CROSS AND SWASTIKA

Waipa Post, Volume 49, Issue 3555, 8 December 1934, Page 4

CROSS AND SWASTIKA

" There are undoubtedly men among the German Christians who believe sincerely that Nazism caft marshal the people into the Church for the Church's benefit. The militant metaphor they adopt in declaring themselves ' Jesus Christ's Storm Troops' is capable of a, good, as well as a bad, interpretation- But every act of the Reich Bishop has proclaimed him as the fitting head of an organisation devoid of spirit, much more spirituality. " The flags in Berlin cathedral, with the swastika superimposed on the cross, are fatally symbolic. In every country the problem arises of how Christianity can, without derogation from its universality, best shiape its appeal in the light of the national characteristics. That is as natural and as right in Germany ias anywhere. " Unfortunately Germany has today in National Socialism a creed that is almost a religion, but la creed utterly inconsistent in the exclusive narrowness of its nationalism with a Christian faith that preaches a God Who made of one blood all nations of men. Christianity can in one aspect be militant, but it cannot be militant and nothing else. " It can accept! no swastika as its symbol. Even a cross is not enough. For the true symbol of Christianity i s not a cross but a crucifix. The essence of its faith is a. belief in triumph out of apparent failure. It is a religion not of assertion but of sacrifice, of giving rathe?.? than receiving, of reverence for a Founder Who came among men as one tiiat serveth. The antagonism between such a spirit and the temper that animates Nazi Germany to-day stands self-pro-claimed." —The Spectator, London.