Christianity, Truth and Fantasy: The Holocaust, Historical Revisionism and Christians Today

The early Christians were champions of the truth, not myth and fantasy. They spoke and wrote on the basis of solid evidence. Peter wrote:

We didn't follow any clever myths when we told you about the power of our Lord Jesus Christ and His coming. No. With our own eyes we saw His majesty. God the Father gave Him honor and glory when from His wonderful glory He said to Him: “This is My son whom I love and with whom I am delighted.” We heard that voice speak to Him from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

And we have a more sure word of prophecy. Please look to it as a light shining in a gloomy place till the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Understand this first, that no one can explain any written Word of God as he likes, because it never was the will of a human being that brought us God's Word, but the Holy Spirit moved holy men to say what God told them.[1]

John concludes his Gospel: “This is the disciple who testified about these things and wrote this. And we know what he testifies is true.”[2] John begins his first epistle: “It was from the beginning, we heard It, we saw It with our eyes, we looked at It, and our hands touched It – we're writing about the Word of Life.”[3] He concludes this epistle: “We know God's Son came and gave us the understanding to know Him who is real, and we are in Him who is real, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and everlasting life. Children, keep away from idols.”[4]

The prophets and apostles who write the Bible presented facts, true history, not pious myths based upon some emotional experiences. They carefully evaluated the evidence Luke begins his Gospel:

Many have undertaken to plan and write a story of what has been done among us, just as we heard it from those who from the first became eyewitnesses and servants of the World. For this reason I too decided to check everything carefully from the beginning and to write it down in the proper order for you, excellent Theophilus, so that you too will be sure what you have heard is true.[5]

Jesus, who said: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one comes to the Father except by Me,”[6] emphasized the importance of knowing the truth. He declared: “If you live in My Word, you are really My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will free you.”[7]

Today direct revelation, the very concept of truth, doctrine, and real history which can be known are being rejected right within the established churches. The very thought that God revealed Himself or any truths to man in propositions recorded in Holy Scripture is denied. Many contend that there is no such thing as absolute truth and that no one can say with absolute certainty what really happened. A professor we had for a course in philosophy at the University of Rochester in New York held up his pencil and told our class that if we believed the pencil were a cow or an elephant it would be a cow or elephant for us. Our response was that one may very well call it a cow but it certainly would not produce any milk.

Modern liberalism contends that there is no such thing as divinely revealed, authoritative, final doctrine, doctrina divina. However, the idea of propositional truth and revelation is taught by the Scriptures. The Holy Scriptures contain dogma, doctrine, real history, divinely revealed truth, which can be known.

While the Bible does use the term “truth” at times to mean such things as “loyalty,” “faithfulness,” etc., the Bible also teaches the idea of propositional truth, revelation, absolute truth, which man can know and express in doctrinal statements.

To the Samaritan woman who said, “I have no husband,” our Lord replied that since she had had five husbands and since her present consort was not her husband, her answer was quite correct: “You've told the truth.” Obviously Christ means “factual precision.” He is not attributing “faithfulness or “loyalty” to the woman.[8]

Of another woman we read in Mark that she came to Christ and “told Him all the truth.” Again this can only mean “factual precision.” Certainly she is not preaching the Gospel to Christ. She simply narrated the prosaic facts of her case.[9]

Martin Luther and other early Reformers had an intense desire to know and proclaim the truth in all areas. Luther, in his explanation of the Eighth Commandment: “Do not lie concerning your neighbor,” noted: “We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, nor defame our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.”

Christians are not free to believe or spread lies and myths about anyone or any people or nation. In short: A Christian promotes truth, not lies and hoaxes.

Revisionism

A Christian is not a revisionist in the sense that he wants to revise real history and distort what actually happened. Rather he is interested in learning and promoting facts, not lies, in every area. He is particularly vitally concerned about the true origins of all religions. Christianity is the only religion which is founded upon actual history. Unlike all other religions, it is founded upon actual events, which really happened in ordinary calendar history, not some kind of History” which is above and beyond real.history (the realm of myth). A Christian is not out to revise true history.

However, a Christian can be a Revisionist if by this is meant that a Christian is interested in revising what many consider to be history. Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace by Harry Elmer Barnes, who was not a Christian, was one of the first books I bought by a Revisionist during my college days in the early fifties. I still have this copy. Barnes noted in Revisionism and the Promotion of Peace” in The Journal of Historical Review (Spring, 1982):

During the last forty years or so, Revisionism has become a fighting term. To so-called Revisionists, it implies an honest search for historical truth and the discrediting of misleading myths that are a barrier to peace and goodwill among nations. In the minds of anti-Revisionists, the term savors of malice, vindictiveness, and an unholy desire to smear the saviors of mankind.

Actually, Revisionism means nothing more or less than the effort to correct the historical facts, a more calm political atmosphere, and a more objective attitude. It has been going on ever since Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457) exposed the forged “Donation of Constantine,” which was a cornerstone of the papal claim to secular power, and he later called attention to the unreliable methods of Livy in dealing with early Roman history. Indeed, the Revisionist impulse long antedated Valla, and it has been developing ever since that time. It has been employed in American history long before the term came into rather general use following the first World War.

Revisionism has been more frequently and effectively applied to correcting the historical record relative to wars, because truth is always the first war casualty, the emotional disturbances and distortions in historical writing are greatest in wartime, and both the need and the material for correcting historical myths are most evident in connection with wars.

Growing Up in New York City During World War II

The October, 1988 IHR Newsletter announcing this conference referred to me as a “German-American.” My parents came to this country from Germany as teenagers. However, ancestors on both my mother's and father's side came to Germany from Sweden. I mention this because some have said I am a neo-Nazi, out to defend Germany because of my background. But Mother's mother refused to say “Heil Hitler.” She insisted that she had only one Heiland (Savior) and that was Jesus Christ. Some feared she would be imprisoned. My father's father was one of the first Lutherans in Germany to leave the German territorial [state] church and helped form an independent church free from any government control. He vigorously protested against the liberal anti-Christian theology taught in many German universities and schools of higher learning. Perhaps much of the suffering that Germany has had to endure is because it had to such a large extent departed from God's Word.

I was fortunate to have a father, who, although he was an ordinary housepainter in New York City, was interested in world affairs and did considerable reading, including the writings of some Revisionists. Prior to WW II he followed the work of Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committees which sought to keep the U.S. out of war. I can still recall sitting in front of our radio in a Bronx apartment on December 7, 1941 listening to reports of the bombing of Pearl Harbor – I was eight years old at the time but I remember Dad telling us that this was the beginning of the most devastating war the world had ever known and that President Franklin Roosevelt was not entirely innocent in the affair. “F.D.R.'S WAR PLANS! – Goal is 10 Million Armed Men; Half to Fight in AEF – Proposes Land Drive by July 1, 1943 to Smash Nazis” were the headlines of the December 4, 1941 Chicago Tribune, three days before Pearl Harbor. One of the first things we had to do many mornings during WWII was run to a local ‘candy’ store to buy a copy of the New York Daily News, which at that time was only 2 cents. In the evening Dad would come home from work with other newspapers to keep up with the latest news about the war. When the news came on the radio at supper time, the entire family had to be quiet so we could hear the reports. Dad would often comment, after coming home from a day of painting in the homes of some clergymen and college professors, that a good number of them were rather uninformed about what was really going on in the world. He told us that very few of them recognized that Roosevelt actually planned to get the U.S. into the war.

During our public school years in the Bronx, news and evidence of the war were constantly before us. Apartment houses near our public schools were vacated and thousands of WACS, WAVES and SPARS moved in. They regularly marched around our school and trained in what is probably one of the largest armories in the world, which was right across from our school. A few gold stars replaced blue ones in our church and as we walked to school from time to time we could observe in the windows of apartment houses where a gold star had been placed just the day before where there had been a blue one. Another American had died in the war.

Some of the forty families who lived in our apartment house were Jews who had recently come from Europe and still had relatives there. At times there were only two or three of us in some of our grade school classes who were not Jews. Many of our teachers and friends were Jews. We collected newspapers for the war effort in apartment houses where most of the tenants were Jews. Some had only been in this country for a short time and still had some contact with relatives in Eastern European countries.

Before and after the war our family helped European Jews and other refugees settle in this country. A few of them became Christians. Our congregation in New York, St. Mathew Lutheran Church, often called the oldest Lutheran church in the country, probably included more former Jews than any other Lutheran church in the U.S. At one time our pastor told us that there were about 80.

During the years immediately after the war our family sent hundreds of food packages to the destitute in Europe. Since we had no automobile, we children took many of these packages to the post office in our wagon.

We cannot recall any of the many Jews with whom we came into contact growing up in Manhattan and the Bronx from 1933-52 who acted as if he really believed that millions of fellow Jews were being gassed by the Germans.

Undergraduate Revisionist Studies

I attended Concordia College Institute in Bronxville, New York, which consisted of a four-year prep school and two-year junior college. The school had a high academic standing, and four years of Latin, two years of Greek, and four years of German were required of all students, in addition to the standard courses in English, history. mathematics, and science.

Following my Dad's example, I became an early and enthusiastic Revisionist, which got me into difficulty with some of my teachers at Concordia. During my senior year I gave a talk on Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor, and the forced repatriation of millions of Eastern Europeans back to the Communists. One of the resources I used was The Crime of the Ages, by Ludwig A. Fritsch. The book included a pamphlet with an endorsement from Dr. Walter A. Maier, who at that time was speaker on the “International Lutheran Hour” and a professor at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

My history professor, who was an ardent fan of Roosevelt, almost exploded after I completed the speech. I had previously expressed some disagreement with this professor's views of the causes for the war and Roosevelt’s parts in the war, but this was the final straw. A few of my classmates were prepared for a confrontation. I was sent to the principal to get “straightened” out. It didn't do much good and only led me to read more books by such Revisionist historians as Charles Tansill, George Morgenstern, Percy Greaves, John T. Flynn, Charles Beard, Admiral Theobald, etc. I was determined to read all I could about WW I and WW II. When I graduated from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, in 1957 I also received a Master's Degree in history from Washington University. One reason for majoring in history was because I was interested in writing a textbook on American history which would tell the truth about the origins of World War I and II.

Christian Influences for Revisionism

I. Dr. Walter A. Maier

My thesis at Concordia Seminary in 1957 was on the political and economic thought of Dr. Walter A. Maier, who was one of the best known American churchmen during the war years. 32 years ago I wrote:

From Maier's endorsement of The Crime of the Ages it is rather obvious that he accepted the Revisionist interpretation of World War Two. He concluded a letter of thanks to the author with the words, “It certainly tells the truth” The author of this book, Ludwig A. Fritsch, Ph.D., D.D., stated that Roosevelt and his associates led America into war in order to bring this nation out of the depression. He argues that Roosevelt was not able to solve the unemployment situation in spite of social legislation and huge spending. Since Hitler could not be induced to attack the United States, Fritsch maintains that Roosevelt had to engineer war “via the back door.” Through various economic pressures Japan was supposed to have been sufficiently antagonized to attack Pearl Harbor. This was claimed to have permitted Roosevelt and his associates to stand before America and demand revenge for the sneak attack. Fritsch, whom Maier endorsed, wrote:

TELL OUR PEOPLE what Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, told the Chamber of Commerce of America June 20, 1944, as reported by the United Press: “Japan was provoked into attacking the United States at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history ever to say that America was forced into the war.” … TELL OUR PEOPLE, that before God and history, the load of responsibility for the chaotic conditions and the indescribable misery all over the world rests on our conscience; because we played havoc with prehistoric brutality and saved Bolshevism, making it a world menace. Without our intervention there would have been peace and order in Europe and the world long ago.[10]

II. Dr. Alfred Rehwinkel

Most of my professors at Concordia College (Bronxville), Washington University, Columbia University and Concordia Seminary (St. Louis), promoted the generally accepted line about Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt and the cause of both World War One and Two. Almost all of the few who were even aware of the Revisionist position refused to accept it. Dr. Alfred Rehwinkel, one of my advisors at Concordia Seminary, was one of the few who knew what was really going on in the world. Rehwinkel had been associated with Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee. I often visited him, even after graduating from Concordia Seminary. He was several times a guest speaker at our congregation in New Haven, Missouri. Rehwinkel had been president of Concordia, Edmonton and later St. John's College in Winfield, Kansas, founded in 1893 by J.P. Baden, a distant relative our family. My father, who was one of Rehwinkel's many admirers among the laymen, first became acquainted with him when Dad worked in the wheat fields in Kansas in the 1920's.

Perhaps one reason The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s Concordia Publishing House has never published an excellent well written biography by Rev. Ronald Stelzer of Rehwinkel known as “Rip,” is because of his position on WW II. This biography notes:

To Rip “The Second World War was the bankruptcy of Western statemanship, and worse than that, it was the bankruptcy of Western morality.” It was the impetus behind his 400 page unpublished manuscript entitled War, The Christian's Dilemma. Herein is depicted one side of the story that likely will never appear in the textbooks of American history. Against the backdrop of American and Allied atrocities in World War II, Rip analyzes the ethical problem of war as it is dealt with in the Old and New Testaments, the early Church Fathers, medieval Church history, by the Reformers and those in recent times …

Amidst the jubilant celebration of his countrymen over the German and Japanese surrender, Rip was profoundly unimpressed with the Allies' accomplishments on the battlefield and at the negotiating table. Fifteen years later an interviewer asked Rip, “Who do you think has had the worst influence on our modern world?” Rip spoke without hesitation, “The answer is very simple. The men who have had the most baneful influence on our whole world today are Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.” (Questionnaire prepared by Dr. William Beck of St. Louis at the request of Dr. O.A. Dorn of Concordia Publishing House.) In my own coversatons with Rip he consistently referred to these two, but especially Roosevelt, as “contemptible warmongers, deceivers and fools.” On occasion he has described them as “the architects of world chaos” or “the curse of our generation” and their acts as “stupendous stupidities” or “selling us down the river.” …

Rip was a voice crying in the wilderness, a lonely prophet proclaiming God's judgment upon a nation that could see only that it had won a great war. “God’s attitude regarding the dignity of human life has not changed. No government has the right to shed man's blood unless for a just cause specifically sanctioned by God Himself.” Instead of sharing in the party spirit, Rip posed the rhetorical question, “What does it profit a nation if it conquers the whole world but loses its soul?” When his countrymen cheered as wave after wave of bombers pounded Dresden and Hamburg, Rip echoed the words of the prophet “Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and booty-no end to the plunder! The crack of whip, and rumble of wheel, galloping horse and pounding Chariot! Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end – they stumble over the bodies! … Behold I am against you, says the Lord of Hosts.” (Nahum 3:1-5) …

Rip also perceived a sign of God's judgment in that the American people supported and approved the follies of their leaders. Jeremiah writes “An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so.” (Jer. 5:31). It was a source of constant amazement to Rip how the Americans and Briffsh still honor Roosevelt and Churchill as great heroes.

But what of Hitler? “Like Nebuchadnessar, when he made himself to be a god, God made him to be a fool; likewise those who worshipped him.” It is plain to those who have eyes to see that God is using Russia and the rest of the Communist world as His executioners just as He used Assyria and Babylonia against an apostate Israel and Judah.

III. Professor Kurt Marquart

Not all of the students at Concordia Seminary were unfamiliar with the works of Revisionist scholars and unconcerned about the threat of Communism. One of these students, who was also greatly influenced by by Rehwinkel, was Kurt Marquart, now a professor at Concordia Seminary (Ft. Wayne). Dr. Marquart is considered by many to be one of the leading theologians in all of Christendom. At the same time is well informed about what is going on in the world.

Marquart and I were roommates at Concordia Seminary in 1954-55. His mother and stepfather were born in Russia, and he was born in Estonia, escaping when the Communists took over. Marquart taught Russian during his first year at Concordia Seminary. A good number of his writings on Communism and many other matters have been included in The Christian News Encyclopedia.

Marquart stated in an address first presented at the Australian League of Rights in Brisbane, Australia in 1968:

It is difficult for those who have not directly experienced Communism to comprehend the horror of it all. Allied soldiers, who as a result of the infamous Yalta Agreement, had to force Soviet citizens “liberated” from German captivity at the end of World War II, to return to the Workers' Paradise, reacted with utter bewilderment and incomprehension when most of these people not only refused to go back “home,” but resorted to the most desperate measures to avoid this fate. I myself shall never forget the pathetic spectacle I witnessed in 1945, of a two-mile stream of Russians, simple workers and peasants in the main, fleeing into the woods with what few belongings they could carry, to avoid being sent back to the Soviet Union. One of our friends, a Russian engineer, went back to the camp to help rescue some others, and was caught by the British soldiers whose distasteful duty it was to enforce these inhuman mass-deportations. When the men vehemently resisted “repatriation” the British officer in charge asked him if he realized that he could be sent to gaol for five years if he refused to co-operate. Our friend explained that he would gladly go to prison rather than return to the Red hell! He served five years. In other camps, also in the American occupation zone, ever more terrible scenes took place. When the men had been herded like cattle onto trucks, the women would lie down on the road in front of the trucks, and had to be removed at bayonet point. Not infrequently mothers would kill their children, and then slash their own wrists, if there was no other way out. Such unparalleled mass desperation testifies unanswerable to the utter contempt for human life practiced in the name of the brotherhood of man by the most brutal, most cynical, most inhuman regime of modern times, if not of all history.[11]

Some Twentieth Century Hoaxes

The Christian News, true to its function as a Christian Lutheran paper, has, since its founding in 1962, combated a number of false beliefs which I consider to be hoaxes no less than the Holocaust The Christian News has exposed the false notion that all self-professed Christian churches and sects embrace the Christianity of the Gospel, as well as the claim that Christianity is just one of the many valid religious ways to God. We have upheld the inerrancy of God's directly revealed word in the Bible, and have published hundreds of articles by prominent scientists which demonstrate that the theory of evolution is a hoax.

The Christian News has stood firmly against the idea that God has picked any one particular race to be his “chosen people.” This is a hoax which is widely accepted by both liberals, with their theory of evolution, and many “conservatives,” who maintain that the Bible teaches the Jews are God's chosen race.

There are plenty of sincere but misguided Christians who maintain that when the Bible speaks about the conversion of all Israel this means physical Israel and those who are referred to as Jews today. The Christian News Encyclopedia includes a good number of articles exposing the nature of this hoax.[12]

Even some who might consider themselves “Revisionists” and who reject the anti-scriptural notion that the Jews are God's chosen race are guilty of racism. Here is just one recent example: An article appearing in the December, 1988 Christian Vanguard, newsletter of the New Christian Crusade Church, says:

First let us bear in mind that the Bible is a book about the racial history of the White Race and that Adam, our ancestor, was White and that that line remained pure until Jesus, who was God, came in the flesh. If our God was White, and we are His sons and daughters, then we may fairly say that there is nothing in the Bible for any race other than the White Race, despite the millions that Christian churches have spent overseas to “save” non-Whites. For some strange reason, the ministers who so roundly denounce Adolf Hitler, champion of the White Race, never find time to criticize Moses and the prophets who actually did what Hitler didn't do! Deuteronomy 11:23 tips the hand in which way the Pentateuch will take the White Race: ” … and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.” Thusly, we see that under the “Fuehrership” of Moses, Israelite tribal ascendancy was to come at all costs, including some rough treatment of other races. Hitler was falsely accused of having put into practice the racial conceptions handed to Moses by Yahweh Himself.[13]

The Bible knows nothing about any chosen race. The true Christian today worships the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Holy Trinity. Those who are called Jews today reject this God. Paul wrote to the Galatians that Abraham “believed God, and so was counted righteous. You see, then, those who believe are Abraham's real descendants. The Bible foresaw that God would make the nations righteous by faith, and long ago He told Abraham the good news: Through you all nations will be blessed. So those who believe are blessed with Abraham, who believed.”[14]

According to Holy Scripture, in God's sight there is no special race, color, nationality, sex, etc. Peter wrote to the Christians of his day: “But you are a chosen people, priests of the King, a holy nation, a people saved to be His own and to tell of the wonderful deeds of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were no people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had received no mercy, but now you have received mercy.”[15]

Peter noted that “God doesn't prefer one person to another. It doesn't matter what people you belong to; if you fear Him and do what's right, he accepts you.”[16]

I have repudiated all racism as long as I can remember. As I previously mentioned, I grew up in New York City among members of numerous nationalities and races. Our church had members of all races. One of my Sunday School teachers was Japanese. I had a Chinese for a roomate my first year in Prep School. In grade school most of my schoolmates were Jews. I often worked with my father as a housepainter in Harlem in the homes of blacks. One summer I was the only white person on a 40-man picking crew. The Christian News, ever since it began, has published editorials against racism. I have been invited to speak to large groups where the vast majority were non-whites. Churchmen from various races have spoken in our church. Yet the Anti-Defamation League has labeled The Christian News as a hate sheet, racist and anti- Semitic.[17]

I wrote to the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League on June 25, 1988:

Mr. Abraham Foxman, National Director
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith
823 United Nations Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10017
Dear Mr. Foxman:

The Christian News has just received in a letter from Mr. Edgar M. Bronfman, President of the World Jewish Congress 501 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10022, a statement from you which says in part: “we educate, persuade, demand when we have to, use the courts, do the research, and make sure the necessary information is published and distributed where it will do some good. ADL responds to the needs of individual victims of prejudice, and fights against bigotry, racism and anti-Semitism.” Attached to your statement is a report titled ” An ADL Special Report – HATE GROUPS IN AMERICA – A Record of Bigotry and Violence.”

Your special reports include a section titled “List of Extreme-Right Groups.” It says: “The following is a list of extreme-right groups that have operated in the U.S. in recent years. These groups espouse racism and/or anti-Semitism: many have engaged in violence.” Under a section title “List of Extreme-Right Publications” is Christian News, New Haven, Missouri – (no organization).”

Christian News wrote to Mr. Harold Singer, publisher of the Jewish Journal, Brooklyn, New York, on March 8: “An article in the February 19 Jewish Journal lists Christian News as part of the 'Right Wing Hate Press.' Could you please tell us why Christian News is considered part of the 'hate press?' Could you please send us the address of Mr. Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith?”

Christian News wrote to you on March 29: “A report in the February 19 Jewish Journal says that the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith lists Christian News as part of the Right Wing Hate Press.' Could you please tell us why Christian News is considered part of the 'hate press?'”

Perhaps you never received this letter. Could you now please answer these questions?

I then posed a series of questions to Mr. Foxman, asking to produce a single citation from The Christian News advocating or defending racial hatred, anti-Semitism, or violence. Then I put to him a series of questions on the factuality of the Holocaust, and on ADL's willingness to engage in a debate on the issue.

The Christian News never received any response from the Anti-Defamation League and, as far as I know, The Christian News is still on the ADL's list of hate and racist publications.

Two hoaxes often promoted by Christians are closely linked. According to one of them, Jesus Christ will establish a kingdom of peace on this earth and reign from Jerusalem for a thousand years. The other hoax represents the contemporary State of Israel as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.

Space does not permit me to show how widely Millennialism has infiltrated the fundamentalist, charismatic, evangelical and Reconstructionist movements. Such prominent churchmen as Jerry Falwell, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Dave Hunt, Carl McIntire, Rousas Rushdoony, Gary North, Robert Sumner, Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Hal Lindsey, and many others are all Millennialists of one sort or another. The State of Israel has welcomed the Israel First Milliennialists, who believe the State of Israel a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, with open arms.

Millennialists often disagree with one another. Some of the hoaxes the Millennialists promote are rather bizarre. Hal Lindsey, the author of the bestselling Late Great Planet Earth (more than 20 million copies) says, in his A Prophetical Walk Through the Holy Land, that there will be such a terrific battle in Israel, involving hundreds of millions, that blood will flow up to the horses' bridles for 200 miles. Lindsey's book includes a map showing where this wide tide of blood will flow up to the horses' bridles for 200 miles. Lindsey and other Millennialists are quoted at considerable length in the CNE.[18]

Anyone who wants documents showing that the whole of Millennialism is a dangerous, anti-scriptural hoax, should consult The Christian News Encyclopedia.[19]

The Augsburg Confession, one of the confessions of the orthodox Lutheran Church, stated it well when it referred to the Millennialists of the Sixteenth Century as those who were spreading certain “Jewish opinions.” The Augsburg Confession says in Article XVII:

Also they teach that at the Consummation of the World Christ will appear for judgment, and will raise up all the dead; he will give to the godly and elect eternal life and everlasting joys, but ungodly men and the devils He will condemn to be tormented without end.

They condemn the Anabaptists, who think that there will be an end to the punishment of the condemned men and devils.

They condemn also others, who are now spreading certain Jewish opinions, that before the resurrection of the dead the godly shall take possession of the kingdom of the world, the ungodly being everywhere suppressed.[20]

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in its Brief Statement correctly confesses after listing numerous Bible passages: “According to these clear passages of Scripture we reject the whole of Millennialism, since it not only contradicts Scripture, but also engenders a false conception of the kingdom of Christ, turns the hope of Christians upon earthly goals, (1 Cor. 15:19; Col. 3:2), and leads them to look upon the Bible as an obscure book.”[21]

Another widespread delusion among Christians is that today's Jews view the Old Testament in the same way as Christians, and that the Old Testament is the chief Jewish scriptural authority.

Jews today insist that the Talmud is their highest religious authority. They consider it to be far more authoritative than the Old Testament. When I was in Israel last year, various Israeli guides and leaders repeatedly told me that the Talmud was their most authoritative source of religious truth. A new translation of the Talmud is now in the process of publication. The Christian News Encyclopedia includes some 160 pages from the 34-volume Socino edition of the Talmud.[22] Few churchmen have studied the Talmud. Hardly anyone at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, has checked out the edition of the Talmud in the seminary's library. Almost all the pastors and professors we asked about the Talmud say they had not read even a few pages.

Those who have read what Luther wrote about the Talmud should have at least some idea of the gross immorality and lies found in the Talmud. Fifty and more years ago some of the orthodox theologians of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, such as Lutheran Hour speaker Walter A. Maier, did not hesitate to point out the lies, racism, and immorality in the ralmud. The standard of morality promoted in the Talmud gives Israel the right to take land away from Arabs who have owned it for centuries. Today it seems that even many conservative theologians hesitate to expose the Talmud for “fear of the Jews.”

The Talmud reports that the Emporer Hadrian slaughtered some 800,000,000 million Jews at a time when most historians say there were about 2,000,000 Jews in Palestine. Gentiles are said to have fertilized their vineyards for seven years with the blood of Israel without using manure. Sixty-four million Jewish children, according to the Talmud, are supposed to have been slaughtered by the Gentiles in Bethar. Another section of the Talmud says that the Romans killed 4 billion Jews or “as some say” 40 million Jews. The blood of the slain Jews is to have reached the nostrils of the Roman horses and then, like a tidal wave, plunged a distance of one or four miles to the sea, carrying large boulders along with it, and staining the sea a distance of four miles out. The bodies of Jews slain by the Gentiles were used to build a fence around Hadrian’s vineyard, which is said to have been eighteen miles square and the blood that was saved from the tidal wave was used to fertilize the vineyards for seven years.[23]

Most Jews today are scarcely familiar with the Old Testament. They reject the real message of the Old Testaments the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and salvation only in Him.

The Roman Catholic church has long maintained that some of its saints have been able to raise people from the dead and that the Virgin Mary appears to some of them. An advertisement of Raised From The Dead, True Stories of 400 Resurrection Miracles by Father Albert J. Hebert, a book which has the imprimatur of Rome, says:

The raising of the dead is a miracle which, astonishing as it is, has been performed hundreds of times since the days of Christ. Our Lord told His Apostles to raise the dead (Matt 10:8), and over the centuries many saints have done so – particularly great missionaries like St Francis Xavier, St Patrick, St Vincent Ferrer, St Hyacinth, and St Louis Bertrand, but also a multitude of other saints. The stories of these resurrection miracles are amazing: they include the raising of persons who had drowned, or persons with mutilated bodies, of persons who had been hanged, and of those whose bodies had already suffered decay, been reduced to skeletons, or been buried for several years.[24]

Some Charismatics have requested us to publish their reports about Charismatics raising people from the dead. We asked them for the evidence but they never supplied us with any. Kenneth Copeland, a Charismatic who denies the deity of Christ and speaks in tongues, reports in his April, 1987 Voice of Victory that a leading African Charismatic has raised seven people from the dead.[25]

Oral Roberts, one of the leading Charismatics of our day, says that he has spoken face to face with a 900-foot Jesus. Roberts and other Charismatics continually claim that God speaks directly to them, particularly when they are in need of money. There are millions who believe this hoax.

Dr. Percy Collett, who has been widely promoted by Charismatics, including the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship, claims that for almost six days he was literally in heaven. An advertisment promting Collett says: “For 5½ earth days he talked with God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Elijah, Elisha, Abraham, Moses, Paul and others. He viewed the mansions of the saints, and toured the buildings NOW under construction.”[26]

Dr. Richard E. Eby, who claims that after he died Jesus sent him back to earth to tell people the truth, is now being promoted by charismatics. The Charismatic Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship says that

In 1972, Dr. Eby fell two stories to his death. His blood had drained out into the ground from his crushed skull. He was instantly in a new body with the Lord. He shares this unique experience in Heaven with Jesus Christ as well as the dramatic return to life in his earthly body. He describes the marvels of life after death, and as a physician he includes a vivid description of his immortal body. Jesus sent him back to earth to tell the truth. Everyone has wondered about life after death – is it true? Where will I go? Is there really a Heaven? A Hell? This is your opportunity to meet someone who has actually experienced death and restoration, and find the truth for yourself.

Jimmy Swaggart, one of the tongues-speaking and healing Charismatics who has promoted Collett, said:

… you are going to be literally elated, excited and thrilled at what Dr. Collett is going to share. I could talk to His man for 10 years and never scratch the surface – what he saw, what has happened to him, and the move of the Holy Spirit, within his life … He has thrilled my soul and I think he's going to thrill yours as well…[27]

has for many years exposed the hoaxes promoted by such leading Charismatic preachers as Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlmann, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Kenneth Copeland, Jack Coe, and others.[28]

God speaks to man today through His Word, Holy Scripture, which is powerful and efficacious.[29]

The Charismatics, and visionaries who accept the testimony of those who claim the Virgin Mary spoke to them at Fatima, Medujmorje, and elsewhere have been among those who accepted the Shroud of Turin as the Shroud of Jesus. However, even some conservative and evangelical Christians also believed the Shroud of Turin was the Shroud of Jesus, as we noted in a Christian News editorial titled: “Admit Mistakes – Even Some Conservatives Believed in Hoaxes – Recognize the Shroud of Turin is not Shroud of Jesus.”[30]

Millions of pilgrims have gone to Turin and many of them claim to have witnessed miracles. Such conservative publications as William Buckley’s National Review, Billy James Hargis' Christian Crusade, Human Events, and even such scientific journals as the American Medical News and the Industrial Research Development have published articles and editorials supporting the hoax that the Shroud of Turin is the Shroud of Jesus. Some of our conservative friends took sharp issue with us for maintaining that the Shroud of Jesus was not the Shroud of Turin.

Rev. Jeff Gavin, a Lutheran Church-Missouri minister in Dacatur, Illinois, commented:

I am writing to comment on your article “The Shroud of Turin Is A Hoax,” April 12, 1982.

I never considered The Saturday Evening Post to be a theological publication, yet compared to your article and your “scholarship” it appears I must reconsider my evaluation of the Post.

For some years, I have been interested in the Shroud, and must agree with the Post's conclusion “The man of the Shroud suffered, died and was buried the way the Gospels say Jesus was.” You neglect to mention that Dr. McCrone was the only dissenting scientist among the STURP team of 40 scientists. The conclusion reached by the others all indicated that the Shroud cannot be proven a hoax. What Dr. McCrone did find on the Shroud was not paint but iron oxide, a substance found in paint but also found in blood.

The amount of physical support for the authenticity of the shroud has filled many books and articles. I suggest you study some of them before you make your own conclusions.

Let me conclude by quoting a Biblical scholar far more knowledgeable than either of us. Dr. David P. Scaer of the Concordia Theological Serninary writes concerning the Shroud of Turin in an article in the C.T.Q. [Concordia Theological Quarterly] Jan. 1979 issue: “The image on the Shroud of Jesus portrayed in the Gospels … there is therefore no valid theological objection to identification of the Shroud of Turin as the Shroud in which Jesus was buried.

While we have often commended the Concordia Theological Quarterly (formerly The Springfielder) and have urged readers to subscribe (Concordia Theological Quarterly, 6600 North Clinton Street, Fort Wayne, Indiana 46825), we still insisted that the Shroud of Turin was not the Shroud of Jesus. We did not retract our editorials on the shroud being a hoax simply because various scientists and even some orthodox Christian professors concluded that the Shroud of Turin may very well be the Shroud of Jesus. The Shroud of Turin is not the only hoax some orthodox Christians accept as fact. The October 14, 1988, Washington Times reported in a story titled Triple Testing Finds Shroud Medieval Fake:”

Turin, Italy-The Shroud of Turin, revered by many Christians as the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, has been shown by carbon-dating tests to be a fake from the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic church said yesterday.

But Vatican officials said the mystery of how the blood- stained image of a crucified man has appeared on the yellowing cloth was still unsolved and the shroud would remain an object of veneration for the Church.

Turin Cardinal Anastasio Ballestrero told a news conference that tests by three laboratories – in England, the United States and Switzerland – showed with 95 per cent certainty that the cloth dated from sometime between 1260 and 1390.

The results of the carbon-dating tests should again show the folly of accepting as fact all the stories of visions, healings, relics, etc., which Rome, the charismatics, and even some misguided churchmen at times promote. Christians should not accept any hoax as a fact.

Other hoaxes The Christian News has exposed include the “new morality” and “situation ethics,” the idea that sinful acts are permissible in various situations, thus superseding the teaching of the Bible. The veneration accorded such unrepentant adulterers as Paul Tillich and Martin Luther King, Jr. shows to what extent many within the various churches have swallowed these unscriptural notions.

Last but certainly not least among the hoaxes exposed in The Christian News is the Holocaust, the alleged slaughter of some six million Jews, most of them by gassing, in a planned attempt at extermination by the German government in the Second World War. Those not familiar with The Christian News may be surprised to learn that we have published hundreds of items supporting the Holocaust theory, and numerous letters defending the case for the Holocaust.

The Revisionist Side

While The Christian News has given those who are convinced that the Germans exterminated six million Jews plenty of space to defend their position. the paper has also published a good number of articles, letters, and reports by Revisionists who question the Holocaust story. Some of these articles, in the sections on the Holocaust, Revisionism, Israel, Jews, Germany, Millennialism, and Germany, have been reprinted in The Christian News Encyclopedia. We have included photographs of various documents pertaining to the Holocaust.

My father was a friend of Dr. Austin App, a Christian Revisionist honored at your conference last year. When Dr. App published his booklets on the Holocaust, he sent us copies and they were reviewed in The Christian News at a time when others hesitated to even mention them.[31] We also published a long statement from a liberal pastor who took issue with Dr. App, and then printed Dr. App's response.[32]

Some of the Revisionists whose writings have appeared in The Christian News are Mark Weber, Arthur Butz, Bradley Smith, Charles Weber, Jim Keegstra, Clarence Lang, Ernst Zundel, Walter Bodenstein, Robert Faurisson, Ratibor Ray M. Jurjevich, Martin A. Larson, William Stäglich, and Ditlieb Felderer.[33] We have repeatedly invited readers who disagree with the Revisionists to send us articles and letters showing where the Revisionists are in error. Many of our readers, some tell us the vast majority, including most of the thousands of clergymen and professors who receive The Christian News, accept as absolute fact that the Germans exterminated approximately 6 million Jews during World War II. We have noted, however, that some, particularly among our younger readers, are seriously questioning the Holocaust.

Last year when The Christian News reviewed Thies Christophersen's The Truth of Auschwitz, The Christian News published this special notice:

If any reader knows of someone who was at Auschwitz who is able to refute Thies Christophersen, or anyone who can show that Christophersen is either lying or sadly mistaken, please contact The Christian News. The Christian News is particularly interested in publishing a statement from someone who actually saw the gas chambers at Auschwitz, where some four million Jews are said to have been gassed by the Germans.[34]

Christophersen was at Auschwitz when the Germans were supposed to be gassing millions of Jews, and states that there were no gas chambers and no mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz.

Fred Leuchter, one of the leading U.S. experts in the construction of gas chambers, accepted the notion that the Germans exterminated some six million Jews before he made a thorough examination of the matter last year. “The Leuchter Report – the End of a Myth – An Engineering Report on the Alleged Gas Chamber at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdenek, Poland” sets out the methodology and findings of the actual sites in Poland where the gassings were alleged to have occurred. Luechter's conclusion, after inspecting the sites and analyzing samples taken from walls and floors for total cyanide content, was unambiguous: the alleged gas chambers could not have been used, then or now, as execution gas chambers. The publisher of the “Leuchter Report” comments (CNE, 2363):

David Irving, the distinguished British historian, has called the “Leuchter Report” a “shattering” document which was instrumental in hardening his belief that the whole of the Holocaust mythology was now open to doubt. It is a document which “Holocaust” historians can ignore only at the peril to their reputations as objective scholars. After the “Leuchter Report,” the allegation of genocide perpetrated by the Germans against the Jews, using gas chambers as murder instruments, can no longer be upheld.

When The Christian News published a report on the Leuchter document, The Christian News noted:

Christian News welcomes a critique from anyone who still believes the Germans gassed six minion Jews after he has read the “Leuchter Report.” We have made similar offers to those who still believe in the Holocaust after they have read the words of Faurisson, Rassinier, Butz, Stäglich, and Feldereer. We have repeatedly discovered that those who believe the Germans gassed six million Jews have seldom read the writings of the scholars who maintain there were no gas chambers for the extermination of even a few Jews” (The Christian News, July 18, 1988).

Faurisson concludes his “The Problem of the Gas Chambers”:

There was not a single “gas chamber” in even one of the German concentration camps; that is the truth. The non- existence of “gas chambers” should be regarded as welcome news; to hide this news in the future would be an injustice. Just as there is no attack upon religion if one portrays “Fatima” as a fraud, the announcement that the “gas chambers” are an historical lie is not an attack upon concentration camp survivors. One is merely doing one's duty by being truthful.

When The Christian News reviewed Wilhelm Stäglich’s Auschwitz Myth, we made a similar challenge:

The Christian News now invites a response from anyone who can show that Wilhelm Stäglich's The Auschwitz Myth is in error. We would like to publish a review from anyone who has read the book and still believes that the Germans gassed four million Jews at Auschwitz.[35]

No critic of the writings of such Revisionists as Arthur Butz, Charles Weber, Robert Faurisson, Wilhelm Stäglich, and Thies Christophersen has ever sent us any statement showing where their writings are in error.

The Christian News has insisted upon careful docu mentation and has always been willing to publish the other side in any matter. It is possible for even a careful scholar to use an oft-quoted statement without first checking its authenticity. In the past we have noted that quotations can be spuriously transferred from one writer to another. One of the first quotations we exposed as a phony was one which anti-Communists were quoting at the time. American Communist leader Gus Hall is supposed to have said, at the funeral of Eugene Dennis in 1961, “I dream of the hour when the last congressman is strangled on the guts of the last preacher … “

Our efforts to acquire any information which would refute the Revisionists have been sincere. We wrote to both Dr. Jacob Preus, former president of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and Rev. Richard Neuhaus, a prominent churchman, columnist for National Review, and editor of other publications, on April 3, 1984:

This year April 24 is the Annual Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust. Both of you have been among the Lutheran churchmen who have endorsed the idea of Holocaust Sunday … You have insisted that it is a fact that some six million Jews were killed by the Germans.

The Christian News has published a debate on Luther, the Jews, and the Holocaust. You will note that Pastor R.H. Goetjen maintains that the Holocaust never happened. He claims that Jews say far more ruthless things about Christians in their Talmud than Luther ever said about the Jews. We are inviting you to respond to what Pastor Goetjen says. We would appreciate if you could tell us the sources of your evidence that the Holocaust did occur.

Neither President Preus nor Editor Neuhaus responded.

Fostering Debate on the Holocaust

Five years ago The Christian News published a front page article entitled “The Christian News Invites Moellering and Goetjen to 'Debate' – Theologian Blasts Critics of Holocaust – Deplores Luther's 'Anti-Jewish Tirades.'” It began:

“Nothing has been more detrimental to the reformer's reputation that his anti-Jewish tirade,” says Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod theologian Dr. Ralph Moellering in the January, 1984 Cresset of Valparaiso University.

Writing in an article titled “Lutheranism and the Holocaust – The Question of Culpability,” the LCMS clergy- man, who is currently the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in El Cerrito, California, takes issue with some “crazies!” These “crazies” do not believe that the Germans actually exterminated some six million Jews. They excuse Luther's harsh words against Jews because of what the Jews say in their Talmud about Christ, Gentiles, Christians, and the Virgin Mary. Moellering observes that some of these “fanatics help keep alive belief in an international Jewish conspiracy dedicated to the undermining of Gentile civilization …[36]

One of the supposed “crazies” Moellering mentioned was Rev. Reinhold Goetjen. He referred to a letter Goetjen had written to The Christian News.[37] The Christian News invited both Moellering and Goetjen to submit essays of some 5,000 words on Luther, the Jews, and the Talmud. We invited each to submit their evidence for or against the truthfulness of the reports of the extermination of some six milion Jews. The lengthy essays both submitted have been reprinted in the CNE. Goetjen sent us a rebutal to Moellering's essay, but Moellering failed to respond to what Goetjen said about the Talmud and the Holocaust.[38] At the time Moellering wrote his essay, he had not read what the leading Revisionist scholars have written on the Holocaust.

Two years ago, the Rev. Mark Herbener, who is a member of the Board of Directors of the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies and who is now a bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, took sharp issue with us for publishing what Revisionists were saying about the Holocaust. He said he had been sending copies of The Christian News to such groups as the Anti-Defamation League. We welcomed the bishop's letter and made this proposal:

The Holocaust is being debated in various European countries. Let's set up a debate on the Holocaust which will receive attention all over the U.S. Now would be a good time. Newspapers throughout the nation are mentioning the Holocaust in their reports of the current Demjanjuk trial in Israel.

Could your Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies get Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, who is perhaps the chief spokesman for the Holocaust, to debate one of the leading Revisionists who claims the Holocaust is a hoax and that the Germans never gassed six million Jews? If you are unable to get Elie Wiesel or someone else to debate the Holocaust, then perhaps you or someone else familiar with the arguments of the Revisionists could debate the same subject in The Christian News. The Christian News will give each side 6,000 words to present its case, 3,000 words to respond to the opposition, and then 1,000 words for a rebuttal to the response. If you can think of a fairer arrangement, please let me know. The Christian News wants to be as fair as possible to both sides.[39]

Bishop Herbener refused to debate the Holocaust, declaring that “your proposition to debate has only wickedness in its intent.”[40]

In our response to the Bishop we included this statement:

The next issue of The Christian News will include some quotations from Wilhelm Stäglich's The Auschwitz Myth. An English translation of this book has just been published in this country. We welcome a thorough refutation of this book by your Center for Holocaust Studies. Perhaps you could persuade Elie Wiesel to review the book if he is unable to travel to Dallas to debate the Holocaust.

The Bishop responded:

I understand what you are after and I call it “wicked.” It is called “Jew-baiting.” It is one of the rankest forms of anti- Semitism I have seen. It is closely akin to racism, the kind of racism that produced the Holocaust in Germany …

The Bishop complained that if we had been sincere about getting the real facts on the Holocaust we would have suggested a debate with some Holocaust historians rather than an author like Elie Wiesel. We responded:

We suggested that your Center for Holocaust Studies get Elie Wiesel to debate, since his is known as the chief spokesman for the remembrance of the Holocaust and the leader of the Exterminationist viewpoint. However, if you can get Raul Hilberg, John Pawlikowski, Eva Fleischner, Byron Sherwin, or Sybil Milton to debate with any of the leading Revisionists, that would be fine with us. Could you please contact them to see whether they would be willing to debate the Revisionists? It doesn't make any difference to us whom you get to defend your notion that the Germans gassed some six million Jews during World War II.[41]

We asked the Bishop some questions he had previously refused to answer:

1. Do you believe that Jews were gassed at Dachau during the war years, as was alleged at Nuremberg and elsewhere, or do you now concede that this story is not true? If you reject this story, why do you believe that the evidence at Dachau is less credible than the evidence for gassings at Auschwitz, Sobibor, and the other camps?
2. Do you believe the evidence that Jews were steamed at Treblinka? If so, why do you think that Holocaust historians now reject that evidence. If not, why not? Is the evidence for “steam chambers any less credible than the evidence for “gas chambers?”
3. Do you believe the story that the Germans manufactured bars of soap from Jewish corpses during the war? If so, why do you think that Holocaust historians now reject the story? If not, are you ready to condemn those who spread this story as liars or misinformed defamers?
4. The prominent Jewish and former Auschwitz inmate Elie Wiesel wrote in his book, Legends of Our Time: “Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate – for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German.” Do you agree with Wiesel?
5. Do you agree that spreading and supporting lies about the German nation and people is a violation of the commandment Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor?”

Bishop Herbener was either unable or unwilling to answer these questions. IHR editorial advisor Mark Weber's “Open Letter to the Rev. Mark Herbener,” which appeared both in The Christian News and The Journal of Historical Review (Summer 1988), presented a brief and lucid case for Holocaust Revisionism. The April 13, 1987 Christian News, which published the challenges from “The Committee For Open Debate on the Holocaust,” included an editorial which said:

The Christian News is sent to many church leaders, scholars, and professors who maintain that the Germans gassed about six million Jews. We hope some of them will accept the offer to debate or urge some scholar they know to accept the offer. We would appreciate it if those who accept the offer of the “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust” would send us a copy of their acceptance. We have no association with their committee and want to make certain that both sides receive fair treatment. Perhaps we should also note that there appears to be a growing number of informed churchmen and scholars who no longer accept the Holocaust However, some of them have warned us that the subject is too dangerous for The Christian News, even if we agree to give both sides equal opportunity to express their views.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles was quick to reply. After accusing the Committee for Open Debate and the Institute for Historical Review of being “neo-Nazi,” the Center told The Christian News that it is an absolute historical fact that the Germans gassed some six million Jews during WW II. When The Christian News suggested that the Simon Wiesenthal Center accept the challenge from the Committee for an Open Debate of the Holocaust, a spokesman for the center told The Christian News that just as Dr. Jonas Salk, the discoverer of polio vaccine, would never debate with a witch doctor, so the reputable historians and scholars at the Simon Wiesenthal Center would never debate with anyone who questions that the Germans gassed some six million Jews. According to the center, the gassing of the six milion Jews is so certain as to be beyond debate.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centers' chief response was to tell a newspaper in the New Haven area that The Christian News was publishing material from a neo-Nazi group when it published a challenge to debate the Holocaust from “The Committee For Open Debate on the Holocaust.”

Dr. Harry James Cargas of Webster University in St. Louis lectures widely on the Holocaust and is known as a fearless defender of the thesis that the Germans exterminated some six million Jews. Dr. Cargas wrote in the June 26, 1987 St. Louis Dispatch:

Adolph [sic] Hitler tried to implement the goal of eliminating all of the world's Jews. He died on the tax rolls of the Catholic Church, never having been excommunicated … The silence of Pope Pius XII regarding the murder of Jews is a scandal.

wrote to Cargas:

We have been informed that you are one of the leading Holocaust scholars in the nation and that you have written several books on the subject The Christian News has just received the enclosed manuscript from the “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust” and has been asked to publish it (CNE, 2018)

However, we would like to give you or some other Holocaust scholar you know an opportunity to respond. Would it be possible for you to send us a response by September 10 for our September 14 issue? Possibly you already have an essay which answers those who question whether the Germans actually gassed some six million Jews during WW II …

Are you willing to debate the Holocaust in a forum with someone from the “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust”? The Christian News would like to print the transcript of such a debate, particularly at the present time when the Holocaust and the Demjanjuk trial are so much in the news.

Dr. Cargas refused to send us an essay responding to the article we sent him from the Committee for an Open Debate of the Holocaust He wrote: “I am not stupid – which I would be if I engaged in any discussion of the validity of the Holocaust”[42]

Peglau Answers the Challenge

“Peglau Takes Up Gauntlet Against Revisionism – ‘DEBATE OF THE CENTURY' IS ON!” A news release from the self- styled Exterminators of Revisionism, which appeared in the March 7, 1988 Christian News, said in part:

Defense attorney Glen Louis Peglau has informed The Christian News that he and a team of lawyers, theologians and congressmen are challenging the leadership of the Revisionist movement, who say the Holocaust never happended, to an open debate in Washington, D.C. in mid-February, 1989. It is already being billed as the Debate of the Centuryn by pro-Holocaust supporters. Peglau and his team will take the position that over 6,000,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis during the reign of the “3rd Reich” in the 1930's and 1/2 of the 1940's.

It is high time we prove beyond a reasonable doubt before the whole world, in open debate before the global media, that the Holocaust was a real part of history. This must be done now to stop the ridiculous contentions of the Revisionists that the Holocaust is only a figment of the Zionists’ imagination. Their antisemitic and neo-Nazi propaganda must be stopped in this generation.

“It was because The Christian News began a focus on the issue of the Revisionist claims that we decided to silence their ridiculous claims for all history. To say the Holocaust never existed is like saying World War II never happened. This whole Revisionist position is motivated by a pro-Nazi, anti- Semitic mentality that can no longer be tolerated in the world. The distorting of history is an affront to the whole human race. Even though Stalin murdered more human beings than Hitler did it was Hitler's intent to stamp out a whole race of people in one generation …

“Two months ago the editor of The Christian News and I interviewed for television a fine West German pastor who confessed that the Nazis had killed over 6,000,000 Jews in concentration camps

“It is also doubtful in my mind whether the Revisionists can get one responsible theologian on their side. I assure you we will have at least four of the most responsible, conservative, Bible-believing theologians on our side. These men are godly men who are above reproach. One of them may not only be a theologian, but an attorney as well, Peglau explained …

“History will always owe a debt to the editor of The Christian News for his bringing the issue of the Holocaust, and the Revisionist position, to the attention of the world, and specifically to the attention of Bible-believing Christians who haven't fallen for the nonsense Revisionists have promulgated.[43]

This news release from the self-proclaimed Exterminators of Revisionism in the April 4, 1988 Christian News reported, in part:

Attorney Glen L. Peglau announced that America’s best- selling Christian author, Hal Lindsey, has agreed to be one of the debaters in the “Debate of the Century” in Washington, D.C. in mid-February, 1989, on the side of those that support the fact that over 6,000,000 Jews were slaughtered by the Third Reich” in the reign of Adolf Hitler …

Dr. Lindsey is the most widely read Christian author in all of history …

The Revisionists only want three or four debaters on each side of the debate. Peglau has asked for 15 debaters to be on each side of the Holocaust issue. Attorney Peglau believes that Revisionists cannot get 15 scholarly debaters for their position in the debate …

Peglau is indeed on a course to get the greatest Christian scholars in the West to take up the cause of the Holocaust for “The Debate of the Century.” It looks like Peglau is putting together the best in Christendom.[44]

“‘Debate of the Century’ Peglau Selects Anderson As Final Debater,” a press release from the Committee to Exterminate Revisionism in the October 30, 1988 Christian News noted:

Defense Attorney Glen Peglau has finalized his debating team with the addition of the renowned Palm Springs, California attorney Thomas A. Anderson.

According to Peglau:

Attorney Anderson is a Christian lawyer who has served as the president of the California Trial Lawyers Association.

Anderson is a brilliant lawyer who, Peglau states, is one of the three ranking top lawyers in California, along with Melvin Belli and Marvin Michelson. Anderson is considered one of the leading debaters in modern history. Anderson is a close personal friend of Christian apologist Josh McDowell. Anderson is a lawyer's lawyer who anybody is afraid to take on in a court room. We’ve two of the great lawyers in modern history with Anderson and Montgomery on our team. Hal Lindsey’s track record of over 50,000,000 of his books being sold speaks for itself.

Honestly Seeking the Truth

The Christian News has attempted to be fair to both sides in this debate by printing their news releases exactly as they send them to us. We commented in the March 21, 1988 Christian News in an editorial.on the debate:

The Christian News commends both the “Exterminators of Revisionism” and the Revisionists for agreeing to debate. It is true that The Christian News has had much more contact with members of The Committee for Extermination of Revisionism and with others who believe the Germans gassed some six million Jews during World War II. Several of them have for years contributed many articles to The Christian News. On the other hand, we have not met any of the leading Revisionists and really only know some of them through their writings.. Years ago we met the top executive of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and we have spoken on the phone with a spokesman for the Simon Wiesenthal Center and with Mr. Mark Weber of the Committee for the Open Debate of the Holocaust. We have confidence in the integrity and honesty of the debaters Attorney Peglau has said will defend the position that the Germans gassed some six million Jews during World War II. We are in accord with the theological position of most of them. While we certainly take issue with the theology of some of the Revisionists who have sent us material for publication, we have no reason to question their honesty. Some Revisionists are atheists, others accept the anti-scriptural and unscientific myth of evolution and, as Peglau has correctly observed, do not believe the Bible. A good number of Revisionists appear to be taking a rather cynical attitude toward Christian theologians who insist that the evidence clearly indicates that the Germans Gassed six million Jews during World War II. They question the ability of these theologians to think clearly and properly evaluate evidence …

We hope that both sides in this debate will keep it on a calm, low key level, where neither side resorts to emotionalism to win but where both sides carefully look at the evidence. Logic and clear facts and not feelings should govern the conduct of both sides. Honest men are persuaded by facts not by some docudramas they see on television.

Now is a good time to carefully examine the evidence for the gassing of some six million Jews. Enough years have passed to minimize the emotionalism which prevails after every war and yet we are still close enough to WW II to establish what eally happened. This is not some minor peripheral issue. The support Israel receives is based to a large extent upon the reality of the Holocaust. The leadership of major denominations in our nation urge thousands of congregations to conduct worship services which call to remembrance the gassing of six million Jews by the Germans. The Holocaust is being used as one reason various Germans, Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans should be sent back to Communist nations.

Perhaps it would be well if both sides in the debate submit to the other side several months before the debate any documents they intend to introduce. This way all will have the opportunity to check the authenticity of the document. Such a policy could also save considerable time. While this may not be the practice followed in many debates, we consider the “Debate of the Century” to be different than many debates. Both sides should only be interested in the truth and not in winning some debate. Both sides should follow The Christian News long-stnnding motto: “Put all the facts on the table and let the chips fall where they may.”

After the debate is over, we hope that one side or the other will have the courage to say to the other “Thanks. We appreciate that you have shown us the truth. We regret that we have been so sadly misled all these years and we will do our best to see that from now on only the truth is told about the Holocaust.”[45]

A Thwarted Proposal for Debate

February 15, 1989

Mr. Glen Peglau, Chairman
Committee For the Extermination of Revisionism
67660 Quijo
Palm Springs, California 92264

Mr. Mark Weber and Mr. Bradley Smith
Committee For Open Debate On the Holocaust
Box 931098 Los Angeles, CA 90093

Dear Gentlemen:

Mr. Glen Peglau has just informed us that there may not be a debate on the Holocaust in February 21 in Torrance. According to Mr. Peglau, a team of three members of the Police Intelligence Division visited Pastor Wilbur Wacker and Hal Lindsey and “inferred” a “bomb threat.” Mr. Peglau said that this was the first time such a police committee ever visited Hal Lindsey and because of the “inferred” bomb threat Lindsey has “been through hell and back.”

Mr. Peglau said he was extremely embarrassed for putting Pastor Wilbur Wacker into so much difficulty and danger. Mr. Peglau expects a riot in front of Pastor Wacker's church if the debate is held as planned. He also noted that the other members of his team will be in court the day of the debate. While Mr. Peglau said he had no evidence as to who was “inferring” the alleged “bomb threat,” he repeatedly emphasized that it was not the Jewish Defense League or “the Jews.” While he said some “leading Jews” asked him not to go ahead with the debate, he said there was a “small minority” of Jews who thought it would be in order for him to go ahead with the debate.

Mr. Peglau said that in no way should the refusal of his committee to appear at the debate on February 21 be interpreted as a refusal to debate the Holocaust. He told us that he was now proposing a September 23 date for the debate at a secluded place in Palm Springs where there would be no danger of any riot or of bomb threats. He said that Dr. John Montgomery and Hal Lindsey are still thoroughly convinced of thir position that the Germans exterminated some six million Jews and are eager to face the Revisionists and answer their arguments. Mr. Peglau noted that perhaps Bible scholar and “genius” Walter Martin will take Attorney Anderson's place in the debate.

Since I was not entirely certain what was going to happen, I made the following proposal to Mr. Peglau. Without mentioning the dates:

Christian News in its issue of April 3, 1989 will publish a 5,000 word (approximately) statement from each of the four debaters of both sides. Each side will then have about 20,000 words.

The May Christian News will publish a response of approximately 10,000 words from each team to the other side. The space can be divided up in whichever way a team may decide.

The June 5 Christian News will then publish a rebuttal to the response of each team from the opposing team. This statement should be no longer than 5,000 words.

Christian News should have the copy six days before the publication date.

Such an approach will give each side time to contact experts for resource information to refute the other side. The Exterminationists, for example, could consult the Simon Wiesenthal Center, such authorties as Raul Hilberg, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum or any other place which claims to have material to refute the Revisionists.

Mr. Peglau agreed to this proposal of a written “debate” whether or not you gentlemen are ever able to get together for a debate face to face.

It appears to me that a bomb threat should not prevent a debate, but Mr. Peglau said it was a life threatening matter and that he had a family to care for.

I will leave it up to you gentlemen to contact the various members of your team with this proposal. If the time schedule is not acceptable or if you have some suggestions to improve the format, please let us know. I would also appreciate it if the Revisionists would let us know if they, along with Mr. Peglau and the Exterminationists, will participate in the written debate we are now proposing.

Sincerely yours,
Herman Otten

P.S. If one side in this “debate” sends us its statements and the other does not, we will still publish the statements we receive.

[The “Exterminationors of Revisionism” did not show up for the debate. Dr. Faurisson, Dr. Countess, Mark Weber and Bradley Smith presented the Revisionist case to four empty chairs, an audience of over one hundred people, and Los Angeles press on February 21 at the Quality Inn in Torrance, California. – Ed.]

Revisionists and Exterminationists

The Christian News has probably published more material and reports from those who are convinced the Germans exterminated some six million Jews than any other religious newspaper. The Christian News has repeatedly invited those who are convinced that this Holocaust is a fact to send us their evidence. We have published what they have sent. Last year, when we were in Israel as a guest of Israel, we visited Yad Vashem and saw the “evidence” there for the Holocaust. Throughout our school years and entire ministry most of our teachers and associates have accepted the Holocaust as fact As far as I know this is probably the first time I have spoken to a group where the majority probably does not believe the Germans gassed some six million Jews.

While Revisionists have responded to the writings and evidence of the Exterminationists have presented, the Exterminationists seldom respond to the writings of the Revisionists. An Exterminationist like Dr. John Warwick Montgomery considers them rather unscholarly and like the works of the “flat earth” society people, even though when he made this analysis he had not yet read the scholarly writings of such leading Revisionists as Arthur Butz, Wilhelm Staglich, Robert Faurisson, Mark Weber, Charles Weber, Paul Rassinier, Harry Elmer Barnes, Clarence Lang, Ernst Zundel, Austin App, et al. Dr. Montgomery is not alone, among those who believe the Germans exterminated six million Jews, in having read very little of what the Revisionists have widen.

The real Revisionist scholars, on the other hand, show in their writings that they are thoroughly familiar with the works of the Exterminationists.

I have repeatedly asked theologians and pastors who say they are convinced that the Germans gassed six million Jews, if they have read any of the writings of the Revisionists. Most admit they have not. Even a good number of our conservative friends who subscribe to The Christian News and who believe in the Holocaust say they don't have time to read the articles by Revisionists in The Christian News. They claim they already know the truth about the Holocaust, so “why waste time” reading about it.

They tell us that they have seen enough TV programs on the subject to know that the Germans exterminated six million Jews. Forty years ago, when we tried to tell our professors and some clergymen the truth about Pearl Harbor, WW II, and forced repatriation of thousands back to the Communists, we found out how uninformed intelligent professors and pastors could be. Thirty-five years ago we discovered how uninformed church officials could be about what was being taught at seminaries and colleges they promoted. As the years went by we discovered how modern man, with all his scientific research and great learning, could still fall for the hoaxes we have mentioned in this essay, one of which is clearly what is now referred to as the Holocaust.

While most Revisionists appear to be opposed to the construction of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., right next to some of our nations's most cherished monuments, I say let it be built! One day it will serve as a monument to the stupidity of modern man, who can still accept a hoax as a fact. Hopefully it will then serve as a reminder to study all the facts and evidence and repudiate all hoaxes.

The day is surely coming when all the evidence showing that the Germans never exterminated six million Jews can no longer be suppressed. Truth is not determined by majority vote. I learned this lesson in high school, and since then have repeatedly discovered how the majority of scholars, even within our churches, can be in error. That our presidents, senators and congressmen all are supposed to be convinced that the Germans killed six million Jews, that almost all of our nation's professors and churchmen are said to maintain that the Holocaust is a fact, doesn't make it a fact.

There is no dispute over the fact that large numbers of Jews were deported to concentration camps and ghettos, or that many Jews died or were killed during World War II. Revisionist scholars have presented evidence, which Exterminationists have not been able to refute, showing that there was no German program to exterminate Europe’s Jews and that the estimate of six million Jewish wartime dead is an irresponsible exaggeration. (CNE, 2918).

The Holocaust, the alleged extermination of some six million Jews (most of them by gassing) is a hoax and should be recognized as such by Christians and all informed, honest and truthful men everywhere.

Here are the reasons which have impressed me as particularly persuasive in comming to my own conclusion that the Revisionist view of the Holocaust story is the correct one:

• There is no convincing or substantial evidence for the allegation of mass killings in gas chambers in the wartime German camps. Careful investigation – in particular that carried out by American engineer Fred Leuchter – has thoroughly discredited the “gas chamber” extermination claims.
• A number of former camp inmates – including some who were interned in the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau camp – have declared that the wartime German camps were not extermination centers.
• The most reliable statistics available cannot be reconciled with the legendary “six million” figure. The best evidence indicates that no more than a million or perhaps a million and a half European Jews perished from all causes during the war years.
• Neither the major Jewish organizations in the United States, nor the wartime Allied governments, nor the International Red Cross, nor the Vatican acted as if they seriously believed the wartime extermination propaganda.
• Although the German government kept extensive and detailed records of its wartime Jewish policy, not a single document has ever been found which substantiates or even refers to an extermination program or policy. Instead, the voluminous German records confiscated by the Allies at the end of the war clearly show that the German “final solution” program was one of emigration and deportation, not extermination.
• Even prominent Jewish “Exterminationist” historians now acknowledge that the stories of gassings, and extermination in camps in Germany proper are not true, in spite of the fact that such claims were once seriously made, particularly at the great Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946.
• The Holocaust story now centers on just six former camps in what is now Communist-ruled Poland, and the so- called “evidence” presented to prove mass exterminations in these camps is qualitatively no better than the now discredited “evidence” once cited for the exterminations in the camps in Germany proper.
• Much of the so-called “evidence” presented by the “Exterminationists” over the years has already been thoroughly discredited. For example, the well-known horrific photographs of piles of corpses taken in camps in western Germany at the end of the war are now acknowledged to be photos of victims of disease and malnutrition who perished as indirect victims of the war in the final weeks and months of the conflict Also, so-called “confessions” – such as those of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss – have been shown to be untruthful and extracted by torture. Many of the official reports and testimonies presented as “evidence” by the prosecution in the Nuremberg trials has since been shown to be lies.
• The fact that so many Jews “survived” German rule during the war – many of them even in so-called “extermination” centers such as Auschwitz-Birkenau – is enough to show that there was no German program or policy to exterminate the Jews of Europe.

Christians and the Holocaust Hoax

The Holocaust is a hoax and the time has come for Christian scholars and pastors to recognize this and stop perpetrating a hoax as the truth. A Christian is not free to believe and promote a lie about any person or nations, as we said in our introduction. True Christian scholars should at least read what the Revisionists are saying.

Many have said to us: “What difference does it make? The truth of the Holocaust is of no concern to Christians.” Nonsense! A Christian is not free to believe and promote a lie about any person or nation. A Christian is guided by truth and facts, not emotions and majority opinion.

If Christians can accept as historical fact the Holocaust, despite all the powerful evidence that it is a hoax, what does that say about their ability to evaluate evidence? What about their scholarship? Is it any wonder that some Revisionists, who have made a careful study of the Holocaust, question the scholarship of Christians, so many of whom swallow as absolute truth what is clearly a hoax?

I have been told numerous times, even by theologians who claim to be orthodox: “I don't care whether it was six million or one Jew, even one is too many.” Such an attitude shows contempt for the truth. A Christian is to show true love and the Apostle Paul tells us that love is “happy with the truth (1 Cor. 13:6). The writing of Proverbs tells us: “Speak out for those who can't speak, for the rights of those who are doomed. Talk up, render fair decisions, and defend the rights of the poor and needy peoples (Proverbs 31:9).

A Christian bases his faith upon facts and absolute truth, not feelings and emotion. A Christian recognizes that only God is all-knowing. A Christian is willing to listen to evidence and evaluate various viewpoints. He doesn't close his mind to the facts and evidence. He doesn't start out with the assumption that the Jew is right and the German is wrong or that the Jew is wrong and the German is right. He looks at the evidence. Those who say they don't care if it was six million or one are showing a despicable attitude toward truth. They are saying: “We don't care about the truth.” Such an attitude is sinful and worldly. Is it any wonder that so many then go on to act as if they don't care about another man's wife or his property? The truth as to the Holocaust is a moral issue. Those who maintain the Germans exterminated some six million Jews, most of them by gassing, are seeing to it that the Christian Church can no longer avoid speaking out. Churches are being pushed, as never before, to have special services commemorating the Holocaust.

A Christian is ready to change his opinion if the evidence shows he is wrong. This essay demonstrates how often we have afforded the “Exterminationists” opportunity to refute the Revisionists.

Some tell us that we are not showing love to the Jews and are being racists and anti-Semitic when we published articles by Revisionists questioning the Holocaust and when we insist that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.

We have repeatedly emphasized in many editorials that the Bible teaches that there is no special chosen race. All those, regardless of color, race, nationality, sex, wealth, etc., who trust in the merits of Jesus Christ alone for their salvation are God's chosen people and will go to heaven. Those who tell Jews, Muslims, and any other non-Christian that they worship the true God and can get to heaven without Christ are not showing true love to the Jews and other non-Christians.

The so-called fact of the Holocaust is being used to deport innocent men in this country who served in the German army as teenagers. In some cases they have been sent back to certain death in Communist lands. The Office of Special Investigation is using the Holocaust as an excuse to force even such reputable German and anti-Communist scientists as Arthur Rudolph out of the U.S.

Israel is using the “fact” of the Holocaust as an excuse to execute such innocent men as the Ukrainian, John Demjanjuk. “The Jewish people have a long score to settle with the Ukrainian people” says Dov Ben-Meir, a deputy speaker of Israel's Knesset. According to this top Israeli official, “Unaccounted numbers” of Ukrainians “collaborated with the Nazi regime, especially in the annihilation of hundreds of thousands of Jews.” (CNE 2504)

The “fact” of the Holocaust is being used by some to deny that Christianity is the only true religion and that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.

Israel is using the “fact” of the Holocaust as an excuse to kill Palestinians in Israel. This slaughter, together with the anti- scriptural notions of the Israel-first Millennialists, almost all of whom believe in the Holocaust, could lead to another bloody war.

The Holocaust is not some innocent hoax, like children's fairy tales, which entertain and have no evil consequences.

The “chosen people” and “Holocaust” myths makes mission work among non-Christians far more difficult. Arabs, who are told that the Bible teaches that their land belongs to the Jews, find it more difficult to believe what the Bible says about Christ

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God!

We have been warned, even by some theologians who recognized that the Holocaust is a hoax, to remain silent because of the danger involved. Some have told us to take out more insurance. God is still in control of this world, not some vast conspiracy, whether the Communists, Jews, international bankers, Illuminati, Trilateralists, etc.

For over 25 years The Christian News has been exposing a good number of hoaxes, even those held by many church members. Some have asked: Do you believe there is any absolute truth? Is there anything, in your estimation, that is not a hoax? You publish all sorts of opinions. Just where do you stand? Each week we state in our masthead: Christian News is not a doctrinally neutral observer, but it is committed to the full historic Christian faith, as it is authoritatively revealed in the written Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, and correctly set forth in the confessions of the orthodox Church, to wit, the Book of Concord of 1580.”

I commend to all Revisionists and everyone else nothing more nor less than historic Christianity. God by “raising Christ from the dead has given everyone a good reason to believe” (Acts 17:31).

In spite of the many attempts to falsify history, the Christian church has always struggled for the truth. This was true for the first Christians. It was also the basic issue of the Reformation. One of the gratest confessors of the faith in this century, Dr. Herman Sasse, who was also avidly anti-Nazi, points out in his book Here We Stand that the Reformation emphasized the profound seriousness of the truth.”

So, as an Evangelical Lutheran pastor, in the tradition of the early church and the Reformation, I stand before you today again to make a strong appeal in the struggle for the truth.

The subject of the Holocaust is not my primary concern in life. It is not my main message. As stated in the masthead the paper we founded and have served as editor for the past 26 years, we preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Nevertheless, Christians must not only strive to proclaim the saving Truth of the Gospel. We are obligated by this same Gospel to tell the truth in all areas of life, including events of political economics, war, and Church and secular government

“These are the things which you should do: speak the truth to one another; judge with truth and judgement for peace in your gates.” Zechariah 8:16

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