“The Nazi State will however not tolerate under any circumstances any new or any continued political activity of the denominations. … But we will ensure the purging from our public life of all those priests who have mistaken their profession and who ought to have been politicians and not pastors.” — Adolf Hitler, as quoted on Chester Street.
In the various American history courses I took in middle & high school, I don’t recall this ever having been mentioned, though I suppose they wanted us to recognize the Nazis as evil, something altogether different from America. Yet, Hitler’s view of the churches’ involvement in politics seems quite similar to the ACLU‘s and others who would seek to silence the churches’ opinions of and involvement in American politics based upon either a complete inability to understand the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment or willing ignorance to the meaning thereof.
This is a good one, how did it pass uncommented?