Religion: New Idea

What is meant by original sin?

Isn’t it arrogant to consider the

Christian religion the only true one?

If God is almighty and everything predestined, why do we have a free will?

Every week at a castle-like villa, overlooking the Elbe near Hamburg, such age-old questions are being asked as ingenuously as if they had never been asked before. The answers given are as eagerly received as if they were dazzling scientific discoveries. The questioners—young Germans brought up in Nazi paganism—find Christianity an exciting new idea.

St. Michael’s House, once the villa of a Hamburg patrician, is a school where German youths in the British zone may take a ten-day “quickie” course in the principles of Christianity. The only such school in Germany, it was set up by the Rev. Neil Nye, an R.A.F. warden, to supplement the secular re-education of young Germans who have known no god but Hitler. The school’s stated aim: to fill “the need for a definite and satisfying faith on which to rebuild the life of Europe.” No Church of England outpost, St. Michael’s House has an all-German lecturing and administrative staff. A British priest acts as warden.

In classes of 30, more than 500 German boys & girls have already “graduated” from St. Michael’s. Many were onetime members of the Hitler Youth, some were professed atheists and agnostics, one was the nephew of Nazi Minister of Economics Walther Funk. Results have been more encouraging than even Founder Nye hoped for. Nearly all the students bombard the lecturers with questions. Of a recent class made up exclusively of boys from the Adolf-Hitler-Schule at Sonthofen, 27 said that they were deeply impressed; two were unimpressed; the 30th decided to become a priest.

All students come to St. Michael’s House voluntarily. Most come eagerly, for the school offers an easy routine, beautiful scenic surroundings and ten days of good food with no standing in line. But at least a few of the world’s most confused and frustrated young people find surcease from more than queues. “Here, for the first time since the end of the war,” said a St. Michael’s graduate, “I was considered not a German, but a Christian.”