{"id":6686,"date":"2015-08-14T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2015-08-14T14:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/?p=6686"},"modified":"2022-12-05T08:09:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T14:09:12","slug":"theological-misinterpretations-confessing-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbu.edu\/seminary\/theological-misinterpretations-confessing-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Theological Misinterpretations of the Confessing Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Spurlock1<\/a><\/h3>\n

Before the Third Reich obtained full political power in Germany, there was an effort to unify the Protestant churches, mostly Lutheran, into one church, merged with the ideologies of the Nazi state. Though there was much support from a large portion of Protestants, known as the Deutsche Christen (German Christians), who supported such an effort, there were also those who opposed the effort. The opposition would eventually form what became known as the Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church). Though they were astute enough to recognize the dangerous propositions being purported by the German Christians and the Nazi regime, their significant misinterpretation regarding Lutheran theological positions and the development of a creed based upon the neo-orthodox positions of Karl Barth left the Confessing Church with little more than a weak protest against the Nazi government and a weak stance on the atrocities the Third Reich committed. An examination of the origination of the Confessing Church, its actions (or lack thereof) throughout the Nazi rise of power, and its demise in the aftermath of World War II will demonstrate that such theological positions hindered the Confessing Church from aggressively opposing de F\u00fchrer.<\/p>\n

The Need for the Confessing Church<\/h2>\n

As the Nazi party began to rise, so did the German Christian movement. This movement was officially known as Glaubensbewegung Deutsche Christen (the German Christian Faith Movement).2<\/a> Though the Nazi party did not desire to back a particular church group initially, there was a growing number of Protestant clergy who felt a strong need for a \u201cconservative, Lutheran and above all German form of doctrine, and various church groups were formed throwing their confessional weight behind the Nazi movement.\u201d3<\/a> The result was that \u201cby June 6, 1932, the German Christian Faith Movement had an organizational structure similar to that of the National Socialist party.\u201d4<\/a> Such a hierarchy of structure, found similarly within the Catholic Church and other denominations, no longer seeks to allow Christ to be head of the church, but sinful man. This was the case for the German Christians. Before they began to follow Hitler, they were devoted to the doctrines of Martin Luther. As this movement began to gain momentum, the German Christians desired to incorporate \u201cthe twenty-seven Protestant regional churches into a united German Evangelical Reich church headed by a Reich bishop with close ties to Hitler.\u201d5<\/a> It is clear that this forfeited the autonomy of the local church. Hockenos elaborates on this fact, stating that \u201ctheir goal to integrate Christianity and National Socialism in a racially pure \u2018people\u2019s church\u2019 was a\u00a0direct challenge not only to the autonomy of the regional churches but to Lutheran and Reformed doctrinal principles as well.\u201d6<\/a> The adherence to Lutheran theology gripped the people tightly; and as Hitler became Chancellor, the excitement behind the Nazi movement fanned excitement among the German Christians.<\/p>\n

Hitler became Reich Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. At this time, \u201cnearly all of those pastors who would become members of the Confessing Church anticipated cooperation rather than confrontation with National Socialism.\u201d7<\/a> At Hitler\u2019s rise to Chancellor, \u201cProtestant churchmen across the country shared in general enthusiasm for his nationalist, anticommunist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.\u201d8<\/a> Soon after Hitler became Chancellor, he appointed Ludwig M\u00fcller as Reich Bishop of the German Christians and initiated the Reich Civil Service Law of April 1933. Civil servants who were not of Aryan descent, as well as opponents of the Nazi regime, were forced to retire from civil service. This included clergy, as they were financially supported by the state. 9<\/a> At this point, there was unrest in those who would form the Confessing Church. Begbie notes that \u201cchurch resistance to the Nazis began first and foremost as a church struggle, without any question of political resistance.\u201d10<\/a> Such political resistance was unthinkable at this time, since it would be contrary to the Lutheran two-kingdom doctrine!<\/p>\n

The German Christian influence reached into the Old Prussian and Land Churches. These areas were where \u201cthe\u00a0administration and governing authorities of the Land Churches came largely under control of German Christians, who accepted the policies of the National Church Administration headed by Bishop M\u03cbller.\u201d11<\/a> Jantzen notes that \u201cdespite these significant differences in their ecclesiastical contexts, however, all three districts endured significant levels of church-political conflict\u2014not least in the form of strife between fellow clergymen.\u201d12<\/a><\/p>\n

The Beginning of the Confessing Church Protestant clergymen, who were disturbed by the Nazi regime\u2019s ecclesiastical policies, had joined Martin Niem\u00f6ller\u2019s Pastor\u2019s Emergency League.13<\/a> On 29 May 1934, 138 church delegates attended a synod at Barmen and pledged supported a new \u201cConfessing Church\u201d (Bekenntniskirche). This was a significant move towards consolidated resistance against the influence of the German Christians.14<\/a> Their main concern with the Nazi influence was the perpetration of its beliefs within the German Christian churches. The German Christians openly accepted the Nazi\u2019s \u201chighly politicized and secularized theology that subverted scripture and the inherited Lutheran and Reformed confessions with F\u03cbhrer-worship, German v\u00f6lkischness, and explicitly racial anti-Semitism.\u201d15<\/a> Baranowski states that those that represented the Confessing Church \u201csought to preserve the purity of the gospel as stated in the Old and New Testaments and again brought to light in the historic Lutheran and Reformed\u00a0Confessional statements.\u201d16<\/a> This was accomplished primarily through Karl Barth and the Barmen Declaration.<\/p>\n

The Barman Declaration affirmed the Confessing Church\u2019s loyalty to Christ and set forth the limits of secular government.17<\/a> Barth took this opportunity to insert much of his neo-orthodox positions, including the rejection of natural (general) theology. Ballor notes that \u201cthe relation of the Barmen Declaration to the Confessing Church and the relation of the Confessing Church to the broader ecumenical world both revolved around Barth\u2019s \u2018No!\u2019 to natural theology.\u201d18<\/a> This Declaration, although not ideal for all clergy involved in the formation of the Confessing Church, sought the preeminence of Christ.<\/p>\n

The key-note of the confession was the unique Lordship of Christ over every area of life together with the rejection of any other ultimate authority in faith and conduct. The Confessing Church now regarded herself as the one true Evangelical Church in Germany, although de facto there were two churches: the Confessing Church and the German Evangelical Church under M\u03cbller.19<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though the Reformed, United and Lutheran churches came to a shaky agreement to the Barman Declaration, many Lutherans opposed Barth\u2019s theology because it \u201cchallenged four of the conservative Lutheran\u2019s most sacred tenets: the law-gospel dialectic, the orders of creation or divine orders, natural revelation, and the orthodox Lutheran understanding of Martin Luther\u2019s doctrine of the two kingdoms.\u201d20<\/a> Although they began moving in the right direction by separating from the Third Reich, the Lutheran ideology of church and state both appointed by God kept\u00a0them from being \u201cunable to conceive seriously of becoming a \u2018free\u2019 church, that is, one dependent entirely on the contribution of a voluntary membership.\u201d21<\/a><\/p>\n

Those in the Confessing Church were not only facing outside opposition, but there were also internal conflicts between the radical and conservative wings of the Confessing Church. Hockenos notes that \u201csome pastors and church leaders in the Niem\u00f6ller wing of the Confessing Church believed that it was necessary to publically protest state laws and decrees that interfered with the church\u2019s control over its administrative, financial, legal, and pastoral offices.\u201d22<\/a> Indeed, Karl Barth\u2019s position had many opponents. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth disagreed on the Jewish question and the Aryan clause.23<\/a> Barth saw the need to be separate from the state, but \u201cmany of the leaders of Confessing Church (especially bishops such as Hans Meiser, Theophil Wurm, and August Marahrens) wanted to be recognized by the state and thereby maintain contact with the rest of the Protestant Church.\u201d24<\/a> This continual desire to be tied to the government was rooted in their Lutheran theology.<\/p>\n

The influence of Lutheran theology was significantly strong within Germany and their ideology and theology contributed towards many of the actions (or inactions) of both groups. Begbie notes that \u201ctheologians and clergy in the Lutheran tradition had thus long been schooled to preach obedience to the ruling authorities, basing their arguments on traditional interpretations of Romans 13 and 1 Peter 3:17.\u201d25<\/a> Also, it must be noted that the Confessing Church was never completely cut off from state funds. Helmreich states that \u201cin general, the Confessing church pastors and congregations continued to be financed through the\u00a0customary church taxes, church money (Kirchgeld), income from lands, state subsidies, and church collections.\u201d26<\/a> Barth recognized this, as \u201che held that the failure of the Confessing Church to offer a \u2018more comprehensive resistance\u2019 to the political evil of National Socialism was rooted deeply in traditional Lutheran theology.\u201d27<\/a><\/p>\n

Although the Confessing Church was rooted deeply in Lutheran theology, their association with Barth\u2019s neo-orthodoxy did not aid in their efforts. Ultimately, the Confessing Church was unable to effectively stand against the rise of Nazism. Begbie notes this by stating that \u201can enormously significant factor was that the churches were theologically ill-equipped and unprepared to come to grips with the immense power of Nazi ideology and the profound issues it raised for the life and witness of the church.\u201d28<\/a> Wall concurs by stating that the Church\u2019s \u201ccommitment to the fatherland and sense of loyalty to the German people were at least as strong as its moral indignation against National Socialism.\u201d29<\/a> This commitment no doubt derived from the influence of Lutheran theology. However, the anti-semitism which also derived from Lutheran theology was far more disastrous.<\/p>\n

Silence of the Confessing Church<\/h2>\n

On August 2, 1934, the German President Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted the \u201cLaw Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich.\u201d This law abolished the office of the President, merging the position\u2019s powers with those of the Chancellor. Thus, Hitler was now the head of state as well as of the government in a newly titled position, F\u03cbhrer of Germany. \u201cThis action gave Hitler ultimate power over Germany, which gave Bishop M\u03cbller\u00a0further motivation towards his goal of \u2018one God, one Volk and one Church.\u2019\u201d30<\/a> The aggression by the Nazi regime intensified. Begbie notes that \u201cpolice were harassing pastors not only in the Prussian Confessing Churches but also in other Land Churches. Many were denied the right to preach, their houses were searched, some were dismissed or pensioned, some 700 were arrested, and some placed in concentration camps.\u201d31<\/a> Martin Niem\u00f6ller, one of the Confessing Church founders, was imprisoned on 1 July, 1937. The Church was also being influenced from within as well. Members of the Lutheran Council were moderates within the Confessing Church. Although they considered themselves a part of the Confessing Church, they were winning others to their Lutheran positions.<\/p>\n

Using the two kingdoms doctrine, these moderates could, on the one hand, celebrate the German revolution and the national awakening, and also accept anti-Jewish laws, while they could work, on the other hand, inside the church against the Aryan paragraph. The political sphere was given independence. It was thus impossible to criticize the political order. Thus both conservative and liberal moderates could affirm the Nazi policy.32<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Niem\u00f6ller\u2019s imprisonment, along with the moderates\u2019 determination to accommodate the Nazi regime, caused many within the Church to become increasingly cautious.33<\/a> However, actions by the Nazi regime such as \u201cthe arrest of pastors and church members who acted on their own religious convictions were not viewed in a political framework\u00a0by which Christians could have connected these arrests to the growing oppression of Jews and others under Nazism.\u201d34<\/a><\/p>\n

These violent acts increased through the months, and before \u201cthe Munich Agreement in September 1938, when war seemed imminent, three members of the provisional administration, Martin Albertz, Hans B\u00f6hm, and Fritz M\u03cbller, wrote and circulated a prayer service of confession and intercession.\u201d35<\/a> Within this prayer, there was an omission of prayers for Hitler, Sudeten Germans and a German victory. \u201cIncluded were a confession of specific sins of the German people and prayers for all peoples of the world and for peace.\u201d36<\/a> The prayer was circulated in the SS newspaper, Das Schwarze Korps, where they received public criticism and disassociation.37<\/a> Those in the Confessing Church were branded as traitors to their country and were continually drawing the Gestapo\u2019s attention. Though the church\u2019s desire in their minds was to be biblical, they were drawing political lines. Such actions were of little effect to turn the tide. \u201cAs war loomed and Nazi propaganda stirred national loyalties and revived the anger at Germany\u2019s defeat in 1918, patriotism stirred in the churches as well as in the general population.\u201d38<\/a><\/p>\n

Even though the Confessing Church rejected the German War Crusade, they could not publicly denounce Hitler\u2019s aggressive attacks as unjust.39<\/a> This was due to their theological position, as Barnett states: \u201cReaching back for the certainties of Lutheran tradition, church leaders felt\u00a0bound by their loyalties to throne and altar.\u201d40<\/a> Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who was opposed to war, \u201cwas explicit that the Confessing Church should not yield on any point to the Nazi state or those elements in the official church that cooperated with the state.\u201d41<\/a> Though there were some such as Bonhoeffer that opposed the Nazi regime, the Church as a whole was silent on Germany\u2019s encroachment toward war. Wall states that \u201cthere was no response at all to Hitler\u2019s dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in March, 1939, or to the Polish crisis in the summer of that year.\u201d42<\/a> Hockenos identifies this sin of omission by the Confessing Church:<\/p>\n

Although a unified response from the Confessing Church was virtually impossible, the real stumbling block to an official Confessing Church protest was not the confessional, organizational, or even political divisions but the traditional antipathy toward Judaism derived from centuries of Lutheran teaching that the Jew was a godless outcast who would always be a danger to a Christian nation unless he converted to Christianity.43<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This distain for the Jewish people, plagued by centuries of Lutheran theology, not only supported a criminal government, but also stood silent as Jews were being eradicated. Begbie concurs, stating that \u201cthe traditional quietist attitude of Lutheranism towards the state had a large part to play, together with a significant anti-Semitic strain within contemporary Lutheran theology.\u201d44<\/a><\/p>\n

As the war progressed, some within the Confessing Church \u201ccame to the realization that the evil of National Socialism demanded something beyond the strictly ecclesiastical opposition prescribed by Lutheran theology and loyalty to the fatherland.\u201d45<\/a> However, by this time, it was too late for any action to be effective against the Nazi war machine. Though Confessing Church members would defend Hebrew Christians against such Nazi policies, it was not for humanitarian reasons they did so, but for theological reasons; they only saw a Jewish Christian as a brother or sister in Christ, rather than a person made in the image of God. The success of Hitler\u2019s anti-Semitic propaganda can be credited to \u201cthe unrelenting anti-Jewish Christian theological discourse that linked Nazi propaganda with the traditions and moral authority of the churches.\u201d46<\/a><\/p>\n

It is important to note that there were many bold individuals fighting against the Nazi government. Though the greatest significance of the Confessing Church was their opposition to the German Christians and the Nazi regime, they could never oppose Nazi doctrine because of the theological chains of Lutheranism that bound them.<\/p>\n

The Confessing Church, by its own admission, fell short of fulfilling the mission of the church. It acknowledged that the Third Reich was an immoral state in which evil was not simply an accident but a principle. Yet the theology of the church called for implicit obedience to the duly constituted authorities and discouraged political resistance.47<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Though the Confessing Church recognized the dangers and atrocities of the Third Reich, their theological bond to Lutheranism disallowed them from questioning the government. Their hatred towards Jews kept them silent during the darkest hour in German history. Instead of abandoning their Lutheran doctrine, they incorporated Barth\u2019s neo-orthodox theology into their Lutheranism as their foundation during this trying time. Such a misin-terpretation of the history of biblical theology reveals the dangers of adding any other authority to the Word of God, whether that be an unfounded doctrine, a biased creed, or a faulty theology.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

1 Matthew Spurlock is a student at Maranatha Baptist Seminary. Maranatha Baptist Theological Journal usually publishes one article each year written by a seminary student.<\/p>\n

2 Ernst Christian Helmreich, The German Churches under Hitler: Background, Struggle, and Epilogue (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979), 127.<\/p>\n

3 Jeremy Begbie, \u201cThe Confessing Church and the Nazis: A Struggle for Theological Truth,\u201d Anvil, A Journal of Theology and Mission 2.2 (Summer 1985): 117\u2013118.<\/p>\n

4 Helmreich, 127.<\/p>\n

5 Matthew D. Hockenos, A Church Divided: German Protestants Confront the Nazi Past (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001), 15.<\/p>\n

6 Ibid.<\/p>\n

7 Donald D. Wall, \u201cThe Confessing Church and the Second World War,\u201d Journal of Church and State (Winter 1981): 15.<\/p>\n

8 Hockenos, 17.<\/p>\n

9 Jordan J. Ballor, \u201cThe Aryan Clause, the Confessing Church, and the Ecumenical Movement: Barth and Bonhoeffer on Natural Theology, 1933\u20131935,\u201d Scottish Journal of Theology 59.3 (August 2006): 267.<\/p>\n

10 Begbie, 118.<\/p>\n

11 Helmreich, 413.<\/p>\n

12 Kyle Jantzen, \u201cPropoganda, Perserverance, and Protest: Strategies for Clerical Survival Amid the German Church Struggle,\u201d Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 70.2 (June 2001): 297.<\/p>\n

13 Wall, 16.<\/p>\n

14 Begbie, 119.<\/p>\n

15 Shelley Baranowski, \u201cConsent and Dissent: The Confessing Church and Conservative Opposition to National Socialism,\u201d The Journal of Modern History 59.1 (March 1987): 58.<\/p>\n

16 Helmreich, 420.<\/p>\n

17 Wall, 16.<\/p>\n

18 Ballor, 276.<\/p>\n

19 Begbie, 119.<\/p>\n

20 Hockenos, 23.<\/p>\n

21 Baronowski, 65.<\/p>\n

22 Hockenos, 17.<\/p>\n

23 Ballor, 270.<\/p>\n

24 Ballor, 380.<\/p>\n

25 Begbie, 125.<\/p>\n

26 Helmreich, 416.<\/p>\n

27 Wall, 18.<\/p>\n

28 Begbie, 123.<\/p>\n

29 Wall, 33.<\/p>\n

30 Begbie, 119.<\/p>\n

31 Ibid, 120.<\/p>\n

32 Arne Rasmusson, \u201c\u2018Deprive Them of Their Pathos\u2019: Karl Barth and the Nazi Revolution Revisited,\u201d Modern Theology 23.3 (July 2007): 373.<\/p>\n

33 Wall, 17.<\/p>\n

34 Victoria Barnett, For The Soul of the People: Prostestant Protest Against Hitler (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 60.<\/p>\n

35 Wall, 19.<\/p>\n

36 Ibid.<\/p>\n

37 Ibid.<\/p>\n

38 Barnett, 92.<\/p>\n

39 Wall, 21.<\/p>\n

40 Barnett, 37.<\/p>\n

41 Ibid, 96.<\/p>\n

42 Donald D. Wall, \u201cThe Confessing Church and Hitler\u2019s Foreign Policy: The Czechoslovakian Crisis of 1938,\u201d Journal of the American Academy of Religion 44.3 (September 1976): 436.<\/p>\n

43 Hockenos, 36.<\/p>\n

44 Begbie, 128.<\/p>\n

45 Wall, \u201cThe Confessing Church and the Second World War,\u201d 29.<\/p>\n

46 Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and The Bible In Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), 7.<\/p>\n

47 Wall, \u201cThe Confessing Church and the Second World War,\u201d 33.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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