Evolution? Heil No!

I got a funny look followed by the comment, "You really don't believe in 
evolution?" I think the look accompanied the fall of my perceived intellect to the 
level of religious nutcase. To be precise, I do not believe materialistic 
naturalism, the underlying assumption of darwinistic evolution.
While working on my MA in film studies, I watched a classic film noted for 
it's powerful cinematography. Leni Reifenstahl's "Triumph of the Will", was then 
and is today breathtaking on many levels. It was the crown jewel of 
propaganda for Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party. 
Considering the Holocaust and World War II, "Triumph of the Will" is 
jaw-dropping. Those people literally worshipped Hitler with all of their heart, soul, 
mind and strength. Other film students remarked about the mise en scénes, 
camera angles, and so on, but I was bothered by the power of film as tool for 
propaganda, and pondered the meaning of the title, "Triumph of the Will". I 
vaguely remembered something about a German philosopher linked with the word "will". 
Whenever I visited a large library, I searched for information on the impact 
motion pictures had on the rise of the Nazi's in the German culture. Films 
like "Triumph of the Will" helped convince the German public they were taking 
part in the most momentous occasion in the history of mankind—the glorious 
inevitable progress of the favored race.
I was also interested in the role of the German church. What happened to the 
state run churches in Germany was easier to track. Enlightenment dizzy 
liberals gutted them. Many evolution-believing theologians jumped in bed with the 
Nazis like drunk prom dates and were rewarded by being put in charge of the 
churches and seminaries. Most clergy kept quiet, preaching feel good sermons to 
confused and dwindling flocks. The few who stood against the culture's insane 
momentum were ridiculed, ignored and martyred.
The enlightenment had set up the dominoes for Darwin's Theory of Evolution to 
start an avalanche that swept through the halls of academia, and nowhere was 
the victory swifter or more complete than in Germany. Prior to W.W.II, Germany 
was peerless in higher education. Any serious student of anything studied 
there. The confident boast of scientifically fixing mankind's problems and curing 
all social ills was made in almost every discipline, including economics, 
education and politics. 
Some nagging philosophical problems remained. If God was dead, what about 
ethics, morality, beauty, love, meaning and purpose. The "higher criticism" 
liberal theologians competed to invent the next "evolution" of religion, keeping 
whatever they wanted from Christianity, minus the miracles or those annoying 
absolutes. Formerly unthinkable ideologies like eugenics and pederasty 
flourished. Germany degenerated into an arrogant, godless, science-driven and 
increasingly pagan society. 
Those who claim Hitler was a Christian fail to understand (or ignore) that 
Hitler, like the liberal theologians of his day, used Christian terms common to 
Western culture. In fact, while most German theologians considered 
Christianity the highest evolved religion because of it's obvious role in building 
Western Civilization, Hitler preferred Nordic Mythology because it did a better job 
of justifying his desire to purify the Aryan race. 
About that film's title, "Triumph of the Will", I discovered it was indeed 
linked to the teaching of Friedrich Neitzche, an atheist German philosopher. It 
was Neitzche who wrote the famous lines, "God is dead. God remains dead. And 
we have killed him."
Educated Germans all knew another quote from Neitzche very well; "Every 
healthy aristocracy. . .will have to be the incarnated Will to Power.  It will 
endeavor to grow, to gain ground, and acquire ascendancy —not owing to any 
morality or immorality, but because it lives, and because life is precisely Will to 
Power."
The path from Darwin to Nietzche to Hitler and the rise of the Nazi party is a
lmost impossible to miss, yet I've met no one who was ever taught about the 
connections between Darwin and Hitler. I have run into many who parrot the 
silly notion that Hitler was a right wing Christian. Fancy that. 
World War II was primarily about Germany's attempt to ascend the evolutionary 
ladder because they were convinced evolution was settled science and they 
were leading the inevitable march of progress. The Nazis sacrificed the Jews, the 
youth of Germany and many other nations to prove the widely held but 
absolutely wrong idea of evolved racial superiority.
No, I really don't believe in Darwinian evolution. I know God exists, so a 
theory which defines reality so as to deny His existence is wasted on me, Time, 
Newsweek, and National Geographic's continuing public relations campaign 
notwithstanding. I get that defining life as the "will to power" is diametrically 
opposite the first commandment, no matter how cleverly adorned in academia, 
enshrined by the media or mindlessly assumed by pop culture. I also get that the 
claims of Jesus and materialistic naturalism are mutually inexclusive. I'm 
going with Jesus.