You are evidently trying to ignore the fact that you have been refuted. Because nothing you just said is remotely relevant to what we were discussing.

“Christianity” was not defined by Jesus. The word does not exist in any NT text except Acts and 1 Peter, where it isn’t defined, nor do either quote Jesus. In fact Acts says “Christian” was a word assigned to Christians by non-Christians. In Greek it means “partisans of Christ,” as in, anyone who claims Christ as their leader or exemplar. Hence the word in English refers to anyone who claims to follow Christ as their savior.

Mormons are Christians. Episcopalians are Christians. Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians. Evangelicals and Catholics are Christians. Not a single one of those groups adheres to New Testament Christianity. They all ignore substantial amounts of its teachings (including directly from Jesus). They all add teachings not included. And they all change or reinterpret teachings contrary to what they originally were.

So you can’t claim someone who does those things isn’t a Christian—unless you wish to admit that no one is a Christian. No Christian religion remains anywhere on Earth. It died out thousands of years ago.

But then you have to come up with a new word for all these people calling themselves Christians. That of course is legerdemain. You can’t change what things are by changing what you call them.

People call themselves Christians because they believe they follow Christ, even though not a single one does in your sense. So “your sense” clearly isn’t what they or anyone means by the word. They mean what they mean by the word. That is simply what a Christian is nowadays. It is what the word has come to mean. And you can’t change that.

It is foolish to try and hide your history with word games anyway. Nazis were, by and large, as Christian as anyone. And all that they did that we loathe was built on centuries of Christian ideology. There is little substantial difference between Hitler and Martin Luther, other than that Hitler had more advanced technologies and a nation-state to do his will, and thus could accomplish things Luther had only longed for.

I will respond one final time. I believe that it is crucial for readers to understand why you insist that Jesus, His apostles, and their disciples in the oldest historical records not be allowed to define what Christianity is and is not—not be allowed to define their own terms and meanings and to set the boundaries of the Faith themselves. You must hold that right-to-define instead, despite obviously being unaware of the import and application of so elementary a Christian foundation as the Golden Rule, which a first-grader in a genuinely Christian family would be taught at home and in the church community. The Golden Rule was clearly beyond Hitler’s grasp as well, and that of many others like him; available only to children and the childlike as Jesus Himself said would be the case. (Jesus said that few would be saved, not many; and applied this “many” to those who called Him “Lord” as well.) Rome, or the Evangelicals, or the Mormons, or Martin Luther (who was indeed a source and justification for Hitler’s hatreds), or some other historical sect or ahistorical cult or theology must instead be your defining exemplars—anyone or anything except Jesus, and the most ancient Christian Faith and those who have imperfectly but seriously adhered to it (whom you must pretend don’t exist). This is essential not only to your beliefs but to justify the attitudes and the outcomes that are common to your own faith (system of belief and enslavement—if Hitler is insisted upon as a Christian than no one should hesitate to describe Atheists as people of faith, especially since everyone serves somebody, as Bob Dylan sang, even if it is only themselves). This colors the attempt to be an objective historian as surely as being a devout Roman Catholic or devout (“radical”) Muslim does—and quite sad when the fruits of these determined biases throughout your faith have cost others as much as they have, and undoubtedly will even more in the future, just as unfaithful “Christians” have and will.

Let us be very clear here: In terms of the most ancient Christian historical record, Hitler was not a Christian by any possible conception of that term that is historically faithful in antiquity; no more than Vlad the Impaler was. It’s just that Atheists need Hitler to be a Christian so badly, given the outcomes of their own most impactful world leaders in such a short span of history. In addition to the appeal of an Apostle to someone who had become a Christian and was the owner of an escaped slave, who then also became a Christian, found in the New Testament book of Philemon, and additional instruction that obedient slaves should gain their freedom if they can (strange how you mentioned none of these parts of the New Testament), and the ancient Christian, Clement of Alexandria, arguing specifically (contrary to your interpretation) that the Mosaic Law taught “not to wrong anyone belonging to another race, and bring him under the yoke, when there is no other cause to allege than difference of race, which is no cause at all, being neither wickedness nor the effect of wickedness … We admit that the same nature exists in every race, and the same virtue” (see Acts 10:34-35 and Galatians 3:28 in the Bible), below is the summary spirit of anti-semitism, racist bigotry, and enslavement that you refer to as voiced by another prominent, ancient Christian, describing what changed in becoming a Christian because of who they were as a people in how they lived, including in that respect. None of this was written anywhere near recent times, and the degree that others claiming to be Christians have departed from that Holy Spirit in which this writer below was discipled, very much out of character for his time and place in the world, to that degree they have departed from that same Faith (see Jude 3-4 in the Bible). I have already specified examples of those who, on the whole, have not departed from its essence—and across many centuries of time. Many have died at the hands of the Catholics and the Protestants as well as political regimes, including some at the hands of the US as a result of their non-resistant refusal to fight–in Alcatraz and in Leavenworth, along with the Native families that were burned to death at Gnadenhutten, Ohio:

“…We who formerly delighted in fornication now embrace chastity alone; we who formerly used magical arts dedicate ourselves to the good and unbegotten God; we who valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions now bring what we have into a common stock, and share with everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies…”

Thank you for correcting the text of Table Talk. Hopefully it is as certain as it is possible to be now, with no additional German text discovered at some point that comports more with the French edition.

All Christian sects are “made up.” Including Catholicism and Evangelicalism and Mormonism.

So that argument doesn’t work either.

All Christianities today ignore something Jesus taught, reinterpret it to mean something other or more than he taught, or add to what he taught; usually all three, and usually abundantly. So doing that can never disqualify anyone from being a Christian. Unless it disqualifies everyone from being a Christian.

Positive Christianity indeed has more in common with the entire history of Medieval Christianity: the Nazi program against the Jews was line-by-line identical to Martin Luther’s. Anti-semitism has always been a strong and pervasive component of nearly all Western Christianity until relatively recently (and pockets even still retain it).

You can’t make that legacy go away with verbal legerdemain. You cannot change what something is by changing what you call it. You need to accept your dark history and deal with it. Not attempt to deny it with rhetoric.

I don’t see anything relevant in your response.

Hitler’s Positive Christianity (as Nazi Positive Christianity generally) is not meaningfully different from any other anti-Semitic Christian Nationalism today, and not substantially different from White Evangelical Christianity generally (just different in trivial shifts in targets and dogmas). So there is no way to claim Hitler was not a Christian without a specious (and entirely arbitrary and circular) abuse of language.

You have not been able to reverse this observation.

As to the trivia of abolitionism (Hitler was as against slavery as modern Americans are, with our own bought-and-sold work-camp slaves, so that hardly bears any relevance here), Jesus literally said let people enslave you (if they force you to go one mile, go two). He never once said abolish slavery or that slavery was wrong. To the contrary, he repeatedly used slavery as a moral model for God’s governance of the universe. And his nearest followers agreed: the NT goes on to command slaves be obedient; Matthew says not one jot or tittle of God’s law is to vanish, and slavery is explicitly commanded by God in the OT; etc. So to get “abolitionism” out of Jesus requires adding to what he taught, reinterpreting it. So, “adding to what he taught, reinterpreting it” can never alone make you not a Christian, unless you admit no Christians exist anymore, nor have any existed for thousands of years.

You just can’t get a No True Scotsman fallacy to work here. You really need to give up trying.

“Are you saying Evangelicals can be defined as not Christians but Catholics and the Amish can?” I am saying that there have always been certain church communities that have been very devoted to living in accordance with the teachings of Christ historically, just as there have been sweeping movements of those who do not, such as the positioning and practices of the Evangelicals that you point out (much like the compromise of politics and the church-state hybrid of Emperor Constantine which came to fruition in the 4th century, creating the “Roman Catholic” church). There are catholic societies that completely disavow those changes, just as the conservative Anabaptists (Mennonites / Amish / etc.) often still do as well. Suggesting that such people disappeared a thousand-plus years ago is a curiously ignorant claim for a historian. From the standpoint of the most ancient Christian beliefs and lifestyle, they at least strive to maintain them. Benjamin Franklin noted that he could see this kind of humility in Brethren churches of his time as well, whom he appreciated for not contriving these firm, published stances doctrinally in case they later found that they were mistaken and had changed or innovated in some aspect.

“Indeed, Jesus never said anything against slavery, so being abolitionists is adding to Christianity.” Really? The Scriptures acknowledge the fact of slavery and dealing with it as a fact of life in the world, but in light of your statement and Jesus’ teaching, we would just have to say this, then: According to Jesus, so long as you are willing to be someone else’s slave, then that person can be your slave. Right? Everyone knows “the Golden Rule” in Jesus’ teaching from Matthew 7, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” So He enjoins a standard by which His followers are not to do to anyone else what they would not want done to them. It appears that the Quakers and Mennonites in their first published objection to slavery in the colonies in 1688 understood Jesus’ teachings much better than today’s “educated” Atheists who claim this sort of nonsense all the time.

Positivist Christianity wasn’t even a thing. It was just made up by the Nazis to serve their own self-interests. Hitler “adopted” nothing. He and his Party created it wholesale. I’m afraid that your rationalizations are highly impacted by your own biases, unfortunately. I certainly agree that most of what is called Christianity today looks nothing like the Bible, but as a historian you would know that, from the beginning of recorded Christian history, that has always raised the question of what could, and could not be, accurately described as Christian.

When the Person of Christ Himself as historically identified is denied, as Hitler and his Positivists do, let alone His teachings, how does their belief still constitute “Christianity”? If I just randomly decide that Jesus was, in fact, the Flying Spaghetti Monster (as atheists like to propose as being God in their own brilliant way)–and I do this seriously and develop an entire interpretive theology to go with it–am I still a Christian? According to the New Testament, Jesus Himself denies that anyone who does not believe Him and follow His teachings still belongs to Him, the Apostles do the same (e.g., 1 John 2:4), and the earliest Christian leaders and apologists after the Apostles do the same (e.g., Clement of Rome states “We are justified by our works and not our words,” and Justin Martyr writes, “Let those who are not found living as [Jesus] taught be understood not to be Christians, even though they profess with the lips the teachings of Christ”).

You, or the entire academic community collectively, can claim that anyone or anything is a Christian, but that certainly does not mean that it is in the least true or accurate with respect to the actual definition of Christianity set forth by Christ and Christians from the earliest records. Hitler had forsaken every notion of belief or expectation that could be identified as Christian. You’re apparently just desperate for that not to be the case.

You must not be paying attention. Hitler adopted the views of Positive Christianity (a self-named sect of Christianity), which included the teaching that Jesus was not Jewish, but an Aryan, whose teachings were against the Jews.

Christianity does indeed manifest in all kinds of bizarre ways, from Mormonism to Episcopalianism. And most Christianity today looks nothing like the Bible. The only thing all Christian sects have in common is the belief that something about Jesus secures some kind of salvation. Anyone who claims to follow Jesus as their moral exemplar for public and personal good is a Christian. Full stop. Everything else is bickering over details.

I don’t follow your argument here.

Are you saying Evangelicals can be defined as not Christians but Catholics and the Amish can?

That makes no sense. Catholics and the Amish in no way adhere to the original Christian teachings either. Indeed, Jesus never said anything against slavery, so being abolitionists is adding to Christianity, not simply adhering to it. But they also adopt all kinds of bad teachings contrary to Jesus as well. There is no sect that comes close to perfectly replicating all the teachings of the New Testament. All sects deviate in some way. All of them.

So there simply can’t be any useful definition of Christian that is “someone who adheres without fail to every single teaching in the New Testament.” That would mean no Christians exist anymore. The religion is gone.

And any definition of Christian by which “Evangelical Christians” aren’t Christians is clearly defective. That isn’t how the word is used by almost anyone on the planet, least of all Evangelical Christians—who are usually the ones making the claim that Hitler isn’t Christian, yet they are hardly more Christian by that standard than he was.

No. The universal definition of Christian is: believing some aspect and teaching of Christ leads to some kind of salvation. Salvation through Christ. Beyond that all sects disagree on every single detail of what kind of salvation and how it is achieved through Christ. Those sects remain Christian. Just as much as Hitler does.

That response is partly true–Evangelicals as a whole have indeed embraced ideals fundamentally contrary to Jesus’ teaching (and to that extent are either bad Christians or not Christians at all)–and that response is partly ridiculous and ignorant generalization.

You could truthfully characterize the conservative Amish / Mennonite church communities or the traditional Quakers as they existed in the early days of the US in the same way? In addition to being the very first people to protest against slavery in the colonial US (Germantown, 1688, as Mennonites were arriving from Germany and mingling with Quakers), it is worth remembering what the future president, James Madison, had to say about those churches in the Founders’ effort to separate church and state.

Could even many conservative Catholic (incl. Eastern / Anglican) societies be characterized the same as Evangelicals in those respects? Of course not. Your conclusion, in particular, raises the specter of biases that have found their way into your professional work as well. I do appreciate you disclosing the highly-biased special interest that paid for your work.

What is extraordinary to me is that “Christianity” can be defined so loosely that someone who believes that “Paul is a traitor who ruined Christianity and Jesus was an Aryan fathered by a Roman soldier” can still be thought of as having some association with Christianity, at least if that name is to retain any meaningful definition. Instead, the author assures us, “it all fits together.” It certainly does with respect to Hitler’s fundamental unbelief in Christianity, not merely unbelief in Catholicism. It seems to me that he has quite inadvertently confirmed the Christian conclusion while rightly debunking any false citations in particular.

We are somehow to conclude that Hitler believed that a Jew was the Savior of the world? In no historic account of Christianity does Jesus fit the Positivist (i.e., Nazi) redefinition of Him as being something or someone else. In the New Testament, Peter is also already accounting Paul’s writings as Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15-16), so if Paul is to be dispensed with, then this account of Peter must be as well. What is objectively left of belief, then, in Christ or Christianity, and upon what ground?

The New Testament records Jesus as conditioning anyone’s friendship with Himself as being dependent upon that person’s adherence to His teachings (John 15:13-15). This supposed belief of Hitler in Jesus and Christianity compelled Hitler to humble himself in his manner of thought and life–to be an obedient disciple and imitator, loving his enemies, doing good and praying for those who persecuted him, etc., just as Jesus instructs? Obviously no one who knows the life and teachings of Jesus and the life of Hitler would believe for a moment that the latter actually believed in the former, even if Hitler had been taught to do so as a child and needed this portrayal in public for reasons of political expediency (knowing his audience). If someone was watching my response one day when my neighbor called and told me that my house was on fire, that person could tell quite easily whether or not I actually believed in my neighbor and his word to me. Hitler is no different with respect to Jesus.