restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

                

Read the Barmen Declaration (While You Still Can)

 David Alan Black 

Few Americans are familiar with the Barmen Declaration, published by the German “Confessing Church” in 1934. That’s why I devoted a lengthy discussion to it in my book Why I Stopped Listening to Rush and even included it as an appendix.

Even fewer Americans are aware that the Barmen Declaration was not so much a critique of Hitler’s policies as it was an alarm sounded against the usurpation of power and authority in the church by the “German Christian” movement. As such, the document is a profound statement of the supreme authority of Jesus Christ as the one Word of God. This is indicated clearly by the two verses that introduce the entire document:

John 14:6: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 10:1, 9: “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold through the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved.”

The first article declares:

Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

We reject the false doctrine that the Church could and should recognize as a source of its proclamation, beyond and besides this one Word of God, yet other events, powers, historic figures and truths as God’s revelation.

This article was necessary for one reason: Loyalty to Christ was being challenged in Germany as never before. The church was being asked to recognize the events of 1933 as ordained by God and as rightly demanding obedience side by side with Scripture. This notion the Confessing Church rejected.

The second article makes this even clearer. One cannot be equally loyal to the Volk and to the state. By exalting the idea of the Volk into a divine ordinance, the German Christians gave to it the nature of revelation. This, too, was unequivocally rejected at Barmen.

One of the most important theological contributions to the development of the German Christian movement was that of Emanuel Hirsch, who sought to inspire a new national pride after the debacle of 1918. He maintained that the interests of the individual should always be kept subordinate to those of the nation. In his book Deutschlands Schicksal, Staat, Volk und Menschheit im Lichte einer ethischen Geschichtsansicht (published in 1921) Hirsch set out the foundation of a social revolution in which Volk and nation are acknowledged as part of God’s will in creation, and he sought to establish a national Volks-state as a boundary established by God. In this state the individual conscience is swallowed up by the Volk conscience, and the duty of the individual is identified with the duty of the whole people. In his book Die Liebe zum Vaterland (published in 1924) Hirsch delineated the moral demands of the nation-state. Because Volkheit is a principle of God’s creation, obedience to it is not obedience to an earthly order but obedience to the eternal. Later, when he published his lectures in 1934, he acknowledged in Hitler’s National Socialism the power of leadership that would rectify all the mistakes of past German history.

I believe the day is coming – perhaps it is already upon us – when American believers will be forced to see in the cause of the Confessing Church in Germany their own cause as well. Principled conservatives who rightly fear the power of unrestricted government have much to learn from the Barmen Declaration.

A modern day “American Christian” movement belligerently struts along, echoing the sophistries and fabrications of the White House and the Republican National Committee. The penal barbarism of Abu Ghraib, the doctrine of preemption, the Patriot Act’s infringement on the Bill of Rights – all are glaringly Hitlerian, and stand in stark contrast to the Jeffersonian ideal, which always places individual liberty above the caprice of the state. Clinton’s simian sexual behavior can’t begin to compare with the crude, anti-republican ideology of George W. Bush, who sent a very Hitleresque message to the nation by hyping the fictitious “terrorist threat” posed by Iraq. Tragically, a postprandial orgy of biased reportage allows the administration’s statist theology to go unchallenged. For many Americans, Bush’s claims alone are “truth.”

Teddy Roosevelt once said that any American who blindly accepts everything that comes out of a president’s mouth is not only wrong and servile, but unpatriotic. As Americans, we have a patriotic responsibility to speak out against the president when we think he is wrong.

This is precisely what the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany tried to do. In producing the Barmen Declaration, they hoped to prick the consciences of their fellow churchmen, bring them back to their senses, and return the Body of Christ to its allegiance to Jesus Christ, the Word of God.

I trust the Barmen Declaration might have the same effect when it is encountered today. Readers are reminded that this is a document written in the crucible of real life and not a systematic treatment of Christian doctrine. It is to be approached not as an intellectual exercise but as a message to the heart. Read thus, it will, I believe, speak as from the Spirit of God Himself, with challenging power.

The Barmen Declaration

In view of the errors of the “German Christians” and of the present Reich Church Administration, which are ravaging the Church and at the same time also shattering the unity of the German Evangelical Church, we confess the following evangelical truths:

1. “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold through the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved.” John 10:1,9

Jesus Christ, as he is attested to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God whom we have to hear, and whom we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

We reject the false doctrine that the Church could and should recognize as a source of its proclamation, beyond and besides this one Word of God, yet other events, powers, historic figures and truths as God’s revelation.

2. “Jesus Christ has been made wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption for us by God.” 1 Cor. 1:30

As Jesus Christ is God’s comforting pronouncement of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, with equal seriousness, he is also God’s vigorous announcement of his claim upon our whole life. Through him there comes to us joyful liberation from the godless ties of this world for free, grateful service to his creatures.

We reject the false doctrine that there could be areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ but to other lords, areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.

3. “Let us, however, speak the truth in love, and in every respect grow into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body is joined together.” Eph. 4:15-16

The Christian Church is the community of brethren in which, in Word and Sacrament, through the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ acts in the present as Lord. With both its faith and its obedience, with both its message and its order, it has to testify in the midst of the sinful world, as the Church of pardoned sinners, that it belongs to him alone and lives and may live by his comfort and under his direction alone, in expectation of his appearing.

We reject the false doctrine that the Church could have permission to hand over the form of its message and of its order to whatever it itself might wish or to the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of the day.

4. “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to have authority over you must be your servant.” Matt. 20:25-26

The various offices in the Church do not provide a basis for some to exercise authority over others but for the ministry [lit., “service”] with which the whole community has been entrusted and charged to be carried out.

We reject the false doctrine that, apart from this ministry, the Church could, and could have permission to, give itself or allow itself to be given special leaders [Führer] vested with ruling authority.

5. “Fear God. Honor the Emperor.” 1 Pet. 2:17

Scripture tells us that by divine appointment the State, in this still unredeemed world in which also the Church is situated, has the task of maintaining justice and peace, so far as human discernment and human ability make this possible, by means of the threat and use of force. The Church acknowledges with gratitude and reverence toward God the benefit of this, his appointment. It draws attention to God’s Dominion [Reich], God’s commandment and justice, and with these the responsibility of those who rule and those who are ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word, by which God upholds all things.

We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the State should and could become the sole and total order of human life and so fulfill the vocation of the Church as well.

We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the Church should and could take on the nature, tasks and dignity which belong to the State and thus become itself an organ of the State.

6. “See, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matt. 28:20 “God’s Word is not fettered.” 2 Tim. 2:9

The Church’s commission, which is the foundation of its freedom, consists in this: in Christ’s stead, and so in the service of his own Word and work, to deliver all people, through preaching and sacrament, the message of the free grace of God.

We reject the false doctrine that with human vainglory the Church could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of self-chosen desires, purposes and plans.

The Confessing Synod of the German Evangelical Church declares that it sees in the acknowledgment of these truths and in the rejection of these errors the indispensable theological basis of the German Evangelical Church as a confederation of Confessing Churches. It calls upon all who can stand in solidarity with its Declaration to be mindful of these theological findings in all their decisions concerning Church and State. It appeals to all concerned to return to unity in faith, hope and love.

Verbum Dei manet in aeternum.
The Word of God will last for ever.

December 17, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. He is the author of Why I Stopped Listening to Rush and numerous other books.

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