American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas

by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

While the modern sciences had “made the colossal blunder of attempting to exile God,” Catholicism understood that “morality and social progress” must have their “foundation in religion, or they will have no foundation at all. And when I say religion, I do not mean a devitalized ‘natural’ religion [that is, “Christiano-pagan” Protestantism]. I mean faith in God and in a supernatural relationship between God and Man.” Nietzsche’s philosophy was therefore useful insofar as it provided Gillis with the perfect artillery as he railed against liberal Protestantism. He argued that the consistency with which Nietzsche denounced the church made him a worthier foe than Protestants who sought to dilute the gospel of Christ with their liberal, accommodationist sensibilities. Voicing a sentiment dominant among Catholic interpreters of Nietzsche, Gillis insisted that while Christ’s gospel of love pointed to the great eternal hereafter, Nietzsche’s life-denying paganism led inexorably to spiritual castration. The option for modern Americans, Gillis concluded, came down to a simple choice between “Christ … or Chaos.”