I think what's telling is how those Christians who actually spent time as members of Germany's underground Confessing Church during the Nazi regime. Such as Eberhard Bethge, student, close friend, and biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who found himself deeply troubled by the growing power of the Religious Right in America during the 1980's, especially the growing fusion of American nationalism and Evangelical Christianity.
"Staying in Lynchburg, the headquarters of the Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell, also provided an opportunity for them [the Bethges] to experience the heartbeat of American fundamentalism. The Bethges were particularly bothered by what they experienced when they visited Falwells church because so much that was referred to as American Christianity reminded them of aspects of the German Christianity of the 1930s. Eberhard later wrote,
'As we entered the foyer, an usher stepped forward and gave me two badges to fasten to my lapel: the one on the left said, Jesus First and on the right, one with an American flag
I could not help but think myself in Germany in 1933
Of course, Jesus First, but and American Jesus! And so to the long history of faith and its executors another chapter is being added of a mixed image of Christ, of another syncretism on the American model, undisturbed by and knowledge of that centuries-long and sad history.'
Bethge added some remarks that have an uncanny contemporary ring to them:
'The disturbing fact is this new element, the battle for a Christian nation against humanism. The flag has always been in the churches, but now it has come to represent the new threat of binding the political structure to an ideology, which models a whole new educational system, and a new kind of representation in Washington, and a newly interpreted Constitution.'
For Bethge, who had a great love for the United States and the democratic vision of its Founding Fathers, and who enjoyed visiting there, these signs were disturbing. He could only hope that they would not develop along the lines he feared they might."
(John W. de Gruchy, Daring, Trusting Spirit: Dietrich Bonhoeffers Friend Eberhard Bethge [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005], 200-201.)
The danger is when the Church becomes compliant to a Nationalist Ideology, when Cross and Flag are intertwined. That's the danger.
The great irony is that in the 1930's the right-wing propagandists of the National Socialists managed to draw out from the national pride and patriotism of the people--including the churches--a compliance that would turn the churches into willing acceptance of blaming the scapegoats--the Communists, the Jews, the homosexuals, and all those who were not of the "German way".
-CryptoLutheran
