"How can ye believe who receive honor from one another?" John 5:44
July 15, 1955
This again is a death-sentence to all official Christianity.
This prodigious castle in the air: Christian states, kingdoms, lands; this playing with millions of Christians who reciprocally recognize one another in their mediocrity, yet are all of them believers — this whole thing rests upon a foundation which, according to Christ's own word, makes it impossible to believe.
The Christianity of the New Testament is to love God in opposition to men, to suffer at the hands of men for one's faith, for the sake of the doctrine to suffer at the hands of men. Only that is to believe: to receive honor from men makes it impossible to believe.
As I say, Christianity simply does not exist. The sort of passion required in order that in the most complete separation, in a relation of opposition to men, one may deal only with God (only this Christ means by believing; and therefore in contrast to receiving honor from men, verse 41, or receiving honor from one another, He speaks of seeking the honor which cometh from the only God, verse 44) — that sort of passion is now no more met with. The sort of men who now live cannot stand anything so strong as the Christianity of the New Testament (they would die of it or lose their minds), just in the same sense that children cannot stand strong drink, for which reason we prepare for them a little lemonade — and official Christianity is lemonade-twaddle for the sort of beings that now are called men, it is the strongest thing they can stand, and this twaddle then in their language they call "Christianity," just as the children call their lemonade "wine."
In "Christendom" then, Christianity, the thing of being a Christian, follows the paradigm : "This or that man is a splendid man, a true man of faith, he ought to have a chivalric order" — "Ah, that is too little for such an eminent man of faith, he ought to have the title of commander," etc., etc. And the activity so rich in blessing of the Knight, the Commander, the Privy Counselor, etc., is based upon the New Testament, in which we read, "How can ye believe who receive honor from one another?" That is to say, from generation to generation, from century to century, "Christendom" performs the trick of declining mensa like domus.68
Therefore rather than take part in official Christianity with the thousandth part of my little-finger nail, I would rather engage in the following display of seriousness. A flag is purchased at a hardware store, it is unfurled, with great reverence I approach it, lift up three fingers and swear fidelity to the flag. Thereupon, rigged out in a cocked hat, a cartridge-belt and sword (all from the hardware store), I mount a hobbyhorse, proposing in union with others to make an attack upon the enemy, with contempt for the mortal danger into which I am evidently casting myself, with the seriousness of one who knows what it signifies to have sworn fidelity to the flag. Honestly, I have no disposition to engage in that sort of seriousness; but, if bad came to worse, I should infinitely prefer this to taking part in official Christianity, in the Sunday worship, the seriousness of the sworn teachers. After all, by the former one only makes a fool of oneself, by the latter one makes a fool of God.
Translator's Footnotes
68In Latin grammars these were the usual paradigms for two different declensions.