Nazis and homosexuality.

 

After reading Himmler by Peter Padfield, it got me thinking about the issue of homosexuality.

The cause of homosexuality is usually explained down to two factors. environmental or genetic.

Coming from a Evangelical-Pentecostal background I've come to the conclusion that for the Church it is easier to explain the issue as environmental.  This means that in the end it is really about ability to choose sexuality. The reason I write that it is easier, is that the theology dosn't need to be examined and changed as much if it was genetic.

What I found interesting was for the Nazis there core understanding that homosexuality was genetic. That if homsexuals where killed and there genes where eliminated from the gene pool homosexuality would be eliminated from the German race and there would be 'racial purity'.
In many ways this was used as an excuse to kill opposition to Hitler and his regime. As well as to kill those who where different.

This is a completely different understanding to the 'Church'.

Personally I think there is a combination of the two, environmental and genetic. What ever the case the Church needs to re-think its theology. Especially if it is genetic and God has made man. 

Stages of faith and extreme politics

I'm currently slowly plowing my way though 'Himmler' by Peter Padfield. Just as a background Himmler was the head of Hitlers SS and the prime archtect of the concentration camps. A firm believer in eugenics. Very nasty.
Himmler got involved with the Nazis very early in life 19 years of age. He worked his way to the top very quickly. He was a 'believer' in the cause.
What has stuck me as I'm reading the book is the overlap between the spiritual development and his career. I write this in reference to a latter post which I did What's happening when what I believe is not what I used to believe', based on 'Fowlers Stages of faith'.

It would seem to me that Himmler's god was Nazism, that he was stuck in stages 2 to 3. He was an absolute fundamentalist to the Nazi cause.

• Stage 2 – "Mythic-Literal" faith (mostly in school children), stage two persons have a strong belief in the justice and reciprocity of the universe, and their deities are almost always anthropomorphic.

• Stage 3 – "Synthetic-Conventional" faith (arising in adolescence) characterized by conformity

Maybe the most dangerous Fowlers Stages of faith is an idol of extreme politics while in stages 2-3...Himmlers god was Nazism of which he was one of the ultimate fundamentalist.