Christianity

The tenth plague

Arnulf Øverland
Lecture given in the Norwegian student society in 1931. Here after Christianity, the tenth scourge
– 4 lectures for public outrage , Oslo 1935

I
In Schopenhauer’s surviving small writings, one can find an aphorism that he calls a
conversation from the year 33:

- Have you heard the latest news?

- No, has something happened?

- The world is redeemed!

- What pleases?

- Yes, the good God has taken on human form and traveled to Jerusalem, and has
allowed himself to be executed. And in this way he has simply tricked the devil
and redeemed us all!

- But it really is magnificent!

This is presumably blasphemy. Admittedly, I don’t know exactly what it is. I just know
that right as it is, the priests start to scream and behave because someone has
offended them – or blasphemed God, it’s almost the same thing.
If, for example, they are not allowed to decide the National Theatre’s repertoire – if, for
example, we heathens, we who go to the theatre, want to see a play which is not
particularly religious, then they will be hurt and sore, and there will be a scream and a
wail like no other.
But how one behaves now, I am seriously afraid that whoever tries to give a clear and
fair presentation of the Christian faith will inevitably be guilty of blasphemy.
I will try to avoid it:
God is a being who outwardly resembles us. We are made in his image. He is a man,
he has a lot of hair and especially a beard, he has a nose and a mouth and an intestinal
tract, I think, and for all I know about him, he also has genitals. Or maybe he doesn’t?
In other respects he differs from us. We are probably also eternal beings, as an
acquaintance we can never die. But God exists from eternity.
One fine day about 6000 years ago, he created the heavens and the earth. He might
well have done it before; but he didn’t want to. But 6000 years ago he wanted it.
So he creates the people. He sends the devil on them to make them “sin”. He is
omniscient, so He knows in advance that they will fall into temptation; but he gets angry
anyway, and from now on he punishes all people with eternal hell.
This is how it is now for approx. 4000 years; but since God is also good, it suddenly
occurs to him to save us.
The good God could not in any way forgive us, nor could the almighty God save us in
any other way than by sending “the Holy Spirit” down to a virgin and “announcing” to
her, after which she gives birth to the son of God, who becomes executed, not because
he has done anything wrong, but because of our sins.
You can call it correcting a baker for a blacksmith.

It is also strange that at that moment, in addition to their other sins, men commit yet another sin,
graver than all the others, namely the sin of killing God’s own son, then they can be forgiven,
then God is no longer angry.

But we are still far from being saved. First we must be dipped in water in the name of the holy
“trinity”, that is, the name of the three gods who are one god, 3 = 1.
I say water; but it is not that simple. In Luther’s catechism, which is used in school to this day, it
says: “Baptism is not just ordinary water; but it is water that is contained in God’s command and
united with God’s word.”
What this means, no living man can understand; but the children are obliged to understand it!
We take it one more time: Water, which is enclosed with God’s command - !?!
Then we must eat God’s body and drink his blood.
This vile, cannibalistic magic is practiced to this day. But if you can be comfortable participating
in it, then you are saved. Then you can allow yourself almost any kind of debauchery, as long as
you pray to God afterwards. Only if you believe and are baptized .
This is no exaggeration. It is the pure teaching, the Christian faith, my childhood faith. I have not
forgotten it, it is beaten into me with a stick, and no one shall take it from me!
There were of course in the time of the apostles many whom it was not easy to convert; there
were many wicked people who would not believe. Therefore the apostles traveled around and
performed miracles. People were “healed” by prayer, oil and the laying on of hands, and they
were raised from the dead.
Not just people, animals too. She knew, of course, that the situation was such that it was
necessary to perform a miracle, and if there was no one in the whole neighborhood who could
rise from the dead, then one had to see if one could find, for example, eg a dead cat.
But by far the most powerful deed that has been done, it was done by St. Petrus. He raised a fire
of fire in the name of Jesus!
The story is admittedly apocryphal; but it is not forbidden to believe in it. On the contrary, if you
do it, it just shows an extra piety, a special grace of faith.
II
My God, one wants to say, now there is no one who really believes in this hopeless wisdom. We
must, in heaven’s name, let the priests get on with it; but we can’t bring ourselves to discuss such
a thing. – Besides, what’s the point? One cannot appeal to any reason on the part of the believer.
All arguments bounce off the Christian like water on the goose. Stupidity is immortal,
Christianity also has eternal life.

I’m not so sure about that. There are still probably several who believe both one and the other.
But there are not as many now as there were a hundred years ago. Once upon a time, religious
illusions were common even in otherwise reasonable people. Now the congregation consists
essentially of twisted weirdos of zinc.
It goes back smoothly. And the moment the state church is abolished, and Christianity is no
longer a source of income – which it actually is for thousands of priests and teachers – at that
moment it will suffer a fatal blow.
It goes back smoothly. Dr. theol. A few years ago, Kristian Schjelderup published a book about
Christianity in light of the theory of relativity. But even Bishop Berggrav, whose relationship
with God is quite different, practical and tangible – even Berggrav can find himself traveling to
Copenhagen and lecturing on the following theme: Is Christianity sufficiently “funky”?
A really strong and serious faith expresses itself quite differently. The Negro gives food to his
gods when he wants to get something from them, and if that doesn’t help, then there is a beating.
They pamper their gods, so it’s a pleasure.
And about Jacob’s wife Rachel, it is said in the Bible that when she had to leave home, she stole
her father’s god, so that god would be with her.
See this is really faith. But when God is relative and Jesus is funky, then it’s bad stuff.
But even if grown-up people eventually give up clinging to Christian dogmatics and are content
to stir together a kind of milk soup of a private religion, where God is reduced to an abstract and
floating philosophical “principle”, a liquid jelly that fills the whole the universe (God is
everything!) – then it does not help the children. They go to school, and there they learn Bible
history and psalm verses and catechism, and it destroys their minds .
The other day I remembered a verse, a kind of poetry, that I probably learned 35 years ago. So I
have gone and remembered it for 35 years! It then reads:
The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
Nor the scepter from his feet,
Until the king of peace comes,
And the people obey him.
I learned this at school. With this knowledge I should be set for life!

It is not difficult to demonstrate that the mind has, in a curious way, come into disarray in the
vast majority of people; you don’t need to do any intelligence tests, you can just look at the first,
the best newspaper. Then you will also find where the weakness lies: the Christian ability has
stopped developing, and the natural desire for knowledge has been killed.
Hand in hand with a blinded belief in authority goes an invincible loathing of knowledge, a true
horror of facts and a passionate love of the irrational.
She can probably give up praying to God. It is possible for her to give up hope of getting Our
Lord to change his mind, whether this should happen by giving the omniscient various
information or by refreshing his memory: You know that, dear God, you who know everything
… (Already the express assurance that God knows everything sounds a little insidious. It seems
to cover a completely inappropriate mistrust).
But in doing so, one wades into theosophy and mysticism, even if one does not directly
participate in the grossest spiritualist abominations, then in any case there is “more between
heaven and earth than science dreams of, Horatio!”.
And just by quoting this exaggerated banality, you are a “deep nature” and not a “superficial
materialist”.
Never has the intellectual cowardice of men found a more redemptive expression! In physics and
chemistry, as in any science, there are unsolved problems. There are certainly unknown forces of
nature. But there is nothing “between heaven and earth” – neither any god nor other ghosts. Such
holds in the minds of the “deep natures”.
III
There are many things we do not know, and many things we wish we knew. But every time our
knowledge with the help of science has been given a little push forward, a pale anxiety runs
through the congregation. It is afraid that God will become ill from it, that he may die, that
Christianity will disintegrate, the Christianity that was supposed to protect us against knowledge.
You are afraid that a ray of light will penetrate the darkness that you burrow into to avoid seeing.

To put it in other words: You are afraid of losing your father, afraid of becoming an adult, afraid
of having to take up the struggle for life in all seriousness and at your own expense and risk. And
you are afraid of dying. That is why the Father must live forever, he must help us when things go
wrong or when there is danger on the way, and after death we must come to him and be with
him. – An exemplary compromise formation between the bitter experience and the desperate
desire.

Very few people ever become adults, and therefore the vast majority must have a god to worship.
They are God’s children .
The ancient Egyptians had already noticed that corpses tended to rot and that you no longer lived
when you were dead. Good advice was expensive; but then the art of embalming was invented,
and when the mummies were equipped with certain spells, it was no longer so impossible that
they could “rise”.
These spells often contain the most energetic assurances that the deceased has not lost any of his
vitality: I breathe with my nose, I chew with my jaws, I run, I am Osiris!
Naturally, one could not go about embalming the mob, it was far too expensive; but the priests
could at least be blessed.
Later it was discovered that the “soul” can be separated from the body with the greatest ease and
live forever. This is a democratic but somewhat unclear thought. The soul is then imagined as a
rather airy body, a “shadow”. It is much purer than the body, and it has no ailments; but it cannot
be said that it is having fun either.
It does not make itself particularly noticeable, cannot show itself except in spirit photographs and
cannot express itself except through “media”. It doesn’t have much to tell about the hereafter
either, it has lost most of its mind, but is otherwise quite content: I feel so good so good!
Wicked and unbelieving people know that the “soul” simply falls asleep if it is not supplied with
a constant stream of new impressions through the sense organs.
A pale anxiety runs through the congregation every time it feels threatened by a new thought.
Then it gathers for resistance and counterattack. This often happens under the rallying cry:
Materialism is obsolete!
Some time ago there was a young “idealist” in Samtiden . He had heard something that atoms
could be split and that the concept of matter was under revision. So: matter was no longer to be
relied upon, perhaps it ultimately did not exist at all, perhaps it was just “spirit”?
And the wish that it must be so immediately turns into a conviction that it is so: Materialism is
obsolete!

First: What does it mean that matter is spirit? – My boots are spirit?
And this spirit, who exactly is it? – Surely it should never be God?
But secondly: As physics revises the concept of matter, every natural scientific way of thinking
becomes obsolete – think the theologians. They think!
It is the very principle of causality that you want to live by, the principle that everything that
happens has a cause. (And that nothing that happens can have a “supernatural” cause).
But the law of causation is nothing but the way we think, and the only way we can think. If we
give it up, we cannot think a thought. Then we all become theologians.
Even more clearly than this young idealist was a referent in Tens Tegen in his time . He had been
sent to listen to a lecture by the German atomic scientist, Professor Heisenberg: “Even the
deadest thing is alive”, he wrote. “Atoms are living beings with demonstrable intelligence”. “The
atoms are controlled by a living, conscious reason”. That is more than can be said about the
Signs of the Times .
Professor Werenskiold denied it the next day: “There must be a lot of nonsense, even in a
newspaper report”, he said.
But this tendency to cheat God in through some loophole, to cheat Him in through the back door
and up the kitchen stairs, disguised as “spirit” versus matter or as a “living conscious
intelligence”—this tendency is so common that one stands in danger of encountering the Lord
even in the laboratories of the universities.
At all times, people have admired the appropriateness of nature. Now there is also the point to
note that very few of us have seen any other world, and we therefore have little reason to make
comparisons.
We develop our qualities through the use of them. Our intelligence has also developed as we
have used it to orient ourselves in this world. Our minds are not designed to understand anything
else. And that is why, even in the most eloquent descriptions of heaven and hell, we never find
other furniture than what we know from our own valley of woe.
You have the choice between equipping the angels with white clothes, trumpets, feathers – or
letting them disappear among the clouds.
Nevertheless, people have always been puzzled by the appropriateness of nature and have always
employed the “philosophy” that such a wonderful world must have been “created” by someone.
It cannot have created itself, it could not function so precisely, the moon had to bring this down
to earth, if there was no “machine master”.
It cannot then surprise anyone that Sigrid Undset comes to the same result – when even Edison
came along with this blessed machinist!
Now it’s just that such a wonderful machinist, he can’t have created himself, just think how
precisely he functions! At least there must be a machinist to look after him. Rather, there must be
a dynasty of master machinists – if we don’t want to accept the explanation that the god Set gives
us. After all, the ancient Egyptian gods also left behind sacred writings. – The god Set says in
pure words: “I have created myself, as I have come out of my own loins”. It will probably be the
simplest solution.
By examining not just Christianity, but other religions as well, you will quickly realize that there
are no limits to what it is possible to make people believe. No absurdity can be invented so gross
that people refuse to believe it, and nothing is easier than making a camel go through the eye of a
needle.
No one demands that the dogmas have any semblance of reliability, no one is bothered by the
fact that they are of logical necessity mutually exclusive.
Why do you believe them? – Because it is clear that they have to satisfy the congregation in a
way. A bitter dispute can arise as to whether a bottle of port is really the blood of Jesus or
whether it is just port or partly both. This last is, as is well known, Luther’s opinion. But on the
essential points all religions agree.
It is a good god who created the world and who governs it with great wisdom and great skill, and
there is an eternal life after death, where people will be rewarded and unbelievers will be
punished. The latter is certainly the most important.
One could be tempted to say, I wish it were so good – and if you have said that, you have thus
pointed to the reason why religions arise. They spring from clear and unequivocal motives of
desire.
Most religions have three gods, a father, a mother and a son. Of course.
He who suffers defeat in the struggle for existence would like to dream away from it. He flees
back to childhood. He identifies with the son, seeks comfort and love from the mother and gets
her to intercede for him with the strict and powerful father.
Due to neurotic difficulties of the church fathers, however, the Christian triad of gods was
falsified, the mother was pushed aside, and a strange surrogate was invented, which was called
“the Holy Spirit”.
This “holy spirit” was adopted by a narrow majority at the Council of Nicaea and at the
insistence of Emperor Constantine.
Later, the Catholics corrected this and once again exalted the mother among the gods. And at the
same time, Jesus has once again become a small child, sitting on his mother’s lap. Josef stands in
the background and represents Our Lord.
After all, this family idyll is far more immediately appealing than the cloying pity that is nailed
up in all Protestant churches.
The Catholic image of the “holy family” facilitates the identification process, and it governs the
libidinous (erotic) ties between the human child and his divine parents.
IV
When you see how religion has sprung from people’s fear of the struggle for life and their desire
to return to the child’s protected position in the family, it is also not difficult to understand that it
is free of logic. The infantile and wish-motivated thinking quite naturally falls back on prelogical
paths of thought – the religious thinking is older than the logical one.
The Christians themselves call their religion a childish faith. But this dawning self-knowledge
does not prevent them from demanding that adults also share this childhood faith of theirs.
At first this was a pious wish. As long as the Christians constituted a small, oppressed minority,
they were prominent supporters of religious freedom. But from the moment they got power, they
did not think of using it.
During the first centuries, Christians were often subject to oppression and persecution. Church
history does not hide this. According to Professor Harnack, it exaggerates quite a bit, But one
thing you don’t like to talk about, or else you drown out the truth with theology: You have never
sacrificed to any bloodier Moloch than the god of the Christians!
According to Voltaire’s calculation, which is considered very cautious, 10 million people have
been slaughtered for the glory of God.
In Spain, in the course of three centuries, from 1471 to 1781, 32,000 heretics were burned, and
290,000 were left to rot in prisons. God is love. The torture used by the inquisition courts can
only be compared to the descriptions of hell that the priests indulged themselves with when they
had nothing better to do. In this way they succeeded in literally exterminating the heresy. And
what do the priests do now? – Yes, they invent witchcraft.

They found it quite reasonable that the women had to fall for the devil’s temptations as it were,
and that they were then also taken away to put disease on people of fairies.
The sulphurous sermons of the priests resulted in pure epidemics of hysteria breaking out
periodically among the people, and it was not rare that the women really imagined that they had
had intercourse with the devil.
This was to be prevented.
“In order for a witch to be brought before the court”, says Alfred Lehmann in his book
Superstition and witchcraft , “an accusation based on evidence was not required, but only an
indication or suspicion. Thereby the accuser was completely protected against being dragged to
liability if the complaint turned out to be false.
But it almost never did. For the actual proof of the crime was obtained by the witch’s own
confession, and it had to be forced by torture. And if a witch did not confess, despite the torture,
then her guilt was completely obvious, since of course she was only able to show herself so
deranged with the devil’s help”.
“Six women in the town of Lindheim were subjected to torture to confess that they had dug up
the corpse of a child in the cemetery to use it for their witches’ salves. They confessed. The
spouse of one, however, was made to understand that the grave in the presence of all the
authorities was opened, and of course the child was found untouched in the coffin. But the
inquisitor insisted that the untouched corpse was a diabolical illusion, and since they had all
confessed, they had to trust this confession more than their senses. Then they were all burned.” .
“How many in the course of the centuries have been burned as witches, it is now impossible to
determine; but it has been done in a single town in the course of a year to murder 1000 people,
and there were whole regions in Germany where only two women were alive when the
persecutions were stopped, and the men were still far from free. All experts agree that the
number of burned witches must be counted in the millions”.
But to get back to Spain. Based on the consideration that the heretics constituted the most
valuable element of the population, the English heredity researcher Galton assumes that “it is
inconceivable that a people can be exposed to such a policy without paying colossal fines in the
form of degeneration, as it turns out in the ignorant and unintelligent people of modern Spain”.
V
I do not know what significance later geneticists will attach to such reasoning. The fact remains:
Christianity is accompanied by an eerie cultural decline, which exactly coincides with the
church’s heyday.
It can have many reasons. One of them is today: the Church has always been the bitterest enemy
of all culture and all spiritual life .

The theologians can probably say that it was precisely in the monasteries that the culture of
antiquity was preserved. Yes, they preserved the culture, they hid it well, it disappeared.
It is true that some monks sat here and there and wrote about Aristotle. Elsewhere other monks
sat erasing irreplaceable manuscripts and writing prayers to God on them.
In this connection, it does not mean much that the popes entertained some court painters. It does
not mean as much as Jens Thiis thinks.
Church music is undoubtedly a cultural asset. All that was missing was that not a single asset
could be shown.
The Bible contains everything a Christian needs to know. The church father Tertullian declares
that all science is superfluous since one has the Gospels. And not only that it is superfluous, it is
harmful and blasphemous, that it presumes to add anything to God’s word.
However, Augustine makes an exception for astronomy, in that he allows one to observe the
moon’s path, because otherwise one cannot determine Easter correctly.
When the church had consolidated its power, it was quite risky to conduct natural science
studies. It went quite badly with Galileo, and Giordano Bruno was burned.
They were unbelieving. They did not want to believe that the earth was the center of the
universe. It was punishable by death in the old days.
The church’s relationship with art is completely consistent. Where it acts as the church’s servant,
it is tolerated and paid for. Where it acts independently, it is condemned as sinful, abominable
and blasphemous.
VI
But surely we must keep Christian morality, even if we give up dogmatics? Does Christian
morality mean a great advance compared to paganism? Just think of all the love! Love your
enemies etc
I don’t really know. If a man comes and tells us that he is so kind that he loves his enemies, I
don’t know if we will believe it. I think we’d rather say he’s a fool.
On the other hand, we would like to see that Christian morality occasionally expressed itself in
somewhat decent behavior. All in all – a morality which does not for a moment seem binding on
its adherents, but if prohibitions and orders are only to be imposed on others, it is not worth
much. And that love, which essentially expresses itself as sadism and murderous desire, one does
not want to be exposed to.
But even if the church cannot in any way realize these ideals, surely the moral thoughts that can
be found in the Gospels are quite valuable?
Yes, but you find them better and more clearly developed by the pagan thinkers from earlier
times. The moral of the Gospels may be enough for its time; but it is not absolutely Christian. It
is no more Christian than dogmatics, no more Christian than the sacraments found in all
religions, no more Christian than God.
As far as he is concerned, by the way, the relationship is not entirely clear. But it must be
assumed that God switched to Christianity already at the beginning of our era.
The peculiarity of Christian morality is not its alltruism, even less its tolerance and humanity –
the peculiarity of Christian morality is the sadistic-masochistic superstructure which it has given
the teachings of the Stoics.
Sadism and masochism are two special forms of perversion. Sadism manifests itself as a desire to
torment or punish the beloved, masochism manifests itself as a desire to be tormented or
punished. Both the sadistic and the masochistic practice can either be associated with or three
instead of the normal sexual act.
The masochistic ideal is the scourged, thorn-crowned and crucified Christ. The sadistic ideal is
the sharpshooter .
To begin with, the masochistic character appears in the older Christians’ penchant for
martyrdom, asceticism, humility and pity. Later, sadism emerges in the ruling sickness of the
victorious church, its bloody wars of extermination against the unbelievers and in the lustful
hellish fantasies of the church fathers.
None of these character traits are in and of themselves moral.
I have a pious and edifying book, which was printed in 1632.
“Vdi this book contains three Tracts. The first is Extremum Judicium. That is, The Last Day of
Judgment. The second Beatorum Delicium. That is, The Joy and Joy of the Dual in the Kingdom
of God. The third Damnatorum Supplicium. That is, The Eternal Torment of the Damned and
plague in Helffuede.
“The introduction to this Tractate.
The ancient teacher Chrysostom says: There is nothing more useful than the thought of
Helffuedis pinis; For it makes our hearts purer than pure gold.
These words spoken by the Golden Mouth are worth more than a thousand pieces of gold and
silver, which for when gold or silver, property or wealth can help us on the day of the Lord’s
cruelty, then the daily meaning of Helffued has helped us
… on all roads, etc…
Think that you see a lot of black spirits, who blow fire from their spirits, and the great longing
and longing for the judgment of God Swallows and Tigers, in the hut there are several hideous
and terrible Worms, Serpents, Scorpions and Dragons, which creep about, and hideously bite the
Damned and how Day multiplies their torment…
Who like this will mean, hand forgets all Carnal lust.
But the fourth chapter is about “Of the most horrible torment vdi Helffuede is, Namely, To be
shunned and removed from God’s gentle Ansict…”
The fifth chapter deals with a milder punishment:
“Fire and smoke, and terrible weather, shall be the part of their calcke.” They must be so
“shackled” or severely imprisoned that they must be able to touch a hand or foot or any limb on
their body, so frail and powerless should they become that they should not be able to take a
worm from their eye…
Here besides is in Helffuede an unquenchable fire, an immortal worm, a sorrowful cry, a pitiful
burning of fire, a miserable stanck, a hideous Dieffuel’s siun, God’s grim wrath, pain’s insatiable
malice, a wofferable concealment, an eternal and immortal death, heat and frost, Hunger and
thirst, fear and terror, Toil and toil, Darkness and mist, Anguish and distress, Lament and grief,
Pain and abomination, Yea, eternal damnation Weep and howl. And when the damned lie and
burn in Helffuedi’s fire for many thousands of years, they should remain in the most terrible
embers for as long, and be driven from one punishment and pain to another, and shall last forever
besides some hope that it will cease. And the most terrible thing is that man never becomes
happy…
No one wants to have metynck from him, but the angels and the Vduals rejoice at their
misfortunes, and always want greater and more horrible misfortunes from him.”
VII
The Christian gender morality is a chapter that could deserve a separate treatment.
He who looks at a woman to lust after her has, as an acquaintance, already committed adultery
with her in his heart. It is true as it is said. When a young man sees a pretty girl, he wants her. It
is just so strange that this, which is a biological necessity, should also be a mortal sin. The man
who expressed such an opinion – whatever his name is – he cannot have been very healthy.

Almost all church fathers have agreed to label the erotic feelings as sinful, beauty and grace are
the devil’s handiwork, and woman is Satan’s gateway.
The abhorrence of women and feminine charms, which is so loudly expressed by the Church
Fathers, is a homosexual trait. This is what is called moral purity. The perverted church fathers
have really succeeded in getting the love of and poisoning the people with such sexual anxiety
that medieval Europe, if you try to see it in short perspective, looks like a single, gigantic
madhouse.
And even in our time, young people become half-witted with anxiety when they notice their sex
drive. Half of all women are more or less frigid (erotic insensitivity), a third of all men are
impotent in the sense that they do not dare, cannot or will not practice natural intercourse. And
the majority of people who do not live a normal sexual life become unhappy, twisted, checkered.
This is the fruit of Christian gender morality.
In his book Die Zukunft einer illusion, Freud touches on the neurotic character of Christianity.
He says:
“We know that a child who grows up in a modern cultural environment does not get through
growing up without passing through a more or less distinct neurotic phase. This is because the
child has many urges that he cannot be allowed to keep, and which it is not able to eliminate with
the help of reason. These drives then become the subject of a repression, behind which there is
usually an anxiety motive.
During the course of childhood these neuroses are generally overcome, the same goes for the
compulsion
Neuroses time, one can assume that humanity as a whole during its thousand-year history of
development goes through periods which produce analogies to the neuroses, and which have
similar causes. One can assume that the people at the early stage of culture, since they are
ignorant and not very intellectual developed, cannot overcome its antisocial urges without purely
affective forces.The
Culture then had to bear traces of the displacement-like processes that previous generations had
gone through. And religion was to be regarded as a social compulsion neurosis, originating in the
same Oedipus complex that characterizes the child’s neurosis.
If this view holds true, one must also be able to count on the de-Christianization to be completed
with the same legality that characterizes all growth, and that we are currently in this phase of
development.
Certainly, the essence of religion is not exhaustively described with this analogy. If, on the one
hand, religion entails compulsive inhibitions, just like the individual obsessive-compulsive
neurosis, then on the other hand it contains a system of wishful phantasies connected with a
denial of realities, which we can only find the counterpart of amentia, the happy hallucinatory
confusion”.
VIII
Now there are many priests who are mild and liberal and understanding, and who are willing to
admit both the one and the other: You can say what you want about Christianity; but it is still the
religion of the poor and oppressed. “Come to me, you who labor and are weary!”.
And the monks, the pious brothers, they themselves live a life of poverty and hard work (?)
But the monasteries had slaves! And the slaves of the monasteries were the last to be freed!
Negro slavery, which lasted in America until the middle of the last century, was also defended by
the priests as a pious and moral institution. A movement arose which aimed to abolish Negro
slavery. It was called abolitionism. To begin with, it was rather poorly seen. It was a common
opinion that those who wanted to abolish slavery must be some godless and terrible people, and
they were not ashamed to suggest that the abolitionists wanted to spread the evil seeds of doubt
over country and kingdom.
The unheard-of betrayal that Christianity brought with it is also reflected in the barbaric
administration of justice in the Middle Ages. And that the church has directly been the origin of a
number of the bloodiest and cruelest wars in history was also only to be expected:
“Christianity is, in sum,
The gospel of peace”.
From the Christian side, you will hear that some of this can be said about the church, but that
does not apply to Christianity. Christianity is a teaching that cannot be impaired by the errors of
the church.
Other theologians say that Christianity is not doctrine, but life. It is also said that the tree must be
known by the fruits.
What a man believes is a private matter, as long as he keeps his beliefs to himself. But he is not
always happy about it. He joins himself with other fellow believers, and such an association is
what constitutes the Christian church.
Outwardly, Christianity and church are one and the same. What the Christian believes is
indifferent to us. What the Christians do , we cannot ignore, because they practice violence. Now
it will be objected that this is old. It may have historical interest; but it is not relevant.
In any case, it is so relevant that the state still entertains a few thousand wizards who hold
services in a thousand churches every Sunday. And so relevant that radio services are held almost
every day of the year! And so much so that all conservative newspapers have Sunday views.
And it is not enough that the children have several hours of religious education every week. But
all subjects at school have been tampered with and turned into theology!
If this does not exactly happen out of concern for the salvation of our souls, then it happens
based on the experience that Christianity is conservative, a social-preserving factor. God
preserves the fatherland, and then it is no more than reasonable that the fatherland preserves
God.
The Church was democratic, Christianity was the religion of the poor as long as it was poor
itself. It didn’t take long before it had better thoughts.
I was in Russia once and had the opportunity to go through the museums at the Kremlin. The old
imperial luxury was quite impressive. But it became almost tacky next to the splendor and glory
of the priests.
Among other things, there were some cloaks that the bishops must have used for the glory of
God. They were presumably of silk; but it could not be seen. It could not be seen because gold
thread and pearl embroidery and the most precious jewels formed a rigid armor outside them!
They were the followers of Christ.
There is no authority except God, say the priests. And thus we know where we have them.
We see it too. We still see how the church and the priests participate in the class struggle on the
side of the capitalists against the poor and oppressed, whose spokesmen they are supposed to be.
And we see how they participate in nationalist excesses, incite war and bless the weapons. In
1914 the priests everywhere participated in the imperialist propaganda. And yet, by joining the
peace movement, the church could have prevented the world war!
A friend of money power, an enemy of right and truth, of science and art, of enlightenment and
culture, that is the church!
Now you will probably say that I blame Christianity for all the world’s misfortunes. The
theologians must see it that way, because they believe that Christianity has come to people from
outside and has changed them. I believe neither that God has created men, nor that Christianity
has remade them.
Once upon a time, a small group of poor and homeless, of beggars and vagabonds created
Christianity for their need: to find comfort in their misery. Since then, those in power have
transformed it for their needs: to oppress the poor.
IX
Since Professor Hallesby has been so kind as to draw the police’s attention to me, I should also
draw the audience’s attention to Professor Hallesby out of courtesy.
He is a teacher at the parish faculty and therefore teaches the majority of theological students in
this country. I have his book in front of me: Den kristielige sedelære , which is used as a
textbook at the parish faculty.
The whole book oozes jealousy. It is dark as a prison cell and dull as eternal bliss. Completely
illegible. But I have taken a few random samples and sifted through a few chapters of it, i.a. one
called “Social Justice”. I will quote a bit of it:
“If we are now to try to see these complicated relationships in a Christian light, then we will first
of all state that, from a Christian point of view, there is nothing to object to the struggle that the
workers lead to improve their conditions.”
It sounds go”d. Let’s continue:
“But the Christian cannot enter into all the struggle that is now being waged for the rights of the
workers. It is the method of struggle and the means of struggle that are decisive for him. First of
all, he cannot help to sow discontent, envy and hatred in the workers hearts”.
“He cannot at all use means of combat which contradict the laws of the country or undermine the
legal basis on which the whole society rests”.
Yes, what can he do? – Yes, he can pray to God.
Furthermore: “It is not generosity but justice that the dispossessed have a claim to”.
And this again sounds good. Let’s continue:
“This right includes, first of all, the right to work. However, this issue contains great practical
difficulties. We see this right now, as it is the labor leaders who most energetically deny the right
to work to those willing to work.”
In short: a seat lesson for strikebreakers.
Hallesby does not neglect to point out that he fully understands the demand for social justice. Of
course he holds justice. But it must come by itself. To do something that could serve to realize
this social justice is against God’s will.
Hallesby is just as eager in his work for peace:
“It is our ethical duty to prevent (!) the war by prayer (!)”.
This remedy has so far not been shown to be effective. But Hallesby will not go any other way.
He does not want to hear about any disarmament:
“Some people believe that by abolishing private capital, you solve not only the social problem,
but also the problem of war. But that this was a naïve illusion, the Russian communist state has
fully established. No state is so dangerous to world peace “.
A lesson In etiquette for liars.
Under the title “The unfolding of Christian life” Hallesby writes.
“Both the death penalty and war were commanded by the Lord”.
Mandatory!
“No horror of war is incompatible with God’s holy and punishing love . Not even the suffering of
the many innocents during the war.”
Notice this “punishing love”! It is Hallesby’s favorite theme, his complex.
However, not all war is justified. It must be a “just” war. But it may well be a war of attack,
“because in modern war it has become an increasingly necessary defense to go on the attack”.
For Hallesby, it is quite clear that when two peoples are at war with each other, one army consists
of criminals, the other of sharpshooters.
He defends general conscription with the reasoning that “However, every sensible person must
say to himself that the trained sharpshooter is better for all parties than the untrained”.
The state has "the right to acquire many sharpshooters when an imposed war demands a mass
execution of criminals … Then the government acquires soldiers “.
The more heated Hallesby becomes when he lets his imagination revolve around the
sharpshooter, the more necessary it becomes for him to make the executioner a moral ideal:
“He can carry out the death penalty coldly and indifferently, but he can also carry it out in deep
love and concern for the condemned”*. [* O. Hallesby: The Christian Code of Conduct, pages
327-28]
Here we see the “punishing love” again. We can use Hallesby’s own terminology. But this, which
is quoted here, it was not written by a man who is in control of his reason. It is written by a
person who cannot control himself.
Incidentally, it is a mistake when Hallesby thinks that the sharpshooter can carry out the death
penalty coldly and indifferently. He performs it precisely in a state of “punishing love”. Killing a
human being is a sadistic sexual act, and no one applies for the position of sharpshooter without
having the aptitude for it.
But it is not good that you find sadistic pleasures glorified under the title “The unfolding of
Christian life”. It’s not good.
It may perhaps be in its place; but it doesn’t turn out well.
X
This was a small test of Christianity in Norway today. And I have heard many say that things will
go wrong if we don’t have this Christianity to keep the people in awe.
But things are not going so bad yet, as long as the Labor Party adopts a wavering and unclear
position on the state church.
So long can the church be safe. And the Labor Party too: There will be no revolution as long as
the upbringing of the rising generation is left to the servants of Our Lord and the employers.
The knowledge the children get at school bears fruit.
They learn that in the old days there was an extraordinarily good man called Abraham, who lived
to be 175 years old, and who was so extraordinarily good that he wanted to slaughter his son
because God wanted to “strengthen him in faith”.

They learn that it is not so completely impossible that a corpse can come back to life if you say:
Lazarus, come forward! – But that it is extremely rare that God brings living prophets up to
heaven in a chariot of fire.
They teach that we must “fear and love God, so that in his name we do not curse, swear, practice
sorcery , lie or deceive”.
They teach that “we are buried with Christ by baptism into death, for just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too shall walk in newness of life”.
And the ten-year-old child learns, thank God, that they should not commit adultery.
They learn to “pray”: Hallowed be thy name. – What does the catechism say about this? – The
name of God is surely holy in itself –
Thy kingdom come. – God’s kingdom will come by itself without our prayer –
Thy will be done. – God’s good and gracious will happens without our prayer –
Give us today our daily bread. – Surely God even gives all wicked people daily bread without
our prayer –
And lead us not into temptation. – God tempts no one –
Judging by Luther’s explanation, it should not be so strictly necessary to ask for all this.
Finally, they learn about David and Uriah and Bathsheba.
But not a word about Darwin.
The irrational, the immoral and fraudulent “Knowledge of Christianity” which is imposed on the
children at an age when they are very suggestible and intellectually helpless, it bears fruit.
The ban on thinking bears fruit.
When the children are not allowed to ask about what interests them, which they think is strange
or unreasonable, - when their questions are answered evasively, ambiguously or lyingly, - when
their spiritual labor is used for training in a subject of knowledge that they are not allowed to
criticize or process in any way – then this acts directly and effectively dumbing down.
The children become "poor In spirit”, they become cowards, sleepy, obedient – they become
Christians!
This should give cause for thought.
But above all, one should not allow oneself to defend the state church and religious education
with the reasoning that one at least has control over the priests, but not over the lay preachers,
and that the free churches will take over if the state church is abolished.
Because it is not us who control the priests, it is the priests who control us and our children. And
if an atheist has respect for his mind, he cannot agree to the state maintaining an official class
whose only official duty is to lie to people – just for fear that the lay preachers will lie even
worse.
Even less can a worker agree to hand over his children to the Christian public school, whose only
understandable purpose is to make them spiritual ghouls and dutiful slaves of the capitalist
system.
The ninth plague that God sent to mankind was a thick darkness. It lay over Egypt for three days.
The tenth plague was a darkness that spread over all of Europe and America, and it has lasted for
1900 years.
And that may be enough.