<IV> It was this radical change from Christian doctrines to pagan myths that aroused the Churches to express their protest against Nazism, and also against the persecution of the Jews, in the above Pastoral of the year 1943: "And there is now a return to the worship of life and power by accepting and exalting the old Adam as the original and eternal MAN. There is an attempt at self-salvation - the old Adam is not crucified with Christ (Rom. 6. 6) but by his very own inmost strength achieves a new life and a heightened vitality..." [5] Similarly, the theological concepts of sin and redemption were transferred to a legal category of administrative regulations that demanded outer conformity and inner obedience. The traditional conception of sin and redemption that was common to all currents of Christian thought held that man's redemption, and hence eschatological existence, depends on his faith: "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ... since all have sinned and... they are justified by grace... through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus..."(Rom. 3. 22-24). In the totalitarian Nazi regime the concepts sin and redemption were used as means by the State or the Party to convert man into a loyal subject whose allegiance is assured by his constant fear not only of violating some concrete ordinance or governmental decree but simply of just deviating from the official ideology. The Christian belief that man could be saved through faith in the forgiveness of Jesus who died for his sins, "so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin" (Rom. 6.6), was transferred from the theological to the secular, political plane. Even the comforting assurance of the believer that his sins shall be forgiven and that he shall be found worthy of the purifying influences of grace could now be gained only by the individual's complete identification with the State, the Party and the superior Aryan race. An instructive illustration of this shift from theology to ideology is to be found in the circular letters (Rundschreiben) and in the speeches of the Reichsorganisationsleiter Dr. Robert Ley, for example in his words of 26. June 1935: "Strength through joy (Kraft durch Freude) is the embodiment of National Socialism. <V> Over against sin we put discipline, over against penitence pride! Over against the weak and their infirmities we put strength... " [6] This doctrine was not mere Aryan propaganda; it became an integral part of school studies and was systematically inculcated into the minds of the young. The following is an example of a dictation given in 1934 to the third grade of an elementary school: