Don’t blame Christians for the rise of Hitler

THE Protestant work ethic, so called, has many good features, including the creation of wealth. But its redeeming features are necessarily limited, especially when we are faced with physical or human annihilation.

Productivity is not always a gateway to health, happiness or self-fulfilment. Otherwise, sickness, sin, poverty and early death would not be in the Christian lexicon of salvation, but would have been weeded out in favour of an exclusively materialistic “reward for services rendered”.

Yet I would no more blame real Christians — whether Catholic or Protestant — for the rise of Hitler than I would blame Bavarian Catholics for the Fuhrer’s stealthy assault on their freedom and that of Germany as a whole.