I catch a whiff of the 95 theses in this declaration. Excesses of the church, vs its rightful place under divine authority. And excesses of the state, vs its rightful place under divine authority and not over the church.
Church and State are two independent forces. Neither should ever be dependent on the other to aid and carry out the functions of the other. If the Church is rigorously carrying out its scripturally directed Devine Commission, the State will reflect those principles, but should never be expected to substitute for ideals the Church may believe in but fails to be responsible for establishing.
Thank you for this important review of the challenges the Church has faced, and overcome, before. It is a blessing to remember that we, as believers, can stand for righteousness and Christ Alone, thereby be a beautiful witness to the world.
The only quibble I'd make is with your summary of point 3 that the German Church had to contend with. You stated that "As a right-wing ideology, Nazism opposed the left-wing ideology of Marxist Communism." and you cited a Metafact page to support that position. I would disagree with that characterization, and point out that the Metafact summary is conclusory, internally confused, and fallaciously begs the question by not even attempting to define what it means to be "left," "right," or "center," merely concluding where various ideologies fall, and that Nazism is "right-wing."
One of the main rationales that Metafact uses to assign Naziism as "right-wing" is that it is "nationalist," and that nationalist is right-wing - but it also identifies that left-wing ideologies are sometimes also nationalist. However, I believe that undersells the point. In fact, while nationalism is not exclusive to those ideologies, all communist/socialist/Marxist governments have used nationalism as a central tenant of their movements.
However, the ultimate factor that Metafact uses to define Right or Left is the following sentence: "...the National Socialist view is the inequality of people, which eventually led to the racial delusion of the Nazi regime. That is the exact opposite of the ideal of equality in left wing philosophy." If that fact were true, however, then all of the racial essentialists in the Democratic, Socialist, and Marxist parties would actually be "right-wing," because they see distinctions in race, sexual orientation, or gender as fundamental and essential for evaluating all interactions between people of different demographics. & I believe that I could join with the Afrosupremacists in us both agreeing that they are not "right-wing."
Though not particularly relevant here, I think the best, most consistent definition of "right" and "left" is the distinction of proper governmental intervention. The farthest left-wing believes that the government should have total say over legislating all issues, civil, cultural, religious, etc., and that the individual has no say in making those determinations for themselves. Eg. the Marxist, Socialist, and Communist. The farthest right-wing believes there is no proper role of government. E.g. the true Anarchist. Those who believe that gov't has some role, but only to those things minimally necessary to maintain social order, eg. Libertarians, are slightly less far to the right. The Conservative believes that the proper role of gov't is to do those things necessary to prohibit evil, but also to encourage and incentivize good. While the Liberal believes that gov't must prohibit evil, but also to mandate and legislate the "good" through taxation and gov't funded social programs. & The moderates are somewhere between those two, not having a fixed ideological framework to determine what should be done, what must be done, and who is to do it. That framework actually mirrors the inherent imagery of a right or a left wing extending out from a central body, rather than the horseshoe/circular shape that results from asserting that Socialists and National Socialists are actually at the opposite ends of the spectrum, implying that they took totally different paths yet arrived at essentially the same result. The danger in both cases is the individual deferring to the gov't for their moral authority instead of God, and passing responsibility off of themselves by saying "I'm doing what's right because I'm following the laws & mores of society."
.
However, all that to say, I believe that the value of using labels is to quickly inform your reader of your point, without confusion. Unfortunately, given the fact that no one can agree on what "left," "right," "left-wing," or "right-wing" actually mean, using those labels can become counterproductive for effective communication. I believe the substance of your statement in point 3 was essentially correct, but that the words "right-wing" and "left-wing" were unnecessary. If you simply said "Anti-Marxism. Nazism opposed the political movement of Marxist Communism. ...", you would have gotten the same truth across as your original sentence - that merely being the enemy of my enemy does not make you my friend, and we must be cautious of such potential alliances when made out of necessity, so as to not allow their errors to creep in along with their assistance. (as is now true with our mutual opposition with feminists to transgenderism, or was true with the Allied forces' union with the USSR.)
Anyway, thank you again for your words of wisdom & exhortation, brother. & I apologize for the length/rambling nature of my essay here.
May we never come to the time when the state dictates what the church can teach.
I catch a whiff of the 95 theses in this declaration. Excesses of the church, vs its rightful place under divine authority. And excesses of the state, vs its rightful place under divine authority and not over the church.
Church and State are two independent forces. Neither should ever be dependent on the other to aid and carry out the functions of the other. If the Church is rigorously carrying out its scripturally directed Devine Commission, the State will reflect those principles, but should never be expected to substitute for ideals the Church may believe in but fails to be responsible for establishing.
😞😞😞
Thank you for this important review of the challenges the Church has faced, and overcome, before. It is a blessing to remember that we, as believers, can stand for righteousness and Christ Alone, thereby be a beautiful witness to the world.
The only quibble I'd make is with your summary of point 3 that the German Church had to contend with. You stated that "As a right-wing ideology, Nazism opposed the left-wing ideology of Marxist Communism." and you cited a Metafact page to support that position. I would disagree with that characterization, and point out that the Metafact summary is conclusory, internally confused, and fallaciously begs the question by not even attempting to define what it means to be "left," "right," or "center," merely concluding where various ideologies fall, and that Nazism is "right-wing."
One of the main rationales that Metafact uses to assign Naziism as "right-wing" is that it is "nationalist," and that nationalist is right-wing - but it also identifies that left-wing ideologies are sometimes also nationalist. However, I believe that undersells the point. In fact, while nationalism is not exclusive to those ideologies, all communist/socialist/Marxist governments have used nationalism as a central tenant of their movements.
However, the ultimate factor that Metafact uses to define Right or Left is the following sentence: "...the National Socialist view is the inequality of people, which eventually led to the racial delusion of the Nazi regime. That is the exact opposite of the ideal of equality in left wing philosophy." If that fact were true, however, then all of the racial essentialists in the Democratic, Socialist, and Marxist parties would actually be "right-wing," because they see distinctions in race, sexual orientation, or gender as fundamental and essential for evaluating all interactions between people of different demographics. & I believe that I could join with the Afrosupremacists in us both agreeing that they are not "right-wing."
Though not particularly relevant here, I think the best, most consistent definition of "right" and "left" is the distinction of proper governmental intervention. The farthest left-wing believes that the government should have total say over legislating all issues, civil, cultural, religious, etc., and that the individual has no say in making those determinations for themselves. Eg. the Marxist, Socialist, and Communist. The farthest right-wing believes there is no proper role of government. E.g. the true Anarchist. Those who believe that gov't has some role, but only to those things minimally necessary to maintain social order, eg. Libertarians, are slightly less far to the right. The Conservative believes that the proper role of gov't is to do those things necessary to prohibit evil, but also to encourage and incentivize good. While the Liberal believes that gov't must prohibit evil, but also to mandate and legislate the "good" through taxation and gov't funded social programs. & The moderates are somewhere between those two, not having a fixed ideological framework to determine what should be done, what must be done, and who is to do it. That framework actually mirrors the inherent imagery of a right or a left wing extending out from a central body, rather than the horseshoe/circular shape that results from asserting that Socialists and National Socialists are actually at the opposite ends of the spectrum, implying that they took totally different paths yet arrived at essentially the same result. The danger in both cases is the individual deferring to the gov't for their moral authority instead of God, and passing responsibility off of themselves by saying "I'm doing what's right because I'm following the laws & mores of society."
.
However, all that to say, I believe that the value of using labels is to quickly inform your reader of your point, without confusion. Unfortunately, given the fact that no one can agree on what "left," "right," "left-wing," or "right-wing" actually mean, using those labels can become counterproductive for effective communication. I believe the substance of your statement in point 3 was essentially correct, but that the words "right-wing" and "left-wing" were unnecessary. If you simply said "Anti-Marxism. Nazism opposed the political movement of Marxist Communism. ...", you would have gotten the same truth across as your original sentence - that merely being the enemy of my enemy does not make you my friend, and we must be cautious of such potential alliances when made out of necessity, so as to not allow their errors to creep in along with their assistance. (as is now true with our mutual opposition with feminists to transgenderism, or was true with the Allied forces' union with the USSR.)
Anyway, thank you again for your words of wisdom & exhortation, brother. & I apologize for the length/rambling nature of my essay here.
34 counts and still going strong; thank you for the timely history lesson.