nazism political religion

8/12/2019 Nazism Political Religion

1/23

Wesleyan University

Nazism as a Secular ReligionAuthor(s): Milan BabkReviewed work(s):Source: History and Theory, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Oct., 2006), pp. 375-396Published by: Blackwell Publishingfor Wesleyan UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3874131.

Accessed: 24/01/2012 04:01

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Blackwell Publishingand Wesleyan Universityare collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend

access toHistory and Theory.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=blackhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=wesleyanhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3874131?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/3874131?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=wesleyanhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black


2/23

Historyand Theory45 (October2006), 375-396 ? WesleyanUniversity2006 ISSN: 0018-2656

NAZISM AS A SECULARRELIGION'

MILANBABIK

ABSTRACT

This article examines the implications of Richard Steigmann-Gall'srecent revisionistrepresentationof Nazism as a Christian (Protestant)movement for the increasinglyfashionable accounts of Nazism as a secularor politicalreligion. Contrary o Steigmann-Gall's contention that ProtestantNazism underminesthese accounts, I suggest that hisportrayalof Nazism as a variantof Protestantmillennialism s not necessarily nconsistentwith the secular religion approach.A closer look at the so-called L6with-Blumenbergdebate on secularization ndeed reveals thatmodem utopianismscontainingelements ofProtestantmillennialism are the best candidatesfor the label of secularizedeschatology.ThatSteigmann-Gallhasreachedexactly the oppositeconclusionis primarilybecause hisconceptualunderstanding f secularreligion is uninformedby the secularizationdebate.Insofaras Steigmann-Gall xtractshis modelof secularreligionfromcontemporarypoliti-cal religion historiography n Nazism, this articlepointsto a largerproblem:a disjunctionbetween historiansutilizing the concept, on the one hand, and philosophersand socialtheorists who have shaped t, on the other.

I. INTRODUCTIONIn 2003 the historian Richard Steigmann-Gall published a book in which hetook up the neglected subjectof the Nazis' religious beliefs and challengedtheconventional wisdom that Nazism was either non-Christianor anti-Christian.2In sharpcontrastto this view of Nazi ideas and practice,Steigmann-Galldrewattention to the stunningdegree to which Christianity,and more specificallyProtestantism, was central to Nazi self-understanding. According to him, manytop Nazis comprehended their actions and movement in Christian terms, as amission completing the work of the Reformation in Germany. In a follow-uparticle published one year later, Steigmann-Gall used his revision of Nazi religiousviews as a springboard for an important claim: he rejected the increasingly popularinterpretation of Nazism as a secular or political religion.3 It was not possible to

1.I would iketo expressmythanks o Christopheroker LSE) or his tirelessmentorship;oJenniferWelsh Oxford)orkeepingheexcessesof my graduate ork n check; o thelibrariansatColbyCollege Waterville,Maine)orfetchingall thebooks; o theDulverton rustatOxfordUniversityor thegenerousD.Phil. ellowship; nd inally o the ournal's nonymousefereesortheirhighlyusefulcomments.Whatevermistakes,omissions,andmisinterpretationsemainareentirelymyown.2. RichardSteigmann-Gall,heHoly Reich:Nazi Conceptions f Christianity,919-1945(Cambridge,ng.:Cambridgeniversityress,2003).3. Richard teigmann-Gall,Nazism nd he Revivalof PoliticalReligionTheory, otalitarianMovementsand Political Religions(hereafterTMPR)5, no. 3 (2004), 376-396.


3/23

376 MILANBABIKdescribe Nazism as a secularreligion precisely because its ideological contentwas no modem irreligious ersatz for Christianity,but traditionalChristianityitself, albeit highly unorthodoxand with a strongracialistbent. Is Steigmann-Gall'sunderstanding f the implicationsof his portrayalof Nazism correct?Is hisrejectionof the secularization hesis valid? Does his representation f Nazism asa Protestantmovementnecessarilyundermine he interpretation f Nazism as asecularreligion?In the following article I suggestthat while Steigmann-Gall's evision of Naziconceptionsof Christianity epresentsa welcome additionto accounts of Nazismas a form of neo-paganism,his claim concerning he implicationsof this revisionfor the interpretation f Nazism as a secularreligion is deeply problematic.Hisdismissalof thesecularreligionapproach tandsonanuntenablynarrow onceptionof secularization s a tool of historicalunderstanding.n otherwords,I take issuenot with Steigmann-Gall'sdepiction of Nazism as a Protestantmovement,butwiththemodel of secularreligionagainstwhich he subsequently valuates t. Thismodelignores hefinerpointsof secularizationheory; trepresents nlya truncatedversion of the muchmorerigorousmodelof secularizationdeveloped n the debatebetween KarlLiwith and HansBlumenberg, espectivelythe mainproponentandthe maincritic of the secularizationhesis in the areaof historical heory.The model presupposedby Steigmann-Galldefines secularreligion in strictlyfunctionalist erms:as anirreligioussurrogateorChristianity.nthis functionalistperspective,a movementqualifiesas a secularreligion if its ideationalcontent snon-Christian r anti-Christian;ts link to Christianity onsists solely in servingthe same functionas Christianity:he act of hopingandbelieving. Althoughthismodel of secularreligion as a functionalsubstitute or traditional schatologyisvalid, it is not complete.A carefulreadingof the L6with-Blumenbergdebate onsecularization ndicates that the bridge between traditionaland secular religionmayextendbeyondfunction to content.Indeed,where the movementor ideologyin question(in this case Nazism) displayscontinuityof content andconsciouslyadvances Christian deas, its statusas secularizedeschatology tends to be evenbetter-foundedhan in the case of only functionalcontinuity.Inlightof theL6with-Blumenbergdebate,Steigmann-Gall's evisionof Nazismas a Protestantmovement thus does not undermine he interpretation f Nazismas a secularreligion, but tends to make this interpretationmore plausible.Thisresultmay seem counterintuitive,or how could Nazism be Christianand secularat the same time? The key to this apparentpuzzle lies in recognizingthat in thecontext of secularizationtheory the term secularization does not necessarilysignify de-Christianization,but primarilythe process of orientingtranscendent(Augustinian)eschatology to this world (ad sceculum):nvesting the allegoricalcategoriesof the biblical storyof salvationwith temporal,historicalsignificance.Protestantmillennialism, originating in the theological historism of medievalmystics such as Joachim of Floris, secularizesAugustinian eschatology whileremainingconsciously andopenly Christian.I begin with a brief overview andevaluationof Steigmann-Gall'spathbreakingstudy, The Holy Reich, and the subsequentarticle in which he used the thesisadvanced n this book to rejectthe interpretationf Nazism as a secularreligion.


4/23

NAZISMAS A SECULARRELIGION 377While discussinghis challengeto the secularization hesis, I pay specialattentionto explicatingthe model of secularizationpresupposed n his critiquein order todemonstratehathe comprehends ecularizationn strictly unctionalist erms.Thenext section focuses on secularization heoryandrepresents he mainpartof thepaper.Its purposeis to presentL6with's secularization hesis andBlumenberg'scriticism of it, to evaluate the debate, and to achieve a nuanced grasp ofsecularizationas a theoreticalmodel illuminatingthe transitionfrom Christianeschatology to the modem idea of progress.It will be seen that Blumenberg'syardstick for evaluating modem progressivism as secularized extensions ofChristianprovidentialism enterspreciselyon the issue of continuityof ideationalcontent:a particularnstanceof themodem metanarrative f progress suchas theNazi ideaof progress o theThirdReich) maybe deemedsecularizedeschatologyonly if itpossesses thesamesubstanceof ideas as traditionalChristian schatology.Functionalcontinuity,or what Blumenbergterms functionalreoccupation, sinsufficientby itself. The conclusion of the essay interprets Steigmann-Gall'sProtestantNazism in light of the Lbwith-Blumenbergdebate on secularization.By demonstrating that Nazism had Christian content, Steigmann-Gall hasunwittinglymet the test of secularreligion proposedby secularization heory'smost rigorouscritic. If Steigmann-Gallreaches the oppositeconclusion and seesProtestantNazism as runningcounter to the secular religion approach,this isbecause he lacks morethoroughawarenessof secularization heory.Insofaras heextracts his understanding f secularization rom contemporarypoliticalreligionhistoriographyon Nazism, the lack of awareness is more extensive. Secularreligion historiographywouldprofitfrombecomingmoretheoretical.

II. PROTESTANTNAZISM AS RELIGIOUSPOLITICSRATHERTHANPOLITICAL SECULAR)RELIGION

Since the early 1990s, historiansof interwarEuropehave increasinglyturned opolitical religion theoryin an effort to understandbetter the legitimacyof ItalianFascism,GermanNazism,andSovietBolshevism.4Muchof this recentscholarshiprests on two broadbackgroundassumptions: hata sense-makingcrisis occurredin Europe following the Nietzschean Death of God that was acceleratedbythe Great War, and that totalitarianmovements successfully garneredloyaltyand supportby erectingnew surrogatedeities. As Emilio Gentile has writtenina widely cited articlelaying out the semantic and conceptualframework or thestudyof totalitarianismhrough he optic of political religion: Preciselybecauseit ... has swept away age-old collective beliefs and institutions,modernityhas

4. Main texts include Emilio Gentile, The Sacralizationof Politics: Definitions, Interpretationsand Reflections on the Questionof Secular Religion and Totalitarianism, ransl. Robert Mallett,TMPR 1, no. 1 (2000), 18-55; Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy (Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1996); Totalitarismusund Politische Religionen: KonzeptedesDiktaturvergleichs, d. Hans Maier andMichaelSchhifer, vols. (Paderborn: ch6ningh,1996, 1997,2003); Philippe Burrin, Political Religion: The Relevance of a Concept, History and Memory9, no. 1 (1997), 321-349; Roger Griffin, The Palingenetic Political Community: RethinkingtheLegitimationof TotalitarianRegimes in Inter-WarEurope, TMPR3, no. 3 (2002), 24-43; andMichaelBurleigh, NationalSocialism as a Political Religion, TMPR1, no. 2 (2000), 1-26.


5/23

378 MILANBABiKcreatedcrisis and disorientation--situationswhich have, in turn, led to the re-emergenceof the religious question, even if this has led the individualto turnnot to traditional eligion,but to look to new religionsthatsacralizethehuman. 5Often non-Christianor anti-Christian n their ideological content, totalitarianmovementsnonethelessfurnished new objectsof worshipby elevating worldly,political entities (state, nation, race, class) to the level formerly occupied bythe transcendent dols of Christianity. n the sphereof historicalconsciousness,Christian eschatology was replaced with secular salvationism or, in RogerGriffin's erminology, palingenesis :heidea of historyasrevolutionaryprogressto utopian society founded on a new, revitalizedtype of humanbeing.6Wherereligious faith once led the Christianbeliever to imagine history as a processguidedby divineprovidenceto theKingdomof God,reason now enabledmodernGermansorRussiansto view historyas aprocess propelledbythe scientific aw ofrace or class to the racially pureThirdReich or the classless Third International.

Among English-speaking historians of Nazi Germany, probably the mainproponent f thepoliticalreligionapproach asbeen MichaelBurleigh,whose ThirdReich:A New Historyopens with the contention hat theoriesof totalitarianismhaverarelybeenincompatiblewith theoriesof politicalreligion; 7 e subsequentlyutilizes thelatter nterpretiveens as a vitalcomplement o the much morecommonformerone. Burleigh'swritingsconveniently llustrate he meaningof politicalorsecularreligion in recenthistoriography n Nazism. Political religion is sharplydistinguished rom authenticChristianreligion, which, as Burleighemphasizes,Nazism diligently bashedover the head with science.8Hitler's words at thePartyCongressGrossdeutschlandn Nurembergn 1938 provideBurleighwith agood demonstration f this point: NationalSocialism, the Fiihrer nsisted, is acool andhighly reasonedapproach o realitybaseduponthe greatestof scientificknowledgeandits spiritualexpression. 'The essence of Nazi religiositythus liesfor Burleighin the ideology's hypertrophiedationalityand scientism:the beliefthattheRassenprinzips the meaningof history, heconvictionthatracescienceisthepathway o the millennialReich,andthevariousritualsof nationalconsecrationbasedon thesesuppositions.'0n thisvein,Nazism was neithergenuinescience norgenuineChristianity, ut a grotesqueparodyof both.Burleighhas no doubt hat tssanctificationof the Volkon the basis of blood must have induced nausea n anyfastidiousrationalistor personof genuine religiousfaith.

5. Gentile, Sacralizationf Politics, 0-31.6.Griffin, PalingeneticoliticalCommunity, 0.Palingenesiss an ntegrallement f Gentile'sinterpretationf totalitarianism nd secularreligionas well. See Gentile, Sacralizationof Politics,19, and his subsequentdefense of the interpretationn Gentile, Fascism,Totalitarianism ndPoliticalReligion:Definitions nd CriticalReflections n Criticism f an Interpretation,ransl.NataliaBelozentseva,MPR, no. 3 (2004),326-375.7. MichaelBurleigh,TheThirdReich:ANewHistoryNewYork:HillandWang,2000),18.8.Ibid.,254.9. Hitler:Speeches ndProclamations,932-1945:TheChroniclef a Dictatoriship,d. MaxDomarus,ransl.ChrisWilcoxandMaryFranGilbert, vols.(London:.B.Tauris, 990-),II,1146,speechdatedSeptember, 1938,quotednBurleigh, hirdReich,253.10. For an extensivediscussionof scientismas the religionof totalitarianism,ee TzvetanTodorov, Totalitarianism:etweenReligionandScience, ransl.BradyBrower ndMaxLikin,TMPR, no. 1(2001),28-42.11.Burleigh, hirdReich,264.


6/23

NAZISMAS A SECULARRELIGION 379Yet this vilkisch religion, too dogmatic to pass for genuine science and tooblasphemousto pass for genuine religion, was precisely what appealedto the

graymasses of everydayGermansconscious of the Deathof God andyearningfor somethingelse to take the place of His Kingdomas the meaningof existence.Burleigh captures this psychological dynamic by quoting time and again theFrenchRomanticnationalistMichelet: It s fromyou thatI shallaskforhelp, mynoble country,you must take the place of the God who escapes us, thatyou mayfill within us the immeasurableabyss which extinctChristianityhas left there. '2The Nazi mastermindsrecognizedthis vast spiritualabyss and quickly filled itwith surrogate deals. Theirsuccess in securingpopularand intellectualsupportfrequentlyextending to self-sacrifice resulted from their ability to wrap theirsecularvilkisch ideology in religious forms andrituals,thatis, from theirabilityto sacralize he Volk.'3 urleigh'smodel of secularreligion broadlyconvergeswithGentile's.Both echo GeorgeMosse's earlier hesis that For heNational Socialist[the]basic [Christian] ormcould not be abandoned,but shouldsimply be filledwith a differentcontent, '4or Fritz Stem's claim that Nazism was a Germanicreligion whichhid beneathpiousallusionsto ... the Bible a most thoroughgoingsecularization.The religious tone remained,even after the religious faith and thereligiouscanons haddisappeared. '

Againstall suchportrayals f Nazismas eitheranti-Christian, on-Christian, rChristianonly cynically,on the surfaceand forother ulteriormotives, Steigmann-Gall has recently lodged a powerful objection. For many of its leaders, hesuggestedonthebasis of hisextensivedoctoralresearch, Nazismwas not theresultof a 'Death of God' in secularizedsociety,but rathera radicalizedand singularlyhorrificattempt o preserveGodagainst secularizedsociety. '6WhereasBurleigh,Gentile,andotherexponentsof Nazismas a secularreligionpostulate hatNazismacknowledgedthe abdication of Christianityas irreversibleand counteredtheconsequentspiritualdisenchantmentwith alternativedols, Steigmann-Gallnsiststhat Nazismwas a genuinelyChristian eaction.Christianity, ccording o him,didnotconstitute barrieroNazism.Quite heopposite: ormany topNazis], hebattleswagedagainstGermany'snemies onstituted war n thenameofChristianity.... They]believed heyweredefending oodby wagingwaragainst vil, fightingor GodagainstDevil, orGermangainst ew.Theywereconvincedhat heirmovement idnotmean hedeath f God,but hepreservationf God.

Withrespectto the Nazi conceptionof history,the narrativeof progressto theThirdReich was not merely generic utopianism,relatedto biblical eschatologysolely on the basis of structuraldentity.The identityextended beyond form to

12. Quoted in Burleigh, NationalSocialism as a Political Religion, TMPR 1, no. 2 (2000),6, and again in Burleigh, PoliticalReligion and Social Evil (The CardinalBasil Hume MemorialLectures), TMPR3, no. 2 (2002), 5.13. In Burleigh'swords, fundamentalenets[of Christianity]werestrippedout,buttheremainingdiffuse religiousemotionalityhadits uses (ThirdReich, 256).14. GeorgeL. Mosse, TheNationalizationof the Masses (New York:Fertig, 1975), 80.15. Fritz Stern,The Politics of CulturalDespair: A Studyin the Rise of the GermanicIdeology(Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress, 1974), xxv.16. Steigmann-Gall,HolyReich, 12.17. Ibid., 261.


7/23

380 MILANBABiKcontent,which is to say thatNazi utopianismwas conscious Christianutopianism.Rather hananew winepoured nto oldbottles,apostasycustom-designed o fit themold of vacatedeschatologicalidioms, for Steigmann-Gall he Third Reich wasthe old wine itself: theChristian,and morespecificallyProtestant,millennium.Farfromrepresentinga substitute or the Kingdomof God, the Reich was imaginedby manytop Nazis as the Holy Reich-the title of Steigmann-Gall'sbook.

Steigmann-Gall's evision of Nazi views of Christianity mphasizesespeciallythe notionof positive Christianity, doptedunderPoint 24 of the NSDAP PartyProgram(1920) as the official standpointof the party.This was not merely apolitical ploy and an ad hoc concoction of ideas aimed at securingvotes, but areligious system possessing an innerlogic andreflectingthe sincere convictionsof its proponents.18 ummarizedby Steigmann-Gallas a syncretic mix of thesocial and the economic tenets of confessional Lutheranismand the doctrineand ecclesiology of liberal Protestantism, 19ositive Christianityencapsulateda nationalistand racist theology that appropriated esus as the original Aryansocialist and anti-Semite, proposed to bridge the long-standing confessionaldivide in Germany n favor of a single Reich Church,and tended to define itselfin oppositionto negativeChristianity :Christianityas it actuallymaterializednhistory,hijackedby SatandwellinginJerusalem,Rome, andfinally, n theMarxistdisguise, in Moscow as well. If thepositiveChristianswithin the NSDAP rejectedChristianity, hen it was only the historicalkind, and only in orderto excavatefromunderneathts edifice the authenticanduncorruptedChristianity:heirown.These Nazis, writes Steigmann-Gall, staked a discursive claim to representthe 'true'political manifestationof Christianity.They all held that Christianitywas a centralaspect of their movement, shapedits direction,or in some caseseven helped explain Nazism. 20 If historians are to remain faithful to the Naziworldview,the Nazi struggle againstthe Jews, Marxism,and liberalism mustberepresentedas a religious struggle,a missionto completethe Reformation.

Steigmann-Gallclearly recognizes that not all Nazis were positive Christiansand that the NSDAP contained a second principalcurrentof religious thought:paganism, spearheadedby Alfred Rosenbergandincludingother notablefiguressuch as Himmler.In this case the attemptat supplantingChristianitywith anersatz religion, markinga returnto pre-ChristianNordic myths such as Wotan,was undeniable.Unlike positive Christians,who saw the Protestantclergy as avital ally if only it would reformitself in compliancewith a Nazi ideology thatembodiedthe truemessageof ChristandLuther, orpaganistseven theestablishedProtestantismwas too Romanized and hence had to be abandoned.21 et inproposinga new vdlkischreligion to replaceit, not even the paganistsdispensedwith Protestantism n toto,according o Steigmann-Gall.As he writes, Rosenbergin particular, onvinced that he had successfully outlined a new religious beliefsystem, salvaged many dimensionsof the Christianworldview for his new, un-Christianfaith. 22That the paganistsfrequently displayed fierce anticlericalism

18. Ibid., 14, 49, 262.19. Ibid., 262-263.20. Ibid.,49.21. Ibid., 112.22.Ibid.,262.


8/23

NAZISM AS A SECULARRELIGION 381didnotprevent hemfromveneratingJesus as thearchetypalAryananti-Semiteorfromclaimingas their ntellectual orefathersa numberof Christian hinkerssuchas Lutheror, in Rosenberg'scase, the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart.Whatis more, even if their break with Christianitywere complete and theirproposedersatzreligion trulyuncontaminated y the Bible, Steigmann-Gallnotes thatthepaganistsnevermanagedto achieve hegemony withinthe NSDAP.RepresentingNazism as a secular religion presupposesascribingto the paganists a kind ofweight and recognitionthatthey did not possess, aside from glossing over theircontinuing allegianceto elements of Christian pirituality.

When, a year afterpublishingTheHoly Reich, Steigmann-Gall urned o spellout the negative implicationsof his revision of Nazi conceptionsof Christianityfor representationsof Nazism as a political religion, the move displayedsimilaritieswith the Greek nvasion of Troy.ThejournalTotalitarianMovementsand Political Religion, foundedin 2000 and with Burleigh,Gentile, and Griffinamong its past and presenteditors, has served as the preeminentforum for allmajor contemporaryproponentsof the political religion approach;Steigmann-Gall was commissioned to insert his opposition in the very capital:the specialissue on Nazism as a political religion. A considerableportion of his essayreiteratedhis readingof Nazism as a Protestantmovement: Far from being asecularistmovementreplacingChristianitywith a new objectof worship,Nazismsought to defend Germansociety against secularization. 23or Steigmann-Gall,Nazism was no political or secularreligion, but rather religious politics, thatis, politics in conformitywith Christian(Protestant)precepts.More interestingthan this repetitionof the argument rom his book, however,is Steigmann-Gall'sexplanationas to why so manyhistorianshave mistakenlytaken to representingNazism as a political religion.One reason he detects is the unwarrantedendencyto treatRosenbergand the paganistwing of the NSDAP as representativeof theoverall Nazi worldview.Themainreason,however, s theopticof politicalreligionitself. As Steigmann-Gallunderstands this optic, it accords disproportionateattention o the form andfunction of Nazi religiousbeliefs, which obscuresfromit the substanceof these beliefs.Steigmann-Gall'smodel of political religion is based on his survey of thepolitical religion literatureon Nazism, includingworksby Burleigh,Mosse, andStem. This survey leads him to assert that political religion theory emphasizesNazi form (the hypnotic power of a new charismaticfaith) over Nazi content(the message of thatreligion and to whom it appealed). 24 or Steigmann-Gall,the political religion approachto Nazism in many ways manifests the recentculturalist urn n the human sciences. It was this turn--the expansionof historyto culturalhistory,the broadeningof its subjectmatterbeyond timeless texts toencompassvariousculturalpracticesand institutions thathas enabledtheabove-named scholarsto discoverformaland functional dentitiesbetween Nazism andChristianityand,based on these identities,to portrayNazism as anersatzreligion.Yet Steigmann-Gall'skey point is that the increased sensitivity to culture hascome at a cost: decreasedempiricism.Analysesof Nazi aesthetics and ritualhave

23. Steigmann-Gall, Nazism and the Revival of PoliticalReligion Theory, 376.24. Ibid., 377.


9/23

382 MILANBABIKtakenthe advocatesof the politicalreligionapproachawayfrom the substanceofthe ideology. In Steigmann-Gall'swords, Thepolitical religion thesis presumesthe attraction o Nazism was basedon emotioninsteadof idea,on forminsteadofcontent. Whatever he Nazi 'platform'may have been is deemed irrelevant,or atbest secondary.The 'religion'of political religiontheory[is] the act of believing,not that which is believed. 25This overly functionalist definition of religion isdirectly responsiblefor the misrepresentation f Nazism as a surrogatereligion.Had scholarssuch as Burleighor Mosse paidmore attention o the content of theNazi ideology, they would have found that the narrativeof progressto the ThirdReich was notmerely structurally nalogous o Christian Protestant) schatology,but thatit was Christianeschatology.Steigmann-Gallrejectsthe secularreligioninterpretationf Nazismpreciselybecause Nazism was identical to Protestantismnotjust formallyandfunctionally,butin contentas well.Is Steigmann-Gall's representationof Nazism as a Protestant movementconvincing,and if so, does this warranthis subsequentrejectionof Nazism as apoliticalor secularreligion?Concerning he firstquestion,for all his revisionismSteigmann-Gall s ratherpersuasive.Whether or not his Holy Reich dislodgesrepresentations f Nazism as paganism,it adds to them an importantcorrective.For each public statementdistancing Nazism from religion, Hitler made onelike the following: WhocomprehendsNational Socialism merely as a politicalmovementknows almost nothingabout it. It is more even thanreligion:it is thewill to a new creation of man. 26Hitler's relentless claims to personify God,the LordAlmighty, or Providence are well-documented.27His privatetabletalk does repeatedlydemonizeChristianityas theheaviest blow thatever struckhumanity, 28utnot withoutsalvagingJesus with the contention hat Christwasan Aryan. 29Depicting Hitler as a consistent paganist is thus dubious becausehis anticlericalismdid not necessarilymean the absence of some other, different,highly unorthodoxChristianspirituality(what Steigmann-Gallcalls positiveChristianity ) nd also because Hitler was a virtuosoof self-contradiction.Whenit comes to Rosenberg,Steigmann-Gall'sdetectionof Christianelements in thethought of this preeminentNazi paganist is equally plausible-and not evenso novel. Claus-EkkehardBirsch had already argued in 1997 that althoughRosenberg rejects Jewish-Christian monotheism, he is no neo-pagan.' 30Rosenberg'sreverence for MeisterEckhartwas notedabove, and the God whomthe medievalDominicanmystic immanentized n the Aryansoul was none otherthan heChristianone. From HitlerandRosenbergone couldproceedtoGoebbels,who had contemplated turning the NSDAP into a church, on one occasion

25. Ibid., 380.26. Quotedin ManfredAch and ClemensPentrop,Hitlers Religion :PseudoreligidseElementeimnationalsozalistischenSprachgebrauchMunich:ArbeitsgemeinschaftiirReligions-und Weltan-schauungsfragen, 977),48. The volumecontainsa collection of morethan200 of Hitler'sutterances,publicandprivate,documentinghis pseudo-Christianity.27. See, for example,Domarus, ed., Hitler:Speechesand Proclamations, 1932-1945, I, 28-32.28. Hitler's Table Talk,transl.NormanCameron and R. H. Stevens (London:WeidenfeldandNicolson, 1953), 7, entryno. 4 (July 11/12, 1941).29. Ibid., 143, entryno. 75 (December 13, 1941).30. Claus-EkkehardBiirsch, Alfred RosenbergsMythus des 20. Jahrhundertsals politischeReligion, in Maier andSchiifer,eds., Totalitarismus nd Politische Religionen,II, 236.


10/23

NAZISM AS A SECULARRELIGION 383expressedthewish to be anapostleandpreacher 31f the Nazi idea,and nvestedhis diaries with a significantamountof religious language. Overall, there wasenoughreligionin Nazi self-presentationo promptworries n the Vatican hattheGermanfaithful might considerNazism an authenticChristianmovement.The1937 encyclical Mit brennenderSorge,writtenby Pope Pius XI andSecretaryofStateEugenio Pacelli (soon to become Pius XII), issued the following warning:Whoeverdoes not wish to be a Christianought at least to renouncethe desireto enrich the vocabularyof his unbelief with the heritageof Christian deas. 32In veiled but unmistakableterms, the castigation targeted especially Hitler'sblasphemousclaims to know God's will and the providentialpathof history tosalvation, which is to say, it was in many respects a castigationfrom Catholic(Augustinian) transcendentalists o a Protestant (Joachite) millennialist. Thistends furtherto corroborateSteigmann-Gall'sthesis that many Nazis imaginedtheir mission within the frameworkof positive Christianity.That this was not thepapaldefinitionof Christianitys a differentmatter.If Steigmann-Gall's narrative of Protestant Nazism is quite persuasive,however, his elaborationof its implications for interpretationsof Nazism as asecular or political religion seems to me much less successful. Contrary o hiscritiqueof politicalreligiontheory n the special issue of TotalitarianMovementsand Political Religions, I suggest that ProtestantNazism does not necessarilyundermineNazism as a secular religion. The two optics are not inconsistent.This is apparentalreadyfrom,for example, Birsch's readingof Rosenberg.As Iindicated n the precedingparagraph,Birsch broadly convergeswith Steigmann-Gall in arguingthat the thoughtof the leading Nazi paganistwas in fact muchmore Christian hanis commonly assumed.In some ways, Birsch's revision ofRosenbergis even more radical thanSteigmann-Gall's; he latter does not go sofar as to deny Rosenberg's paganism.Yet for Barsch, representingRosenbergas an essentially Protestant hinkerdeeply influencedby MeisterEckhartservesto demonstrateRosenberg's political religion, not to undermine t. For Birsch,Rosenberg's racialist Protestantismforms the very backbone of his secularreligion;this meansthat a broadlysimilardescriptionof RosenberghaspropelledBirsch to a positionexactly oppositeto the one reachedby Steigmann-Gallwithregard o the validityof the secularreligion approach o Nazism.This discrepancy ervesas a convenientpointof departureor the next section,which delves into secularizationheoryin order to arguethat secularizationdoesnot necessarilypresupposede-Christianization.n fact, if the Lwith-Blumenbergdebateon secularization erves as anyindication,a modemprogressivism suchasthe Nazi ideologyof the ThirdReich)has the best chanceof assuringtself the statusof secularized schatology f it retainsProtestantmillennialismn its content.

III.THE LOWITH-BLUMENBERGDEBATEON SECULARIZATION

Secularization s a generictermencompassinga wide rangeof meanings,suchas the process of separationof church and state, or the more general process

31. Die Tagebiucher onJosephGoebbels:StimtlicheFragmente,ed. ElkeFrohlich Munich:Saur,1987), I, 160, entrydatedFebruary11, 1926.32. Quotedin Burleigh, PoliticalReligion, 17.


11/23

384 MILANBABiKof abandoningdogma and religious modes of thinkingin favor of reason andscience. It is consequentlyimperative o be precise as to what the termsignifiesin this article. Secularization s a theoreticalconstructemployed by social andintellectual historians to understandbetter the complex relationshipbetweenmodern historical consciousness and Judeo-Christian or biblical historicalconsciousness. I want to investigatein this section the propositionthat modemphilosophy of history, dominatedby categories of reason, progress, and idealsociety,is a secularizedversionof Christian schatology,dominatedby categoriesof faith,divineprovidence,and heaven.Variants f thispropositionarenot difficult o find ntwentieth-century istoricaland social theory.A numberof eminentscholarshadcome to the conclusionthatmodem progressivismsomehow continuedChristian salvationism.Among theearliest was the Yale historianCarlBecker, who suggested that the eighteenth-century philosophesdemolished the Heavenly City of St. Augustine only torebuild t with moreup-to-datematerials, 33nd that Thepictureof salvation nthe Heavenly City ... [was translatednto an image] of a 'future state'. . . or amore generalizedearthlyand socialfilicitj orperfectibilitodu genre humain. 34ForBecker, modemphilosophydismissed the otherworldlyutopiaof Christianityas religious superstition,but not withoutreinstating t on worldly foundations:as an earthly paradise achievable through progress in reason and science.Becker's contemporary,Reinhold Niebuhr, professor at Union TheologicalSeminary n New York,also contendedthat modem philosophyof historyrestedon eschatological foundations.According to Niebuhr,Christianfaith, with itsemphasis on historical time as flowing forward to a significantfuture, hasanaffinitywiththemodem sense of history.It is indeedthe soil out of whichmodemhistoricalconsciousness grew. 35rom Niebuhr one could go on to ErnestLeeTuveson,who diagnosedprogressas the transformation f the greatmillennialistexpectationandargued hat It s not inaccurate o speakof 'progress'as a 'faith,'for it signifiedconfidence in a new kindof Providence the historicalprocess. 36The role of divine providencewas transferred o natural aws; the AugustiniancivitasDei metamorphosednto social utopia.Lest it be thoughtthattheorizing progressas Providencereincarnatedwas anexclusivelyAmericanorAnglophonephenomenon,othersengagedintheendeavorincludedRaymondAron and Nicolas Berdyaev.Aron resortedto secularizationtheory n 1939, regardedhimself as thefatherof the term secularreligion, andhad writtenseveralessays utilizingthe concept.38He spelled out his definitionofit most clearly in the article TheFutureof SecularReligions, published n La

33. CarlL. Becker,TheHeavenly Cityof theEighteenth-Centuryhilosophers(New Haven:YaleUniversityPress, 1932), 31.34. Ibid.,48-49.

35. Reinhold Niebuhr,Faith and History: A Comparison of Christianand Modern Views ofHistory(London:Nisbet, 1949), 42.36. Ernest Lee Tuveson, Millennium and Utopia: A Study in the Background of the Idea ofProgress [1949] (New York:HarperandRow, 1964), xi-xii.37. Brigitte Gess, Die Totalitarismuskonzeptionon RaymondAron und HannahArendt, nMaier andSchhifer,ds., TotalitarismusundPolitischeReligionen,I, 264-265.38. Manyof them arecollected under LesReligions S6culibres, n RaymondAron,Une histoiredu vingtidme idcle, ed. ChristianBachelier(n.p.:Plon, 1996), 139-222.


12/23

NAZISM AS A SECULARRELIGION 385France libre in 1944: I proposeto call 'secularreligions' the doctrinesthat inthe soul of our contemporaries akethe place of a vanishedfaith and situate...humanity'ssalvation .. in this world,in the distant uture, n the form of a socialorder hathas to be created. 39As forBerdyaev, hisgreatRussianphilosopherandtheologianassertedthat theancient belief in the realization .. of the Kingdomof God, the reign of perfection,truthandjustice . .. becomes secularized n thedoctrine of progress. 40 he modem strivingto rationalizethe Judeo-Christianmyth of salvationinto narrativesof inevitable advancementstruckBerdyaevasperverseandfarcical.This list of thinkers s by no means-exhaustive.CarlSchmitt,JacobTaubes,andEric Voegelin are some of the most significantomissions. Rather than considerso many differentfigures, however, I want to focus on only one, the GermanphilosopherKarl L6with (1897-1973), whose Meaning in History I deem theprincipalstatementof the secularization hesis. One reason that I constrainthediscussion n thismanner s in order o avoidconstructingaschoolof secularizationtheoristswheretheremighthave beennone,althougha moreextensiveandnuancedstudy of the various figures would likely reveal a significantdegree of sharedlanguageandideas.41Ultimately,however,my main reasonfor giving all attentiontoL6withis that t is primarily o him thatHansBlumenbergaddresses hecritiqueof secularization heory.L6with is for Blumenberg he key representative f whatthe lattercomprehendsunderthe rubricof secularization n the area of historicaltheory: [the] thesis that modem historical consciousness is derived from thesecularizationof the Christian dea of the 'salvation story' [Heilsgeschichte]... 42Whatmay be called the L6with-Blumenbergdebate is certainlynot the onlyforum n which secularizationhas been subjected o criticalscrutiny. t would bepossible to choose a differentavenue to expose and evaluate the concept, suchas PeterGay's general argument hatthe eschatological-utopianelements of theEnlightenmenthave been overemphasized- an argument ormulated n partbydiscussingthe claims made by Becker in the 1930s.43Yet no otherexchange onthe subjectof secularizationwas nearlyas direct,protracted,andphilosophicallyrigorousas the one between L6with andBlumenberg.The first edition of L6with's Meaning in Historycame out in 1949, the sameyearthat saw the appearanceof Tuveson'sMillenniumand Utopiaand Niebuhr'sFaith in History.44Niebuhrpicked up L6with's book right away and gave it a

39. Aron, L'avenirdes religionss6culibres, n Une histoire, 153.40. Nicolas Berdyaev,The Meaningof History,transl.George Reavey (London:GeoffreyBles,1936), 186. See also the excellent discussionof secularization hat ensues on pp. 187-192.41. For instance, Lowith's Meaning in History, discussed below as the main statementof thesecularizationthesis, refers repeatedlyto Berdyaev's above-mentionedMeaning of History; andTuveson's Millenniumand Utopiacites with approvalBecker'sHeavenlyCity.

42. HansBlumenberg,TheLegitimacyof the ModernAge, transl.RobertM. Wallace(Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press, 1983), 27. Note thatBlumenberg'sdefinitioncorresponds o the definitionspeci-fied at the outset of this section.43. See PeterGay, CarlBecker's HeavenlyCity, Political Science Quarterly72, no. 2 (1957),

182-199;Gay, The Science ofFreedom, vol. 2 of TheEnlightenment:AnInterpretation 1969] (NewYork:Norton, 1996); andGay, TheParty of Humanity:Essays in the French Enlightenment 1954](New York:Norton,1959).44. KarlLwith, Meaningin History:TheTheological Implicationsof the Philosophyof History(Chicago:Universityof ChicagoPress, 1949).


13/23

386 MILANBABiKstellarreview, no doubt in partbecause L6with's argumentbroadly convergedwith his own.45L6with wrote the studyduringhis American exile from Nazismand publishedit shortly before his returnto Germany.Notably, the subtitleofthis first (American)edition, TheTheological Implicationsof the Philosophyof History, containeda slight imprecision,as became evident when the Germanedition appeareda few years later.In the Germanedition, translatedby HannoKestingunderL6with's close supervision, he word implications was replacedwith presuppositions (Voraussetzungen).46With this correction in place,the name of the volume became an accuratesummaryof L6with's thesis: thatmodernphilosophyof historyis impossible withoutspecificallyJudeo-Christianpresuppositionsaboutthe natureof the historicalprocess.Is the meaningof historyinherent n historicalevents themselves, and if not,where does it come from?This is thetwofold questionmotivatingL6with'sstudy.His answer to the firstpartis in the traditionof classical skepticism: Historicalprocessesas suchdo not bearthe leastevidence of a comprehensiveand ultimatemeaning. 47hey are essentially chaotic, a randomamalgamationof events andoccurrences. If they did manifest meaning, after all, philosophers would notsearch for it. Yet L6with emphasizes that the absence of any purely empiricalmeaning, while a necessary precondition or the quest for meaningto begin, isnot alone sufficient to initiate it. We may use Aristotle to illustrate this point:his view of history as an unintelligiblecollection of accidents did not prompthimto ask whether hey possessed anydeepersignificance.Rather,he abandonedhistory as uninteresting.Consequently,what drives the search for the meaningof history,L6withnotes, is somethingmore thanthe mererecognitionof historyas chaos. It is the perceptionof the chaos as a problemand,most fundamentally,the acquiredconviction that in the background hereexists a unifying principleof order.In other words, the actual meaninglessnessof history can arise onlyagainst a pre-establishedhorizon of meaning: the Judeo-Christianeschaton,salvation as the end of history in the twin sense of finis and telos. In L6with'swords, The claim thathistoryhas an ultimatemeaning implies a finalpurposeor goal transcending he actual events. 48His answer to the second partof hisquestion thus may be summarizedas follows: If philosophyof historyrefers toasystematicinterpretationf universalhistoryin accordancewith aprinciplebywhichhistoricalevents andsuccessions areunifiedanddirected owardanultimatemeaning, 49hen thevery existenceof a philosophyof historyand its questfor ameaning s due to thehistoryof salvation; t emergedfrom the faith in anultimatepurpose. 50Modernphilosophiesof progressarerationalandscientificonly onthe

45. See ReinholdNiebuhr,review of Meaningin History, by KarlL6with,Journalof Religion29(1949), 302-303.46. Karl Liwith, Weltgeschichteund Heilsgeschehen:Die theologischen VoraussetzungenderGeschichtsphilosophieStuttgart:Kohlhammer,1953).47. Lwith, Meaningin History, 191;hereafterMH. For example,Aristotleviewed historyas asingle spanof time-everything thathappened... in that[periodof time],andeachof these [events]

bearingto the others an accidental [random]relation (Poetics, transl.George Whalley, ed. JohnBaxter and PatrickAtherton[Montreal:McGill-Queen'sUniversityPress, 1997], ?33).48. MH,6.49. Ibid., 1.50. Ibid., 5. In Niebuhr'swords, Everylargerframe of meaning,which serves the observerof


14/23

NAZISMAS A SECULAR RELIGION 387surface.Underthe surfacethey rely on hope andexpectation-precisely becausetheirvantage point is locatedin the future,which is empiricallyunavailable.The method of Meaning in History is loosely genealogical. L6with reads thehistory of ideas backwards,starting from nineteenth-centuryphilosophies ofhistoryandtracingthe irrational lement of futuristicutopiaas far into the pastaspossible--ultimately to the biblical narrativeof salvation. The Bible, occupyingthe final chapter of L6with's book, is for him the silent origin of modernprogressivism.It is the Bible that,for the firsttime, unifies temporalevents intoa coherent story of advancementby interpreting hem from the perspectiveofthe prophesiedmoment of salvation as their purpose and conclusion. AncientGreeks and Romans knew nothingof last days and finalevents, of time as a finitelinear movement towarda climactic horizon. As L6with asserts with regardtoHerodotus'sHistory, for example, thetemporalscheme of the narrative s nota meaningfulcourse of universalhistory aiming towarda futuregoal, but, likeall Greekconceptionof time, is periodic, moving within a cycle. 52Polybius orLucretiuswere no exceptions.The monumentalchange in the consciousness oftime, from cyclical recurrence o one-way (irreversible) ime, arrivesonly withJudeo-Christianreligion and in direct consequence of its salvationist dogma.According o L6with, the iving towardafutureeschaton... is characteristic nlyforthose who live essentiallyby hope andexpectation for Jews andChristians,andin this vein futureandChristianityareindeedsynonymous. 53hepointthatthe Judeo-Christianmyth of redemption n the Hereafter s directlyresponsiblefor transforming he cyclical consciousness of time into a progressivehistoricalconsciousness, andin this sense represents he latter'sorigin,has been made byseveralotherscholars, ncludingmost famouslyMirceaEliade.54

Preceding the chapteron the Bible in L6with's book are chapterson SaintAugustineandhis studentPaulusOrosius.If the authorsof the Bible laid out themyth of salvation,Augustineand Orosius establishedits relevanceto universalhistory.Speculations hatbiblicalconceptswere morethanstrictlyfigurative, hatis, that they possessed historical significance, predateAugustine and Orosius;L6with could easily have discussed Irenaeusof Lyons or Eusebius of Cesareainstead. Yet as a theologian of history, Augustine towers high above any ofhis precursors,contemporaries,and successors at least up to Thomas Aquinas.Augustine's monumentalCity of God (De civitate Dei contrapaganos, written413-426) set the precedentfor all subsequentChristian historical thinking. InL6with's words, Augustine's City of God is the patternof every conceivablehistoricalevents in correlating he events into some kind of pattern, s a structureof faith rather hanof science .. . (Faithand History,135).51. As L6withputit elsewhere, We'know' the futureonly throughbelief andexpectation TheQuestfor the Meaningof History, n Nature,History,and Existentialism,and OtherEssays in thePhilosophyof History,ed. ArnoldLevison [Evanston:NorthwesternUniversityPress, 1966], 132).52. MH, 7.53. Ibid., 84.

54. See Mircea Eliade, TheMyth of the EternalReturn,or, Cosmos and History,transl. WillardR. Trask[1949] (Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1991), especially p. 104, where Eliadearguesthat the Hebrewswere the firstto discover the meaning of historyas the epiphanyof God, andthisconception..,. was takenupandamplifiedby Christianity. Cf. Berdyaev,Meaningof History,33-35;andNiebuhr,Faith and History,22-23, 46.


15/23

388 MILANBABIKview of historythat canrightlybe called 'Christian. '55nthis pattern hebiblicalcivitas Dei, the Kingdomof Godprophesied o come at the end of time, is shownto be the meaningof every temporalevent, includingthose thathave yet to occur.Notably,however,Augustinerefrains rompredictingwhen the Kingdomof Godwill arriveor,for thatmatter, hat t will arrive. nAugustine'sperspective theCityof God is not, L6with stresses, anideal which could become real in history. 56Redemption s forthegreatFatherof the LatinChurchalmostexclusively a moralandexistential ssue. Itspossibilityas a historicalevent is severelycircumscribed.Eschatology (the biblical discourse aboutsalvation)thus endows secularhistorywith coherenceandmeaning,butthe two do not intersect.The crucial figure behind the closing of the gap between the biblical storyof salvation and the history of the humanseculum is for Lowith the medievalCistercianmonkJoachimof Floris.InJoachim's theologicalhistorism, sL6withrefers o his thought, heBible becomesaroadmap f historyandexegesis becomescryptanalysis.With theproperkey,whichJoachimallegedto havereceivedduringhis mysticalunion withGodatPentecost, hefigurative ategoriesof the Biblecanbe decodedto disclose theprovidentialpathof history o themillennium.WhereasforAugustine heworldmoves towardsalvationonly subjectively,whenponderedwithinthe confines of the religioussoul, for Joachimthe movementis objective,taking place in the materialorder of existence. Biblical providenceis immanentin the sceculumand unfolds as historicalprogress.In L6with's words, The realsignificanceof the sacraments s not, as with Augustine, the significationof atranscendentealitybut he ndication f apotentialitywhichbecomesrealizedwithinthe frameworkof history. 57he civitas Dei lies not beyond historyfor Joachim,but is nascent withinhistory,whichaccommodates t and serves as a mediumforits disclosure.Those illuminatedby the Holy Spiritcan glimpse the course to themillennium,predictthe dateof the apocalypse,andintensifytheirpreparationorthe Last Judgment.For Joachim this preparation mountedto a deeply spiritualactivity,consistingof a purifyingretreat rom the worldinto monasticseclusion.His followers,however,understoodt in oppositeterms:as obeyingGod's ordersto His elect agentson earthandengagingin radicaltransformative ction.FromFranciscanSpirituals o Adamitesin earlyfifteenth-centuryBohemia(Tdibor),heMiddleAges witnessedthe mushroomingof numeroussects practicinganarchyandsubversion n expectationof the SecondComing.Joachimthusorientedthe transcendent schatologyof Augustinead sceculum:translated he otherworldlycivitas Dei into an achievable ideal society, divineprovidence ntohumanprogress,andreligiousfaith into knowledgeof thefuture.The mode of religious expectationunderwentan importantchange, unintendedby Joachim,frompessimismand withdrawalowing to the awareness hathistorycannot be foreclosed, to optimism and revolution on behalf of the millennium.In the form of ProtestantismandReformation, he latterposturebecame a majorforce shapingWesternmodernity.L6withthusreferred o Joachim'suniomysticaat Pentecost, which spurredJoachimto formulate his historicaltheology, as a

55.MH,166.56.Ibid.Cf.Niebuhr,aithandHistory, 7, 154.57.MH,151.


16/23

NAZISMAS A SECULARRELIGION 389decisive momentin thehistoryof the Church. 5 e was not alone in recognizingthe monumental impact of Joachim's thought. Jiirgen Moltmann, frequentlyregardedas the world's premiercontemporaryProtestant heologian, stated that

eversince theMiddleAges, there s hardlyanyonewho has influencedEuropeanmovements for liberty in church, state and culture more profoundlythan thistwelfth-centuryCistercian abbot from Calabria. 59 or a number of politicalreligion theorists,Joachim's assimilation of eschatology with history,a processthatmaybe describedeitheras secularizationof the sacredmythof salvationorassacralizationof secularaffairs,represents,next to the Bible, the second principaloriginof modernsalvationismssuch as Nazism andBolshevism.60Prior o Joachim,L6withdiscusses a numberof othergreat European hinkers,each more recent as we move toward the beginningof the book: Bossuet, Vico,Voltaire,the Frenchpositivists (including Comte), Hegel, and Marx. However,it is not necessaryto discuss each of them in detail here. The point thatL6withdemonstrates ime and againremainsthe same: thatthe variousphilosophiesofhistoryreston authenticallyChristianassumptionsabout he natureof thehistoricalprocess. The only difference is the extent of these assumptions.Some of thefigurespresupposenotonly thathistoryis progressto an idealfuture,butalso thatthis idealfuture s theKingdomof God on earthand the progressivemovementisdivineprovidence.TheseopenlyChristianhinkers ncludeBossuetbut alsoHegel,whoregardedworldhistoryas theprogressof Spirit, Spiritas the Divine Idea,andhis own philosophyas thetrueTheodictea, hejustificationof God in History. 61Othersretainedonly thefirstassumption,historyas progress,andrejected herest.Theirphilosophiesof historyareChristianonly structurally ndhermeneutically;the conscious message is non-Christianor anti-Christian.Marx epitomizes thislattergroupof thinkers.His commitmentto utopia and historyas a teleologicalprocess is patent,but the process as well as the telos are expressly irreligious:amaterialistdialecticculminating n a universalcommunityof atheists. Insofarasall thephilosophiesof historyarecontaminatedby Christian schatologyto somedegree,however,L6with concludesthat philosophyof historyoriginateswith theHebrew and Christian aithin a fulfillmentand... endswiththe secularizationof

58. Ibid., 146.59. Jiirgen Moltmann,The Trinityand the Kingdom(San Francisco:Harperand Row, 1981),203.60. See, forexample,Niebuhr,FaithandHistory,2; EricVoegelin, ErsatzReligion:TheGnosticMass Movements of OurTime, in Science, Politics and Gnosticism:TwoEssays (Chicago:Henry

Regnery, 1968), 92-99; and NormanCohn, Pursuit of the Millennium:RevolutionaryMillenariansand MysticalAnarchistsof the MiddleAges (London:Paladin,1970), 13 and 287-288. L6with wasexplicit that it was the attemptof Joachim and the influence of Joachism which openedthe way tothese futureperversions, by which he meantspecifically the Nazi and Bolshevik movements (MH,159).61. Georg W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, transl. J. Sibree [1900] (Amherst, NY:PrometheusBooks, 1991), 457. In Ldwith'swords,Hegel translate[s]he eyes of faith into the eyesof reasonand the theology of historyas establishedby Augustineinto a philosophyof historywhichis neithersacrednorprofane.It is a curiousmix of both,degradingsacredhistoryto the level of secu-lar historyand exalting the latter to the level of the first (MH, 59). Hegel thus in principlerepeatsthe move performedby Joachimsix centuriesearlier:he merges eschatologywith temporalhistory.For a detailedanalysisof Hegel's seculartheology of history,see Ldwith, Hegel and the ChristianReligion, in Nature,History,and Existentialism.


17/23

390 MILANBABIKits eschatologicalpattern. 62Whether he secularization s partialortotal,whetherit merelyimmanentizes hecivitas Dei in history(Joachim,Hegel) orgoes furtherandalso de-Christianizes schatology,replacing hecivitasDei with anirreligiousutopia (Voltaire,Marx), is of secondaryimportance.Be it Christianovertly orcovertly, Western istoricalconsciousnessis eschatologicalfrom Isaiah o Marx,fromAugustineto Hegel, from Joachimto Schelling. 63L6with'sbookquicklyachievedwidespreadrecognition,enoughof it to promptworriesthatsecularizationwas becomingthe new orthodoxyaboutthe originsofWesternmodernity.The popularityof L6with'sthesis was at leastpartiallyduetothe timing of its publication.The complex yet lucidly writtenstudyculminatedtwo decades of theorizingover the course of which leading intellectualssuch asthe already-mentionedBecker,Berdyaev,Niebuhr,andAron addressed he samesubjectwith similarthoughtsas they sought to explicate the origins of popularsupport or the Nazi andBolshevikutopias.As a resultof all theseefforts,by thelate 1950s the notionthattheEnlightenmentwas in manyrespectsa ruse,andthatmodernrationalismmerelysecularizedmedievalChristian heology,hadbecomealmostmatter-of-fact.ReinhartKoselleck appealedto this common notionwhenhe proclaimedthat We know the process of secularization,which transposedeschatology into a history of progress. T'Not everybody was as uncritical,however.The opposition was spearheadedby Hans Blumenberg(1920-1996),whose attackon secularization heory remainsunmatched in terms of both itsbreadthanddepth.Blumenberg s one of the heavyweightsof twentieth-centuryontinentalsocialand historicaltheory;he has been described as an authorwhose works... arecomparable, or bothpathbreaking riginalityandwidely recognized mportance,only to the works of JiirgenHabermas. 65His initialchallengeto L6with'sthesistook place at the Seventh GermanPhilosophyCongressheld in 1962 under thetheme Progress, where Blumenbergrejected secularizationas an adequateaccount of the genesis of the modernidea of progressand proposeda differentnarrative.By 1966 he had expandedhis presentation nto a full-fledgedstudyofthe originsof Westernmodernity n toto, no longerrestrictinghimselfonly to thesubjectof progress,andhepublished hestudyunder he titleTheLegitimacyof theModernAge.' Scrupulouslyresearched,highly imaginative,and both muchlesslucid andfourtimeslongerthanL6with'sMeaninginHistory,Blumenberg'sbookwas heavilyreviewedby leading philosophersand on one occasion--incidentallyin the pages of this journal--described as a deathblow to the [secularization]

62. MH,2.63. L6with, Nature,History,andExistentialism, n Nature,History,and Existentialism,23. Auseful summaryof L6iwith'soverall arguments W. Emmerich, HeilsgeschehenundGeschichte-nachKarlL6with, SinnundForm46, no. 6 (1994), 894-915.64. ReinhartKoselleck, Critiqueand Crisis: Enlightenmentand the Pathogenesis of ModernSociety [1959] (Cambridge,Mass.:MITPress,1988), 10-11. Inthecourse of unfolding heCartesiancogito ergo sum as theself-guaranteeof a man who hasdroppedout of thereligiousbonds, Koselleckcontinued, eschatologyrecoils into Utopianism ibid.).65. RobertM. Wallace, Introductiono Blumenberg, New GermanCritique32 (1984), 93.66. Hans Blumenberg,Die Legitimitiitder Neuzeit (Frankfurtam Main: Suhrkamp, 1966).Between 1973 and 1976 Blumenbergexpandedandreworked he studyfurther.Theedition usedhere(note 42) is the only English translationof the second anddefinitiveGermanedition.


18/23

NAZISM AS A SECULAR RELIGION 391thesis....67 What is Blumenberg'scritiqueof the secularizationthesis? Therest of this section focuses on the theoretical model with which Blumenbergevaluates secularization as a tool of historical understanding--a model fromwhose perspective, as will become clear, Steigmann-Gall'sProtestantNazismwould appear o be a particularly tronginstance of secularreligion.

Blumenberg'sstudyconsists of four parts; t is in the opening one, Seculari-zation:Critiqueof a Categoryof HistoricalWrong, hathe mounts his challengeto secularization heory.The preliminary asks include specifying the meaningof the secularization thesis in historical theory and recognizing Lowith as itsprincipal proponent.The ensuing critiqueconsists of three criteria with whichBlumenberg ets outtotest thevalidityof thesecularization hesis: identifiability(of the contentof modernhistorical consciousness with the originalChristian),

authenticownership (of the original content by Christianity),and unilateralremoval (of the original Christiancontent by an agent outside it).68A book-length study would have to scrutinize each in turn,but in this article I consideronly the first one, since this criterion is key both in terms of Blumenberg'semphasis and of Lrwith's subsequentresponse: identifiabilityas the criterionconcerningthe logic of continuitybetween Christianeschatology and modernprogressivism.69 lumenberg's hinkingbehindthe criterion s as follows: unlessChristianeschatology andmodernprogressivismshare an identifiablesubstanceof ideas, where Christianeschatology representsits original form and modernprogress its new or secularized form, the secularizationthesis fails preciselybecause there s nothingto havebeen secularized no identifiablebodyof thoughtto have undergonethe alleged transformation rom the Christianepoch to themodernone. In such circumstances,modernphilosophyof historymay resemblebiblicaleschatology,butresemblance s wheretheirrelationshipends.There s nosubstantivebridgeacross theepochaldivide and henceno genealogicalconnectionbetween the two forms of thought.Toshowthatexactlythisis thecase,Blumenberg rgues hat he deassurroundingmodernprogressare diametricallydivergentfrom those associated with biblicaleschatology.One exampleis the natureof the end of history: It is ... a manifestdifference, accordingto Blumenberg, that an eschatology speaks of an eventbreaking nto history,an event that transcendsand is heterogeneousto it, whilethe idea of progress extrapolates rom a structurepresentin every moment to afuturethat is immanent n history. 70Whereas in Christian heologies of historythe world terminates with a miraculous incursion from outside the temporalsequence, modernphilosophiesof historycast the consummation as inherent n

67. MartinJay,review of TheLegitimacyof the ModernAge, by HansBlumenberg,HistoryandTheory24 (1985), 192.

68. Blumenberg,Legitimacyof the ModernAge, 24.69. In anessay summarizing he issues at stake between L6with andBlumenberg,RobertWallacesimilarly evaluatedthe first criterion as centralto Blumenberg's critique of L6with and gave itexclusive attention.See Wallace, Progress,SecularizationandModernity:The Lowith-BlumenbergDebate, New GermanCritique22 (1981), 69. Lowith recognized theidentityof expropriatedandalienated substance n its historicalmetamorphoses.. [as] the first and most important riterion orthe legitimacy of any talk aboutsecularization.. . (Liiwith,review of Die Legitimitiitder Neuzeit,by HansBlumenberg,PhilosophischeRundschau15 [1968], 196.)70. Blumenberg,Legitimacyof theModernAge, 30.


19/23

392 MILANBABIKthe world andachievable from within.Moreover, he differences do not endhere,in the definition of the eschaton as transcendentandbeyondtime in the one caseand immanentandwithin time in the other.Theposturestoward he eschatonalsodiverge.Progress,Blumenbergcontends,signifies hopesfor the greatersecurityof man in the world, while eschatology... was more nearlyan aggregateofterroranddread. WhereasChristianbelieverspondered he lastthingsand finalevents tremblingwith fear, the founders of the modem age looked to the futurewith a measure of confidence stemming from the practicalimprovementsthatcould be achieved throughreason and science. Takentogether,these disparitieslead Blumenberg o concludethat the Christianandmodern epochs do not sharea common substanceof ideas abouthistoryandthat,consequently,progressivismcannot be secularizedprovidentialism: Regarding he dependenceof the ideaof progress on Christian eschatology, there are differences that . . . block anytranspositionof the one into theother. 72Insteadof secularization,Blumenbergproposesto conceptualizethe transitionfrom Christian providentialismto modern progressivism as something else:functionalreoccupation, termdenotinghis alternativeaccountof theprocess.As the termalreadyhints,this account rests on a particular heoryof knowledge,in which Blumenberg distinguishesfunctionalknowledge (variouslytermedasfunctions, questions, or answerpositions ) from substantiveknowledge( substance, content, answers ).Christianeschatology was an aggregateofboth. Functionalknowledge was presentin the form of the question what s themeaningof history?, and the space or answerposition createdby this questionwas occupiedwith the corresponding ontentor answer: the civitas Dei. In otherwords, functionalknowledge was presentas the presupposition hathistoryhadan end, and substantiveknowledge as the idea that this end was the civitas Dei.Blumenberg'scentral point in his revision of the transitionfrom Christiantomodem historical consciousness is then as follows: What ... occurred in theprocess that is interpreted as secularization . . . should be described not as thetransposition of authentically theological contents into secularized alienationfrom their origin but rather as the reoccupationof answer positions that hadbecome vacant . . . 73Modem philosophy successfully rejected the substantiveidea that the civitasDei was the end of history,butnot the less obvious functionalidea thathistoryhad an end to begin with. The belief in the transcendent ivitasDei fell victim to critical reason,but the belief in an eschaton (as a structuralfeature of historicalnarratives)escaped unharmed.It remainedvacant in placeand was swiftly reoccupied with a new answer:immanentsocial utopia as thecontent of modem philosophiesof progress.In this vein, for Blumenberg Thecontinuityof historyacrosstheepochalthreshold ies notin thepermanenceof...substances, but rather n afunctionalreoccupation of vacant answerpositions]that creates the appearanceof a substantial dentity lasting throughthe processof secularization. 74 6with let himself be deceived by this appearance,but

71. Ibid., 31.72.Ibid.,30.73. Ibid., 65.74. Ibid., 48, 60, 89.


20/23

NAZISM AS A SECULARRELIGION 393Blumenberg s more clear-sighted. Theidentityupon which the secularizationthesisrests, he declares, is not one of contentsbut one of functions, 75ndsinceit is the identity of theological contents that needs to be demonstrated or thesecularization hesis to work,the thesis fails.Does Blumenberg'scritique of Lowith succeed? Two separatepoints needto be made in responseto this question.The firstconcernsBlumenberg's heoryof historicalknowledge, more specificallyhis distinctionbetween function andsubstance,and the second relates to his readingof Christianeschatology.BothsuggestthatBlumenbergultimately ailed to discreditL6with's thesis.The problem with Blumenberg'stheory of historical knowledge is that thedichotomyof function question,answerposition)and substance content,answer)maybe a false one. This is because functions mplicitlycommunicatesubstantiveideas.Inotherwords, t is possibleto show thattheologicalquestionsabouthistoryaresimultaneously heologicalanswers to yet morefundamentalquestionsabouthistory.Thequestion,whatis the meaningof history,offers anexcellentexample.It not only asks something,but simultaneouslyclaims thathistoryhas meaning,which is a specifically Christian answer to the still more basic and ulteriorquestion concerningwhat, if anything,is worthknowing abouthistoryto beginwith. Christian heology in this sense taughtthe believer two substantive deas,neither of which existed in Greece. One was that the civitas Dei was the end ofhistory,and theother,concealedin thefirst,was thathistoryhad anend in the firstinstance: eschaton as the futuremomentof salvation.It is principallythe latter(structural)deathatL6withargueshas survived nto the modernera,not so muchthe formerone. He does not contendthat the transcendental ivitas Dei made itacross the epochalbreak,only that the eschaton did: the habit of comprehendinghistory n terms of an eschatologicalnarrative tructure.Whether he salvationbetranscendent rimmanent,both theChristianandmodernhistoricalconsciousnessareeschatologicaland uture-oriented. Theessentialcommonality, Lbwithwrotein his replyto Blumenberg, is that both live by hope insofaras they conceive ofhistoryas proceedingtowardfinal fulfillment[erfiillendesZiel] which lies in thefuture. 76To the extent thatBlumenberggrantsthis continuitytoo, his functionalreoccupationmodel indeedconvergeswithLrwith's secularizationmodel.77 f, asI suggest, functionscommunicatehiddencontent,andif, as Blumenbergadmits,theological functions survive into the modernage (where they are reoccupied),there exists a substantiveconnection between the two epochs. A more holistictheoryof knowledge,wherethedichotomyof function and substance s abolished,turns reoccupationof theological functions into secularizationof theologicalsubstance.

75. Ibid., 64.76. Liiwith,review of Die Legitimitiitder Neuzeit, 199.77. RobertPippinfoundit difficult to distinguishbetween them: Blumenberg greeswith a gooddeal of whatLrwith... claim[s].Forall his criticism,he agreesthat hemodernview of progress..,. isa remnant f sortsof thepremodernradition ... A readermightwonderwhat couldpossiblybe at stakein 'secularization' ersus're-occupation'models... if so much of theterritorymodernity re-occupies'is, it is admitted,not its own. ( Blumenberg nd the ModernityProblem, Reviewof Metaphysics40[1987],541-542).


21/23

394 MILAN BABIKIt is not necessaryto challengeBlumenberg's heoryof historicalknowledge,

however,in order o suggestthathis critiqueof L6withfalters.Even if one grantsthe dichotomyof function and substance,there is a separatearea of weaknessin Blumenberg'sargument:his portrayalof Christianeschatology.Blumenbergmanagesto demonstrate he lack of any substantivecontinuitybetweenChristianeschatology and modem progressivismonly because he representseschatologyas exclusively transcendentalAugustinian); n so doing he ignores its separatehistoricalbranch.Not a single mention is madethroughoutTheLegitimacyof theModernAge of Joachim--an omission too conspicuous to go unnoticedin theextensively researchedvolume.The reasonfor the exclusion is thatin Joachim'stheologicalhistorism,andin Protestantmillennialism or which Joachimpreparedtheground, alvation s heldto benascentwithintheworld,and t invitesoptimisticpreparations y those in possessionof God's guidinggrace. IncludingJoachim nhis studywould thusforce Blumenberg o confrontthe unhappyrecognition hat,as EricVoegelinnotedin one of his lettersto Leo Strauss, mmanentization f theotherworldly ivitas Dei inmanyrespectsbeginsalready nthe MiddleAges:withinChristianeschatologyitself andwell beforethe onset of the modem age.78WhileBlumenbergmay be correctthatthereis no common substanceof ideas betweenAugustinianeschatologyandmodemprogressivism,a discussion of JoachiteandProtestant schatologywould yield the oppositeconclusion. The millenarianismassociated with figures like Joachim of Fiore, a figure strangely ignored byBlumenberg, MartinJay commented, may still be accounteda substantialistrather hanmerelyfunctionalistinkwithsecularutopiasof the modemage. 79 venon Blumenberg's erms, then, withoutany challengeto his theoryof knowledgeor criteriaof assessment,the secularization hesis survives--precisely within thetraditionof historicalspeculation hathe chooses to leave out.

IV. CONCLUSION:PROTESTANTNAZISMIN LIGHTOFTHESECULARIZATIONDEBATE

The result of the lengthy analysis of the L6with-Blumenberg debate onsecularizationmay be expressedas the following conditional:any given modemideology of progress s most legitimatelydescribedas a secularizedeschatologyifits content s identicalwith Protestantmillennialism.Steigmann-Gall's evisionistrepresentation f Nazismturnsoutto bejust theantecedentof this conditional: hecontentof theNazi narrative f progress o the ThirdReich,recall thatSteigmann-Gall has argued,was Protestantmillennialism.Thusby modusponens,ProtestantNazism constitutesan eminentexample of secularized or political eschatology.

78. Faith and Political Philosophy:TheCorrespondencebetweenLeo Straussand Eric Voegelin,1934-1964, transl.and ed. Peter Emberley and Barry Cooper (Columbia:Universityof MissouriPress,2004), 73.79. Jay,review of TheLegitimacyof theModernAge, 192.80. LaurenceDickeyconcludedsimilarly hatunlessBlumenberg discuss[es] heroleProtestantism,in its liberal accommodationistmode, played in the emergence of the 'modern'idea of gradual...progress n history .., [he cannot]hope..,. to lay the secularization hesis to rest.. . ( Blumenbergand Secularization:Self-Assertion'and the Problem of Self-Realizing Teleology of History, NewGerman Critique41 [1987], 165).


22/23

NAZISM AS A SECULAR RELIGION 395ThatSteigmann-Gallhasreachedexactlytheoppositeresult,rejecting heframingof Nazism as a political religion on the groundsthat Nazism was consciouslyProtestant,derives fromthe fact that his model of politicalreligionis uninformedby the L6with-Blumenbergdebate.Tothe extent thatSteigmann-Gall xtractshis model froma surveyof politicalreligion historiography n Nazism,a largerproblemmanifests tself: a disjunctionbetween historians who utilize political religion in their representationsofNazism,on the one hand,andhistoricaland social theoristswho have formulatedthe concept, on the other.81f the journal TotalitarianMovementsand PoliticalReligions represents heflagshipof contemporary oliticalreligionhistoriography,referencesto L6withor Blumenbergarepuzzlinglyabsent.This is not to say thatpoliticalreligionhistoriansneglecttheoretical ssues completely; n particular,hephilosophyof EricVoegelin,L6with'scontemporary ndacquaintancen Americanexile, has receivedrepeatedattention.Noragainis it to insist thatpoliticalreligionhistoriography hould become thoroughly philosophical;a certaingap betweenhistoryandtheoryis inevitable and warrantedby otherbenefits from the divisionof intellectual abor.Rather,whatI suggestis that atpresentthegapis too wide-especiallygiven thatpolitical religionhistoriographymay gain significantly rombecomingmore theoretical.What are some of these potential gains? One is that political religionhistoriographywould no longer need to eschew overtly religious movementsandregimes or, as in the case of ProtestantNazism, to rely on discountingtheircontent as a mere faqadefor other purposes.Political religion historianscouldexpandtheirsubjectmatter rom ersatz (non- or anti-Christian) schatologies toChristianprogressivisms.Indeed,fromthe perspectiveof Blumenberg'scritiqueof secularization,philosophies of progress whose content is identifiable withChristian alvationismare heonlylegitimatecandidates or the label of secularizedeschatology, and to this extent they should represent the point of departurefor political religion historians,not the site of their neglect. For example, thenineteenth-centuryAmericanconceptionof progressand expansionas ManifestDestiny,a conceptionheavily investedwith the languageandideas of Protestantmillennialism,would seem to offer excellent material or investigation.

IncludingChristianprogressivismsin the category of secularreligion wouldnotbe unproblematic:eligiousnarratives f progress(suchas ProtestantNazism)andirreligiousones (such as, most prominently,Bolshevik Communism)would81. This argumentshould not be pressed excessively, owing to the fact that Steigmann-Gall's

surveyof the secularreligion literatureon Nazism is ratherselective. It is incompleteat best and acaricatureat worst. While worksby Burleigh,Gentile, Mosse, or Sterntendto give credence to hisclaim that the optic of secularreligion privileges functionover substance,there are otherhistorianswhose framingof Nazism as a secularreligionstands on an analysisof substantive deas, not merelyof ritual and aesthetic forms. Claus-EkkehardBirsch is an excellent example:his representationofNazism as a political religion pays almost no regardto the movement's ceremonial and symbolicaspectsandis based nearly exclusively on texts. See Biirsch, AlfredRosenbergsMythus, and alsoBiirsch,Die politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus:die religiise Dimensionder NS-Ideologiein den Schriftenvon DietrichEckart,Joseph Goebbels,AlfredRosenbergundAdolfHitler (Munich:Fink, 1998). Noticing these historianswould likely promptSteigmann-Gall o revise his understand-ing of political religion from a functionalistmodel to a more content-orientedone, and this modelwould in turnreveala surprising apacityto accommodatehis accountof ProtestantNazism.


23/23

396 MILANBABIKnow find themselves side by side under the same heading.Yet a solutionto thisproblemis not as difficult to find as it may seem. Indeed,it was alreadyhintedat above. Instead of secularizationplain andsimple, it may be more appropriateto breakthe categorydown into a pairof morediscretesub-categories:partialorfirst-degreesecularization,and complete or second-degree secularization.Theformerwouldencompassthose modemphilosophiesof progress hat continuetheChristianconceptionof historyin theirform and function as well as, still, in theirconscious content.In otherwords, it would encompassreligious progressivismsthat secularize the biblical storyof salvationonly in the limited sense of imma-nentizingthe transcendent Augustinian)civitas Dei within the historicalworldas a goal of moral,political, andtechnologicalstriving.The lattersub-category,complete secularization,would then refer to progressivismsthat allege to haveabandoned he Bible andno longerconsciously retainany religiouscontent.TheChristian dea of historyremainspresentin these only in the subterranean ndhermeneutical ense, thatis, only in theirstructural ndfunctionalaspects,whiletheir surfacemessage is non- or anti-Christian. uchphilosophiesof progressnotonly immanentizethe otherworldlycivitas Dei, but in additionsever it from itsbiblicaloriginandpresent he endof historyas a scientificutopia hat s unrelatedto religionor indeed,as in Marxism,presupposes he disappearance f religion.

Fine-tuningsecularizationas a tool of historicalunderstandingn this mannerrepresentsa second, and perhapsthe key, potentialbenefit for political religionhistoriography.With the distinctionbetweenpartialandcomplete secularizationin place, there is every reason to believe that one can classify Steigmann-Gall'sProtestantNazism as secularizedeschatologywhile remainingsensitiveto its dif-ferences fromother(irreligious) nstances of the same phenomenon.St. Antony's College,Oxford

nazism political religion

Documents