The Antichrist: Why Nietzsche May Have
Understood Christianity Better Than the Modern Church
“With
this I will now conclude and pronounce my judgment. I condemn Christianity and
confront it with the most terrible accusation that an accuser has ever had in
his mouth. To my mind it is the greatest of all conceivable corruptions, it has
had the will to the last imaginable corruption. The Christian church let nothing escape form its
corruption; it converted every value into its opposite, every truth into a lie,
and ever honest impulse into an ignominy of the soul…This eternal accusation
against Christianity I would fain write on all walls, wherever there are
walls…I call Christianity the one great curse, the one enormous and innermost
perversion, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are too
venomous, too underhand, too underground and too petty, I call it the one
immortal blemish of mankind.”[1]
Those words mark the conclusion of
Friedrich Nietzsche’s scathing, visceral, venomous, anti-Christian treatise The Antichrist. In this work, originally
published in 1895, Nietzsche spews aphorismic fire and brimstone against this
greatest of all evils: Christianity. The 19th century German
philosopher, most noted for his eloquently terse obituary- “God is Dead”- may
seem like the last person on earth that a Christian would turn to to base their
Christology and Ecclesiology off of. Yet this mad-genius, this atheistic poet,
this nihilistic philosopher seems to understand Christianity- true Christianity-
in a much truer sense than the modern Christian and church as a whole.
The Metaphysical void of
post-modernity has given birth to a bastardization of “true” Christianity. The Christian community
has been replaced by “personal relationships” with Jesus. What we call
Christianity shares little resemblance to what is found in the bible. “The
Bible never mentions Christianity. It does not preach Christianity. Nor does it
encourage us to preach Christianity. Paul did not preach Christianity. Nor did
any of the other apostles…Christianity, like Judaism, and Yahwish, is an
invention of Biblical scholars, theologians and politicians…”[2]
The modern Christian is all too
guilty of completely personalizing salvation, the atonement and Christianity as
a whole. This is a post-modern reaction that is “human, all too human.” In
short, the modern Christian, with utmost hubris, has replaced the church with
the self. This obviously begs the question: What place does the Bible give the
church?
“The Bible gives no hint that a
Christian belief system might be isolated from the life of the church.”[3]
Paul specifically notes in Ephesians 4 that we are not only united by one hope
and faith but ONE baptism. Somehow the post-modern church has rewritten
Ephesians 4 as follows: “We all are the same if we have a personal relationship
with Jesus. O yeah, by the way, if you want to, baptism is a nice unifying
extra.”
The personal, democratization of
salvation has left the Church in an undeservedly marginalized place. “The
Church is not a club for religious people. The Church is a way of living
together before God, a new way of being human together.”[4]
When we are called by Christ to deny the world we are not left on an island to
flail helplessly against those who have rejected the truth, we are given a
community to join. We are given a new humanity. We are given the new Jerusalem.
We are given the Church- the already of the already- not yet dichotomy. “The
Church anticipates the form of the human race as it will be when it comes to
maturity; she is the “already” of the new humanity that will be perfected in
the “not yet” of the last day.”[5]
The Church is God’s heavenly city
invading all other earthly cities. This invasion inevitably will lead to
conflict. The church truly is a political body. It is a political movement.
Paul uses two Greek words for the church which are both charged with political
overtones and undertones. He constantly uses the word “ekklesia” which is a
political term that translates- the called together ones. The word-choice
leaves little room for individual “Christianity.” The second word Paul uses is “Koinonia”
which is Greek for community. This is a word that is constantly uses by
Aristotle in his Politics.[6]
“In short: Paul did not attempt to find a place for the Church in the nooks
and crannies of the Greco-Roman polis. The Church was not an addition, but an
alternative to, the “koinonia” of the polis.”
It might serve as a useful project
for the modern Christian to go back and re-read Paul with new eyes. Pick any
chapter of any book written by Paul and see if he sees the Church/ Christianity
in political terms. I have done so, randomly choosing Romans 1.
In the very first verse, Romans 1:1,
Paul introduces himself as a man who is “separated”
to the gospel of God. He understood that Christianity is something that in a
real sense divides him from the rest of humanity. In Romans 1:11 Paul states that he longs to
see those in Rome
Now that we have a snapshot of how
Paul viewed the Church, let us make the “natural transition” into how Nietzsche
viewed the Church. The first words penned by Nietzsche in The Antichrist read: “This book belongs to the very few.” What a
perfectly anti-Christian way to start a treatise that attacks Christianity.
Nietzsche writes for the elite, the ubermench, the god-like. Christianity is
for the Jews and the Gentiles. It is for all mankind. Not only is it a religion
that seeks to unify, it specifically targets the polar opposite of Nietzsche’s
target audience. Christianity embraces the poor, the widows, the sick, the
destitute, the lepers, the lame, the dumb and the children. Not only does
Christianity accept these people, it calls for them to sit at the table. It calls
for them to eat and drink with their savior.
Nietzsche claimed that “The weak and
the botched shall perish…And they ought even to be helped to perish.”[8]
Jesus entered our humanity and washed our feet. Nietzsche calls Christians
“domesticated animals.”[9]
Christ calls us brothers and sisters, even princes. It is clear that
Nietzsche’s point of view could not be any further from that of a Christian.
This however is not to say that he did not understand Christianity- in many
aspects, better than we do.
Nietzsche writes, “We should not
deck out and adorn Christianity; it has waged a deadly war upon this higher
type of man…it has set the strong man as the typical pariah, the villain.
Christianity has sided with everything weak low and botched.”[10]
Nietzsche understood that this new
city
Even further, Nietzsche understood
that the Church was a transvalued version of Israel
“Undoubtedly, the Kingdom of God
had was his people, his chosen people. Since
then he has gone traveling
over foreign lands, just as his people have
done; since then he has never
rested anywhere: until one day he felt at
home everywhere, the great
Cosmopolitan, until he got the greatest
number, and half the world on
his side. But the God of the greatest
number, the democrat among gods,
did not become a proud heathen god
notwithstanding: he remained a Jew,
he remained the God of the back streets,
the God of all dark corners and
hovels, of all the unwholesome quarters of
the world! His universal empire
is now as ever
a netherworld empire, an infirmary, a subterranean empire,
a ghetto
empire. And he himself is so pale, so weak, so decadent. Even
the palest of the pale were able to master
him—our friends the metaphysicians,
those albinos
of thought.”[12]
Although he hated the idea of it,
Nietzsche understood that the Bible taught that God remained a Jew. He remained
connected to a political body. That body now was the Church. The head of this
political body has “declared war on life.”[13]
God established a new humanity a new kingdom that is fundamentally at odds with
what Nietzsche calls “the natural order.”
This God of the back streets is,
according to Nietzsche, a God of “contradictions.” And he could not be more
right. Christ has transvalued all normalcies. The meek will inherit the earth!
The Christian life is not one that should easily assimilate into the society at
large. The pieces do not fit.
In the midst of a backhanded
critique of Christianity, Nietzsche unveils the core of the faith.
“Christianity aims…to make them ill, to render feeble is the Christian recipe
for taming, for civilization.”[14]
Christianity is not a religion that aims to establish men in positions of power
in this world. We are called to deny ourselves and follow Christ. We are called
to, as Nietzsche notes “a different mode of action.”[15]
It is this mode of action and not “a faith with distinguishes Christians.”[16]
But what mode of action should distinguish the Christian?
Nietzsche writes, “The Very word Christianity is a
misunderstanding, truth to tell, there never was more than one Christian, and
he died on the cross…It is false to the point of nonsense to see in faith, in
faith in salvation through Christ, the distinguishing trait of the Christian:
the only thing that is Christian is the Christian mode of existence, a life
such as he led who died on the cross.”[17]
Nietzsche understood that the Church, in essence, has exchanged sanctification
for an all encompassing justification.
But Christianity must be tied to Christ-likeness. It must be a movement,
a body. “To reduce the fact of being a Christian, or of Christianity to holding
of something for true, to a mere phenomenon of consciousness, is tantamount to
denying Christianity.”[18]
Christians may be too focused on
some other-worldly kingdom that they fail to see the kingdom that is already
here. Nietzsche did not make this mistake. “But the Gospel has clearly been the
living, the fulfillment, the reality of the Kingdom of God Kingdom of God
It may be safe to say, that in many
respects, Nietzsche understood Christianity better than we do.
[1]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist. Barnes
and Noble, New York
[2]
Leithart, Peter: Against Christianity.
Canon Press, Moscow , Idaho
[3]
Leithart, Peter: Against Christianity.
Canon Press, Moscow , Idaho
[4]
Leithart, Peter: Against Christianity.
Canon Press, Moscow , Idaho
[5]
Leithart, Peter: Against Christianity.
Canon Press, Moscow , Idaho
[7]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[8]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[9]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[10]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[11]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[12]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[13]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[14]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[15]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[16]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[17]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[18]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
[19]
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Antichrist.
Barnes and Noble, New York
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