of the church, and also that they had had to adapt to living the commandments according to the times they lived in, times of war, and not peace,
nonetheless maintaining in their minds the holiness of the Decalogue (Minck 1994:277).
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/...g.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1042&context=jams
Again, this is an SDA publication.
"We have so much in
common...how about a date?
