Point 1: “The aim of these guiding principles is to indicate to all believing German men how and why the church should be restructured. These guiding principles are not intended to be or to replace a confession of faith, or to challenge the confessional basis of the Protestant church. They are a confession of life”.
Point 2:
“We campaign for a unification of the 29 churches gathered together under the ‘German Protestant Church Federation’ into one Protestant Reich Church…”.
Point 3: “Those campaigning as ‘German Christians’ have no intention of being the sort of political grouping usually found within the church up to now. They appeal to all Protestant Christians of German descent. The parliamentary era is out of date, in the church as well. …We want a dynamic national church (Volkskirche), which expresses the living faith of our people”.
Point 4: “We stand on the basis of positive Christianity. Ours is an affirmative, truly national faith in Christ, in the Germanic spirit of Luther and of heroic piety”.
Point 5: “We want to make the recovery of the German sense for life a reality in our church and to give our church real vitality. In the fateful struggle for the freedom and the future of Germany the leadership of the church has proved to be too weak. Up to now the church has not called men to the decisive battle against Marxism, the enemy of God, and against unspiritual Centre group, but has concluded a church treaty with the political parties which represent these groupings. We want our church to be fighting in the forefront of the decisive battle for the existence or eclipse of our people. It must not stand aside, or even distance itself from the fighters for freedom”.
Point 6: This point was left out by the author, Matheson, who published the German Christian Faith Movement’s Ten-Point Church Plan. I was unable to attain it by other sources.
Point 7: “In race, nation, and cultural heritage we see the orders of existence which God has given us in trust; it is the law of God that we should be concerned to preserve them. Therefore racial admixture is to be opposed…faith in Christ does not destroy the race, it deepens and sanctifies it”.
Point 8: “Properly understood Home Mission is living, active Christianity. In our view, however, this is rooted not in mere pity, but in obedience to God’s will, and thanksgiving for Christ’s death on the Cross. Mere pity is ‘charity’, which becomes a mixture of arrogance and of a bad conscience, and makes a nation soft. We are not unacquainted with Christian love and the obligation to the helpless, but we demand that the nation be protected from the feckless and the inferior. On no account must Home Mission contribute to the degeneration of our nation…”.
Point 9: “We regard the mission to the Jews as a grave danger to our culture. Through its doors alien blood is imported into the body of our nation. It has no right to exist except as Overseas Mission. We oppose any mission to the Jews in Germany as long as the Jews have the right to citizenship and there is therefore a danger of bastardization and an obscuring of racial differences. Holy Scripture also has something to say about righteous anger and the failure of love. In particular marriage between Germans and Jews must be prohibited”.
Point 10: “We want a Protestant church rooted in our own culture, and are opposed to the spirit of a Christian cosmopolitanism. We want to overcome the degenerate phenomena which derive from this spirit—pacifism, international freemasonry, etc.—by faith in our nation’s God-given mission. No Protestant clergymen may belong to a Masonic lodge…”.
Point 2:
“We campaign for a unification of the 29 churches gathered together under the ‘German Protestant Church Federation’ into one Protestant Reich Church…”.
Point 3: “Those campaigning as ‘German Christians’ have no intention of being the sort of political grouping usually found within the church up to now. They appeal to all Protestant Christians of German descent. The parliamentary era is out of date, in the church as well. …We want a dynamic national church (Volkskirche), which expresses the living faith of our people”.
Point 4: “We stand on the basis of positive Christianity. Ours is an affirmative, truly national faith in Christ, in the Germanic spirit of Luther and of heroic piety”.
Point 5: “We want to make the recovery of the German sense for life a reality in our church and to give our church real vitality. In the fateful struggle for the freedom and the future of Germany the leadership of the church has proved to be too weak. Up to now the church has not called men to the decisive battle against Marxism, the enemy of God, and against unspiritual Centre group, but has concluded a church treaty with the political parties which represent these groupings. We want our church to be fighting in the forefront of the decisive battle for the existence or eclipse of our people. It must not stand aside, or even distance itself from the fighters for freedom”.
Point 6: This point was left out by the author, Matheson, who published the German Christian Faith Movement’s Ten-Point Church Plan. I was unable to attain it by other sources.
Point 7: “In race, nation, and cultural heritage we see the orders of existence which God has given us in trust; it is the law of God that we should be concerned to preserve them. Therefore racial admixture is to be opposed…faith in Christ does not destroy the race, it deepens and sanctifies it”.
Point 8: “Properly understood Home Mission is living, active Christianity. In our view, however, this is rooted not in mere pity, but in obedience to God’s will, and thanksgiving for Christ’s death on the Cross. Mere pity is ‘charity’, which becomes a mixture of arrogance and of a bad conscience, and makes a nation soft. We are not unacquainted with Christian love and the obligation to the helpless, but we demand that the nation be protected from the feckless and the inferior. On no account must Home Mission contribute to the degeneration of our nation…”.
Point 9: “We regard the mission to the Jews as a grave danger to our culture. Through its doors alien blood is imported into the body of our nation. It has no right to exist except as Overseas Mission. We oppose any mission to the Jews in Germany as long as the Jews have the right to citizenship and there is therefore a danger of bastardization and an obscuring of racial differences. Holy Scripture also has something to say about righteous anger and the failure of love. In particular marriage between Germans and Jews must be prohibited”.
Point 10: “We want a Protestant church rooted in our own culture, and are opposed to the spirit of a Christian cosmopolitanism. We want to overcome the degenerate phenomena which derive from this spirit—pacifism, international freemasonry, etc.—by faith in our nation’s God-given mission. No Protestant clergymen may belong to a Masonic lodge…”.
