For more information go to : http://roarnomore.blogspot.com/2010/09/church-hitler-and-glenn-beck.html Now back to our discussion of the volk. As we have seen, Hitler was by no means a lover of Christianity. A plain reading of Mein Kampf will make this obviously clear. He intended to use the church as an organization for the furtherance of German nationalism, but it had to be in lock step with the Nazi party in order to justify its existence. When Hitler referred to Martin Luther in a favorable light notice he didn't go into any specifics. Martin Luther was a hero of the German people of which about 2/3 were proclaimed Lutherans. Hitler saw the history of Germany and its figures, even the ones he would have disagreed with, as being worthy of study and admiration simply because they were German. This is undeniably, in our country, more of a phenomenon of the right. I myself enjoy the study of history and admire such men as Patrick Henry, Robert. E Lee, and Ronald Reagan. However, the idea of "American Exceptionalism" I fear is all to similar to Hitler's German nationalism. Certain parts of our history are whitewashed in order to prove that "America isn't really all that bad." We are fooled into thinking that when we have made mistakes, that's all they were, and they were somehow caused because of a departure from our "real" values. Some conservative Christians will even say that we are "special," "unique," or "chosen." Rev. Peter Marshall's children's book The Light and the Glory comes to mind. Sometimes when I hear conservatives say such things I want to ask, "What are we, modern Israel?" Fortunately, American Exceptionalism has not been used by conservatives to rally us around the state, at least to the extent that Hitler used it. Of course Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Webster did go in that direction, but I wouldn't consider them anything remotely similar to true conservatives. One of the mainstays of conservatism is that it is antithetical to state control and is instead for federalism and individual ...