Once the most potent moral figure in Western culture was Jesus Christ. Believer or unbeliever, you took your ethical bearings from him, or professed to. To question his morals was to expose yourself as a monster. Now, the most potent moral figure in Western culture is Adolf Hitler. It is as monstrous to praise him as it would once have been to disparage Jesus. He has become the fixed reference point by which we define evil.
Alec Ryrie, Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt (November 2019). See also “The End of the Age of Hitler,” First Things, November 2024.
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Alec Ryrie
