How should Christians respond to the political world in which we live, especially when that world trends toward evil? Recent discussion – for better and for worse – around “Christian nationalism” make this a fraught question. It will only become more fraught in 2024. Our national elections will ensure as much, helped by things like the dubious documentary slated for release this year. If you want to read a helpful article on Christian nationalism, consider this summary at American Reformer. If you want more, consider Dietrich Von Hildebrand.
Dietrich Von Hildebrand was a German Catholic philosopher of the mid-20th century. Von Hildebrand is known to history as one of the earliest, most public, and most vocal opponents of Adolph Hitler and Nazism. I learned of Von Hildebrand first from Eric Metaxas, and then from John Henry Crosby in My Battle Against Hitler: Defiance in the Shadow of the Third Reich. I’m going to quote at length from one of Von Hildebrand’s essays, published on March 10, 1935, during his several years living and writing in Austria (prior to the 1938 German takeover of that country, known as the Anschluss). I find his words, so relevant at the time, both prescient and helpful for Christians living some 90 years later. Of note, please don’t construe my quoting Von Hildebrand as a commendation of Catholic theology, the Roman Catholic Church, or the pope. When Von Hildebrand refers specifically to Catholics, insert “Christian,” and the relevance remains for a Protestant like me. Here then are words of Dietrich Von Hildebrand, as translated in My Battle Against Hitler (with my occasional editorial note in brackets):
In many Catholic circles…one encounters the view that the lesson to be learned from the defeat of political Catholicism in Germany is that Catholics should turn away from politics in order to concern themselves exclusively with religious matters and adopt a passive attitude toward political events. Indeed, one may sometimes hear even the clergy in Austria voice the opinion that one must already mentally adjust now to the possibility of a National Socialist [Nazi] regime and should be on one’s guard against cultivating excessively intimate ties with the present regime.
However, there is clearly something ambiguous about this call to depoliticize Catholicism and to concentrate solely on religious matters. When it entails a due regard for the primacy of the purely religious sphere, disavows an excessively intimate relationship between religion and party politics, and aims to put an end to the politicizing of religion, it is undoubtedly good and justified. The bankruptcy of political Catholicism in Germany does indeed teach us this lesson. But it is utterly impossible to expect Catholics to be indifferent to politics at a time when the debates in the political sphere concern not just political issues but…fundamental beliefs about the meaning of existence [like, for instance, life in the womb, or gender and sexuality, to name just a few].
When today the Antichrist is rearing his head in Bolshevism and National Socialism [or wokist Marxism and kinist protectionism], when Christ is persecuted with unprecedented hatred, and a revolt is raging not only against the sphere of the supernatural but even of the person in general [tell me again, what is a woman?], all Catholics must fight for Christ in the political sphere with full personal commitment, representing importune opportune (in season and out of season) the claims of the kingdom of God and thus, implicitly, those of morality and the natural law. They will feel called to this commitment to the extent that they live in Christ and see everything in the light of the supernatural, to the extent that they have interiorized their religious existence and are conscious of the primacy of the properly religious sphere as the unum necessarium (the one thing needful).
In a time when the state expressly advocates totalitarian claims and incessantly seeks to overstep its divinely ordained sphere of competence [2020 and COVID anyone?], indifference to the political sphere on the part of Catholics constitutes an outright desertion of duty. It is precisely the rootedness of genuine Catholics in a realm that transcends politics, their freedom from the inner dynamism of political practice, and their consideration of all things in conspectu Dei (before the face of God) that requires them to erect a dam against every encroachment of the state.
In point of fact, the real lesson to be learned from the bankruptcy of politicizing Catholicism is this: rather than politicizing Catholicism, one must instead Catholicize politics. For the human being is an integral whole, and true religiosity will inevitably induce him to regard all areas of life in their orientation to God and to work, always and everywhere, for the kingdom of Christ…This begins in one’s own person, in the induere Christum (putting on Christ)…it requires a commitment to Christ in the earthly public sphere and in political activity, in order that there, too, everything may be formed in the spirit of the natural law and of Christian teaching.
Naturally, the principal contribution of the Christian in this sphere is his personal transformation in Christ. But that must not be his only contribution. It is of course true that, for the Christian, the transformation of the face of the earth does not proceed primarily from without by means of laws of the state, but rather from within by means of the conversion of the person. Naturally, the Christian rejects every form of earthly messianism and remains ever aware of “how great is heaven and how small the earth.” Nevertheless, he makes use of all legitimate earthly means in order to shape the polis (the political community) in such a way that the kingdom of Christ may be built up within it.
Thus “Catholic Action”…is indeed apolitical in the sense that it must not be understood as a political party or engage in party politics itself; but it certainly extends into the political sphere, since Catholics who are active politically have the same obligation to carry the spirit of Christ into this domain that they have with regard to any other sphere of life. Anyone who does not admit this is not thinking as a Catholic but in the manner of pietistic quietism. This is undoubtedly a danger today…
Bolshevism and National Socialism are primarily worldviews [so also wokist Marxism and kinist protectionism]. They neither are, nor wish to be, mere political systems. Apathy toward the political sphere on the part of Catholics easily leads, therefore, to apathy toward National Socialism as a whole. Many say, “Why should we always simply attack and criticize? Let us depart from the political sphere; let us search out and convert those who have gone astray. Let us, who stand aloof from politics, spread the spirit of love and reconciliation.”
This is, at bottom, a cowardly flight from the battle to which God is calling us. It is our obligation as soldiers of Christ to wage war against the Antichrist and to rip the mask from his face. The “apolitical” disposition cultivated by certain Catholics, which induces others to refrain from exposing and relentlessly fighting against National Socialism, is an evil sophism. What is at stake in the position one adopts toward National Socialism as a whole…is nothing less than the question: Are you for Christ, or against Him?
Here too, Christ’s words hold true: “He who is not with me is against me” (Mt 12:30). The soldier of Christ is obligated to fight against sin and error. His battle against the Antichrist is prompted by his love for Christ and for the salvation of souls; he fights this battle for the salvation of those who have gone astray. His attitude is one of true love. But those who flee from the inevitable battle and treat irenically those who have gone astray, obfuscating their error and playing down their revolt against God are, fundamentally, victims of egoism and complacency.
Are these not challenging words for American Christians facing 2024? We’re not battling National Socialism, but let’s not forget that National Socialism had its beginnings, as did every political evil across time. How should we hear and apply Von Hildebrand’s exhortation in days to come? Therein lies important and fruitful discussion for people who love Jesus and love their neighbor.
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