The Legacy of the Barmen Declaration: Politics and the Kingdom (Faith and Politics: Political Theology in a New Key) 9781793601339, 9781793601346, 179360133X

Citation preview

The Legacy of the Barmen Declaration

Faith and Politics: Political Theology in a New Key Series Editor: Fred Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame “Political Theology” is a theme which straddles two major areas of inquiry: political philosophy and theology, or differently phrased: the realms of secular politics and the sacred. The relation is marked by difference, sometimes by tension or conflict. During the past century, such conflict reached a boiling point when the Nazi regime sought to coopt or integrate the Christian population. In opposition to this attempt, a “Confessing Church” was formed which, under the leadership of Karl Barth, issued the Barmen Declaration (May 31, 1934) which insisted on the independence of faith from political power structures while, at the same time, guarding against the pure “privatization” of faith. In our time, it is important to remember this precedent because there are strong tendencies to push religion into similar dilemmas. This series will launch new investigations into the relations between faith and politics on a broad ecumenical and global level. Its guiding question will be, “to what extent do different theologians or different political theologies make possible the prospect of a divinely sanctioned ‘kingdom’ of peace and justice?” Recent titles in the series: The Legacy of the Barmen Declaration: Politics and the Kingdom, by Fred Dallmayr

The Legacy of the Barmen Declaration Politics and the Kingdom Edited by Fred Dallmayr

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Eberhard, Busch, The Barmen Theses: Then and Now © 2010. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission of the publisher; all rights reserved. Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN 978-1-7936-0133-9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-7936-0134-6 (electronic) TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches. —Matthew 13:31 Unless someone is born anew, he/she cannot see the kingdom of God. —John 3:3 All thy works shall give thanks to thee, O Lord, and thy saints shall bless thee. . . . Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endures throughout all generations. —Psalm 145:10, 13

Contents

Preface Introduction: Political Theology and Barmen 1

Evangelical Synod 1934: Theological Declaration of Barmen

2

Presbyterian Church, Book of Order: Barmen Declaration (Short Version) The Barmen Theological Declaration in May 1934: Its Formulation and Significance Eberhard Busch Historical Overview of the Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934 Wolf Krötke Democratic Faith: Barth, Barmen, and the Politics Of Reformed Confession Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman Confess and Resist: Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Church Struggle Wolfgang Huber Two Types of Religious Faith: A Conversation with Martin Buber Fred Dallmayr Thy Kingdom Come!: The Prayer Of The ChurchCommunity For God’s Kingdom On Earth Dietrich Bonhoeffer

3

4

5

6

7

8

Conclusion: Political Theology Again Bibliography Index About the Contributors

vii

ix 1 15 21 25

39

49

75

89

101

113 117 121 129

Preface

“Political Theology” is not an expression readily familiar to ordinary, non-academic people. In common parlance, the expression is at home in such academic disciplines as theology, political science or the study of politics. At a closer look, however, this parlance or opinion is mistaken. Most people, reared in different religious traditions, have a vague clue or “pre-judgment” about this matter. Thus Christians—on a routinely or almost daily basis—are wont to recite the Lord’s prayer which contains these words: “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What they profess with these words is the belief that God’s kingdom is meant to come and be realized both in “this world” and “the next,” that is, both in the secular-worldly “polis” and in the divine realm. Such a juxtaposition of different “worlds”—whether standing in opposition or in harmonious correlation—can be found in most historical religions (and also in many traditional philosophies). The place where the two worlds meet or collide, where “immanence” and “transcendence” rub against each other, is the locus of “political theology.” When the meeting of worlds decays into conflict or radical confrontation, human history is liable to erupt into violent upheavals, unleashing massive suffering for untold masses of people. The eruption can be triggered by either of the contending sides. However, in Western modernity, the chief instigation of strife can be traced to secular-worldly regimes, especially to the ambition of secular rulers to extend their power totally to all parts of the population, especially to communities of faith. A high point of this collision was the Nazi regime under Hitler in the 1930s, a prime example of secular totalitarianism. Under the impact of a relentless policy of cooptation, a part of the Christian community—under the label “German Christians”—actually surrendered their conscience to the prevailing Nazi rulers. Contrary to the regime’s expectations, however, something amazing happened at the time: the upsurge of defiance and resistance among Christians assembled in the so-called “Confessing Church.” Under the leadership of prominent pastors and theologians, a confessing “synod” met in May 1934 in the town of Barmen to formulate a proper response. The result was the “Theological Declaration of Barmen” which affirmed the primary loyalty of Christian believers to the “word” of God as revealed (chiefly) in Jesus Christ—without dismissing the legitimacy of secular politics within its limited domain. Many memix

x

Preface

bers of the Confessing Church were persecuted, jailed, executed, or driven into exile. Regrettably, the term “Barmen” is not as widely known today as it deserves to be. Clearly, the upsurge of resistance at the time was not a purely clerical or academic initiative, but involved many ordinary believers across the country. For this reason alone, Barmen deserves to be the target of broad popular attention and commemoration. However, there is a deeper, more timeless impulse for this attention: the evidence of a certain recurrence or repetitiveness of grim historical episodes. In our own time, many parts of the world experience (once again) the rise of aspiring totalitarian regimes or potentates—regimes placing religious people before the alternative of devoting themselves whole-heartedly to worldly government or else giving their ultimate loyalty to the “word” of God (and religiously inspired ethical teachings). For believers, the decision among alternatives is bound to be wrenching, sometimes demanding enormous sacrifice and suffering. In any case, the confrontation of alternatives requires Christians to ponder more seriously than ever before the words of the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Fred Dallmayr Notre Dame, Indiana October 2018

Introduction Political Theology and Barmen

The phrase “political theology” is accepted today as a routine formula, as part of the conventional nomenclature of academic studies. As such, the phrase simply designates a particular field of inquiry, alongside such fields as theology, political science, philosophy and many others. Still, academic routine cloaks or papers over disturbing and unsettled questions. Does the phrase underwrite the theological treatment of politics, or does it perhaps sanction the power-political treatment of theology and religious faith? Or is the implication a kind of collusion or contamination of political and religious institutions and their agendas? Actually, the situation is more complex and provocative. At a closer look, it appears that “political theology” hides or disguises a radical semantic and ontological opposition: the antimony between two radically different realms or spheres, specifically the realm of mundane politics and the transmundane realm of the sacred or holy. Although there may be occasional interchanges or crossovers between these spheres, it is best not to underestimate the hazards of the transition. 1 Thus, despite its customary academic status, “political theology” appears to be inhabited by a potentially explosive force which can shatter all habitual routines. The dangers of collusion as well as collision are greatly intensified in our time due to the widespread social and spiritual desolation or disarray. Thus, rulers of worldly or mundane regimes may seek to expand their power by incorporating religious faith into their totalizing control. Using somewhat different language, one may speak here of the appropriation of the sacred by the secular, or else of the colonizing conquest of transcendence by immanence. In a move of retaliation, representatives of religious faith may seek to rob secular politics of any intrinsic legitimacy, thus paving the way to a denominational theocracy. Whatever venue is chosen, strategies of this kind undermine or render aporetic the relationship between religion and the world, and thus also between faith and secular politics. Unhappily, this is the situation in the West today. What is often called the “crisis of modernity”—a modern-style “battle of the books”—is basically a battle between adepts of religious or else secular teachings accusing each other of heterodoxy if not idolatry. On the religious side, jihadism and the “Islamic state” are often singled out as models of religious intransigence; but the battle extends much further, embracing 1

2

Introduction

in some instances the wholesale denunciation of modern philosophy, science and form of life. 2 In revenge, supporters of modernity’s secular ways accuse opponents of obscurantism, irrationality, intolerance and even proto-fascism. In a nutshell, immanence and transcendence are linked here through mutual negation. As can be seen, the battle is not hospitable to the notion of “political theology” properly understood. Although not strictly antinomial, the constitutive terms of the phrase are involved in a differential relationship whose erasure comes at a cost for both religion and politics. As it seems to me, religion and politics—and also theology and political philosophy—stand in an agonal tension where each side challenges and corrects the other’s self-sufficiency or self-enclosure. 3 Left entirely to its own devices, religious faith is tempted to retreat onto a holy mountain, abandoning any concern with worldly problems and especially with the agonies of secular politics. In a similar way, self-contained theology is reduced to the rehearsal of “perennial ideas” or “eternal truths”—without attention to existential rootedness or the question why such ideas should matter to anyone. On the other hand, robbed of the potential of self-transgression (and world-transgression), secular politics is in danger of collapsing into the squalor of power games, profit calculation, and “friend-enemy” machinations. Above all, in a completely shuttered immanence, it is hard to envisage the radical upsurge of human freedom and the bold élan of unrehearsed innovation or breakthroughs. Thus, quite outside any merger or synthesis, faith and world, theology and politics depend on each other and only in their interaction come into their own. 4 Tensional interaction of this kind is powerfully underscored by the democratizing and globalizing context of the present era. 5 In its various forms, democracy puts an end to the traditional alliance of “throne and altar,” thus placing religious and secular institutions on a more equal footing—with important learning experiences possible on both sides. At a minimum, the new constellation forces members of both “cities” to become more closely familiar with each other and their respective language games and textual sources of inspiration. Combined with the contagion of multiculturalism, globalization brings into steadily closer contact members of different faith traditions and cultural identities, a contact which induces believers to practice more fully the command of “loving one’s neighbors,” while secular citizens are exhorted to uphold more seriously the democratic maxim of equality and equal respect. In more general terms, tensional interaction of faith and democracy can affect the character of secular politics itself by lifting it above purely selfish pursuits to the higher regions of the “common good” and shared benefits. The same interaction, however, presents benefits not only to secular citizens, but to religious leaders as well—by curing them of the tempting desire for power and public control. Here, Jesus’ words are truly memorable (Mark 10:42–43): “You know that those who rule over the Gentiles

Introduction

3

lord it over them, and their great men exercise power over them. But it shall not be so among you; whoever would be great among you must be your servant.” Unhappily, the learning experiences just mentioned have been too often missed in modern times—sometimes with disastrous results. Apart from outbursts of religious fanaticism or terrorism, the most egregious disasters have been the result of an aggressive secularism or an immanentism running amok. The most prominent examples of aggressive secularism have been forms of “totalitarianism” on the Left or the Right; the usual consequences of totalitarian power for dissidents have been concentration camps and summary executions. However, something truly unusual happened in the case of the early Nazi regime: namely, the open collision or confrontation between religious leaders and the Nazi potentates as they were trying to consolidate their rule. From the beginning, the Nazi regime was aiming at the total (mental and physical) control of the population; in the case of dissident perspectives or traditions, this aim involved the maximal integration or cooptation of their adherents. With regard to the Christian population, the effort was (at least in part) surprisingly successful. Already the first year of Nazi rule saw the emergence of a new movement or church called “German Christians” (Deutsche Christen) whose members pledged primary loyalty to Hitler represented by a national bishop (Reichsbischof). Given the increasingly racist and imperialist policies of the regime, however, cooptation for many Christians proved to be intolerable. Thus, in opposition to the political subservience of the “German Christians,” a counter-movement called the “Confessing Church” (Bekennende Kirche) was formed whose “confession” consisted mainly in the expression of primary loyalty to the word of God, coupled with only a subsidiary and conditional acknowledgment of secular authorities. It was under the auspices of this counter-movement that a number of Protestant pastors, led by Karl Barth, convened a Church Synod in May 1934 for the purpose of drafting and adopting a document spelling out their position. The result was the so-called “Barmen Declaration” of May 31, 1934. The Declaration can rightly be called a major document of political theology because it clearly articulated the tensional relation between secular politics and faith. As one should note, the pastors or theologians did not dismiss secular politics as irrelevant or devoid of religious concern. On the contrary, relying on sacred scriptures, they acknowledged the importance of public-political rule for the maintenance of justice and the “common good” in society. However, acknowledgment of this kind did not equal the passive endorsement of secular policies whenever they turn vicious, unjust or destructive. In the latter case, pliant submission actually was felt to amount to complicity and the denial of the divine command to pursue justice. Thus, in the context of the Nazi regime, church leaders were not ready to recommend retreat onto a holy mountain or the culti-

4

Introduction

vation of a purely inward “spirituality.” Heading the advice of the pastors, members of the “confessing church” thus became at least potential members of a “resisting” church (with the methods of resistance being circumscribed by Christian teachings). Reflecting the tensional and even conflictual relation between faith and politics at the time, the Barmen Declaration can be divided into negative and positive statements, that is, instructions of what to do and what not to do. Among the negative or “not to do” statements, most prominent was the instruction not to worship the Führer or any political potentate (form of idolatry) and not to glorify one’s nation or people if this leads to the victimization of other nations or people. Overall, the Declaration upheld the maxim not to absolutize the contingent or “immanentize the eschaton.” The main positive instruction was to contribute to justice and human well-being because the divine message is meant for “all of life.” The relevance of the Barmen Declaration goes well beyond the immediate Nazi context; in fact, it applies to all political contexts because even seemingly benign situations can quickly derail into the opposite. An example of a (seemingly) benign situation is American democracy where, in all churches, the American flag figures prominently close to the altar. Although by itself innocuous, the proximity of flag and altar harbors a danger: the danger of converting faith into national or chauvinistic creed. The danger is heightened by the widespread intrusion of popular American “culture” into church services (or else the surrender of services to popular beliefs). In the absence of critical reserve, this intrusion can easily pervert Christianity, mixed with the “idols of the market,” into a “health and wealth” gospel, while transforming Jesus from the messenger of “glad tidings” into a potent “national icon” committed to nationalist agendas. This clearly illustrates the peril of the “politicization” or nationalization of faith which the Barmen Declaration so firmly denounced in the case of the “German Christians.” On the other hand, where cultural accommodation fails or is refused, religious leaders and believers are often victimized, that is, either directly persecuted or systematically silenced, that is, pushed into inward ghettos where faith can no longer affect public life. 6 It is to this danger of private retreat that the Declaration also offers a cogent rejoinder and response. To provide readers with needed historical background, the present book starts out with an English translation of the text of the Barmen Declaration, as it was adopted by the Protestant Synod in May 1934. 7 There are some minor mistakes or problems in this translation which later writers have tried to correct or remove; however, for present purposes, these linguistic details are of little significance. Often republished in shortened or condensed form, the Declaration has remained a potent force of inspiration in many churches until today. Thus, the American Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and the United Church of Christ (UCC), offshoots of the evangelical churches represented in Barmen, issued a

Introduction

5

strongly condensed version in 1990 which exerted a powerful influence throughout Protestant denominations (for this reason the version is included in the present volume). In 2014, at the time of the eightieth anniversary of the Declaration, several church leaders in America issued commemorative statements, which again circulated widely throughout the country. Two of them are particularity noteworthy and should be mentioned here: Stephen Nichols, “Five Minutes of Church History: The Barmen Declaration,” and Dale M. Coulter, “First Things: The Barmen Declaration after Eighty Years.” In the words of Nichols: “The theologians of Barmen took a bold step in declaring the church’s sole allegiance to Jesus Christ and a biblical view of the relationship between church and state. It’s a fascinating document from church history and it has much to teach us as we think about these matters today.” 8 Apart from public commemorations and appeals, the Declaration has frequently been the target of scholarly appraisals and assessments. One of the most prominent assessments was offered by Eberhard Busch, professor of Reformed Theology at the University of Göttingen and former assistant to Karl Barth, in his book The Barmen Theses Then and Now (German 2004, English translation 2010). 9 From this book the present volume includes the opening chapter “The Barmen Theological Declaration in May 1934: Its Formulation and Significance.” As Busch reports, alongside the Barthians and the nationalists, there was initially a third “centrist” faction which wanted to have it both ways, by saying “yes” both to Hitler and to Christ. Under the pressure of events, however, this position proved to be ultimately untenable and the centrists joined Barth’s lead. In doing so, they acknowledged the need for a timely confession—where “timely” does not mean the mere endorsement of a traditional document but the embrace of an existential commitment in our time. For Busch, “confession” here meant “to witness anew to the gospel of Jesus Christ in view of contemporary [political] challenges.” Taken in this sense, he says, confession cannot be “left behind in a museum,” but must be “carried out” in front of the church as a challenge and inspiration. Seen in this way, his chapter stresses, the Barmen Declaration has been “received and incorporated into the confessional traditions by churches all over the world,” awakening a “new joy in confession” as a committed act of faith. One of the major accomplishments of the Declaration, for Busch, was its stirring quality, its ability to awaken a slumbering Christian conscience which, for too long, had accommodated itself to the fleshpots of Egypt. In his words: “The [initial] susceptibility of the church in 1933 to National-Socialist slogans was only a symptom of an old error, the habituation to a fully wrong way of thinking”; without leaving behind that attitude, that is, without an act of “conversion” and transformation the church could not face up to the “seductions of the time.” With the adoption of the Declaration the church thus reconfirmed its task “to confess Jesus before men” (Matt.10:32) or, in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer “to

6

Introduction

take up the struggle at a particular time” in response to a dire provocation. By affirming its loyalty to Christ, the church also rejected certain mistaken beliefs found to be incompatible with this loyalty. Thus, several statements or “theses” of the Declaration firmly announce: “We reject the false doctrine” or “We reject as false the doctrine” involving mistaken beliefs. As should be noted, and as Busch makes it clear, rejections were never based on mere clerical authority but on firm scriptural sources guiding Christian life. He refers explicitly to the preamble or Introduction which explains both the scriptural basis of its statements and the grievous political situation which rendered the statements imperative. Accordingly, the Declaration did not come about because a “better part” of the church had triumphed over a “problematic” part, but because a great peril opened the heart and mind of the church which thus was “given a common message to utter in a time of common need and temptation.” Busch’s article rightly stresses the stirring and transformative quality of the Declaration; it also emphasizes the unifying and non-sectarian quality of the text seen as a comprehensive response of believers. Despite these undeniable virtues, however, one probably should not neglect Busch’s closeness to Barthian views. Actually, even at the time of the Barmen synod, there were different views among and between church leaders—especially between Barthians and Lutherans—regarding the interpretation of the political situation and the proper response of Christian churches. In fact, the cogency and comprehensiveness of the Declaration’s formulations were subject to critical questioning by leading members. At a closer look, the Barmen text exhibits a certain strategy of avoidance by not indicating or spelling out possible political/economic alternatives. Many leading speakers voiced no reservations regarding the existing (autocratic) structure of the state and its economic arrangements, placing such issues beyond their professional theological competence. The title of the adopted text is indicative in this respect (“Theological Declaration,” not social or political). The famous Barthian “Yes” and “No”—yes to Jesus and No to Hitler—gave the impression that the central commitment of the pastors was to a better clerical or church government (and perhaps to “theocracy”). More sharply put: formulations of the Declaration made it appear that the Nazi regime was a problem mainly for theologians and Protestant Christians and not for people at large (including non-Christians). Despite its evident strengths, the Declaration thus left open a number of issues or questions. Some of these questions have been raised or pinpointed by Wolf Krötke, professor of theology at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In a speech given in 2004 at the Stellenbosch University in South Africa under the title “Historical Overview of the Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934,” Krötke carefully weighed both the accomplishments and the deficits of the text. In line with Busch, his address starts

Introduction

7

out by decrying the evils of the Nazi regime and especially the racial and nationalist features of the “German Christian” faction. If these features had prevailed, he observes, “the Protestant churches as churches of Christ would have been disfigured beyond recognition.” Regarding intramural or inter-confessional issues, he refers to a disagreement about the use of the term “confession”—an issue which, although not finally resolved, could at least be kept in abeyance. Another issue, however, was more basic and persistent: the question of the general relevance of the Declaration to the social-political situation at large. In Krötke’s words: In the Barmen text “we immediately notice the absence of something we find hard to comprehend in view of our knowledge of the magnitude of Nazi crimes: [its statements] are not directed specifically against National Socialists and the state which was created by them. [It] is not a document of Christian resistance against a murderous ideology as such. . . . It contains no direct reference to the persecution of the Jews.” Given its basic aloofness from concrete events, the overriding concern of the Declaration seems to have been the “preservation of the church.” However, as Krötke objects, this is a limitation “we cannot accept.” If we take seriously the meaning of the church of Jesus Christ in the world, “we shall have to go ‘with Barmen and beyond Barmen.’” To a large extent, the issue of the worldly relevance of the Declaration revolves around its Christological character, that is, its radical commitment to Jesus Christ as “the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.” Here the formulation of the text conceals or papers over a difference between Barthians and Lutherans. While the former venerate Christ as “the only Word of God” whom we have to trust and obey, Lutherans traditionally have construed the phrase as referring to “the decisive Word of God” through which God speaks to us. If the Word is taken in the latter sense, Krötke writes, then “it is not totally impossible that God may speak to us and be heard by us elsewhere than in Jesus Christ”—which means that the sense of revelation is broadened. In that case, we have to keep an open mind regarding “encounters with reflections of the one Word of God outside the Christian church”—which is an important consideration today “when dialogue of religions has become an imperative challenge.” Openness to the world also means a willingness to engage in issues beyond purely ecclesial concerns: “Under the claim of Jesus Christ, the Christian community has to state which human possibilities in the realms of politics, economics, and science will or will not benefit the dignity of those who are affirmed by Jesus Christ.” From this angle, Christians cannot accept claims that “the principles of economic globalization, which condemn so many people to a life of misery and poverty, are absolute laws.” By way of conclusion, Krötke lists several guidelines for the life of churches in our time of which two are particularly important. First, in an age of democracy the church needs to respect the internal equality of members

8

Introduction

and thus honor the “priesthood of all believers”; in this sense it has to bear witness to the coming “community of the Kingdom of God” (which is not a kingdom of domination). Next, the church cannot be internally “self-contained” but most aspire to be a church “for others” in the world. Krötke’s concern about church life and its relevance to the world at large has been shared by many other theologians, especially by theologians placing themselves firmly in the tradition of Barmen. An instructive example is Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman, a Barthian theologian at the University of Ontago in New Zealand. In his reading of the Declaration, Woodard-Lehman upgrades the political quality of the document, mainly by accentuating the necessary “democratic” structure of contemporary church life and public life. As he points out, politics—although bypassed in many respects—entered the Barmen Declaration in several ways: first of all, by the manner in which it was formulated and adopted, and secondly by the vision of the goal (the promised kingdom of God) for which it seeks to pave the way. In his essay titled “Democratic Faith: Barth, Barmen and the Politics of Reformed Confession,” Woodard-Lehman thus restores the properly “political-theological” character of the Declaration. As he emphasizes, the Declaration was not an ecclesiastical text promulgated from “on high”; rather, it resulted from the deliberations of a covenantal community of believers. In his words: “Hearing the Word of God and confessing the faith means hearing out each member of the interpretive community.” If this is so, the community of believers points forward in a dual sense: it is “a foretaste of the coming kingdom of God” and it establishes “a signpost for the [political] kingdoms of this world.” More sharply put, the ecclesiology of the evangelical churches, and especially of the Reformed church, is “a pattern for the polity of the democratic state.” Seen in this light, Barmen signifies not only a contextual condemnation of Nazi tyranny, but “an essential affirmation of democracy” (the latter term properly understood). 10 Accordingly, Christianity should be seen not only as an otherworldly doctrine but as a faith where “the form of confessional theology determines the content of political theology.” Viewed as a confession, the framing and adoption of the Declaration illustrated the covenantal character of shared faith; it came into existence through “an open conversation” about the proper interpretation of the text of scripture and its application to the context of the Nazi regime. In the bulk of his essay, Woodard-Lehman traces the genesis of the Declaration in meticulous detail, often correcting prevailing misconceptions. One such misconception concerns the role of Karl Barth—who in some accounts figures virtually as the sole author. On this point, Woodard-Lehman strikes a balanced tone: while, on the one hand, new research confirms Barth’s “decisive role,” it also reintroduces and validates, on the other hand, the substantive contributions of Barth’s many collaborators. The essay offers a fascinating account of many rounds of deliberations,

Introduction

9

compromises, setbacks, and revisions, testifying to a near-democratic process adopted in Barmen. One major dispute during deliberations concerned the role of the political state and its position in the divine “order of creation”—an issue crucially important because of the totalitarian claims of the Nazi regime. Revolving mainly around Reformed and Lutheran conceptions of governance, the issue was settled through compromise. In his concluding comments, Woodard-Lehman reflects again on the status of the Declaration as a “Reformed confession” where confession means the communal hearing, receiving and interpreting of the Word of God. The essay speaks here of “the proximity of Christian discipleship and democratic citizenships,” a proximity construed along the metaphor of concentric circles where both circles presage or anticipate the kingdom of God. In his later writings, Barth developed this correlation into something like a “doctrinal analogy” between Christian community and a prophetically sensitive civil community, thus clearly connecting Reformed ecclesiology with democratic polity. 11 Another instructive supporter of the political theology of Barmen is Bishop Wolfgang Huber, president of the German Evangelical Church for several years (from 2003 to 2009) and well-known for his emphasis on the “public role” (Öffentlichkeit) of Christianity and Christian churches. For Huber, exclusive concentration on ecclesial or intra-mural church issues tends to exact a price, namely, the price of worldless inwardness and privatization. As he pointed out in one of his earlier works—Consequences of Christian Freedom (1985)—such a retreat was noticeable in German churches after World War II, to the neglect or exclusion of societal and economic problems. The issue of church-world relations has been taken up by Huber more recently in an essay titled “Confess and Resist: Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the Church Struggle” (2018). As one should note, in offering a comparison of the two church leaders, Huber maintains a remarkably balanced position. Although associating Barth’s work on the whole with the primacy of confession and Bonhoeffer with a stronger commitment to resistance, his essay never loses sight of the fact that, from a Christian angle, confessing and resisting ultimately belong together. In a way, confession provides for human conduct a higher anchor (the word of God), without which resistance is in danger of turning into self-centered machination or fabrication. Thus, the church-world relation ultimately merges with the connection of faith and action, a connection expressed in the letter of James (2:14, 24): “What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? . . . You see then that man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” In his essay “Confess and Resist,” Huber initially critiques the slide of neo-Protestantism into a shallow “enlightened” progressivism which deprived it of biblical roots—thus rendering it susceptible to Nazi ideology. It was Karl Barth who through his rigorous return to the “Word of God” erected a bulwark against this danger. By stressing the vertical dimension

10

Introduction

of faith, he gave the signal for biblical reorientation in difficult times. Nevertheless, the counsel Barth provided, in Huber’s view, was basically of an “ecclesiastical” type; the best antidote to Nazi policies was above all “good Christian theology”—a surprising limitation in view of “the Reichstag fire and the Enabling Act, the boycott of Jewish businesses” and other calamities. As Barth himself stated in 1933: “I am resisting a theology that is taking refuge in National Socialism today, not the National Socialist state and social order.” To some extent, a similar strategy of avoidance still prevailed in the Barmen synod and Declaration. It was only the demanded “oath of allegiance” and Barth’s refusal which triggered a more concrete confrontation with the regime—leading to his suspension and final exit to Switzerland. A different pathway was followed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran theologian closely aligned with the Barmen Declaration. Despite several opportunities to leave Germany, Bonhoeffer chose the difficult and risky task of both “confessing” the word of God and “resisting” Nazi policies in his homeland. Huber recounts the ordeal of his final years, from his imprisonment in April 1943 to his execution in a concentration camp two years later. In his conception of resistance, Bonhoeffer focused on the positive functions of the state (to insure order, justice and peace) and on the co-responsibility of Christian churches in this area. Churches in his view had the obligation to plead for the common good, assist the victims of exploitation, and intervene against “illegitimate actions of the state.” Closely linked with his conception of resistance was his theory of human rights, a theory rooted not in solitary egos but in the integrity of human persons—whose body and mind must not be at the disposal of coercive or totalitarian regimes. The next essay reconnects (once again) Barthian motifs and the idea of the positive functions of politics and the state. Titled “Two Types of Religious Faith,” the chapter seeks to probe further the distinction between the two kinds of religious commitment highlighted in Barmen: the commitment to nation or to the “word of God.” To assist in this exploration, I (Dallmayr) turn initially to a comparable investigation: the distinction between “Two Types of Faith” articulated by Martin Buber. In his study, Buber placed the accent on the difference between a communally or nationally rooted religious commitment, on the one hand, and a purely cognitive or “noetic” knowledge about articles of faith, on the other. For Buber, the first type was exemplified by the traditional, scripturally rooted trust in God (Emunah) of the Israelites, while the second type was characteristic of individual Christian faith (pistis) nurtured or mediated by Hellenic or Greek modes of cognition. In this construal, the “faith of Jesus” himself was still embedded in the communal fabric of traditional belief, while the later “faith about Jesus”—as elaborated especially by St. Paul—was mainly a result of cognitive acquaintance and comprehension. In Buber’s words: “What is it which generally distinguishes the faith of Jesus [from that of his followers]? It is a difference in kind . . . which

Introduction

11

extends to the ultimate depths of the reality concerned in such a way that only the faith which Jesus knows as his own may be called faith in the strict sense.” Extending the distinction to the crisis of modernity and the contemporary world, he adds: “The crisis of our time is also the crises of the two types of faith, Emunah and Pistis. The origin of the Jewish Emunah is in the history of a nation [Israel], that of Christian pistis in that of individuals.” In my response to Buber, I first of all question the rigid distinction between “faith of” and “faith about,” because (I argue) death and resurrection were not merely accidents but intrinsic parts of the faith of Jesus himself. More importantly, the faith of Jesus was not merely submerged in traditional belief but involved a new disclosure of the meaning of God which had not previously been fully emphasized: that God is a “suffering servant” who suffers with and due to the sinfulness of humankind. As I say, “this involved an unbelievable ‘humanization’ of the divine and revealed religion which transformed and deepened Emunah.” Coupled with this point, I also question the radical separation between communal beliefs and mental understanding. As I argue, the word of God addresses itself to the whole human being, that is, to the “human heart-mind,” where “mind” is the seat of understanding—whereas a faith completely outside understanding is hardly more than “dogmatic gibberish.” Finally, I express my discomfort with Buber’s tendency to link Emunah with a particular nation or an exclusivist nationalism. In my view, God’s divine reign cannot be reduced to a “mascot” for a particular party or community; if divine love is really genuine, it must extend itself at least potentially to humanity at large. This point brings me back to the Barmen Declaration where the nationalism (or national church) of the “German Christians” was rebuked in the name of the “Word of God.” As one should note, this rebuke did not mean the complete rejection of worldly politics as such. Rather, invoking the word of Peter (“fear God, honor the emperor”), the Declaration made room for the cultivation of the “positive” functions of politics. At this point, I acknowledge a certain parallel (though not coincidence) between genuine faith and ethically purified (democratic) politics—a parallel which gives sense to the words: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The concluding chapter puts some pressure on the parallel between faith and politics just mentioned; in fact, it reveals the difficult and even aporetic character of the words in the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” As Dietrich Bonhoeffer forcefully points out in his essay “Thy Kingdom Come,” the divine kingdom is meant to come not only in heaven, but also (and perhaps primordially) on earth. But how is this possible, if the world is in such horrible disarray and even “cursed” in its core? (Bonhoeffer’s lines were written a year before the advent of the Nazi regime, and two years before Barmen, when this “cursedness” became patently evident). So, how is this curse to

12

Introduction

be removed or overcome, for the sake of God’s kingdom? Bonhoeffer discusses two options which both are equally misguided and at odds with the Lord’s prayer: either the retreat from the world into privacy or onto a holy mountain (which abandons the “earth”) or else the attempt to construct the kingdom with purely secular-worldly means (which brackets God’s “will”). As one can see, Bonhoeffer tackles here the crucial core of political theology: the tensional relation between faith and worldly politics, between the holy abode and the “earth,” between transcendence and immanence. Only when the two are joined to each other in their difference, only when they react to each other without fusion or enmity, can the words of the Lord’s prayer yield fruit. Seen in this light, human beings are sojourners between two abodes: “wanderers who love the Earth that bears them, and who only truly love it because it is on it that they travel toward that foreign land that they love above all. . . . Only wanderers of this kind, who love the Earth and God as one, can believe in God’s kingdom.” 12 Bonhoeffer is eloquent in castigating the two main ways of bypassing the journey. “We have been otherwordly,” he writes,” ever since we discovered the devious trick of being religious, at the expense of the Earth. . . . When life begins to be difficult and oppressive, one leaps boldly into the air and soars in the so-called eternal realm.” For Bonhoeffer, this exodus is piously comforting, but it blocks transformation along the way. The other alternative is a proud and self-reliant secularism, according to the motto: “Do not be otherworldly, be strong!” Under this aegis, secular humans decide to “build” the kingdom as their kingdom, without prayer or invocation. Bonhoeffer at this point does not hesitate to rebuke a certain liberal progressive Protestantism, boasting of its ability to renew and change the world. “No one,” he writes, “can pray for the kingdom who imagines himself in bold utopias, in dreams and hopes of the kingdom, who lives his ideologies, who knows thousands of programs and prescriptions with which to heal the world.” With a little honesty, he adds, “it is simply not possible to come up with any kind of utopia for the kingdom.” Above all, we need to remember that the kingdom, if it comes, comes to us above all in our finitude, weakness and waywardness. In fact, “the kingdom comes to us in our death, in our loneliness, in our [wanton] desire. It comes where the church perseveres in solidarity with the world and expects the kingdom from God alone.” Thus, human beings, although seriously wishing or yearning for their true home, should resist the temptation of divine power. For, “God manages his own cause . . . and regards all exuberant human zeal on his behalf to be a real disservice.” As one can see, striving for the kingdom here emerges as a kind of coservice or co-dedication, as an iteration between and in the midst of “two cities” (tentatively represented by the institutions of church and state). Again, world or Earth and “other” world here are not radically alien or

Introduction

13

extra-territorial, but impinge on each other in multiple ways. In Bonhoeffer’s words: “Whoever evades the world in order to find God . . . finds a world beyond, to be sure, but never God’s world which is dawning in this world.” On the other hand, “whoever evades God in order to find the Earth does not find the Earth as God’s Earth . . . in short, he finds just himself.” By contrast, “he who loves [and seeks] God’s kingdom loves it as God’s kingdom and he loves it wholly as God’s kingdom on Earth.” Most important is the insight that the kingdom cannot be fabricated or engineered. As Bonhoeffer writes in a stirring passage: “Here the absolute miracle has occurred. Here the law of death is shattered, here the kingdom of God itself comes to us, in our world; here is God’s declaration of the world, God’s blessing which annuls the curse.” This is the event, he adds, that “alone kindles the prayer for the kingdom.” It is the event “that overcomes, breaks through, and destroys the curse and promises the new Earth. God’s kingdom is the kingdom of resurrection on Earth.” From this angle, the Lord’s prayer—which is also the prayer of his faithful—is “the plea of suffering and struggling communities in the world, on behalf of humanity, asking that God’s glory be manifest in it.” NOTES 1. In this sense I have criticized the expression “sacred secularity,” when used carelessly by followers of Raimon Panikkar. See my “Sacred Secularity and Prophetism: A Tension in Panikkar’s Work?” in Peter C. Phan and Young-chan Ro, eds., Raimon Panikkar: A Companion to His Life and Thought (Cambridge, UK: James Clarke & Co., 2018), pp. 235–241. 2. Compare in this context Roxanne Euben, Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). 3. See on this point the chapter “Political Philosophy Today,” in my Polis and Praxis: Exercises in Contemporary Political Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984), pp. 15–40. 4. I am influenced in this regard by Paul Tillich’s notion of “dialectical theology.” See my “Faithful Expectation: Hommage à Paul Tillich,” in Spiritual Guides: Pathfinders in the Desert (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017), pp. 13–34; and “The Courage to Hope” in Dallmayr and Edward Demenchonok, eds., A World Beyond Global Disorder: The Courage to Hope (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2017), pp. 1–15. 5. This context is highlighted by several contributors to Michael Jon Kessler, ed., Political Theology For a Plural Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). Compare also William T. Cavanaugh and Jeffrey W. Bailey, eds., An Eerdmans Reader in Political Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), and Craig Hovey and Elizabeth Phillips, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Christian Political Theology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 6. Compare in this respect Stephen Prothro, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003); R. Lawrence Moore, Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). Memorable in this context also are the words of Richard Niebuhr warning Christians against immersing themselves entirely in the “fleshpots of Egypt,” that is, contemporary market culture. As he wrote: When the church enters into an

14

Introduction

alliance “with converted emperors and governors, merchants and entrepreneurs, and begins to live at peace in the culture, faith loses its force, repentance grows formal, corruption enters with idolatry, and the church, tied to the culture which it sponsored, suffers corruption with it.” See Richard Niebuhr, William Pauck, and Francis Miller, The Church against the World (New York: Willet, Clark, 1935), pp. 123–124, 128. For a critique of the twin dangers of politicization and privatization of faith see my “Religion and the World: The Quest for Justice and Peace,” in my Integral Pluralism: Beyond Culture Wars (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), pp. 67–83 7. See Arthur C. Cochrane, The Church’s Confession Under Hitler (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962). Compare also Robert McAfee Brown, Kairos: Three Prophetic Challenges to the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990). For a Catholic view compare Robert A. Krieg, Catholic Scholars in Nazi Germany (New York: Continuum Books, 2004). 8. See Stephen Nichols, “Five Minutes of Church History: The Barmen Declaration,” https://www.5minutesinchurchhistory.com/barmen-declaration (accessed September 5, 2018); and Dale M. Coulter “First Things: The Barmen Declaration after Eight Years,” https://firsthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/07/-the-barmen-declaration-after-eight-years/2014/06/the-barmen-declarations-after-eighty-years (accessed September 5, 2018). 9. Eberhard Busch, The Barmen Theses Then and Now, trans. Darrell and Judith Guder (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010). 10. See in this context my The Promise of Democracy: Political Agency and Transformation (New York: SUNY Press, 2010); and my Democracy to Come: Politics as Relational Praxis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). 11. Wolfang Huber, Folgen christlicher Freiheit: Ethik und Theorie der Kirche im Horizont der Barmer Theologischen Erklärung (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner, 1983). See also my “Faith and Communicative Freedom: A Tribute to Wolfgang Huber,” in my Freedom and Solidarity: Toward New Beginnings (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2016), pp. 135–152. 12. Compare also Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Communion of Saints (New York: Harper & Row, 1963); Vernard Eller, Thy Kingdom Come: A Blumhardt Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980); Stanley L. Jaki, Thy Kingdom Come (Pinckney, MI: Real View Books, 2004).

ONE Evangelical Synod 1934 Theological Declaration of Barmen

AN APPEAL TO THE EVANGELICAL CONGREGATIONS AND CHRISTIANS IN GERMANY 8.01 The Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church met in Barmen, May 29–31, 1934. Here representatives from all the German Confessional Churches met with one accord in a confession of the one Lord of the one, holy, apostolic Church. In fidelity to their Confession of Faith, members of Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches sought a common message for the need and temptation of the Church in our day. With gratitude to God they are convinced that they have been given a common word to utter. It was not their intention to found a new Church or to form a union. For nothing was farther from their minds than the abolition of the confessional status of our Churches. Their intention was, rather, to withstand in faith and unanimity the destruction of the Confession of Faith, and thus of the Evangelical Church in Germany. In opposition to attempts to establish the unity of the German Evangelical Church by means of false doctrine, by the use of force and insincere practices, the Confessional Synod insists that the unity of the Evangelical Churches in Germany can come only from the Word of God in faith through the Holy Spirit. Thus alone is the Church renewed. 8.02 Therefore the Confessional Synod calls upon the congregations to range themselves behind it in prayer, and steadfastly to gather around those pastors and teachers who are loyal to the Confessions. 15

16

Theological Declaration of Barmen

8.03 Be not deceived by loose talk, as if we meant to oppose the unity of the German nation! Do not listen to the seducers who pervert our intentions, as if we wanted to break up the unity of the German Evangelical Church or to forsake the Confessions of the Fathers! 8.04 Try the spirits whether they are of God! Prove also the words of the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church to see whether they agree with Holy Scripture and with the Confessions of the Fathers. If you find that we are speaking contrary to Scripture, then do not listen to us! But if you find that we are taking our stand upon Scripture, then let no fear or temptation keep you from treading with us the path of faith and obedience to the Word of God, in order that God’s people be of one mind upon earth and that we in faith experience what he himself has said: “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” Therefore, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” THEOLOGICAL DECLARATION CONCERNING THE PRESENT SITUATION OF THE GERMAN EVANGELICAL CHURCH 8.05 According to the opening words of its constitution of July 11, 1933, the German Evangelical Church is a federation of Confessional Churches that grew out of the Reformation and that enjoy equal rights. The theological basis for the unification of these Churches is laid down in Article 1 and Article 2(1) of the constitution of the German Evangelical Church that was recognized by the Reich Government on July 14, 1933: • Article 1. The inviolable foundation of the German Evangelical Church is the gospel of Jesus Christ as it is attested for us in Holy Scripture and brought to light again in the Confessions of the Reformation. The full powers that the Church needs for its mission are hereby determined and limited. • Article 2 (1). The German Evangelical Church is divided into member Churches (Landeskirchen). 8.06 We, the representatives of Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches, of free synods, Church assemblies, and parish organizations united in the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church, declare that we stand together on the ground of the German Evangelical Church as a federation of German Confessional Churches. We are bound together by the confession of the one Lord of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. 8.07 We publicly declare before all evangelical Churches in Germany that what they hold in common in this Confession is grievously imperiled, and with it the unity of the German Evangelical Church.

Evangelical Synod 1934

17

It is threatened by the teaching methods and actions of the ruling Church party of the “German Christians” and of the Church administration carried on by them. These have become more and more apparent during the first year of the existence of the German Evangelical Church. This threat consists in the fact that the theological basis, in which the German Evangelical Church is united, has been continually and systematically thwarted and rendered ineffective by alien principles, on the part of the leaders and spokesmen of the “German Christians” as well as on the part of the Church administration. When these principles are held to be valid, then, according to all the Confessions in force among us, the Church ceases to be the Church and the German Evangelical Church, as a federation of Confessional Churches, becomes intrinsically impossible. 8.08 As members of Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches we may and must speak with one voice in this matter today. Precisely because we want to be and to remain faithful to our various Confessions, we may not keep silent, since we believe that we have been given a common message to utter in a time of common need and temptation. We commend to God what this may mean for the interrelations of the Confessional Churches. 8.09 In view of the errors of the “German Christians” of the present Reich Church government which are devastating the Church and also therefore breaking up the unity of the German Evangelical Church, we confess the following evangelical truths: 8.10–1. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (John 14.6). “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. . . . I am the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved.” (John 10:1, 9.) 8.11 Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death. 8.12 We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God’s revelation. 8.13–2. “Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). 8.14 As Jesus Christ is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, in the same way and with the same seriousness he is also God’s mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures.

18

Theological Declaration of Barmen

8.15 We reject the false doctrine, as though there were 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. 8.16–3. “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body [is] joined and knit together.” (Eph. 4:15, 16.) 8.17 The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance. 8.18 We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions. 8.19 “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant.” (Math 20:25, 26.) 8.20 The various offices in the Church do not establish a dominion of some over the others; on the contrary, they are for the exercise of the ministry entrusted to and enjoined upon the whole congregation. 8.21 We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, apart from this ministry, could and were permitted to give itself, or allow to be given to it, special leaders vested with ruling powers. 8.22–5. “Fear God. Honor the emperor.” (1 Peter 2:17.) Scripture tells us that, in the as yet unredeemed world in which the Church also exists, the State has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace. [It fulfills this task] by means of the threat and exercise of force, according to the measure of human judgment and human ability. The Church acknowledges the benefit of this divine appointment in gratitude and reverence before him. It calls to mind the Kingdom of God, God’s commandment and righteousness, and thereby the responsibility both of rulers and of the ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word by which God upholds all things. 8.23 We reject the false doctrine, as though the State, over and beyond its special commission, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the Church’s vocation as well. 8.24 We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the

Evangelical Synod 1934

19

characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State. 8.25–6. “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Matt. 28:20.) “The word of God is not fettered.” (2 Tim. 2:9.) 8.26 The Church’s commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ’s stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and sacrament. 8.27 We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans. 8.28 The Confessional 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 federation of Confessional Churches. It invites all who are able to accept its declaration to be mindful of these theological principles in their decisions in Church politics. It entreats all whom it concerns to return to the unity of faith, love, and hope. From: Reformed Confessions of the Sixteenth Century, edited by Arthur C. Cochrane. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1966. Used by permission of Westminster John Knox Press. All rights reserved.

TWO Presbyterian Church, Book of Order Barmen Declaration (Short Version)

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.

21

22

Barmen Declaration

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 fulfil the vocation of the Church as well.

Presbyterian Church, Book of Order

23

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 forever. (Used by permission of Westminster John Knox Press)

THREE The Barmen Theological Declaration in May 1934 Its Formulation and Significance Eberhard Busch

“I am not concerned about dogmas, but I don’t tolerate a cleric who gets involved in earthly matters.” 1 Adolf Hitler made that remark during lunch one day in December 1941 in his military headquarters at Wolfschanze. His hidden agenda was that the church should make itself superfluous and rot away like a gangrenous leg. Behind this statement was his opinion, with which he continued his commentary, that “the organized lie”—by which he meant the church’s confession of faith— must be destroyed in such a way that the state is the absolute ruler. His first statement was not really correct, of course. Obviously the Führer was concerned about dogmas, albeit anti-Christian ones, and obviously he did tolerate clerics, at least those whose way of dealing with earthly matters was to applaud his will to be the absolute ruler of the state. How could that ever become a temptation for the church? It must have been in a totally confused state for a long time, if this were indeed to happen. And how could the church, once it had blundered into this situation, withdraw again from it? In the Theological Declaration of Barmen of May 31, 1934, a representative synodal assembly of delegates of the Protestant churches in Germany recognized that it had succumbed to this temptation, and in doing so it confessed the one through whom it was saved from this temptation. That is the primary significance of this “Declaration.” Unless one understands this, its primary significance, one will not understand it correctly. 25

26

Eberhard Busch

THE SITUATION OF THE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES IN GERMANY IN 1933–1934 Over time, the concept of confession had become deeply problematic in these churches, because in them the faith was broadly reduced to introspection. But then suddenly, this term surfaced again in German Christendom and was used so widely that it soon became truly inflationary. At the beginning of 1934, the church historian Kurt Dietrich Schmidt published a volume of documents in which seventy-five texts from the previous year in Germany were collected under the title “The Confessions of the Year 1933.” 2 The Barmen Declaration was written therefore in the midst of a period of seething agitation, leading to the compulsion to express oneself in the form of confessions. Not a small number of these texts were linked to the so-called “Faith Movement of German Christians.” In them, the confession of faith in the triune God was rather glibly connected, even mixed in, with the confessional commitment to the German people and its special history, to its authoritarian form of state, its Führer, and its German race. This was opposed by what one might call a centrist church faction. They went through several self-designations in quick succession, so that for a while they were called the “Young Reformation Movement,” and then the “Pastors Emergency Federation.” This centrist group expressed itself, for example, along the lines of the Güstrow Confession of 1933. On the one hand, they averred, “We confess Jesus Christ as the perfect eternal Word of God. . . . Therefore we reject the attempt to build the church of Jesus Christ upon another foundation than solely on the revelation of God as it is testified to in Holy Scripture.” But then they stated in the same breath, “We confess that God has determined the fate of ethnicities, and we recognize God’s leading in the ethnocentric renewal of our fatherland”—referring to what was going on at that time! Thus, they continued, “We place ourselves in total love at the responsible service of the nation for which we are prepared to live and to die.” 3 With such an approach, the centrist church combined in its 1933 confessions a “joyful yes” to the Nazi state in the political realm with the proclamation of grace in the church’s realm. 4 In contrast with those confessions, the Barmen Declaration of May 31, 1934, was truly of a different kind. Its model was the much more comprehensive Barmen Declaration of January 4, in the same year, which was fully formulated by Karl Barth and accepted by a Reformed Synod; 5 today we may read it as a commentary on the Barmen Declaration of May 1934. The decisive accomplishment of these confessions was to exclude categorically any combination of the texts along the lines of those of the ecclesiastical centrists mentioned above. The remarkable thing was that the adoption of the Declaration in May 1934 took place at a free synod of the German Evangelical Church that was largely attended by representatives of that centrist grouping, that is, by those who had endorsed the

The Barmen Theological Declaration in May 1934

27

linkage of a political Yes to Hitler with an ecclesiastical Yes to Christ. Now this linkage had disappeared. Sometimes even church people can make rapid progress! The fact that they were now rejecting what they shortly before had supported was externally based on the fact that the representatives of the church’s center at the beginning of 1934 found themselves in a catastrophe, because it had become evident that their concept was simply impracticable without joining the slippery slope of the German Christians, which they did not want to do. It was beginning to dawn upon them that they stood now before an either/or decision. In the Theological Declaration of Barmen the decision was made. The Evangelical Church now understood and made publicly known that it did not stand on two pillars, partially on the Word of God and partially on another “reality,” but rather it stood only on the one rock, the Word of God. Thus the Evangelical Church existed only where this was acknowledged. Therefore confession does not mean to hold on to a confessional text that had been achieved at some earlier time in the church, while disregarding extra-ecclesial forces in its assessment. Instead, confession means to witness anew to the gospel of Jesus Christ in view of contemporary challenges. The Declaration makes this clear with its six theses. Were they an ecclesiastical confession? The text does not describe itself this way, but as a Theological Declaration. Be that as it may, the six theses begin with the words, “We confess the following evangelical truths.” The church that affirmed these theses called itself thereafter the Confessing Church. Finally, there are other church confessions that are in force, although they do not describe themselves as such. What is more important is the question whether the Barmen Declaration could be regarded as a church confession when this Confessing Church soon thereafter ceased, for the most part, to uphold a confessional commitment to the theses of the Declaration. This much can be said: a church that no longer holds to her confession does not thereby render her confession invalid, but rather is now called to repentance by it. The worst thing would happen if, in place of such repentance, the church, with unconverted heart, would put the confession in a display case as a golden memento. It has certainly happened often enough that the church has not understood that her confession must not be left behind in a museum, but must be carried out in front of her, and she must march behind it when she moves into her battles. For the church, it is not enough to have a confession. She must then live with it. What then makes the Barmen Declaration a confession? This will become clear when we investigate its relationship with those other German confessions from the year 1933. The Barmen Declaration is not only a confession like them and not only a better confession. It is a confession in a completely different way. It relates to them critically, so that it excludes and repudiates confessing in the style of 1933. How does it do this? The Barmen Declaration is, to be sure, not timeless, but it is also not time-

28

Eberhard Busch

bound as are the others. Its strength is that it guides the church in a very particular situation to listen solely to the Word of God, trusting it alone, and obeying it alone. This is where it differs from those other texts, for the others are listening with one ear to the Word of God and with the other to the current situation that they have already interpreted without recourse to the Word of God. The Word of God can have no other influence upon this interpretation of the situation than to approve it. One can put it this way: The 1933 texts merely react to the situation. Karl Barth once put it in an illuminating way—where one is reacting, “it is inevitable that our thesis should be oriented by the antithesis which is to be rejected and that by our Yes and No we keep the antithesis alive.” 6 By contrast, the Barmen Declaration of 1934 stands in the service of an action, which is more powerful than the situation in which it is being confessed, and thus is not bound to it. As it confronts this situation, it can point to a Word that places the entire problematic of that contemporary situation within its boundaries. This is a Word that makes it possible for the church, over against earthly powers, to sing with Luther, “a little word will fell them.” 7 Over against all the alleged confessions of the year 1933, the Barmen Declaration was in fact stepping into new territory, and the delegates apparently sensed this immediately, for directly after the reading of the theses, they rose from their seats and sang the chorale, “All praise and thanks to God.” 8 One of the delegates spoke of a “miracle before our very eyes.” 9 This reaction was picked up by the journalists present, who one day later reported on the event in the Wuppertal newspaper with the headline, “The German Synod of Confession—A Historic Event in the Church.” 10 With the adoption of this text as a confession, it ceased to be merely the documentation of a theological doctrine, perhaps of a Barthian dogmatic, although it is true that Karl Barth as its primary author has the significance of an essential and remarkable commentator. But the text as such has become a confession of the church through the action of the Barmen Synod. A further indication that the Barmen Declaration was not bound to the situation in which it arose is seen in the fact that, in contrast with the socalled confessions of the year 1933, all of which have disappeared, this Declaration has been received and incorporated into their confessional traditions by churches all over the world. Even more compelling is the way that the Barmen Declaration has awakened a new joy in confession and has been one of the motivating factors for the generating of a rich variety of confessions on all continents, as Lukas Vischer has documented them. 11 It was indeed true that the Lutherans found it difficult to acknowledge the Barmen Declaration because of their view that the composition of confessions was concluded in the sixteenth century. The Reformed movement has maintained, to be sure, that new confessions can always be written. But since the eighteenth century there has also been virtually no movement of this kind among the Reformed churches. This

The Barmen Theological Declaration in May 1934

29

was not because they were so delighted with the older confessions, but rather because they had come to look upon confessions in general as repugnant. And now, suddenly, Reformed, Lutheran, and United Christians were confessing again. Their confessing was by no means merely a position paper with regard to the error in the Protestant church at that time. Their confessing was just as much a critical engagement with the history of this church since the eighteenth century. The gradual loss of the dimension of confession indicated deep damage done to their understanding of the gospel. That damage consisted in the fact that the God of the gospel was no longer heard confronting the various worldly themes that were dominating theology—although, to be sure, they wanted to relate him to these themes. But they could not do it because he was not acknowledged to be the Lord over these themes. In Barmen this deeper damage came into view, and a conversion ensued in response to it. The susceptibility of the Evangelical Church in 1933 to National-Socialist slogans was only a symptom of that older error, the habituation to a fully wrong way of thinking. Without rejecting and leaving behind that way of thinking—without converting and transforming itself in its relationship to the biblical God—the church could not gain any profile in its confrontations with the seductions of that time. By submitting to that conversion and making that confession in Barmen, the Evangelical Church of Germany would subsequently encourage the ecumenical church to confess. To be sure, these new confessions of the ecumenical church will need to be examined to determine whether they are taking the path of the German texts of 1933 or the path of Barmen. Are they listening with one ear to the Word of God while with the other they receptively listen to the historical situation without reference to this Word? Or are they listening in a specific situation to the Word of God alone? As we said, the Barmen Declaration is not simply a Reformed confession. To be sure, it was true that the two Lutherans with whom Barth met in Frankfurt ten days before the Synod to prepare a draft of the theses took an afternoon nap while he wrote the theses alone. In so doing, he built upon theses that he had just written for the confessing fellowship in the Evangelical Church of Bonn. This made expressly clear that the subsequent confession of the entire German Confessing Church originated in a particular, local congregation. Those are blessed times, when something that happens in a particular congregation becomes a model for the entire church of Christ! This was the very text that Barth reworked during that afternoon break in Frankfurt, to produce the initial draft of the Barmen Declaration—with the result that he would later humorously describe its emergence with the words, “The Lutheran Church slept and the Reformed Church remained awake.” 12 To put it more exactly, the Lutheran delegate Ritter stated, at the Barmen Synod in May 1934, “This text is neither confessionally Lutheran nor confessionally Reformed, but rather

30

Eberhard Busch

here the voice of the Confessing Church truly sounds, in that we acknowledge each other together.” 13 The North German Reformed Church, on the other hand, would later try, after the war, to conceal the fact that it was not officially represented at Barmen. It had, at that time, concluded that it was tactically advantageous for it to align itself with the German Christian group, that is, with those against whom the Confessing Church was protesting. It excused itself with the argument that it already had an old confession and thus did not need a new one. Thus, it possessed a confession, but it did not actually confess. Certainly the church does not always need to formulate a new confession in order to be able to confess over and against a concrete challenge. Its obligation, however, is to deal with its new or its old confession in such a way that, in whatever situation it is, it confesses its Lord before the people. It is not to tend its confession like an old banner that is unfurled occasionally on holidays but normally is preserved in a museum. That would be restoration. It must live with its confession, think with it, act with it. In that way it does not merely live off of the former Reformation, but rather lives itself in the Reformation. Let me probe this further. THE CHURCH CONFRONTED WITH DECISION First, Ernst Wolf made a proper distinction between the noun “confession” and the verb “to confess.” 14 The former is an official document, whereas the latter refers to an actual event. The confession is a text in which the biblical witness is summarized and focused upon a particular challenge. It is formulated by a representative group in the church that speaks in the name of the entire church of Christ and whose Word is then ecclesiastically acknowledged. Whereas such confessions are formulated relatively seldom, confessing itself is a basic way of defining the daily task in the life of all Christians. The statement that they are “to confess Jesus before men” (Matt. 10:32) applies to all of them. To put it in the form of a picture: the confessions are guideposts on the pathway of the pilgrimage of the people of God. Certainly they also have the duty to protect this people and to warn them about errors and dead-ends. Primarily, their positive task is to keep this people on the right path and to point the way forward. They are not the destination of that path. But they are anticipatory signs of that destination, helpful and necessary signs that point toward that destination. The verbal articulation of confessing is, so to speak, the process whereby all of the members of this people move along this path, corporately and as individuals. The church’s confession does not replace but rather encourages its members’ confessing. What they must actually do in practice is something they must think about again and again. The issue is to do this in the direction toward which the confession points. Traditionally, Lutherans emphasize more the difference

The Barmen Theological Declaration in May 1934

31

between confession and confessing. For that reason, they are somewhat reserved about understanding the Barmen Declaration to be at the level of the Reformation confession. The Reformed emphasize more the connection between confession and confessing. They are thus more open to the formulation of new confessions either next to the old ones or even replacing them. When both Lutherans and Reformed confessed together at Barmen, the Lutherans were admonishing the Reformed not to declare the status confessionis too quickly, and the Reformed were admonishing the Lutherans not to be too hesitant in recognizing seriously the challenge to declare a status confessionis. That there is no serious disagreement in this matter is disclosed by the thoroughly Reformed definition offered by the Lutheran Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The confession—like the one from Barmen—is the “decision of the church based upon its entire doctrine, to take up the struggle at a particular place.” 15 Second, a genuine church confession cannot be had without certain rejections. They are not the chief concern in confessing. Although the rejection might be the major motivation for a confession, its merit will be based not upon its main message being a No to something wrong but rather upon its Yes to the truth of the divine gospel. On the other hand, even if there is no rejection specifically stated in a confession, it would be poorly understood if one failed to note that a certain No is always being said, if only implicitly—that is, a No to those views that contradict the positive statements being made. The positive statements would not be taken seriously if one did not see that they include the serious claim that certain other statements are excluded. The decision made in a confession would not be truly perceived if one failed to see that it also entails separations. In a remarkable way, this aspect is expressed in the Barmen Declaration from three different perspectives. First, before the text concludes with the statement that the Word of God remains in eternity, all those “whom it concerns” are asked “to return to the unity of faith, love and hope.” This alleges that those who dissent from the confession no longer stand upon the ground of the church of Jesus Christ, but have in substance departed from it. This allegation is, however, not an autonomous proposition. Rather, the accent lies upon the intercessory prayer that such people should return to the community. Further, there is a definite statement of rejection attached to each of the six theses of the Declaration. One should note that in these it is never particular persons who are rejected; it says six times, “We reject the false doctrine. . . .” With that, the false doctrine is separated from those persons who espouse it. That means that in these theses they are not being cast out of the church by those who believe rightly; with their false doctrine they have excluded themselves from the church. Inasmuch as they are now distinguished from their false teachings, their return into the church of Christ is made possible. Finally, and most importantly, the statement is made in the introduction that the confessors “have been given a common message,” “in a time of common

32

Eberhard Busch

need and temptation.” This suggests that the church’s confession is also a churchly act of repentance. In this act, it is not simply others inside or outside the church who are called to repentance and conversion, but rather the confessors themselves know that this call applies to them. At this point one sees clearly the difference between this confession and fundamentalist confessions of our day in which generally the accusing finger is pointed at others and not at one’s own breast. In contrast with them, it must be said that only the truly repentant can be genuine confessors, just as proper confessors can only speak repentantly—and precisely in this way they will be enabled to speak courageously and uprightly. Third, confessing also means binding, the binding of the church and of its members, not initially and decisively to the actual wording of a text drafted by the church, but rather a binding to the God who is confessed in this text. Confessing means a new binding of the church threatened by or already guilty of unfaithfulness, a binding to the One who gives the church its life and without whom it would cease to be the church. At stake is a new binding of the church to the one God “as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture,” as it is put in the first Barmen thesis. What this demonstrates is not the merely asserted but the real and proper binding of the church, which is that its confession of God is at the same time its binding to Holy Scripture. It is not thereby bound to any number of individual truths to be found in the Bible but rather it is bound to the one authoritative truth proclaimed in Scripture, which, to be sure, is made radiantly clear in particular texts. Paul speaks in 2 Corinthians 9:13 of “your obedience in confessing the gospel of Christ.” This accords with Barth’s view that one will always recognize the community’s confession in that it is “the voice of students (of Holy Scripture) who as such are not to recount something of their own making—not even something Christian, something that they have fashioned out of the Bible—but rather, each in his own manner and speech is to recount what they have all learned together in that school.” 16 For that reason the church’s confessions do not stand next to, certainly never above, but always under Scripture, so that every confession is to be read on the basis of Scripture, and not Scripture on the basis of a confession. The Barmen Declaration makes this clear in an impressive way. At a time in which the church had been invaded by the arbitrariness of human views and interpretations, it was a necessary aspect of Christian confession that all six theses begin with direct citations from Scripture. These citations make clear how indispensably necessary it had become, in view of the confusing lack of clarity at that time, for the church to say from which source it derived its decisions, positions, and imperatives. Therefore, these citations are not mere introductions to the “actual” confession, and they are not mere proof-texts for someone’s opinion. They are themselves the community’s confession. One may assume that the authoritative rank assigned to Scripture, signaled in this fashion, is what led the

The Barmen Theological Declaration in May 1934

33

various parties—the Reformed, Lutherans, and United—to make this first-ever common confession together. The Leuenberg Fellowship of Evangelical Churches in Europe, founded in 1973, has one of its sources here. The Barmen Declaration not only made visible the separation from a false church. It also proved at the same time to be a significant bridge connecting churches that had long been separated. That is its ecumenical significance. It demonstrates that where the church attempts to speak in the name of God in a binding way, this results in new bonds. To put it in the words of the Confession of 1967 of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., “Obedience to Jesus Christ alone identifies the one universal church. . . .” 17 THE BEGINNING OF THE BARMEN THEOLOGICAL DECLARATION The six theses that form the substance of the Declaration are preceded by a long introduction. Here, initially, the first two articles of the constitution of the German Evangelical Church are cited, which makes clear that what follows wants to be understood as stated in the name of this church. A passage then follows explaining why this church is now uttering a word of confession. This passage is cited here in three sections and commented upon. We, the representatives of Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches, of free synods, church assemblies, and parish organizations united in the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church, declare that we stand together on the ground of the German Evangelical Church as a federation of German Confessional churches. We are bound together by the confession of the one Lord of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

“We are bound together by the confession of the one Lord of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” Confessing—both in its substantive form (confession) and in its verbal form (confessing)—is the activity in which Christians express outwardly their faith. Their confessing is no mere possible consequence of faith but is the self-evident form of faith itself. Believing and confessing belong together. Confessing belongs as definitively to their believing as, to cite Jesus’ words, one lights a candle not to conceal it but so that the entire house may be illumined (Matt. 5:15). Paul says in Romans 10:9, “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” One only believes as much in one’s heart as what comes across one’s lips. Therefore, Calvin said, “If you don’t want to confess yourself as a Christian, you cannot be taken to be a Christian.” 18 If Christian faith is faith in Jesus Christ, then confessing is confessing Jesus Christ. In their confessing, Christians express their commitment to their Lord. According to

34

Eberhard Busch

Matthew 10:32, confessing means “to acknowledge him before men.” In their bond to him they did not first bind themselves to him. He has bound himself to us so very much that he is prepared to acknowledge us before his “Father who is in heaven.” In so doing, he has bound us to himself and to his heavenly Father. However diverse and even divided Christians might be, what binds them together into one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church is their confession of this Lord of the church. If they are bound together through him, they are then led by that to their confession of him. We publicly declare before all evangelical churches in Germany that what they hold in common in this Confession is grievously imperiled, and with it the unity of the German Evangelical Church. It is threatened by the teaching methods and actions of the ruling church party of the “German Christians” and of the church administration carried on by them. These have become more and more apparent during the first year of the existence of the German Evangelical Church. This threat consists in the fact that the theological basis, in which the German Evangelical Church is united, has been continually and systematically thwarted and rendered ineffective by alien principles on the part of the leaders and spokesmen of the “German Christians” as well as on the part of the church administration. When these principles are held to be valid, then, according to all the Confessions in force among us, the church ceases to be the church and the German Evangelical Church, as a federation of Confessional churches, becomes intrinsically impossible. As members of Lutheran, Reformed, and United Churches, we may and must speak with one voice in this matter today. Precisely because we want to be and to remain faithful to our various Confessions, we may not keep silent, since we believe that we have been given a common message to utter in a time of common need and temptation. We commend to God what this may mean for the interrelations of the Confessional churches.

These sentences declare how the confessional statement came to be. They speak “in a time of common need and temptation,” in a situation in which the church is “grievously imperiled.” It is imperiled because “its theological basis . . . has been continually and systematically thwarted and rendered ineffective by alien principles.” If one views this spiritually and thus exactly, then the following confessional statements did not come about because a “better part” of the church had triumphally asserted itself against a “problematic part.” The church that is speaking here has participated in this grievous imperiling of the church. It did so because it did not comprehend that the outcome of what the German Christians sought was the church’s ceasing “to be the church.” By failing to recognize this, it would itself also stand outside the church of Jesus Christ. The Barmen Declaration takes this insight so seriously that it says

The Barmen Theological Declaration in May 1934

35

that this church cannot liberate itself from this jeopardy, but it was being liberated; it “has been given a common message to utter in a time of common need and temptation.” This wording is reminiscent of 2 Chronicles 20:12, where Israel in its distress prays, “We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.” Or also Romans 8:26: “We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us.” Above all, the words from the calling of Jeremiah to be a prophet echo here, when God speaks to him even as he is resisting his calling: “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth” (Jer. 1:9). In such a way those who are not fit to confess are made into confessors. In view of the errors of the “German Christians” of the present Reich Church government which are devastating the church and are also thereby breaking up the unity of the German Evangelical Church, we confess the following evangelical truths.

In this confessional commitment to God, diverse persons are bound to each other to form a fellowship of confessors of the One who is the ground of their faith, of their hope, and of their love. They are so bound to each other that they cannot be Christians in isolation but only together with others. They are bound to God in such a way that even old divisions among Christians can be overcome. Although certainly their diverse traditions need not be surrendered as they are now brought together, these traditions lose their character as an expression of their separation. What binds these diverse people to each other is the fact that Christ is the head through which they are members of his body—while still remaining very different members. And because they have this one head, they are vitally connected to each other in the manifold differences of many members. This excludes simultaneously both individualism and collectivism—an individualism in which each one corresponds to the other by the fact that all live in profound isolation, and a collectivism in which each one is so similar to the other that no one is allowed to be who he or she really is. If the community of Christ does not bear the name of Christ in vain, then it lives beyond both of these dangers. Each one in his or her distinctiveness is then what matters. And the church lives in a fellowship of participation and cooperation. In the church’s bonds to the one head of the community no single member is disqualified, but rather all are taken seriously as qualified and responsible. In this community under this one head, all members have a commission, this commission: to confess Christ before the people. But the variety of gifts, of charisms, expresses itself in the way that this confession of Christ takes place in a multiplicity of different ways. It should not be forgotten that it happens in an especially prominent way in the form of confession with the lips. There are special situations in life in which if there is no clear speech then there is no appropriate action either.

36

Eberhard Busch

TEXTS RELATING TO THE BARMEN DECLARATION The Declaration is the word of confession of God, spoken in a particular situation and challenge, which the Christian church confesses at all times and in all places. As such it has received ecclesiastical acknowledgment beyond the context of that particular period and situation. The Evangelical Church in Germany and its member churches, the Evangelical Churches of the Augsburg and Helvetic Confessions in Austria as well as the Church of the Augsburg Confession and the Reformed Church in Alsace and Lorraine “see the Barmen Theological Declaration as an important document from the period of the Church Struggle. Their consensus is that it serves as a witness for faith and doctrine which guides the church in the twentieth century. Not a few attribute to it obligatory significance, and a few recognize it as part of their confessional basis (the Evangelical-Reformed Church, the Evangelical Church of the Union).” 19 “It continues to be recognized as a scripturally faithful and obligatory testimony to the Gospel for the ministry of the church.” 20 The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) declared in 1938, “Together with its member churches, [the EKD] affirms the decisions made at the first Confessional Synod in Barmen. It recognizes its obligation as confessing church to implement the insights of the Church Struggle regarding the essence, the commission and the order of the church. It calls upon the member churches to listen to the witness of the brothers. It helps them, where it is required, to resist together heresies that destroy the churches.” 21 The Barmen Declaration has also been acknowledged as a basic ecclesiastical confession beyond the boundaries of Europe, as for example by the United Presbyterian Church in the USA, in Canada, and, in Cuba. All of this demonstrates that this text adopted in May 1934 by representatives of the Lutheran, Reformed, and, United Churches is not restricted to that time but is relevant and meaningful today outside the setting of Germany. There is by now a well-developed literature for the research and study of this text, which I will survey briefly. The original text is accessible in the hymnals of the various German provincial churches and in the resource edited by Alfred Burgsmuller and Rudolf Weth titled Die Barmer Theologische Erklärung: Einführung und Dokumentation (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1985); the second edition has a foreword by Eduard Lohse, while Klaus Engelhardt provided the foreword for the fifth edition (1993). 22 The fifth edition also contains Hans Asmussen’s introduction of the text given at the Barmen Synod. The following publications are used as resources for the church history of that period: Kurt Dietrich Schmidt, ed., Die Bekenntnisse und grundsätzlichen Äusserungen zur Kirchenfrage des Jahres 1933 (Göttingen, 1934); Kurt Dietrich Schmidt, ed., Die Bekenntnisse und grundsätzlichen Äusserungen zur Kirchenfrage des Jahres 1934, vol. 2 (Göttingen, 1935); and Joachim Gauger, Chronik der Kirchenwirren, 3 vols. (Elberfeld, 1934–1935). Important for the reconstruction of the actual

The Barmen Theological Declaration in May 1934

37

emergence of the Barmen text: Christoph Barth, Bekenntnis im Werden: Neue Quellen zur Entstehung der Barmer Erklärung (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1979); Carsten Nicolaisen, Der Weg nach Barmen: Die Entstehungsgeschichte der Theologischen Erklärung von 1934 (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1985); Gerhard Niemöller, Die erste Bekenntnissynode der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche in Barmen; I: Geschichte, Kritik und Bedeutung der Synode und ihrer Theologischen Erklärung, II: Text—Dokumente—Berichte [Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Kirchenkampfes, vols. 5–6] (Göttingen, 1959). Of the interpretations of the Declaration, I mention these: Karl Barth, Texte zur Barmer Theologischen Eklärung, introduced by Eberhard Jüngel, edited by Martin Rohkramer (Zurich, 1984); Ernst Wolf, Barmen: Kirche zwischen Versuchung und Gnade (Munich, 1957—a discussion with critics of the text). The most comprehensive and important expositions of the Declaration have been published by the Theologische Kommission of the Evangelische Kirche der Union: Wilhelm Hüffmeier, ed., Das eine Wort Gottes—Botschaft für alle, Vorträge aus dem Theologischen Ausschuss der Evangelischen Kirche der Union zu Barmen I und VI, II: Votum des Theologischen Ausschusses der Evangelischen Kirche der Union (Gütersloh, 1994, 1993); Alfred Burgsmüller, ed., Zum politischen Auftrag der christlichen Gemeinde (Barmen II) (Gütersloh, 1984); Alfred Burgsmüller, ed., Kirche als “Gemeinde von Brüdern” (Barmen III), 2nd ed. (Gütersloh, 1981); and Wilhelm Hüffmeier, ed., Für Recht und Frieden sorgen: Auftrag der Kirche und Aufgabe des Staates nach Barmen V; Theologisches Votum der Evangelischen Kirche der Union, 2nd ed. (Gütersloh, 1986). The following discussion of the Barmen Declaration presupposes this literature and works with it. The purpose guiding this effort is a special one. This is an attempt to explain what is actually being said by the way that the text of 1934 speaks as its does. I want to address with all seriousness the fact that what was said then continues to speak to us today after seventy years, and that this is not an accident but rather because the Church spoke in what was said then. The church hears this confessional word in its historical setting, but also in contact with church utterances of earlier ages and in the conviction that this word also speaks to us and with us. It will become clear to the reader that the author is of the Reformed confession. The exposition is open for the possibility that adherents of the Lutheran confession will read the text with their eyes and their understanding. Be that as it may, it should not be forgotten that in Barmen Lutheran, Reformed, and United Christians made a common confession. In the process of the exposition, it is the intention to present the Declaration in such a way that it will be understandable and accessible to interested congregational members. If I am not mistaken, this is important today in new ways. The Barmen Declaration was an endeavor that was related to the congregations. Of what help or use is its understanding as a confession or as guiding text, and of what purpose are the masses of documentation and scientific debates relating to this Declaration, if it is

38

Eberhard Busch

not that the fundamental word of the Confessing Church should remain vital in the congregations or become a living word anew? NOTES 1. Henry Picker, Hitlers Tischgespräche [dtv dokumente 524] (Stuttgart: Seewald, 1976), p. 38. 2. Kurt Dietrich Schmidt, Die Bekenntnisse und grundsätzlichen Äusserungen zur Kirchenfrage des Jahres 1933 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1934). 3. Schmidt, Die Bekenntnisse und grundsätzlichen Äusserungen, p. 89. 4. See “Aufruf der Jungreformatorischen Bewegung Mai 1933,” in Schmidt, Die Bekenntnisse und grundsätzlichen Äusserungen, p. 146. 5. In Karl Barth, Gottes Wille und unsere Wünsche, Theologische Existenz heute 7 (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1934), pp. 9–15. 6. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 1/2: The Doctrine of the Word of God; trans. George Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1956), p. 633. 7. The chorale “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,” ET: “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” verse 3. 8. In the chorale “Nun danket alle Gott,” ET: “Now Thank We All Our God,” verse 3. 9. Wochenblatt “Unter dem Wort,” June 10, 1934, according to Gerhard Niemoller, ed., Die erste Bekenntnissynode der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche. Texte—Dokumente— Berchte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1959), pp. 27f. 10. Reprint of the newspaper Barmer Zeitung, May 31, 1934. 11. Lukas Vischer, ed., Reformed Witness Today: A Collection of Confessions and Statements of Faith (Bern: Evangelische Arbeitsstelle Oekumene Schweiz, 1982). 12. Eberhard Busch, Karl Barths Lebenslauf (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1975), p. 258; ET: Kart Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 245. 13. Ernst Wolf, Barmen. Kirche zwischen Versuchung und Gnade (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1957), p. 75. 14. Ernst Wolf, “Die Bindung an das Bekenntnis: Bemerkungen zu Wesen and Funktion des formulierten Bekenntnisses,” in Wort and Welt (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1968), pp. 323–356. 15. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Zur Frage nach der Kirchengemeinschaft,” in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. E. Bethge (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1965), vol. 2, p. 227. 16. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/4 (Edingburgh: T & T Clark, 1958), p. 83. 17. Lukas Vischer, Reformed Witness Today, p. 259. 18. John Calvin, Catechism of the Church of Geneva (1545), Question 363 (Wentworth Press, 2016). 19. Evangelisches Gesangbuch. Ausgabe für die Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Niedersachsen und für die Bremische Kirche, Nr. 809. 20. Evangelisches Gesangbuch fur die Evangelische Kirche im Rheinland, in Westfalen, Lippe and für die Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche, Nr. 858. 21. Alfred Burgsmüller and Rudolf Weth, eds., Die Barmer Theologische Erklärung: Einführung and Dokumentation (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1983), pp. 71f. 22. Both Eduard Lohse and Klaus Engelhardt were bishops of member churches of the EKD and served as presidents of the Evangelical Church in Germany.

FOUR Historical Overview of the Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934 Wolf Krötke

The following article 1 places the Barmen Theological Declaration against the backdrop of nationalist socialist rule and the way it was supported by the so-called “faith movement” of the “German Christians.” Reference is also made to the resistance to it by the “Confessing Church.” The fact that the six theses of Barmen (as “Protestant truths”) follow the style of a reformatory confession is reiterated, but it is also argued that confessions always need to be tested in the light of Scripture, hence the need for the church of Jesus Christ, as church in the world, to go “with Barmen and beyond Barmen.” The article also refers to the interpretation history of the phrase “the one Word of God” in the famous first thesis of Barmen. In the last section four cursory remarks are made about the possible enduring implications of the Barmen Declaration. It is emphasized that freedom serves as a keyword in the Declaration, expressing the special profile of the church of Jesus Christ. THE OCCASION OF THE BARMEN THEOLOGICAL DECLARATION The Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934 documents the constitution of the “Confessing Church” in Germany. It originated in the early days of national socialist rule in Germany. The national socialists ruled over this country from 1933. In those days the full extent of the crimes to be committed by them in the name of German-nationalist race-ideology in Germany, in Europe, and worldwide was still unperceivable. But from the very beginning the hatred for anyone who would not bend to this ideolo39

40

Wolf Krötke

gy determined the national socialist rule with “Führer” Adolf Hitler as the head. The antisemitism of this ideology bore its first bad fruit in the disfranchisement and persecution of the Jews. All democratic structures were annihilated. All independent social and cultural institutions were prohibited or subjected to the dictate of the national socialist state by force. The aim was to permeate all of society with national socialist ideology down to the very lives and thoughts of each individual. It was obvious that Christian churches in Germany would stand in the way of such endeavors, because they were independent organizations based on religious principles that did not originate from national socialist ideology. However, a religious variant of the fascist anti-spirit within the German Protestant churches came to the aid of Hitler’s attempt to subject the churches as well. This was the so-called “faith movement” of the “German Christians.” They gained an overwhelming victory in the 1933 church elections and, from then on, held all vital positions in the governing bodies of the German churches, from the “Reichsbischof,” appointed by Adolf Hitler, down to the parish councils. According to the “Führerprinciple,” the German churches were to be reorganized into one national “Reichs” church. And so, against all principles of state-church separation, the “German Christians” set out to establish just that. The religious-ideological basis of this destruction of the German churches was the conviction—I quote a short passage from a text characteristic of this disposition—that God the Creator gave the German people “ein arteigenes Gesetz eingeschaffen” (“a law specifically created for their race”). This law placed all Christians “in die Blut-und Schicksalsgemeinschaft des deutschen Volkes” (“within the common blood and destiny of the German people”), which it also stated took “shape in the Führer Adolf Hitler” and in the “national socialist state.” 2 Acknowledging Adolf Hitler as God’s revelation in German history now became a requirement for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. 3 The Germanic race rose to become the organ for the Creator’s Law for the Germans. Emanuel Hirsch, one of the most ardent “German Christians,” called the rise to power of the Nazis an “hour of God.” 4 He demanded of the church to renew the “blood covenant” of the Germans. The church was to be a counterforce against “mixed marriages” and the “overgrowth of the inferior.” 5 The most outrageous violations of human rights, of the law, and the persecution of the Jews, in fact any kind of violence was being theologically justified. From here only a small step was needed to reach the infamous address by a certain Dr. Krause on the occasion of a rally of the German Christians at the “Sportpalast” in Berlin on November 13, 1933. In his address Krause stated: “Rejecting all that is foreign in faith and morality, we stand on the soil . . . of German piety. . . . We demand that a German national church earnestly preach a simple gospel, cleansed of all oriental disfiguration, and a heroic Jesus-figure as the foundation of a Christianity

Historical Overview of the Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934

41

appropriate to the German race. We confess that the only true ministry for us is the ministry to our fellow Germans.” 6 If this confession had prevailed, the Protestant churches as churches of Christ would have been disfigured beyond recognition. And so, toward the end of the year 1933 with the motto “Church under the Word,” resistance began to grow within the Protestant churches against the rule of the German-Christian church government. This is not the occasion to tell the story of the development and the fate of the so-called “Confessing Church,” but the Confessing Synod that met in the industrial town of Barmen from May 29–30, 1934, came to be the climax of the movement. The synod was constituted by Lutheran and Reformed churches, single parishes and individuals. At the synod, the Confessing Church of Germany gave itself a theological foundation: the “Theological Declaration Concerning the Present Situation of the German Evangelical Church” (the full title of the declaration). THE BARMEN THEOLOGICAL DECLARATION—A CONFESSION? The six theses of Barmen follow the style of the other reformatory confessions. First a word is quoted from the Bible. This is meant to exemplify that the decisions of the Confessing Church are made in listening to Scripture. Every single thesis is therefore understood to be a response of the church after hearing the Word. Based on this hearing, the “false doctrine” as represented by the “German Christians” is rejected. This rejection or condemnation has the meaning of a damnatio (damnation) as it is encountered in the confessional tradition. The false doctrine is excluded from the church and there is to be no dialogue with representatives of this doctrine. The only choice left for the latter is to abandon their doctrine. Despite its confessional style, the members of the synod of Barmen could not bring themselves to call their six theses a formal “confession.” The reason for this was that there was an argument between the Lutheran and the Reformed churches on whether churches with fundamental doctrinal differences (for example in their understanding of the holy communion) are able to commit themselves to a single theological orientation in their doctrine. Regretfully, the Lutheran churches of Germany subsequently did not consider themselves fundamentally committed to the positive statements of the Barmen Theological Declaration. Therefore, they did not use it in the ordination of their ministers even though they approved of its condemnation of the “German Christians.” Indeed, all the Christian churches agreed on was what the six Barmen Theses condemned, namely that Adolf Hitler was no revelation of God; that God’s law was not to be equated with the “hour of the Germans”; that the church of Jesus Christ was not to be subjected to the “Führer-principle”;

42

Wolf Krötke

that the state must not claim to be “the single and totalitarian order of human life”; and that the Church must not place itself “in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.” However, if these insights, which were confirmed by terrible experience, are not supported by categorical theological understanding, the condemnations of 1934 cease to be fundamental. Today, long after the demise of the ideology of the “German Christians,” issues that had supported the ideology of the German Christians in 1934 are being discussed once again. Issues like: Do we not today perceive the voice of God coming to us from history, through our own existence, in the religions of the world anymore? Are there not laws of the world, within the realms of politics and economics, which we are also obliged to respect in view of our faith in Jesus Christ? Are there not charismatic leaders or “Führer” in the Christian church who claim authority? Are Christian church’s choices to respect reality only “arbitrarily chosen desires”? In the face of such questions, is the term “Protestant truths” given by the Barmen Theological Declaration to its six theses to be taken seriously? “Truths” in the understanding of Christian churches are not just flashlights that quickly fade away. They are certainties of faith that we can rely on at all times. They articulate what—in a dramatic situation of conflict—made itself known to be the truth and surpass any one specific situation. Wherever this happens we are dealing with the spirit of an entirely valid Christian confession—no matter if it is called that or not. However, the claim of truth in a Christian confession does not mean that it cannot be critically questioned. In the Protestant sense, confessions always need to be tried in the face of Scripture. Accordingly, in its “Appeal to the Evangelical Congregations and Christians in Germany,” the Barmen synod called upon all to judge whether the theses of the declaration were in accordance with Scripture and the confessions of the Fathers. 7 Instead of simply being emulated, the Barmen theses invite being put to the test. Today when we examine the Barmen Declaration, we immediately notice the absence of something we find hard to comprehend in view of our knowledge of the magnitude of Nazi crimes: the “evangelical truths” are not directed specifically against the national socialists and the state which was created by them. The declaration is not a document of Christian resistance against a murderous ideology as such. It does not pose the question of a choice between being “Christian or national socialist” as Dietrich Bonhoeffer had. 8 It contains no direct reference to the persecution of the Jews. At best, one might interpret the words of the Church as a “community of brethren” in the third thesis to be a hint at the Christian brotherhood in which all racial differentiation disappears. Or, one might relate the rejection of a doctrine legitimating a totalitarian state (fifth thesis) directly to the national socialist state. However, Lutheran pastor Hans Asmussen emphasized in Barmen in the name of all members of the

Historical Overview of the Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934

43

Confessing Synod that the Theological Declaration was not a protest against “the recent history of the people” or “against the new state.” 9 Its concern was only the preservation of the church. This is a limitation in the confession that we cannot be content with. If we take seriously the fundamental meaning of the theses of Barmen regarding the life of the church of Jesus Christ in the world, we shall have to go “with Barmen and beyond Barmen.” CONFESSING TO THE ONE WORD OF GOD The entire Barmen Theological Declaration is to be read from the perspective of its first thesis. This thesis determines our understanding of all the others and reads: Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

This appears to be a perfectly clear statement. However, on closer inspection it allows for different understandings. This was the reason why the first thesis was accepted at Barmen with a different accent in its meaning which pertains specifically to the meaning one ascribes to the phrase “the one Word of God.” Karl Barth—essentially the author of the Barmen Theses—understood Jesus Christ himself to be the only Word of God whom we have to trust and obey. However, in the Lutheran tradition “the one Word of God” was understood as the decisive Word of God through which God speaks to us. The far-reaching consequences of these different understandings are clear. If Jesus Christ is the only Word of God, then everything that constitutes the Christian faith, Christian life, the church and its works in the world can only be decided by listening to Jesus Christ. As such the Barmen Theological Declaration would indeed constitute an innovation as it excludes the so-called “natural theology” from proclamation and church life. 10 In effect it then declares that the notion that we may recognize God through a source other and besides Jesus Christ is a “false doctrine.” However, if Jesus Christ is understood to be the decisive Word of God it is not totally impossible that God may speak to us and be heard by us elsewhere than in Jesus Christ. In the situation of 1934 both interpretations of the one Word of God coincided fortunately or maybe even providentially. The one Word of God here was at the same time the decisive Word to restrain the “German Christians.” It indicates where we encounter God’s revelation and what may be rightfully called “revelation” (thesis 1); it reveals to us the will of God, the meaning of his Law for our actions and demeanor (thesis 2); it shapes the church, that trusts and obeys him (theses 3 and 4); it provides

44

Wolf Krötke

an orientation for the relationship between church and state (thesis 5); and it commissions the church (thesis 6). Despite the clear orientation of the six theses as determined by the Word of God, the different interpretations of this Word can be applied to all of them as well. For example, in the fifth thesis that deals with the state, one may notice that the understanding of the state is not clear regarding the one Word of God called Jesus Christ, but refers more generally to “what Scripture tells us.” Karl Barth, who had to rephrase his draft of this thesis at the synod, could only allude to the concerns for a christological substantiation in the fifth thesis with a quote from Hebrews 1:3. With the state in view it is said that the church “trusts and obeys the power of the Word by which God upholds all things”—including the state. In its version on hand, the fifth thesis as a whole sounds like an update of the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms. The first thesis also leaves open the question whether God may speak to humankind apart from and besides through his Word as it is heard by the church. The thesis merely objects to “events and powers, figures and truths” that claim to be, besides Jesus Christ, sources of the church’s proclamation as God’s revelation. It does not deny that there may be “events and powers, figures and truths” and that God may reveal himself in them. Karl Barth said: “God can speak to us through Russian communism, a flute concert, a flowering shrub, or a dead dog.” He can do it through “heathens and atheists.” 11 For the one Word of God is not imprisoned in the witness of the Bible or in our faith. Rather, it is to be understood as the expression of God himself. It is “his own Word” (thesis 6) that precedes all human witness to it. It is the revelation of God, who is and has been ever-present in his invisibility and in the power of his Spirit to the entire world. Therefore, we can witness this presence everywhere from our own understanding in faith. However, we do not have the right to shape just any image of God for ourselves out of the diversity of human experiences of God and forcefully apply that image to others. The result of such an application was seen in the appalling example of the “German Christians.” In hearing the one Word of God we can never do without a critical examination of all extra-Christian experiences of God and claims of truth. On the other hand, we have to keep an open mind regarding encounters with reflections of the one Word of God outside the Christian church. This is an important consideration today when the dialogue of religions has become an imperative challenge for the sake of peace on earth.

Historical Overview of the Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934

45

THE LAW OF CHRIST AND THE FREE RESPONSIBILITY OF BELIEVERS The one Word of God is a concrete word. It has something particular to say. It is only because of this that it concerns us. However, we notice that the Barmen Declaration contains few words on this concretization of the Word. What is basically said is that it is the Word of the forgiveness of sins (thesis 2) and thus of the “free grace” of God (thesis 6). With the state in view, the fifth thesis also points to “the Kingdom of God, God’s commandment and righteousness” without being any more explicit. Without doubt, this reluctance in further defining the one Word of God has as its reason the necessity of the churches in 1934 to concentrate on hearing this Word at all. Therefore, it was sufficient to point out the decisive fact that, if the church hears the Word of God, then freedom of sin, which destroys the relationship with God and human relationships with each other, becomes the starting point of its very existence. The Barmen Declaration gains its dynamic profile by taking this experience of freedom as an obligation to act in a specific way. The second thesis says: “The assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins” turns into “God’s claim upon our whole life.” This statement also allows for an understanding with a different accent. Most of the members of the Barmen synod may have understood this in the sense of the tertius usus legis (the third use of the law). The justification of the sinner by God has to be followed by sanctification of our actions according to the will of God. This is not wrong. However, the statement that it is the will of God that the claim of Jesus Christ is valid for “all areas in our life” then has been and today still is problematic (for many theologians): Does this not mean that the Gospel is declared law? Can Jesus Christ give directions for social politics, for the economy and for scientific procedures? Here too we need to closely read the declaration. In the second thesis it says: Through the claim of Jesus Christ “through him there comes to us joyful liberation from the godless ties of this world for free, grateful service to his creatures.” The emphasized use of the word freedom stands out in this passage. “Joyful liberation” must lead to “free, grateful service.” Liberation here means to be free of the “godless ties” of this world. And the latter means all that we encounter in this world and from this world claiming to be God’s ties. 12 Nothing in this world is worth tying ourselves to as to God; neither society, nor politics, not the economy, nor science. Positively put this means: We are free in our faith in Jesus Christ to respect the laws of the world in their relative secularity and to make use of them in such a way. However, being free and responsible human beings we have to make decisions regarding how these laws serve God’s creatures. They do not serve God’s creatures if they cause people to become nothing more than anonymous numbers under the inherent necessities of the economy, science, and society; they do not serve God’s crea-

46

Wolf Krötke

tures if they are used as tools of oppression and in the violation of human dignity. Under the claim of Jesus Christ the Christian community has to state which human possibilities in the realms of politics, economics, and science will or will not benefit the dignity of those who are affirmed by Jesus Christ. Therefore, from this position the Christian community cannot accept claims that the principles of economic globalization, which condemn so many people to a life of poverty and misery, are absolute laws. From this position Bonhoeffer demanded of all Christianity to ostracize war. Accordingly, the second thesis today calls upon us to ask ourselves how we perceive our responsibility for God’s creation, which correlates with our liberation for “service to his creatures” everywhere. THE FREE WITNESS AND THE FREE MINISTRY TO THE CONGREGATION What mattered most in 1934 was the preservation of a church that rightfully holds the title church of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Barmen Theological Declaration has a strong tendency toward determining the nature of the church. The third, fourth, and sixth, but in effect the fifth thesis as well, say what the church of Jesus Christ is and what it is commissioned to do. I cannot analyze this very tight text in detail. Therefore, let me point out four aspects that we can understand as a lasting orientation for the very existence of our churches. First of all, the church is to be understood as a community of people constituted by the presence of Jesus Christ. The patriarchal attitude of the authors of these theses prevented them from seeing any problem with calling this community a “community of brothers.” This is a point to be criticized. However, what remains important is that this community is said to function as a witness. In a world that is still determined by sin it has to show what changes the presence of Jesus Christ brings about in the community of humankind. Not just the church’s message but its very existence speaks for itself. As a community of pardoned sinners it represents a new world in changing from all-divisive sin toward the community of the kingdom of God. Therefore, affiliations to the world, which is still dominated by sin, must never be an excuse to disobey the “direction” of Jesus Christ for a new life. Secondly, even in 1934 the claim that the church “with its order” had to witness to its affiliation to Jesus Christ was considered provocative. According to Lutheran and Reformed tradition, a church order is a “purely secular thing.” However, according to Barmen this must not lead the church to merely imitate law and forms of organization that are valid elsewhere in society. The introduction of the “Führer-principle” in the church may have been an extreme example of such an imitation and

Historical Overview of the Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934

47

contrary to the very essence of the Christian church, but from the perspective of the third thesis of Barmen, the order and structure of the church need to serve this essence. Practical and financial constraints, and the administration and bureaucracy that accompany it, should not dominate a Christian church any more than structures from the past should. The church that I am a member of suffers considerably from the fact that this is often the case. Barmen calls upon every church to examine whether, as an institution in this world, it serves its message and the people or if it clouds it and harms the living community of believers. Thirdly, thesis 4 updates the Reformed doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers.” This means that all who belong to a congregation stand in the service of Jesus Christ and are witnesses to him. The special and various offices necessary in the congregation are dimensions of the one service entrusted to the entire congregation. No one has the right to use a church office or position in order to place him or herself above others and lord over them as this would undermine the service toward the community expected of all its members. It also leads to a division in the church between official clergy and lay people, between a speaking active church and a silent passive church. In contrast, Karl Barth interprets thesis 4 saying: “In the Christian congregation, we are either all officials or no one—but if we all are, then we are all servants.” 13 The Barmen Theological Declaration envisions a church where all members encourage one another to allow their individual talents to blossom in the ministry of Jesus Christ. The greater the intensity of this, the better the church can show itself as a community of people beginning a new life as God’s creation. Fourthly, the church of Jesus Christ as the Barmen Theological Declaration understands it can never be an end in itself. It misses the point if its witness and its ministry are restricted to the confines of the community of believers. This community itself is indeed meant to be a speaking community for others. The sixth thesis brings out the dynamics of everything said about the essence of the church by assigning it to the mission of the church. This mission is to “deliver to all people . . . the message of the free grace of God.” The universal validity of the grace of Jesus Christ correlates with the delivering of this message to all people. The church is a community stepping out into the world. It cannot be stopped from approaching people and speaking to those who have never heard of the grace of Jesus Christ. This is its freedom, unhindered and unlimited— especially by any self-chosen ends and purposes. It is remarkable that the Barmen Theological Declaration in its last thesis once more stresses the freedom of the church. Freedom virtually becomes a keyword of this declaration, expressing the special profile of the church of Jesus Christ. If the church lives out of the free grace of God, it will find strength and courage amidst sinful hostility toward God and humankind to be the undaunted defender of all those whom God loves

48

Wolf Krötke

and affirms. It will be a church of the free Word and free action, always facing a free horizon, because the one Word of God will not cease to reveal this horizon to it. In this sense the Barmen Theological Declaration is a confession of today. NOTES 1. Paper first read at the Barmen/Belhar Consultation, Belhar, 19 October 2004. 2. “Guidelines of the church movement German Christians (national church movement) in Thuringia, December 11, 1933.” In: Kurt Dietrich Schmidt, ed., Die Bekenntnisse und grundsätzlichen Äußerungen zur Kirchenfrage des Jahres 1933. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, 1934), p.102. 3. Cf. ibid. 4. Cf. Emanuel Hirsch. 1934. “Die Fügung und der Vater Jesu Christi.” In: Der Offenbarungsglaube, Hammer und Nagel. Theologische Lehrschriften. Vol. 2. (Bordesholm: Luther Verlag, 1934), p. 55. 5. Ibid., p. 60. 6. Cf. “Richtsätze der Glaubensbcwegung Deutsche Volkskirche (Dr. Krause)” in: Kurt Dietrich Schmidt, ed. Die Bekenntnisse und grundsätzlichen Äußerungen zur Kirchenfrage des Jahres 1933, p. 135. 7. Alfred Burgsmüller and Rudolf Weth, eds. Die Barmer Theologische Erklärung, Einführung und Dokumentation (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1984), p. 63. 8. “Letter to Bishop Ove Valdemar Ammundsen from August 10, 1934.” In Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke, vol. 13 (Gütersloh Verlag, 2005), p. 179. 9. Hans Asmussen, “Address on Theological Declaration Concerning the Present Situation of the German Evangelical Church.” In: Alfred Burgsmüller and Rudolf Weth, eds., Die Barmer Theologische Erklärung, Einführung and Dokumentation, pp. 48, 55. 10. Cf. Karl Barth, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik 11/1 (Zollikon-Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1958), pp. 194–200. 11. Karl Barth. Die Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/1 (München: Evangelischer Verlag, 1932), pp. 55f. 12. The ties to “blood and soil” (“Blut und Boden”) were considered, for example, by Werner Elert; see Werner Elert. Bekenntnis, Blut und Boden (Leipzig: Dörffling und Franke, 1934), p. 22. 13. Karl Barth. Die Kirchliche Dogmatik IV/2. (Zollikon-Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1955), p. 782.

FIVE Democratic Faith Barth, Barmen, and the Politics Of Reformed Confession Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

INTRODUCTION Karl Barth never wrote a political theology, if by “a political theology” we mean a freestanding work solely devoted to the subject. As with ethics, Barth preferred to treat politics within his Church Dogmatics, where he dedicates long stretches to topics like the state, economics, war, and social justice. Alongside these sustained and systematic treatments, Barth wrote and spoke about politics on numerous occasions throughout his life. The most important of these occasional engagements are his essays, sermons, and speeches during the German Church Struggle (1933–1945), as well as the several theological declarations that he authored or coauthored as a leader in the Confessing Church (1933–1934). Chief among these is the Barmen Declaration (1934). In the years preceding (1923–1932) and following (1935–1946) his active participation in the Church Struggle, Barth’s works address a range of topics and issues related to these confessional writings. Works preceding the Struggle include his 1923 lectures on The Theology of the Reformed Confessions, as well as his twice-given 1925 speech “The Desirability and Possibility of a Universal Reformed Confession.” 1 Those following his deportation from Germany as a consequence of his participation in the Struggle include his 1938 lectures on “The Doctrine of the Word of God,” which comprise the second part of the first volume of the Dogmatics, 2 as well as the three speeches published together in Community, State, and Church: “Gospel 49

50

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

and Law” (1935), “Justification and Justice” (1938), and “The Christian Community and the Civil Community” (1946). 3 Despite their differences in style and setting, these writings—as well as others from the same period—are consistent in their theological and political standpoint. These earlier and later writings not only bracket Barth’s participation in the Church Struggle chronologically. They frame his activity in the Confessing Church theologically. In the earlier theological writings, Barth lays out his conception of Reformed confession as a praxis of communal interpretation and application of scripture. 4 He describes this confessional praxis as a democratic mode of disputation, deliberation, and decision in which the members of the Christian community stand in relationships of mutual authority and reciprocal freedom. Their mutual authority means that each member must listen to the interpretation and application of scripture given by every other. 5 Their reciprocal freedom means that every individual must speak their own interpretation and application of scripture. 6 Hearing the Word of God and confessing the faith mean hearing out each member of the interpretive community. In the later political writings, Barth depicts the life and law of the ecclesial community as a foretaste of the Kingdom of God and a signpost for the kingdoms of this world. The mutual authority and reciprocal freedom of the Christian are a paradigm for that of the citizen. The ecclesiology of the Reformed Church is a pattern for the polity of the democratic state. I frame Barmen in the context of these other writings in order to reframe our understanding of the Declaration’s historical significance and contemporary relevance. I do so for three reasons. First, I want to recollect Barth’s neglected theology of Reformed confession, particularly insofar as the composition of Barmen embodies Barth’s conception. Second, I want to correct persistent misunderstandings of Barmen, especially exaggerations of Barth’s role in its composition. I will show that, historically speaking, the Declaration is “less Barth” than commonly is assumed. Yet, theologically speaking, Barmen is—at the same time, and for the same reason—all the “more Barthian” than previously has been realized. Third, I want to reconstruct the political theology that is explicit in Barth’s conception of Reformed confession and implicit in the Barmen Declaration. I will display how Barmen not only is responsive to external sociopolitical features of Nazi ideology, but also expressive of theopolitical factors internal to Reformed theology. It is not only a contextual condemnation of tyranny, but an essential affirmation of democracy. On Barth’s account of Reformed confession, and on my account of the Barmen Declaration, Christianity is an inherently political and intrinsically democratic faith in which the form of confessional theology determines the content of political theology. It is this determinative relationship between form and content, which I will call “the politics of Reformed confession,” that justifies the commitment to the democratic conception of the state developed in the later political writings, and that the Barmen Declaration exemplifies.

Democratic Faith

51

THE CONCEPTION OF CONFESSION IN BARTH In his 1925 address, “The Desirability and Possibility of a Universal Reformed Confession,” Barth defines the concept ‘Reformed Confession’ with this three-part thesis: A Reformed Confession is the statement of the insight provisionally given to the universal Christian Church by the universal revelation of God in Jesus Christ witnessed to by holy scripture alone, spontaneously and publicly formulated by a locally or regionally circumscribed Christian community, definitive of its character to the outside until further notice, and directive for its own doctrine and life until further notice. 7

For Barth, a Reformed Confession is, first, an expression of human insight given by God’s revelation in Jesus Christ as witnessed to by scripture. Confession is biblical. It is, second, a proclamation of witness made freely and publicly by a particular Christian community in a specific time and place. Confession is contextual. And it is, third, a declaration of an externally definitive and internally directive standard for that community for the time being. Confession is provisional. In Barth’s pithy summary, a Confession always takes this form: “We, here, now, confess this!” 8 In its emphasis on the finality of Christ (solus Christus), the centrality of scripture (sola scriptura), and the provisionality of doctrine (semper reformanda), this thesis is both classically Reformed and characteristically Barthian. Here, Barth says exactly what we expect him to say. Yet, as he develops and defends this thesis, and as he builds to his conclusion that a universal Reformed Confession is neither desirable nor possible, Barth says things that are rather unexpected. He says things like this: “Ultimately, what stands behind Reformed Confession is neither a priestly nor a princely palace, but rather (at least in the idea) the marketplace or the town hall, and in that very place, the Christian eucharistic community itself.” 9 Barth’s references to the marketplace and the town hall become all the more striking as he fills out their details. He says that the earliest Reformed Confessions are the product of “disputation and voting held with wide open doors.” Later Confessional synods are “nothing other than the mandatary of the Reformed community”—that is, their power of attorney. 10 Indeed, the “formal aristocracy” of a synod is nevertheless only “representative of Christian democracy.” 11 To the Reformers’ ecclesiological principle of the priesthood of all believers, Barth adds a confessional principle that we might call “the demos of all believers.” Just as no priest interposes between Christ and the Christian with respect to their justification by faith, no council interposes between the Word of God and the Church’s confession of their faith. Whether pastor or doctor, the officers of the Reformed Church are ministers not masters. As Barth remarks, “Reformed folk do not allow themselves to be condes-

52

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

cended to from above. They confess for themselves or they don’t confess at all.” 12 Barth, thus, insists that a Confession must be “a spontaneous act of the community for which it is intended to be valid.” 13 A Reformed Confession is an action of the ecclesial community, by the ecclesial community, and for the ecclesial community whose authority depends entirely on the “Christian-democratic character” of the synod’s disputation, deliberation, and decision. 14 Like liturgy, confession too is the work of the people. Barth reiterates these claims seven years later in the very first sentences of his Church Dogmatics. He begins, “Dogmatics is a theological discipline. But theology is a function of the Church.” He continues, “The Church confesses God as it speaks about God. It does so, first, by its existence in the action of each believer. And it does so secondly by its specific action as a community.” 15 For Barth, the task of theology is a task of the Church. That task is the task of confession: the individual and communal task of bearing witness to the Word of God in word and deed. From start to finish, and throughout the Dogmatics, Barth insists on the unity of speech and action, word and deed, dogmatics and ethics or politics. The center of his theology is the living Word of God itself: the logos and revelation. Its circumference is the lived theology of the Church: its ethos and confession. Later in the first volume of the Dogmatics, Barth gives a sustained account of the work of the people that he announces in these first sentences. He again defines confession as biblical, contextual, and provisional. “An ecclesial confession is a formulation and proclamation of insight into the revelation attested by scripture that is given to the Church within a determinate locality, and that comes into existence on the basis of communal deliberation and decision.” 16 But this time, he describes the deliberative praxis through which confession “takes place” (geschieht) and “comes into existence” (entsteht) in greater detail. 17 Confession comes into existence through “an open conversation” about the interpretation of the text of scripture and its application in the context of the community. 18 Disputation and deliberation take place, through the give and take of “speech and counterspeech.” 19 Arguments about interpretation are made. Agreements about application are reached. As they are, decisions are taken in which “the totality of voices” coalesce into “the chorus or choruses of the one [voice].” 20 Through disputation and deliberation, the community reaches a common decision about the interpretation and application of scripture. In this decision, all its members determine together their normative belief (dogmatics) and practice (ethics/politics), even as each determines for themselves if, and to what extent, they assent to that belief and consent to that practice. Barth refines his definition of confession with a distinction between what he calls the “wide” and “narrow” senses of the concept. 21 In its widest, or most generic, sense, confession names the ordinary situation of

Democratic Faith

53

confessio continua. In this situation, confessional deliberation and decision are carried out informally within a local congregational community. This deliberation and decision result in an implicit working consensus about the community’s witness that is enacted in their everyday words and deeds. 22 In its narrowest, or most specific, sense, Confession names the extraordinary situation of the status confessionis. In this situation, confessional deliberation and decision are carried out formally through a denominational or ecumenical assembly. This deliberation and decision result in an explicitly worked-out consensus about their witness that is documented in the historic Creeds and Confessions of the Church. As Eberhard Busch explains, “Whereas such confessions are formulated relatively seldom, confessing itself is a basic way of defining the daily task in the life of all Christians.” 23 Despite this distinction and division of confessional labor, Confession in the narrower sense owes its existence to its emergence through confession in the wider sense. Indeed, there would not be any Confession in the narrowest sense apart from confession in the widest sense, nor could there be. As Barth explains, “Before and behind Confession stands the actual life of the Church. . . . It is therefore of one piece with the already taking-place, and again-taking-place, ecclesial service of God and community-life that announces itself in Confession.” 24 When the narrower, extraordinary, sense of Confession emerges from the wider, ordinary, sense of confession, it simply carries forward the decisions already made through confessio continua, and continues the deliberation already underway. When this continued deliberation reaches the further decision of a status confessionis, the Confession formulated is nothing other than the “documented presence” of a “specific agreement” and “common declaration” that takes place in the “concrete historical life of the Church.” 25 Because Confession in the narrower sense is an emergent expression of confession in the wider sense, Barth observes that, “The subject of ecclesial Confession is the Church, and therefore, must, under all circumstances, be plural.” 26 A confession is declared in the collective “we,” rather than the individual “I.” On one hand, this does not mandate that the entire community “together be the authors of the Confession,” or that they “have deliberated and decided ‘parliamentary’, so to speak.” On the other hand, this does indicate that, “[T]here would be no ecclesial Confession where a plurality of members of the Church have not stood up as responsible for it, and, at least ideally, have cooperated in deliberation and decision about its content.” 27 In light of this ideal, Barth explains, “Even if, in fact, only a single person should be the author of the Confession, it is equally necessary that they, in fact, are, precisely, not alone, and do not speak only for their own person.” The author or authors of a Confession, therefore, are obligated to establish their deliberation and decision on the “widest possible ground,” and to ensure that “as many others as possible stand behind

54

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

and beside them.” While they are authorized to draft a Confession by the community’s antecedent intent, what they write also must be recognized by the community’s “subsequent explicit consent.” With such recognition and consent the whole community becomes “co-confessors” who are “coresponsible” for the Confession. 28 Although Barth distinguishes communal authorship from individual authorship, in reality, a Confession almost always emerges through some amalgamation of communal and individual activity. He takes the Lukan account of the Council of Jerusalem as recorded in Acts 15 as the model for his own account of the hybrid emergence of a Confession. Not only that, as we will see below, his own confessional labors during the Church Struggle follow this same pattern. In the Dogmatics, Barth evokes the Council only indirectly with an elliptical remark about its “lengthy disputation.” 29 Even so, he directly invokes Acts 15 a year earlier in his 1937 essay, “Conflict in the Church.” There, Barth says, “Whoever picks up this essay is asked, first of all, to read carefully through the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, verses 1–35.” 30 This shows that, as he wrote the first volume of the Dogmatics, and while he participated in the Church Struggle, Barth had this pattern in mind. The parallels between Luke’s narration of the Apostolic Council and Barth’s description of the Reformed Synods are obvious. Confession in the narrower sense emerges from confession in the wider sense when some challenge within confessio continua evolves into a controversy which the status confessionis resolves. In this case, the controversy is Gentile inclusion in the community apart from circumcision. It begins with Peter and Paul at Caesarea and Antioch, who decide to baptize Gentiles (Acts 11) and include them in table fellowship (Galatians 2) without circumcising them. In response, unnamed leaders from Judea and Jerusalem contest these decisions (Acts 11, Galatians 2). Representatives of these communities then meet to debate and deliberate at the Council. “After lengthy disputation,” as Barth puts it, the representatives decide to uphold the decisions of the Petrine and Pauline communities. And, although this decision is announced by James (an individual), Luke adds that the decision receives “the consent of the whole Church” (15:22). In giving their consent, the members of the several communities throughout Asia Minor become co-responsible co-confessors with Peter, Paul, James, and the representatives at the Council. In these respects, the pattern described in Acts 15 is, as one New Testament scholar puts it, “positively senatorial.” 31 On Barth’s emergent and expressive account, Reformed Confessions are not instituted “top down.” They are constituted “bottom up.” The rule of faith is neither hierarchical nor authoritarian. It is democratic and egalitarian. Now, as historical descriptions of the Jerusalem Council and actual Reformed Synods, we likely should take these admittedly idealized “senatorial” descriptions with a grain of salt. Barth himself does,

Democratic Faith

55

often adding caveats like “if everything proceeds rightly.” 32 Nevertheless, the democratic dimensions ingredient in Barth’s conception of confession are evident in the composition of Barmen. However, the continuity and consistency between Barth’s conception and the composition of the Declaration are obscured by the standard account of Barmen. THE COMPOSITION OF CONFESSION AT BARMEN Following Hitler’s appointment as chancellor of the Weimar Republic in January 1933, and his empowerment as Führer of the Reich in March, the Nazi regime embarked on an aggressive program of “incorporation” (Gleichschaltung). Everything from labor unions and professional associations to youth groups and sports teams were made official organizations of the party and the state. This included the Lutheran, Reformed, and United Protestant churches, which were being consolidated into a single Reich church under the leadership of the Faith Movement of German Christians. In response to this incorporation and Nazification, local and regional groups across Germany took steps to resist the German Christians and the Reich church. Resistance only intensified after the April imposition of the Aryan Paragraph. That September, Martin Niemöller, pastor of a prominent Lutheran congregation in suburban Berlin, founded the Pastor’s Emergency League to coordinate the emerging Confessing Movement. 33 The following year, the Nuremberg Committee was appointed to organize the May 1934 Synod on behalf of its more than seven thousands members and their congregations. 34 The standard account of the Barmen Declaration is Barth’s own recollection of the working group that drafted it at Frankfurt on May 15–16, 1934. When asked about that meeting and the origins of the Declaration by students at Tübingen in 1964, Barth replied with this often quoted remark: “While the Lutheran church slept, the Reformed remained awake.” 35 This remark is legendary, both in the sense that it has achieved mythic proportions, and in the sense that it is a mythical distortion. It gives the impression that the Declaration was drafted by a single author in a single sitting: by Barth himself. A 1953 letter to Wilhelm Niemöller reinforces this impression. There, Barth reports, “I revised the text of the six statements fortified by strong coffee and one or two Brazilian cigars.” 36 However, the historical and textual record contradict Barth’s recollections. As the footnote in the critical edition of his works, in which the remark to the students at Tübingen is published, warns, “In Barth’s representation, some things are not historically correct.” 37 (An afternoon of caffeine and nicotine do not a Confession make.) Despite their inaccuracy, Barth’s claims for sole authorship still exert enormous influence. His self-aggrandizing remarks remain the grand narrative of the Declaration.

56

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

This is due to the persistence and prominence of the theologians who repeat them. Douglas Bax, Arthur Cochrane, Gary Dorrien, David Fergusson, Timothy Gorringe, Stanley Hauerwas, and Dirkie Smit, among others, have popularized Barth’s account of Barmen. 38 But, above all, it is Eberhard Busch, who has canonized these remarks in his biography of Barth. 39 If possession is nine-tenths of the law, then, in this case, repetition is nine-tenths of the truth. Research since Barth’s death in 1968 has established a much more complicated and realistic account of the origins of the Barmen Declaration. However, it has not yet disestablished the legend of Barmen. That research begins with Barth’s own son, Christoph, who first recovered the textual prehistory of the Declaration. 40 Carstens Nicolaisen later revised the textual history of the critical period between its initial composition at Frankfurt on May 15–16 and its final adoption at Barmen on May 30–31. 41 Rolf Ahlers then further refined Nicolaisen’s account, and made it available to Anglophone scholars. 42 On one hand, this research reinforces Barth’s decisive role in the composition of the Declaration. On the other, it reintroduces the substantive role of Barth’s various collaborators. Barth’s report to Niemöller is closer to the truth. On the afternoon in question, May 15, as Barth says, he “revised the text of the six statements.” 43 He revised the text; a text that had been drafted earlier in the day during what he described to Charlotte von Kirschbaum as “good collaboration.” 44 Still, there is some truth to Barth’s claim, “It really was my text.” 45 The raw material for the Barmen Declaration was drawn from several texts that Barth had previously authored. Yet, in these cases as well, Barth had collaborators and co-authors. Before and beside these texts stand others; some of which Barth was a co-author, others of which he was not. In the year prior to the Barmen Synod, numerous declarations and Confessions had been drafted by the emerging Confessing Movement. These were local and regional statements that had not yet coalesced into a unified national front. We need not belabor their details. For our purposes, a catalog of the major documents and their primary authors is sufficient. The earliest is the January 1933 statement, Word and Confession to the Need and Confusion of Public Life, which was drafted by Hans Asmussen and issued by twenty-one pastors in the city of Altona. 46 In June, the Bielfeld Confession of the Westphalian Reformed Synod was drafted by a group of fifty pastors, and later signed by hundreds more. 47 Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Hermann Sasse co-authored the Bethel Confession of August 1933, in consultation with a small group of Lutheran pastors and theologians. 48 And a second working group, commissioned by the Nuremberg Committee to address the legal issues of the July 1933 Church Constitution, issued public declarations at Ulm and Kassel in April and May 1934, respectively. 49 By no means did Barth’s own efforts take place in a vacuum. 50

Democratic Faith

57

Those efforts began in May 1933 with the Düsseldorf Theses, of which Barth was a co-author. He collaborated with various groups within the Emergency League on the Elberfeld Theses and Rengsdorf Counter-Theses in June and November. 51 But the most important precedents for Barmen came the following year. At the January 1934 Reformed Synod, which also met at Barmen, Barth was the lead author of a first declaration whose official title was “Declaration of the Right Understanding of the Reformed Confessions for the German Evangelical Church Today.” And just two days before the Frankfurt consultation at which the second, more prominent, Barmen Declaration was drafted, Barth wrote four theses in consultation with members of the Confessing Circle at Bonn. After further revision by the leadership of the Circle, those theses were published as the Bonn Flyer. 52 This brings us to the Barmen Declaration itself, and the two-day consultation at Frankfurt during which the text was prepared. Here, the details are important. On May 2, the Nuremberg Committee commissioned Barth, along with Lutherans Thomas Breit and Hans Asmussen, to draft a theological declaration for consideration at the upcoming Confessing Synod. That Committee was chaired by Karl Koch, and included Theophil Wurm, Hans Meiser, Martin Niemöller, Karl Immer, and Gerhard Jacobi. These pastors, bishops, theologians, and superintendents, in turn, represented hundreds of congregations and communities across Germany. On May 7, at the request of Meiser, the Committee added Hermann Sasse to the working group, who was unable to attend the meeting at Frankfurt due to illness. Sasse sent Friedrich Hopf in his absence. But Hopf arrived too late to contribute. 53 As a result, the actual working group consisted of only Barth, Breit, and Asmussen. At Frankfurt, this working group served as the mandatary of the emerging Confessing Movement. Barth and Asmussen brought with them the fruits of their previous confessional labors: the Altona Confession, the Bonn Flyer, and the Declaration of the Right Understanding of the Reformed Confessions. Barth’s notes also mention the Düsseldorf Theses, the Elberfeld Theses, and the “eight points” of Heinrich Vogel’s Evangelical Answer to the Present Heresy. 54 Though it is the Barthian antecedents that won out, the wider work and words of the Movement also exert their influence. Altona, in particular, makes crucial contributions through the introductory lecture that Asmussen gave to open the Synod, and that was adopted with the Declaration as its official interpretation. The working group first set out two basic principles for the Declaration. First, the Protestant Church, as per its Constitution, was a federated communion of regional churches (plural), not an incorporated national church (singular). Second, the joint statement of the Reformed, Lutheran, and United churches, therefore, was to be understood as three concurrent judgments rather than a single pronouncement. The Declaration was to

58

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

be, as Barth later put it in the Dogmatics, “the choruses of the one voice.” With these principles in mind, they then set down the basic outline of the Declaration itself. After rejecting Asmussen’s proposal to use his Altona Confession, the working group came to agree on an outline based on the four theses of Barth’s Bonn Flyer, plus the crucial and controversial fifth thesis about Church and state proposed by Thomas Breit. That fifth thesis was based on the fourth point of the fifth thesis of Barth’s “Declaration of the Right Understanding of the Reformed Confessions.” 55 With these principles in mind, and this outline in hand, the group split up so that each could compose an individual draft of the Declaration. Due to a severe headache, Asmussen did, in fact, nap. Breit was preoccupied with several urgent phone calls. Only Barth was able to complete his draft. Despite his recollections, what Barth revised that afternoon was only the first five theses of what became the Barmen Declaration. The sixth thesis would not be added until a later session, and then, only after two rounds of revision. The product of Barth’s first labors, written in his own hand, is known as the Basel Manuscript. This was the initial working draft of the eventual Declaration. The Manuscript displays only superficial revisions to the four theses. These amplify those of the Bonn Flyer, but do not modify their substance. The Manuscript also includes the first draft of the lengthy “Preamble,” which integrates the Flyer’s far shorter version. It also features a thorough reworking of the fifth thesis, whose most significant revision is the addition of an explicit rejection of “incorporation” (Gelichschaltung). 56 Barth presented this version to Asmussen and Breit when they reconvened in the late afternoon. The trio worked, and reworked, this draft beginning that evening. Their work continued through the night, and into the early hours of the following morning. It included two distinct rounds of revisions to the Basel Manuscript that made three important changes. The first added quotations of Articles 1, 2.1, and 4.1 of the Church Constitution to the “Preamble.” This added a legal basis to the biblical and theological basis of the Declaration. The second included the “independent synods” of the Protestant churches among those communities who were to be represented by the Declaration. The third made subtle clarifications to Theses Three and Five. Thesis Three now described the Confessing Church as “the Church of sinners.” Thesis Five affirmed the state’s “exercise of force.” The new draft that emerged from these revisions is a typescript known as the Archetype. 57 The group continued to labor over the typescript throughout May 16. Asmussen’s and Barth’s copies both show extensive annotation, and no fewer than three rounds of further editing. These efforts produced some of the most important revisions to the Declaration. The first is an additional paragraph in the “Preamble” that made explicit the principles of ecclesiological federalism and confessional pluralism. This paragraph underscored that the Declaration was to be understood as the one voice

Democratic Faith

59

of the several churches. The second integrated the so-called Asmussen Addition to Thesis Two. This stated that the task of human obedience which follows from the gift of divine forgiveness includes “free and grateful service to God’s creatures.” The third adjusted the language of all the theses from rejecting “error” to rejecting “false doctrine.” This emphasized that the objections of the Declaration are theological in motivation even when they are political in application. The fourth, and most important, change is the composition of the sixth thesis. Although it stopped short of naming the Aryan Paragraph, it claimed that the ministry of the Church is for “all people,” and that this ministry cannot be curtailed by “arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, or plans.” With their work complete, the group signed their final draft, the Frankfurt Concord, and submitted it to the Nuremberg Committee. 58 The Committee quickly circulated the Concord to prominent members of Confessing circles. Criticism came just as quickly. As Ahlers observes, “The really difficult stretch of the history of the Barmen Declaration was the two-week interval between Frankfurt and the Synod at the end of May.” 59 On May 21, Lutheran theologians Hermann Sasse and Paul Althaus sent formal letters of complaint to Meiser. Their criticisms were twofold. As a matter of policy, they feared that a joint Lutheran, Reformed, and United declaration would, in effect, undermine the integrity of each of the three churches. They saw the Concord as a declaration of unification, rather than an expression of federation. As a matter of theology, they fought for a more pronounced accent on the significance of the orders of creation (family, people, state) and the independence of the two kingdoms (Church and State). In response to these criticisms, the Nuremberg Committee reconvened on May 22 in Leipzig in order to rescue the planned Synod from ruin. In the week between the Committee’s Leipzig meeting and the Synod’s opening in Barmen, Asmussen engaged in extensive “shuttle diplomacy” to hold together the tenuous coalition of the Lutheran and Reformed factions. 60 Karl Koch prepared a lightly revised draft for the Leipzig meeting that, in response to Sasse, played down the nature of the Declaration as a “confession,” and, in response to Althaus, played up the authority of the people and the state. During the meeting, Asmussen incorporated the Committee’s additional revisions into a new draft known as the Leipzig Counterproposal. Before adjourning, the Committee also commissioned three additional versions to be drafted by Asmussen, Breit, and Christian Stoll. In the days following Leipzig, Asmussen oversaw this editorial work. In addition to preparing his own draft, he met with Sasse at Erlangen on May 24. Their collaboration produced the Erlangen Counter-Proposal, which Asmussen carried to Munich that same day. There, he met again with Meiser, Stoll, and Breit, among others. With their approval, he proposed the Erlangen version to Koch in Frankfurt on May 25. With

60

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

Koch’s acceptance of this draft, he then traveled to Bonn on May 26 to consult Barth. 61 While Barth conceded that the Concord could not be proposed to the Synod unaltered, he rejected the Erlangen Counter-Proposal, and convinced Asmussen to abandon it. This meant that the Nuremberg Committee needed to cobble together yet another draft from the several competing versions that remained. In the end, Breit’s version came to nothing. Stoll’s version, which he entitled “A Message on the Ecclesiological Situation,” was more influential. It was circulated among delegates and observers at Barmen on May 29, the day before the Synod officially opened. Throughout that day and into the next morning, hundreds of people participated in ad hoc groups that considered Stoll’s “Message,” along with the Leipzig Counter-Proposal and the Frankfurt Concord. In consultation with those groups, the Committee discarded Stoll’s “Message” in favor of a new version of the Concord that integrated elements of the Leipzig Counter-Proposal. It was this version, the Proposal of the Theological Commission for the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church, along with Asmussen’s lecture, that the Committee submitted to the Synod for consideration. 62 The Synod itself engaged in two days of round-the-clock discussion, disputation, and deliberation on May 30–31. Asmussen’s introductory lecture opened the proceedings. Following the lecture, Koch referred the Proposal version to independent caucuses of delegates and observers from the Lutheran, Reformed, and United churches. The United caucus did not meet at all. The Reformed did so only briefly. But the Lutheran caucus met at length. Again at Barmen, as at Frankfurt, Leipzig, and Erlangen, there were serious criticisms about the character of the Proposal itself, the form of the unity it would effect if adopted, and the nature of the Church-State relationship in Thesis Five. At issue, were the status of Confession itself, the modus of natural theology and the orders of creation, as well as the political ethos of Christian faith. 63 In order to address these issues, the Lutheran caucus nominated a small group to form an Interconfessional Committee with members of the United and Reformed caucuses. That Committee included Barth and Asmussen, as well as Joachim Beckmann, Georg Merz, Wilhelm Niesel, Harmannus Obendiek, Eduard Putz, and Hermann Sasse. 64 This group met on the evening of May 30 and into the morning of May 31. During that meeting, Barth reformulated Thesis Five to respond to these issues, and to reflect the decisions taken by the Interconfessional Committee. The controversy between the Reformed and Lutheran factions was twofold. The primary point of controversy was the nature of the state’s authority in light of the doctrine of the orders of creation. The epicenter of this controversy was the language describing the state’s divine commission to provide justice and peace through threat and exercise of force. 65 Sasse and the Lutheran faction argued that the commission be described as an

Democratic Faith

61

“order” or “determination” (Ordnung). Barth and the Reformed faction asserted that it be described as an “ordination” or “disposition” (Anordnung). The proximity of these terms is rooted in the subtle semantic distinctions of scholastic Latin (ordo versus ordinationes), which reveal just how close together they are. The incompatibility of their substance betrays just how far apart they are. Orders are permanent resolutions of the divine will. They are “original” (ursprünglich). Ordinations are provident regulations of the divine will. They are “historical” (geschichtlich). As Barth explains in the third volume of the Dogmatics, “God’s governance of world-occurrence is permanent, but God’s individual dispositions and ordinances have their time and hour, then dissolve, and are replaced by new ones.” 66 On this point, Barth and the Reformed held the line, thus limiting the status of the state, and denying it the authority of an order of creation. 67 The secondary point of controversy was the relationship of Church and State in light of the doctrine of the two kingdoms. The Basel, Archetype, Concord, and Proposal versions all limit the damnatio clause to a condemnation of the totalitarian pretensions that the state could incorporate the Church. The Leipzig, Erlangen, and Stoll versions each, in their own way, inserted parallel condemnations of ecclesiastical pretensions that the Church could insinuate itself into the workings of the state. The Lutheran faction insisted that, while the state was wrong to impose the Aryan Paragraph on the Church, the Church was equally wrong to oppose its application in the state. Just as the state could not interfere with the liberty of the Church, the Church could not interfere with the sovereignty of the state. The two kingdoms, Church and State, are mutually and reciprocally independent. On this point, Sasse and the Lutherans carried the day, thus limiting the ability of the Confessing Church to oppose the Nazi Reich in the wider sociopolitical sphere. 68 Two additional revisions took place during the overnight session of the Interconfessional Committee. In the process of revising the damnatio in order to formulate parallel condemnations of ecclesial and political overreaching, explicit mention of “incorporation” (Gleichschaltung) was deleted. This deletion blunts the specific force of the condemnation of the Reich. It further reinforces the state’s independence from ecclesial interference. Even so, the Committee added another parallel clause in the main body of the Thesis. Barth revised the clause about the Kingdom of God to underscore the “responsibility of both rulers and ruled.” The overall effect of these several revisions was to align Thesis Five with a more Lutheran understanding of the state and the social order. This realignment was reinforced by Asmussen’s introductory lecture. In his commentary on Thesis Five, he reinstates a phrase added to Thesis Four in the Concord version, but deleted in the Proposal version. This clause concedes that the Church is not competent to assess the State. In the phrasing of the Concord: “We reject the false doctrine that the church

62

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

could and were permitted to—or is allowed to have given to it—apart from this ministry, special “leaders” [i.e., Führer], vested with powers to rule, following the model of certain forms of state, about whose legitimacy and value as such the Church has no judgment.” 69 In the phrasing of the lecture: “about which we allow ourselves no judgment.” 70 While rejecting the Führerprinzip within the Church, the Declaration defers, rather than demurs, about its application in the State. With the interconfessional controversy settled, the Committee submitted a final draft, whose official title is the Theological Declaration Concerning the Present Situation of The German Evangelical Church. When the Synod reconvened on May 31, the reformulated draft was distributed to delegates and observers for review during a mid-morning recess. Following that recess, Asmussen gave a report on the reformulation. After several hearty affirmations, and not a few rousing floor speeches, Koch called the question. With none opposing and none abstaining, this version of the Barmen Declaration was adopted unanimously. 71 All told, the Barmen Declaration went through no fewer than eight distinct versions, which resulted from more than a dozen identifiable rounds of revision. The raw materials and the final product are decisively, but not nearly exclusively, Barthian. All things considered, it was fair for Barth to say to the students at Tübingen, “It really was my text.” But when the composition of the Declaration is reconsidered, it was fanciful for him to say, as he did to John Godsey, that he “wrote all of it except nineteen words added by Asmussen.” 72 Altogether, Barmen had at least five co-authors and ten direct contributors, to say nothing of the hundreds of indirect contributors among the delegates and observers of the Synod. The Barmen Declaration really was a work of the people, just as Barth says a Reformed Confession should be. Even if he himself did not remember that it was. THE POLITICS OF REFORMED CONFESSION On Barth’s account of Reformed confession, and on my account of the Barmen Declaration, confession takes place within communal hearing and receiving of the Word of God. Confession comes into existence as the Word is heard and received through communal interpretation and application of scripture. Confession emerges through disputation, deliberation, and decision about the interpretation of the text of scripture and its application in the context of the community. Whether this results in the ordinary, informal decisions of confessio continua, or the extraordinary, formal decisions of a status confessionis, confession is, and must be, a communal action. 73 Although it may fall to one or two to speak and act on behalf of the community in the status confessionis as the author(s) of a Confession, what they say rises from what the community already is

Democratic Faith

63

saying and doing in their confessio continua. Reflecting on this dynamic in the context of the South African Church Struggle, Klippies Kritzinger puts it like this: “Once a Confession has been formally approved by a Reformed church, that church ‘speaks’ or ‘confesses’ in that particular Confession, not the individual authors who formulated it or the committee that proposed it to the church. It is communal authorship and ownership that is operative here.” 74 Following Barth’s lead and Barmen’s example, we might say that it is democratic authorship that is operative here. The praxis of democratic authorship elaborated by Barth and embodied by Barmen not only governs the form of Reformed confession. It guides the content of Reformed political theology. Barth explicitly makes the connection between confessional form and political content in several speeches from the period following his deportation from Germany. In “Justification and Justice,” he writes, “[I]f we find ourselves on the ground of legitimate interpretation anywhere, then it is precisely in the extension of the New Testament line of thought to the ‘democratic’ sense of the state.” 75 The line Barth has in mind here, is an interpretation and application of Romans 13. While Paul can only imagine the state as an authoritarian empire, Barth, echoing Barmen’s fifth thesis, observes that, in the modern state, we cannot imagine ourselves as mere subjects. We must recognize ourselves, and one another, as citizens who are “personally co-responsible for the state.” 76 In our political situation, other citizens are among the governing authorities to which we mutually submit ourselves, and to whom governing authorities themselves must reciprocally submit. Barth repeats these claims in “The Christian Community and the Civil Community.” There, he argues, “[T]he Christian-political direction and line that arises from the gospel betrays a striking affinity for the side of what is generally and commonly referred to as the ‘democratic’ state.” 77 This time the inference is Johannine, rather than Pauline. In response to questions about this claim during one of his table talks, Barth relies on the farewell discourse of the fourth Gospel. He replies, “In Jesus Christ, we are all brothers [and sisters]: this is the point that tends toward democracy. . . . Jesus is the head of his disciples and made them brothers [and sisters]. Brotherhood [and sisterhood] are close to the democratic idea.” 78 In the speech about the two communities, Barth depicts the proximity of Christian discipleship and democratic citizenship using the geometrical metaphor of concentric circles. The two communities relate to one another as an “inner” and “outer” circle that share a common origin and center in Christ. Because they share this common origin and center, both communities correspond analogically to the Kingdom of God. The inner circle of the Christian community does so directly. The outer circle of the civil community does so indirectly. 79 The Christian-political line extends from this common origin and center through priestly ecclesial service within the inner circle and prophetic political service within the outer

64

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

circle. In this outer, prophetic political service, the Christian community serves as the “model” and “prototype” of the civil community. 80 To refuse this prophetic political service would be to contradict the community’s own confession. Barth briefly remarks upon this prototypical function of the Christian community in the earlier speech, “Justification and Justice,” as well. He reflects on it at length much later, in the second part of volume four of the Dogmatics under the heading, “The Order of the Community.” 81 In the earlier speech, Barth characterizes the Church-State relationship like this. “[T]here is and must be within the Church itself—and here the strong relationship to the earthly state in which it stands asserts itself—something like a commonwealth (I deliberately choose an indefinite term, because it corresponds to the object): with its offices and orders, divisions of labor, and forms of community. This is called ecclesiastical law.” 82 In the later Dogmatics, he defines this ecclesiastical law as “confessing-law.” 83 He describes the Christian community as a “community of law” whose form of life is “brotherly [and sisterly] Christocracy” or a “Christocratic brotherhood [and sisterhood].” 84 Once more, he depicts confessing-law as “exemplary law.” 85 Despite all its theological particularity and ecclesial specificity, the prophetic political service of confessing-law points the way to a “somewhat better justice, somewhat more earnest order, somewhat more secure peace, somewhat more genuine freedom, somewhat more solid preservation and formation of human life and coexistence.” 86 Because the Christian community itself is a Christocratic commonwealth, its prophetic political service in the civil community is the pursuit of a democratic Rechtsstaat. 87 These claims about the prophetic political service of the Christian community and the democratic form of the civil community often are seen as sheer assertion. For example, Nigel Biggar complains that Barth’s inferences in “The Christian Community and the Civil Community,” in his words, “move with excessive haste from theological affirmation to moral conclusion. . . . We see the premise. We see the conclusion. We hear the assertion of logical necessity. What we miss is the moral analysis.” 88 Writing about “Justification and Justice,” Todd Cioffi similarly argues, “[Barth] does not adequately uncover the ‘material’ connections and implications of divine justification for human justice.” 89 To be fair to Biggar and Cioffi, if read by themselves, these texts do move rather quickly. Barth posits a formal connection between justification and justice, between the Christian community and the civil community. He does not present the material connection, at least not in sufficient detail. Nevertheless, to be fair to Barth, when read in the wider context of his other writings—particularly his writings on the theology of Reformed confession, and, especially, the Barmen Declaration—the moral analysis and material connection are presented elsewhere. 90 They may go missing here. But they do not go missing altogether.

Democratic Faith

65

Barth’s commitment to democracy is not doctrinaire ideology. 91 It is doctrinal analogy. The political claims he makes in these later writings are grounded in the particular theological claims of the Barmen Declaration, which, in turn, are founded on his general conception of Reformed confession. Because Word and Spirit are given to all Christians in full measure, each is due an equal measure of authority and freedom within the Christian community. The priesthood of all believers is an ecclesiological consequence of a Reformed conception of revelation and pneumatology. Because the Christian community is a prototype for the civil community, this, in turn, means that the state’s sociopolitical organization must be structured similarly. The equality of citizens is a further political inference from these same doctrines. The material connection between confessional form and political content that is implicit in the Barmen Declaration and explicit in these speeches is an analogical extension of Reformed theological principles for the rule of faith into democratic political principles for the rule of law. This analogical extension originates in the fact that Christ exercises lordship as a servant rather than a tyrant; that he calls his disciples friends not slaves (John 15:14–16). Taken together, this lordship and fellowship generate a Christological principle of non-domination, such that Christians do not lord over one another as pagan rulers do (Matthew 20:25–28). This principle animates the third and fourth theses of the Barmen Declaration. The third describes the Christian community as a “community of brothers [and sisters],” and, thus, denies the place of “special leaders” (Führer) in their midst. The fourth invokes this principle as its scriptural rationale, and, thus, affirms that the priestly service of discipleship is “entrusted and commanded to the entire community.” According to Barth and Barmen alike, the rule of faith is a form of self-rule in which each member of the community contributes to the common wisdom and shared judgments of all. This, in turn, motivates a political principle for the rule of law. Because the two communities are neither two adjacent orders (Luther) nor adjoining spheres (Kuyper), but a single differentiated order, the ecclesiological principles of discipleship are a model for the political principles of citizenship. We see this in the fifth thesis of Barmen. Despite the fact that the tandem condemnations of the damnatio compromise with a more deferential Lutheran sense of state sovereignty, Thesis Five, nevertheless, affirms that the Christian community “calls to mind the Kingdom of God, God’s commandment, and God’s justice, and thereby the responsibility of both rulers and ruled.” 92 With such reminders, the Christian community fulfils its prophetic political service within the civil community, through which “rulers and ruled are summoned” to what, in his 1937–1938 lectures on the Scots Confession, Barth calls “the order of outward justice, outward peace, and outward freedom.” 93 According to Barth and Barmen alike, because the Christian community and the civil

66

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

community both are analogies of Christ’s lordship and Kingdom, each is a community of co-responsibility in which members are mutually accountable, not only before God, but also to one another. What Barth calls the “Christian-political line” and “striking tendency” from scripture to democracy, I call “the politics of Reformed confession.” Political philosophers sometimes call it “democratic faith.” Although most commonly associated with John Dewey, democratic faith finds expression in religious thinkers as diverse as Cornel West and G.K. Chesterton. 94 In Dewey’s canonical formulation: “While what we call intelligence may be distributed in unequal amounts, it is in the democratic faith that it is sufficiently general so that each individual has something to contribute, and the value of each contribution can be assessed only as it entered into the final pooled intelligence constituted by the contributions of all.” 95 In Chesterton’s consonant formulation: “In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary human beings themselves—the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state. This is democracy; and in this I have always believed.” 96 For Dewey and Chesterton alike, democratic faith is an anti-elitist trust in the intelligence and wisdom of ordinary individuals, especially in concert with that of others in their community. Like Dewey and Chesterton, Barth too is a proponent of a kind of democratic faith. As we have seen, Barth also trusts the wisdom and conscience of the laity. Confession, in both the wider and narrower sense, is the work of the people. The historic Confessions are works of democratic authorship. Because the form of Reformed confession determines the content of Reformed political theology, Barth transposes the ecclesiological principles of discipleship into political principles of citizenship. He accordingly places a trust in the citizenry of the civil community that corresponds with that which he places in the laity within the Christian community. This correspondence, of course, is only by analogy. But, nevertheless, it is by analogy. It is by an “analogy of citizenship” (analogia civitas) in which Reformed ecclesiology iterates as democratic polity. CONCLUSION The Barmen Declaration is a landmark of Reformed political theology. Though not perfect, it remains a paradigmatic example of prophetic social witness that both confesses the gospel and critiques the powers. 97 But if Barmen is to be a living word rather than a dead letter, it is not enough for us to appreciate its historical significance. We must appropriate its contemporary relevance. As Busch remarks in his lectures commemorating the Declaration’s 70th anniversary, “[T]he Confession of the Church must not be left at home in a museum, but rather must be carried in front of them, and they must go behind it, when they move into their battles. It

Democratic Faith

67

is not enough for the Church to have a Confession. They must live by it.” 98 Barmen cannot be merely “handed on.” It must be “taken up.” Barth himself says much the same. In the “Preface” to the fourth part of the third volume of the Dogmatics, he writes, “‘Confessions’ exist in order that one may go through them (not just once, but again and again), but not in order that one return to them, to settle down in them, and then to continue to think from them, and in bondage to them.” 99 Here, Barth reminds us that the status confessionis is neither a hiatus in confessio continua nor its terminus. A Confession like Barmen is simply one particular modus, and one specific focus, in the Christian community’s daily task of confessing. Like all theology, the Confessions are always and only a “freeze-frame portrait of a bird in flight” that captures but one moment in the ongoing movement of the history of God. 100 We must not make the movement of ongoing confessing captive to the moment of a Confession. As Barth explains in the first volume of the Dogmatics, “Confession cannot, and will not, relieve us of our own responsibility to scripture.” 101 We must be directed by Barmen, but not dictated to by the Declaration. We are responsible to go on “in the same way.” Yet, we must do so “in our own way.” 102 As we have seen, Barmen asserts that this responsibility is part of the ministry that is “entrusted and commanded to the entire community,” to each and every member. In his lectures on the Scots Confession, Barth likewise insists, “No one is released from the task of hearing the Word of God, and no one is less substantially involved than others. All are hearers, and for that very reason, all are priests.” 103 Each of us exercises our own responsibility, but only in the company of the community whose other members do the same. As interpretation of scripture, we do so via the scholastic exegetical process of explication, meditation, and application. 104 As confession of faith, we do so via the democratic praxis of disputation, deliberation, and decision. In this, the form of confessing by which we come “to have” Barmen is as important as the content of the Declaration by which we are “to live.” The political theology of Barmen and Barth alike, what I have called the politics of Reformed confession, has as much to do with the process of confessing through which Barmen was composed as with the Declaration that was produced. A Confession like Barmen is both a timeless reiteration of the primitive faith: Christos kurios, as well as a timely iteration of the faith in the context of what Barth calls the “contemporary questions that agitate the Church and the world.” 105 In our day and time, the questions that agitate the Christian community and the civil community alike once again are approaching what Barth calls the idolatrous “anti-Church” and the murderous “anti-State” of totalitarianism. 106 Now, as then, our confessional responsibility requires both priestly ecclesial service within the Christian community and prophetic political service within the civil community. In the face of resurgent nativism, xenophobia, and white supremacy, our

68

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

confessional praxis will more resemble the faith-based grassroots organizing of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of the civil rights movement than the dogmatic colloquies of the Reformation. This difference notwithstanding, our own confessional praxis will remain a mode of discerning the witness of our faith through communal interpretation and application of scripture. Like Barmen, this witness will be no less “confessional” for its being all the more “political.” NOTES 1. Karl Barth, Die Theologie der Reformierten Bekenntnisschriften (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1923); Karl Barth, The Theology of the Reformed Confessions, trans. Darrell L. Guder and Judith J. Guder (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002); Karl Barth, “Wünschbarkeit und Möglichkeit Eines Allgemeinen Reformierten Glaubensbekenntnisses,” in Vorträge und Kleinere Arbeiten 1922–1925 (GA 111.19), (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1990); Karl Barth, “The Desirability and Possibility of a Universal Reformed Confession,” in Theology and Church (New York: Harper and Row, 1962). Initial citations of sources will note bibliographic information for both English and German editions. Subsequent citations will refer to the English edition, but include both English and German pagination. Translations throughout are my own. In most cases, I follow the standard translations with only minor revisions. I indicate only those cases where I make major revisions. 2. Karl Barth, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/2: Die Lehre Vom Wort Gottes (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1932); Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 1/2: The Doctrine of the Word of God, trans. George Thomson and Harold Knight (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956). Hereafter, CD. Subsequent citations will be by Volume and Part, Section and Subsection, English and German pagination: e.g., CD 1/2 §1.1, 10/12. 3. Karl Barth, Community, State, and Church: Three Essays (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2004). These texts were originally published as follows: Karl Barth, “Evangelium Und Gesetz,” Theologische Existenz heute 32 (1935); Karl Barth, “Rechtfertigüng Und Recht,” Theologische Studien 1 (1938); Karl Barth, “Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde,” in Texte Zur Barmer Theologischen Erklärung (Zürich: Theologisher Verlag, 1984). I have corrected the English title of the 1938 essay (“Church and State”) to match the original German title (“Rechtfertigüng und Recht”). In what follows, I will quote from its republication in A Swiss Voice (Karl Barth, “Rechtfertigüng und Recht,” in Eine Schweizer Stimme 1938–1945. Zürich: Evangelicher Verlag, 1945). 4. Although the Declaration was drafted and adopted by a mixed Synod of Lutheran, Reformed, and United Protestants in the German Confessing Church, its most lasting influence has been among several Reformed churches who, unlike their Lutheran counterparts, have adopted Barmen as a confessional standard (see, Eberhard Busch, The Barmen Theses Then and Now: The 2004 Warfield Lectures At Princeton Theological Seminary, trans. Darrell L. Guder and Judith J. Guder. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010, 16). For that reason, I will focus on the contemporary relevance for Reformed political theology. 5. CD 1/2 §20, 538/598. 6. CD 1/2 §21, 661/741. 7. Barth, “Desirability,” 112/610 translation revised—emphasis in original. Two notes on my translation. First, I’ve rendered örtlich umschrieben as “locally or regionally circumscribed” for two reasons. Terminologically, I have done so because örtlich can mean either “local” or “regional.” Theologically, I have done so because Barth elsewhere speaks of Confession as both local and regional. As such, this rendering is more precise than the standard translation’s “geographically limited.” Second, the standard translation adheres more rigidly to the syntactical structure of the sentence. Doing so,

Democratic Faith

69

the qualifiers of a confessional statement (public, local, provisional, etc.) appear before its substance (the revelation of God in Christ to the Church through scripture). In contrast, I have rendered the sentence according to its logic, beginning with the substance of the sentence, with its qualifiers following. I do so because Barth’s explication of this thesis follows this order. He begins with revelation, scripture, and the Church. He then goes on to the locality, publicity, and provisionality of a Confession. 8. Ibid., 116/616. C.f., Barth, Reformed Confessions, 23/38. 9. Barth, “Desirability,” 116/617. 10. Ibid., 117/618. I have rendered the Latin mandatar literally as “mandatary” in order to signal the technical political and juridical nature of Barth’s description. The word “mandatary” is an arcane legal term dating from the fifteenth century that originally designated a papal appointee. To this day, officially recognized Catholic theologians bear a mandatum from the bishop of Rome. More generally, a mandatary is a legally-designated representative who is empowered to speak and to act on behalf of another. They exercise plenipotentiary authority delegated to them by those they represent. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid., 117/617. The idiomatic phrase Barth uses to describe this condescension is quite vivid (sich nicht so gängeln von oben herab). It can mean to be spoon-fed like a baby, to have one’s hands held like a toddler, to be put on a leash like a dog, or to be controlled by strings like a puppet. 13. Ibid., 117/619. 14. Ibid., 117/618. 15. 15 CD 1/1 §1.1, 1/2-3. 16. CD 1/2 §20.2, 620/693, emphasis in original. 17. For Barth, it is crucial that we understand confession as praxis, action, and event. 18. Ibid., 588/656. 19. Ibid., 594/663. 20. Ibid., 591/659. 21. See Ibid., 585–597/652–666. In addition to the substantive (wide and narrow), Barth also uses the comparative (wider and narrower) and superlative (widest and narrowest) to draw this distinction. 22. Ibid., 588/655. 23. Busch, Barmen, 8. In what follows, I will use Confession (uppercase) to indicate the narrower sense of the concept, the task of Synods and Councils, and the documents that result. I will use confession (lowercase) to indicate both the wider sense of the concept and the entire praxis of confession that is continuous across both senses. 24. CD 1/2 §20.2, 629/704. 25. Ibid., 593/662. 26. Ibid., 637/713. 27. Ibid., emphasis added. 28. Ibid. 29. CD 1/2 §20.1, 593/661. 30. This essay was first printed in the church magazine, Leben and Glauben (Karl Barth, “Streit in der Kirche,” Leben and Glauben 12, no. 6 1937). It is included in the Gesamtausgabe, somewhat misleadingly, in a volume of Barth’s sermons (Karl Barth, “Streit in der Kirche,” in Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe: Predigten 1935–1952. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1996). The essay also was reprinted in Theologische Existenz Heute in an issue collecting a number of Barth’s writings on the Church Struggle (Karl Barth, “Streit im der Kirche,” Theologische Existenz Heute, Neue Folge, no. 49 1956). In the English edition of this reprint, T.H.L. Parker mistakenly cites the essay as appearing in a 1933 issue of Theologische Existenz Heute (Karl Barth, “Conflict in the Church,” in The German Church Conflict, ed. T.H.L. Parker 1965, 11 note 1). 31. Douglas A. Campbell, “Seven Chapters in a Life of Paul,” unpublished (2006), 23.

70

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

32. Barth, “Desirability,” 117/618 emphasis added. 33. For the overall history of the Church Struggle, see Klaus Scholder, Die Kirchen und Das Dritte Reich: Vorgeschichte und Zeit der Illusionen 1918–1934 (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1977); Klaus Scholder, Die Kirchen und Das Dritte Reich: Das Jahr der Ernüchterung 1934: Barmen und Rom (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1985); Gerhard Beiser, Die Kirchen und Das Dritte Reich: Spaltungen und Abwehrkämpfe 1934 Bis 1937 (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 2001). The first two volumes are available in translation: Klaus Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich: Preliminary History and the Time of Illusions 1918–1934 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988); Klaus Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich: The Year of Disillusionment 1934: Barmen and Rome (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988). For the documentary history of the Struggle’s statements, declarations, and confessions, see Kurt Dietrich Schmidt, Die Bekenntnisse und Grundsätzlichen Äusserungen Zur Kirchenfrage 1: Das Jahr 1933 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, 1934); Kurt Dietrich Schmidt, Die Bekenntnisse und Grundsätzlichen Ausserungen Zur Kirchenfrage II: Das Jahr 1934 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, 1935). 34. Wilhelm Niemöller, Der Pfarrernotbund: Geschichte einer Kämpfenden Bruderschaft (Hamburg: Wittig, 1973), 58–59. 35. Karl Barth, “Gesprach Mit Tübinger Stiftlern (2.3.1964),” in Gespräche 1964–1968, ed. Eberhard Busch (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1964), 113. 36. Letter to Wilhelm Niemöller, 17 October 1953. See, Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life From Letters and Autobiographical Texts, trans. John Bowden (London: S.C.M. Press, 1976), 245. 37. Barth, “Gesprach Mit Tübinger,” 113. 38. See e.g., Arthur C. Cochrane, The Church’s Confession Under Hitler (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962), 176; Douglas Bax, “The Barmen Theological Declaration: Its Historical Context,” Journal of Theology far Southern Africa 47 (1984), 19; Timothy Gorringe, Karl Barth: Against Hegemony (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 128; Gary J. Dorrien, The Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology: Theology Without Weapons (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 81; Dirkie Smit, “Social Transformation and Confessing the Faith? Karl Barth’s Views on Confession Revisited,” Scriptura 77 (2000), 78; Stanley Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2001), 168–70; David Fergusson, Church, State and Civil Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 118. 39. See Busch, Karl Barth, 245–48. C.f., Eberhard Busch, “How the Church Was Once Courageous: The Story of the Barmen Declaration,” unplublished essay (1984), 10–11 and Busch, Barmen, 7. 40. Christoph Barth, Bekenntnis Im Werden. Neue Quellen Zur Entstehung Der Barmer Erklärung (Neukirchen Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1979). 41. Carstens Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen: Die Enstehungsgeschichte der Theologischen Erklärung Von 1934 (Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985). 42. Rolf Ahlers, The Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934: The Archaeology of a Confessional Text (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986). Ahlers helpfully includes a short chapter on the “History of the Research on the Barmen Declaration” (1–5). 43. See ibid., 18–20 and 91–92. 44. See Barth, Bekenntnis, 24 note 76. 45. Barth, “Gespräch Mit Tübinger,” 113. 46. See Rolf Ahlers, “The Confession of Altona,” Harvard Theological Review 77, no. 3–4 (1984). 47. See Cochrane, Church’s Confession, 101–2. 48. See Carstens Nicolaisen, “Concerning the History of the Bethel Confession,” in Berlin 1932–1933 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009). 49. See Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 14–15. C.f., Scholder, Churches, 132–36 and 145. This group included theologians like Friedrich Milner, Gunther Harder, and Johannes Graeber; as well as lawyers Eberhard Fiedler, Hans Meinzolt, and Wilhelm Flor.

Democratic Faith

71

50. Schmidt identifies seventy-five confessional documents, from both sides of the Church Struggle, in 1933 alone (see, Bekenninisse I). 51. See Cochrane, Church’s Confession, 120–23 and 229; Karl Barth, “Lutherfeier,” Theologische Existenz Heute 4 (1933); Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 103–5. 52. See Barth, Bekenninis, 36–56; Rolf Ahlers, “The First Barmen Declaration of January 4, 1934,” Reformed Journal 34, no. 5 (1984); Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 27–31 and 73; Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 11–14 and 107–20. 53. See Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 14–15; Scholder, Churches, 133–37. 54. Ibid., 103–5. 55. See ibid., 16–18, 105–15, and 129; Ahlers, “First Barmen Declaration.” C.F. Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 27–36 and 74–76. 56. See Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 17–18 and 91–95. 57. See ibid., 19, 85–89, and 219 note 34. 58. See ibid., 18–19 and 91–95. C.F. Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 74–79. 59. Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 20. 60. See ibid., 21–23 and 73–77. C.F. Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 36–46, 83–88. 61. See Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 41–46; Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 22–24. 62. See Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 25–26 and 67–71. C.F. Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 101–8 and 164–92. 63. See ibid., 26–27 and 43–61. C.F. Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 140–46. 64. It is worth noting that Obendiek and Niesel were not official delegates to the Synod, but only observers. 65. The Committee changed “security” to “peace” at the suggestion of Hermann Sasse (Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 30). 66. CD 111/4 §54.3, 301/341. Note that the context of this claim is Barth’s consideration of nation and people (Volk). 67. See Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 30–31 and 63–66. C.F. Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 142–45. 68. See ibid., 30–31 and 63–66. C.F. Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 142–45. 69. Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 181; Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 83–84 translation revised, emphasis added. 70. Ibid., 134; Ahlers, Barmen Declaration of 1934, 58, translation revised. 71. See Cochrane, Church’s Confession, 164–69. C.F. Nicolaisen, Der Weg Nach Barmen, 47–69. It should be noted that, even with the reformulation of Thesis Five, Sasse was so dissatisfied with the Declaration that he left the Synod in protest prior to the final vote. 72. John Godsey, “Epilogue: Barth as a Teacher,” in For the Sake of the World: Karl Barth and the Future of Ecclesial Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004), 208. 73. CD 1/2, 20.2, 588/655. 74. Klippies Kritzinger, “Celebrating Communal Authorship: The Theological Declaration of the Belydende Kring (1979) and the Belhar Confession,” Studio Historiae Ecclesiasticae 36, no. Supplement (2010), 210, first emphasis in original, second added. The South African Confessing Church modelled itself on the example of the German Confessing Church. They took the Barmen Declaration as a precedent for their own Belhar Confession. Like Barmen, several authors collaborated on Belhar. And they incorporated several previous texts into it. 75. Karl Barth, “Justice and Justification,” 145/54. 76. Ibid., 144/53–54. 77. Barth, “The Christian Community and the Civil Community,” 181/127. 78. Karl Barth, Karl Barth’s Table Talk (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 2011), 80–81. C.f., John 14–17. 79. Barth, “The Christian Community and the Civil Community,” 156/96–97. 80. Barth, “The Christian Community and the Civil Community,” 168–169/112. C.f., Karl Barth, Gotteserkenntnis Und Gottesdienst Nach Reformatorischer Lehre: (Zollikon: Verlag der Evangelischen Buchhandlung, 1938), 203–16; Karl Barth, The Knowledge of

72

Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman

God and the Service of God According to the Teaching of the Reformation: Recalling the Scottish Confession of 1560 (Gifford Lectures 1937 & 1938), trans. J.L.M. Haire and Ian Henderson (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005), 227–32. 81. CD IV/2 §67.4, 675–726/765–824. 82. Barth, “Justice & Justification,” 132/41–42, emphasis added. The indefinite term is the Greek πολιτεία. This term can refer to citizenship as a general concept, to the specific conditions and rights of the citizen, or the community of citizens. Since Barth is discussing the term in the context of Ephesians 2, and since that passage usually renders the term as commonwealth, I have followed suit. 83. CD IV/2 §67.4, 682–683/773. 84. Ibid., 680 and 683/770 and 773 emphasis in original. Barth borrows these terms from Erik Wolfe. 85. Ibid., 719/815 emphasis in original. 86. Ibid., 723/820 emphasis in original. 87. I will leave Rechtsstaat untranslated in order to signal that it is a technical term that encompasses several of the common English translations. A Rechtsstaat is a “just state” whose basic political structures and social arrangements are in right order. It is a “justice-state” whose structures and arrangements are governed by the rule of law. It is a “constitutional-state” whose rule of law is codified in a constitution. It is each and all of these things. 88. Nigel Biggar, “Saving the Secular: The Public Vocation of Theology,” Journal of Religious Ethics 37, no. 1 (2009), 29. 89. Todd Cioffi, “Karl Barth and the Varieties of Democracy: A Response to David Haddorff s ‘Barth and Democracy: Political Witness Without Ideology’,” in Commanding Grace: Studies in Barth’s Ethics, ed. Daniel L. Migliore (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 123. Cioffi’s critique is more constructive than Biggar’s. Where Biggar rejects Barth’s claims, Cioffi attempts to revise them, and to give them a firmer basis. In this, I take my efforts here to complement his. Cioffi’s suggestion is to look to the second volume of the Dogmatics. There, Barth, first, identifies the formal connection between justification and justice as entailed by the covenantal pattern of relationship and requirement. To receive the gift of the gospel (justification) is to recognize the task of the law (justice) that comes packaged with it (II/1 §30.2, 385–387/434–435). The formal connection between justification and justice is one part of Barth’s Gospel-Law Thesis. In an excursus on Romans 13, Barth, then, specifies the material connection as reconciliation (11/2 §38.3, 713–732/796–818). Expressed and embodied as a political reality, reconciliation requires that relationships, decisions, and distributions of the benefits and burdens associated with common life are characterized by altruism and cooperation rather than antagonism and competition. 90. Barth himself draws the connection between Barmen and “The Christian Community and the Civil Community,” quoting the Declaration five times (see, 152/92, 156/98, 161/103, 162/103, and 188/136). 91. Barth clearly states that democracy is not the Kingdom of God, nor is it the only form for the kingdoms of this world (see, ibid., 167/110 and 181/127). 92. I have rendered Gerechtigkeit as “justice” rather than “righteousness,” because, here, the context and connotations are political rather than theological. 93. Barth, Knowledge of God, 221. 94. For a recent critical appraisal of democratic faith, see Patrick J. Deneen, Democratic Faith (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). 95. John Dewey, “Democracy and Educational Administration,” in The Later Works: Volume 2:1935–1937 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987), 220. 96. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959), 84. For West’s rendering, see Cornel West, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (New York: Penguin Press, 2004). 97. The central failure of the Declaration is its silence on the so-called Jewish Question (Judenfrage) and the increasingly vicious antisemitism of the Reich, for which Barth and the Confessing Church are criticized, and rightly so (See, e.g., Wolfgang

Democratic Faith

73

Gerlach, “The Attitude of the Confessing Church Toward German Jews in the Third Reich and the Way After,” in The Barmen Confession: Papers From a Symposium Held April 26–29, 1984, At the University of Washington, ed. Hubert G. Locke (Queenstown, ON: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986); Katherine Sonderegger, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew: Karl Barth’s “Doctrine of Israel” (State College: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992). Unlike other confessional statements from 1933–1934, including the membership pledge of the Pastor’s Emergency League, Barmen mentions neither antisemitism in general, nor the Aryan Paragraph in particular. Its focus is more on the fact that the state is imposing on the church than on what is being imposed. The issue it addresses is totalitarianism, rather than antisemitism. Even so, Barmen was drafted in 1934, prior to the Nuremberg Laws (1935) and Kristallnacht (1938), as well as the establishment of the ghettos (1939) and extermination programs (1941). In light of those later events, the Confessing Church could have taken subsequent stands against antisemitism on the basis of the five theses. Surely the “grateful service of God’s creatures” (Thesis Two) and the responsibility of the ruled for justice (Thesis 5) not only allowed, but demanded, resistance to abrogation of civil liberties and outright extermination of fellow citizens. The fact that Barmen itself did not say anything about antisemitism does not mean that the Confessing Church could not do something about antisemitism (see Busch, “How the Church.”). This is not to say that antisemitism was not yet sufficiently serious in 1934 to be addressed by Barmen. It was. The fact that the several confessional writings of 1933, including Barth’s, do so proves this. It is only to say that the initial error of neglecting the specific issue of the Aryan Paragraph—or, at least, of subordinating it to the procedural issue of ecclesial independence—need not have led to the eventual catastrophe of ignoring the Final Solution. 98. Busch, Barmen, 4, emphasis in original. I have chosen to render the pronoun for the Church as “they,” rather than “it,” in keeping with Karl Barth’s conception of the Church as a community rather than an institution. See, e.g., Karl Barth, “Die Kirche: Die Lebendige Gemeinde des Lebendigen Herrn Jesus Christus,” Unterwegs 1, no. 4 (1947); Karl Barth, “The Community: The Living Congregation of the Living Lord Jesus Christ,” in God Here and Now (London: Routledge, 2003). 99. CD 111/4, xiii/iii. 100. See Karl Barth, “Der Christ in der Gesellschaft,” in Das Wort Gottes Und Die Theologie (Münich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1925), 45; Karl Barth, “The Christian in Society,” in The Word of God and Theology (London: T & T Clark, 2011), 42. 101. See CD 1/2 §20.2, 650/728. 102. Ibid. I have developed and defended this reading of this twofold dynamic of imitation and innovation elsewhere (see, Derek Woodard-Lehman, “Reason After Revelation: Karl Barth on Divine Word and Human Words,” Modern Theology 33, no. 1 (2017), 113–14). 103. Barth, Knowledge of God, 213/200. 104. See CD 1/2 §21.2, 710–740/797–830. 105. Karl Barth, The Church and the Political Problem of Today (New York: Scribner, 1939), 12–14; Karl Barth, “Die Kirche Und Die Politische Fragen Von Heute,” in Eine Schweizer Stimme 1938–1945 (Zürich: Evangelicher Verlag, 1945), 72–73. 106. Barth, Problem, 46–58/87–94.

SIX Confess and Resist Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Church Struggle Wolfgang Huber

It 1 seems reasonable to suppose that a religious community is able to defy modern-day dictatorships most effectively if the community has formed a reliable pact with the Enlightenment. Indirectly, this presumption also guides many current reflections on the problems of Islamic Jihadism, the terrible impact of which has again reached Europe in the terrorist acts of November 13, 2015, in Paris. In such debates, one repeatedly hears the argument that, in contrast to Western Christianity, Islam still has to pass through the phase of Enlightenment. However, the relationship of Christian faith to the Enlightenment is not as clear as it appears in such a comparison. In fact, it is ambivalent and controversial in some respects. In Protestant theology, this has sparked a dispute that culminated in the conflict between “cultural Protestantism” and “dialectical theology” in the first decade of the twentieth century. If it were correct to assume that a pact with the Enlightenment would make Church and theology particularly resistant to an unjust regime, then one would expect that among those involved in the Church resistance after 1933, it was primarily representatives of cultural Protestantism who emerged as spokesmen. But this assumption proves to be false. Despite all the necessary qualifications one rather has to say: the neo-Protestant connection between the Reformation and the Enlightenment by no means guaranteed an immunization against Nazi ideology. The distance of theologically moti75

76

Wolfgang Huber

vated resistance toward the cultural-Protestant tradition can be most clearly observed in the work of the great theologian Karl Barth who, with good reason, is called a “Church Father” of the twentieth century. His reservations about the spirit of the Enlightenment are well known; they have their cause in the fact that he saw this spirit as bringing about a turn toward the primacy of human religiosity whereby the self-revelation of God in Christ and thus the efficacy of the Word of God were pushed into the background. In my opinion, things were more complex in the case of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He had already been a student of the great enlightened historian Adolf von Harnack, before he turned to Barth’s theology of the Word of God. As his programmatic reflections in his letters from prison on the modern world and his rejection of the deus-ex-machina theology show, he never lost interest in the process of Enlightenment. By turning to these two theologians, I do not aim to offer a full picture of Church resistance nor of the work of these two theologians. Rather, I want to place the focus in both cases on the relation of confession and resistance, that is, on what can be learned from their example about the relationship between the Church and the Enlightenment. KARL BARTH Theological Existence Today The Swiss theologian Karl Barth, born in 1886, had been teaching in Germany since 1921, initially in Göttingen and Münster, and in Bonn since 1930. He was well acquainted with the political conditions and the circumstances within the Church when Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of the Reich on January 30, 1933. The dramatic changes that followed within a few weeks in Germany did not remain hidden to him. He clearly saw the need for resistance. But in his opinion, this resistance, as far as the Church was concerned, had to refer strictly to the ecclesiastical sphere. The aim was to prevent the complete takeover by the “German Christians.” Therefore, the mode in which this resistance should take place was, above all, a good theology. Thus the resistance groups that were forming in the Protestant Church at the time—in particular the Young Reform Movement (Jungreformatorische Bewegung) and the Emergency Covenant of Pastors (Pfarrernotbund) led by Martin Niemöller—were met by Barth with great reservations because he considered their theology insufficient. 2 Regarding an agenda for this approach, one can take a look at a text by Barth from July 1933 which gave the name to a series of publications inaugurated by him. Barth’s text as well as the series of publications were titled “Theological Existence Today.” The topics which Barth wants to comment on in this text at the urging of many people are the “ecclesiasti-

Confess and Resist

77

cal worries and problems” of the time—an astounding limitation of perspective in view of the Reichstag fire and the Enabling Act, the boycott of Jewish businesses and the introduction of the Aryan Paragraph, the prohibition of trade unions and the book burnings. When asked to comment on the “ecclesiastical worries and problems,” Barth answers programmatically right at the beginning of his text: I cannot make the crucial thing I try to say today to these worries and problems the subject of a special announcement, because it consists simply and in an untimely and intangible manner in the attempt to practice as if nothing had happened—perhaps in a quietly elevated tone, but without direct references—theology and only theology in lectures and seminars with my students here in Bonn. Just like the Benedictines’ singing of the Horae undoubtedly continued without interruption and distraction in nearby Maria Laach in the Third Reich. I believe this to be a statement, in any case an ecclesiopolitical and indirectly even a political statement! 3

To be sure, Barth’s statements soon became more concrete: He opposes the introduction of the “leadership principle” in the Church, which was expressed especially in the sudden creation of “bishops” in those months. He sharply profiles the dangers associated with the claim to power of the “German Christians’ Faith Movement” and their proclamation of a “Gospel in the Third Reich.” He emphasizes unequivocally that “this doctrine has no home in the Protestant Church.” 4 He rejects the idea that the recognition of the “sovereignty of the National Socialist State” is proclaimed not only as a civic duty or object of political conviction, but as a “matter of faith.” 5 He contrasts this aberration with a series of theological clarifications which, in his opinion, are unshakable: It is not a question of the German people finding their way back to the Church, but their finding in the Church the “commandment and the promise of the free and pure word of God.” 6 The proclamation of the Church is not designed to help the German people to find a special “calling,” but to present to them nothing but the “vocation from and to Christ.” 7 The Church does not serve the people, and therefore also not the German people, but only the word of God. The Church does not believe in a particular state or in any particular form of government, but solely believes in the divine institution of the state as “representative and supporter of the public legal order of the people.” 8 “It proclaims the gospel in all empires of this world. It proclaims it also in the Third Reich, but not under it and not in its spirit.” 9 The communion of the Church is determined not by blood and race, but by the Holy Spirit and baptism; a Church that excludes “Jewish Christians’ therefore stops being a Christian Church. Ecclesiastical positions are not to be filled by political procedures and political expediency, but only by ecclesiastical procedures and with a view to ecclesiastical suitability.

78

Wolfgang Huber

No doubt: this argument indirectly engages with the political sphere. But its strength and its limitations arise from the fact that the argumentation is determined and limited by a strict theology of the Word of God. The question of direct political intervention does not come to the fore. Barth explicitly proclaims this in 1933. One “immediately takes away the chance of an understanding for clerical resistance in Germany,” he writes, “when interpreting it as a symptom of existing resistance to the current state administration . . . I am resisting a theology that is taking refuge in National Socialism today, not the National Socialist state and social order.” 10 The distinction between the theological reflection on the mission of the Church and the responsibility of the state for public policy at this point is dangerously approaching a separation of these two realms. This is most clearly shown by the fact that while the exclusion of Jewish Christians from the Church is recognized as incompatible with the nature of the Church, the deprivation of the rights of Jews by the state does not find comparable resistance. To be sure, Karl Barth was certainly not uncritical in this regard; 11 but it was not without reason when after reading Eberhard Bethge’s biography of Bonhoeffer, he wrote to the author in 1967 that he considered it a personal guilt that he “had not likewise asserted the ‘Jewish question’ as decisive” in his public statements during the Church struggle. 12 Theological Declaration of Barmen As evidence of his failure Barth refers to the Barmen Declaration of January 4, 1934, which was formulated entirely by him and adopted by a reformed confessional synod, as well as the far more influential and wellknown Theological Declaration, which also was approved by the synod of the German Protestant Church in Barmen on May 31, 1934. Both texts are not earmarked as “confessions,” but carry a confessional character. This character has settled into the Barmen Theses of May 1934 step by step in the eighty years since they were adopted, despite all the fluctuations in their ecclesiastical reception. They also became models outside of German Protestantism, as shown in particular by the confession of Belhar, which was passed in 1986 by one of the South African Reformed Churches. The Theological Declaration of Barmen was not exclusively, but largely written by Karl Barth. According to his own report, as a member of a small working group that had to prepare this text, he took advantage of the Lutheran members’ need for a nap to further the completion of the text in his interest. 13 It is crucial that this document clearly went beyond the position that Barth himself had represented in 1933. For the latter could still be understood as if a Yes to Christ founded in faith and represented by the Church could be reconciled with a political Yes to Hitler. It must be assumed that the majority of the one hundred and thirty-eight

Confess and Resist

79

synod members who met in Barmen in May 1934 accepted this compatibility. But what they decided together reached way beyond. For they did not limit themselves to the statement that Jesus Christ was God’s only Word for the Church, to which Christians had to entrust their faith. Rather, they combined this with the explicit statement that this Word is accompanied not only by the grant of divine grace, but at the same time by the liberation from the “godless bonds of this world” and a “claim to our whole life.” Thus the Church committed itself to professing its affiliation with Christ not just in its faith but also in its obedience, not just in its message, but also in its public order. What the Declaration recognized was the Church’s political guardianship by reminding people “of God’s kingdom, of God’s command and justice, and thus of the shared responsibility of rulers and the ruled.” Above all, however, the “total state” was clearly rejected: “We reject the false doctrine that, beyond its special mission, the state should and could become the only and total order of human life, and thus fulfill the destiny of the Church.” 14 As bold as these statements were, in all likelihood the synod would not have been willing to clearly contradict the disenfranchisement of Jewish citizens, which was already emerging. Such was also Barth’s retrospective assessment; as he self-critically charged himself in his letter to Eberhard Bethge from 1967, he had not at least tried. Nor did the synod explain more precisely what followed from the rejection of the false doctrine of the state. Stages of resistance to the total state were not described. Nor did the synod explain more precisely what followed from the rejection of the false doctrine of the state. The incompatibility of the conception of the total state and Christian faith was merely declared. However, the possibility of belonging to the Confessing Church and remaining faithful to the National Socialist State continued to exist and was generally practiced. The Test Case: Oath of Allegiance to Hitler The touchstone for all Christian state officials was the introduction of the oath of allegiance to the Führer. Karl Barth recognized the scope that was associated with it: he agreed to this oath of allegiance only on the condition that he was allowed to add a phrase in which he clarified that he could only be loyal to the leader, “as far as I can justify it as a Protestant Christian.” 15 This demand led to Barth’s suspension on November 26, 1934. In the lawsuit that Barth then launched, it was also noted that he had refused to open his lectures with the Hitler salute. What played a role in Barth’s decision to accept a call to the University of Basel was not only his suspension and the uncertain outcome of the trial, but also the fact that Barth did not feel understood in his attitude and supported in his position by the organs of the Confessing Church. 16 Despite a court judgement favorable to him, his change to Basel was confirmed to be the right

80

Wolfgang Huber

decision by the fact that he was formally relieved for political reasons of his teaching post in Bonn by the responsible Minister Rust. This put an end to Barth’s ability to participate in the struggle of the Confessing Church or even in the political resistance. However, he took with him the experience of the years 1933 to 1935 together with the question how the obedience to the Word of God and the political responsibility of Christians and the Church relate to each other. Taking his bearings from the Theological Declaration of Barmen, he developed these experiences into a conception which was later summarized under the problematic title “Kingdom of Christ.” 17 But beyond that, Barth now posed new questions of political responsibility. They first concerned the role of Switzerland, where he was now active again, then the need to counteract the expansion of Germany by military means, and finally the encouragement of his former students to be aware of the political decision that results from “the current German ideological state attributing to itself divine power.” 18 However, one can hardly designate Barth’s work from Switzerland as resistance in a direct sense. What remains to be noted is the fact that by his refusal to pay the Oath of Allegiance to Adolf Hitler without the additional phrase that he had demanded, he had set a signal that deprived him of the opportunity to continue to take action in Germany. This was a signal for which he did not receive undivided approval in the Confessing Church to which he consciously belonged; indeed, as one would fear, there was widespread non-understanding. DIETRICH BONHOEFFER Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s connection to the resistance is so obvious that a new biographical account has the concise and clear title: “Theology in Resistance.” 19 The imprint of the professor’s family with their eight children and the Grünewald circle of friends certainly made Bonhoeffer immune to the virus of Nazi ideology from the outset. But turning to the Christian faith, choosing theology as a profession and, in addition, encountering the Sermon on the Mount in 1932 marked his path. The responsibility for peace he drew from the message of Jesus led him into the vast scope of ecumenism. Twice he resisted the temptation to use this vastness of ecumenism to escape the challenges and threats in his own country. He moved from a time in a parish office in London in 1935 to set up and lead a preacher seminary for the Confessing Church in Finkenwalde. He only briefly followed an invitation to take over pastoral care for German immigrants in New York in 1939. It did not keep him abroad. He wanted to contribute to the renewal of Germany after the clearly anticipated catastrophe and assist his friends in resisting the Nazi regime. So he returned, received a ban on speech and publication, and found a

Confess and Resist

81

place in the military defense which disguised his task to use his ecumenical contacts in the service of the resistance. His action was brought to a sudden end by his imprisonment on April 5, 1943. After spending one and a half years in the Wehrmacht prison in Tegel, he spent the time from October 1944 to February 1945 in the prison of the Gestapo, on the site of today’s topography of terror. Then he was transported to Buchenwald concentration camp for two months. The group of prisoners to which he belonged finally ended up in the schoolhouse of Schönberg in the Bavarian Forest. On April 8, the Sunday after Easter, Bonhoeffer held a church service there at the request of his fellow prisoners. Shortly thereafter, two policemen came to take him. The Easter hope of Quasimodogeniti Sunday was destroyed. But Bonhoeffer held on to the hope of being a new-born child of God. His last words before leaving were: “For me, this is the end, but also the beginning.” 20 Bonhoeffer was taken to the concentration camp Flossenburg near Weiden in the Upper Palatinate, on the same day he was subjected to a court martial which mocked even the minimal rules in the Third Reich and ended in a judicial murder. On the following day, April 9, 1945, he was killed in the morning between 6 and 7 o’clock as the last of five prisoners condemned to death. Theory of Resistance Part of this life in resistance is the astonishing fact that Bonhoeffer already presented reflections in April 1933 which, in retrospect, can easily be deciphered as a theory of ecclesiastical resistance. They can be found in a lecture titled: “The Church and the Jewish Question.” To clarify the question of how the Church should behave in the face of the interventions in the legal status of Jews—interventions that had already emerged with the Jewish boycott of April 1 and the “Law on the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” of April 8, 1933—Bonhoeffer let himself be guided by the task of the state and the responsibility of the Church for its adequate fulfillment. For Bonhoeffer, this task of the state consists in the guarantee of “law and order.” People today would be more likely to speak of the responsibility for law and peace, as it happened already in the 1934 Theological Declaration of Barmen. Bonhoeffer, however, uses the concept of law and order customary in his time to point out that state action is not only at risk by the lack of law and order, but also by their excessive realization. There is not only the possibility of a deficit, but also of an excess of law and order; differently put there can be a deficient but also an excessive state. State oppression is as worrisome as chaotic state failure. In both cases, human rights can be violated and social peace destroyed. With regard to both possibilities, Bonhoeffer differentiates three tasks of the Church vis-à-vis the state. Its first task is to remind the state of its

82

Wolfgang Huber

task; this includes a clear opposition in cases in which the state violates its responsibility by creating too little or too much law and order. The second task is to help the victims of state misconduct; the aim here is to save and protect those who suffer from breaches of duty on the part of the state. The third task arises when such violations by too little or too much law and order become a permanent feature of state action. Then the task of the Church is “not only to connect with the victims under the wheel, but to break the spokes of the wheel itself. Such action would mean a direct political action of the Church, which is only possible and required if the Church sees the state fail in its function of creating law and order.” 21 Falling into the spokes of the wheel—that means: to stop the unjust and illegitimate actions of the state. Bonhoeffer at this point has a clear view of what we call the “Great Resistance” today; for the direct participation of the Church in this resistance, he believes that a conciliar decision, that is, a broad consensus, is necessary. We can only guess how far he still had illusions in 1933 that the Church was capable of such a consensus at all. With regard to the peace issue, Bonhoeffer launched an attempt in this direction at the ecumenical assembly in Fanø in 1934. In 1933, he already worked hard to ensure that the Church took a clear position vis-à-vis the Aryan Paragraph—without sufficient success, as we shall see shortly. The first of the three mentioned levels deals with the ideological conflict over the legitimacy of state action. Therein, the Church clearly has to take sides with the law-and-order-oriented function of the state. There is no talk of the state as a divine order in this context; what matters is only the function of the state, which can be understood as a divine commission for the sake of the people and their coexistence. At this level, the witness of the Church is required. The second level deals with its vicarious actions; we can also say: with its Diaconia. The Church here should act as a representative of the victims of state action. On the third level, however, it is about direct political action. Bonhoeffer does not use the term of “resistance” for this; but he has it, as we have seen, already clearly in view. Also later, Bonhoeffer continues to believe that intervening against the illegitimate action of the state is not only a civic duty, but a duty of the Church and of its ordained public officials in particular. In this context, his fellow prisoner Gaetano Latmiral reported of a statement by Bonhoeffer in the Tegeler prison: “If a maniac drives his car over the sidewalk on the Kurfürstendamm, then as a pastor I can not only bury the dead and comfort the relatives; I have to jump in and pull the driver off the wheel if I happen to stand at this point.” 22 The parallel between “breaking the spokes of the wheel” and “pulling the driver off the steering wheel” is obvious; both cases involve active resistance. Bonhoeffer does not exaggerate the duty of resistance; I have to “stand at this point” in order to be able to act. But he clearly

Confess and Resist

83

applies this duty to the pastor who “stands at this point.” He violates his obligation as an ordained pastor if he confines himself to funeral services and the consolation of relatives and fails to tie the hands of the driver of the deadly car. When it comes to an assault on human lives, to crimes against humanity, the duty of active intervention obliges not only individual believers, but the Church as a community of believers. That did not change the fact that Bonhoeffer had to embrace the loneliness of the incognito when he participated in the conspiracy against Hitler and assisted his closest friends in the moral conflict they had to endure in preparing for the assassination of Hitler. Bonhoeffer confirmed that the attack on someone else’s life is always linked with the assumption of guilt. But such assumption of guilt can be unavoidable if one follows a principle that became increasingly important to Bonhoeffer. Ethically responsible behavior, he was convinced, does not start with the question how I “heroically extract myself from a difficult situation,” but how an upcoming generation can live. 23 The responsibility assumed by Bonhoeffer did not only refer to the present generation; it has an intergenerational character. Today, we have aspects of intergenerational justice in mind that he could not have imagined; it is all the more astonishing with which emphasis he made the lives of future generations the measure of his ethics of responsibility. The Aryan Paragraph as a Touchstone Yet we have anticipated many things with this. For, on the way to an ethics of responsibility, in which the willingness to take responsibility in the conspiracy against the dictator was included, Bonhoeffer first had to deal with the question of whether the adaptation to state rules did not first and foremost require resistance to ecclesiastical authorities. In his lecture on “The Church and the Jewish Question,” from which we started, he clearly stated that the exclusion of baptized Jews from the community of the Church constituted a “confessional touchstone” (status confessionis). In the following weeks he had tried to make ecumenical partners aware that the Confessing Church was facing such a touchstone; at the same time, he endeavored, by participating in the “Bethel Confession,” to achieve that the Confessing Church in timely fashion expressed itself clearly and in a binding manner on this question. In both directions, Bonhoeffer remained unsuccessful. When in September 1933, the Prussian regional Church decided at the so-called “Brown Synod”—held in Berlin in the Prussian Upper Chamber (today’s Federal Council building)—to also introduce the Aryan Paragraph in the Church, Bonhoeffer, who had previously opposed this step, perceived the danger of an ecclesiastical schism. With specific reference to his book “Theological Existence Today,” he asked Karl Barth’s opinion in this situation. In significant deviation from

84

Wolfgang Huber

the position taken a few weeks earlier—a Church that excludes “Jewish Christians” ceases to be a Christian Church—Barth’s response to Bonhoeffer was that the church leadership and its church members should be told that, with the introduction of the Aryan Paragraph, they are “no longer a Church of Christ in this matter.” Although it may be a status confessionis, Barth advised to wait: “The schism must come, if it comes, from the other side.” 24 In this part of his response, Bonhoeffer later followed Barth. His basic text from 1936 on the understanding of the Confessing Church regarding the confessional situation, that is, the status confessionis, culminated in the sentence: “Who knowingly separates himself from the Confessing Church in Germany, separates himself from salvation.” 25 The fact that Bonhoeffer found so little support in this clear attitude made him skeptical of the Confessing Church over the years. The laconic summary in his “Draft for a Work,” which he brought to paper in the Tegeler Military Investigation Prison in August 1944, was: “Crucial: Church in self-defense—no risk for others.” So he had to take the risk on his own decision and in the loneliness of conspiracy. That was the path he took upon returning from America, leading him to imprisonment and ultimately to death. Human Rights as a Benchmark What were the principles which guided Bonhoeffer in his decision to resist as also in the pastoral support of his friends, who, as he knew well, performed more central tasks than himself? In answering this question, I would like to present an observation that shows the connection between the Church and the Enlightenment in a surprising way. I want to draw your attention to the way in which Bonhoeffer takes up the issue of human rights. For, in German-speaking theology, he was the first who developed something like a theory of human rights. 26 Bonhoeffer differed from most of the German theologians of his time in that he was not only familiar with European but also American developments. When he was working on the manuscript of his “Ethics,” he had completed two stays at Union Theological Seminary in New York. They found their way into the reflections he devoted to the thought on human rights. 27 In the American development, however, human rights had a fundamentally different place than in Europe, which was marked by the French Revolution and its cult of reason. In America, human rights were not born out of this cult of reason but out of faith in God. It was not an overestimation of the human being, but the realistic assessment of his sinfulness that stood at the beginning. The authors of the US Constitution invoked human rights as a critical yardstick for limiting political power and preventing its abuse. Of course, Bonhoeffer added critically, this was not the sole motive for the appeal to human rights. Theocratic hopes were

Confess and Resist

85

also involved. Human rights is a critical benchmark of a democracy that limits public power or else as the basis of a modern theocracy: these two motives, in Bonhoeffer’s judgment, contended with each other in American history. The decisive impulse, which he himself wanted to take up and continue, resided in the critical and power-limiting function of human rights. Yet, the reliance on such considerations alone was not enough for him. For a Christian outlook it was not enough to invoke the alliance with all rational and law-abiding people. As much as Christians and non-Christians might agree in their assent to freedom, tolerance and human rights, a specific Christian clarification of the meaning of human rights was inevitable at the same time. Bonhoeffer’s point of departure is the belief that in Christ the reality of God has entered into the reality of the world; thus the world is not left to its godlessness. This opens our eyes to that mode of life that is being maintained by God in the face of human sin and that is oriented to the coming of Christ. Bonhoeffer describes this form of life as the “natural life”; and he asks about the elemental rights that necessarily belongs to this natural life. Bonhoeffer tries to identify those rights that—in the spirit of the Virginia Bill of Rights—are “born with us” and therefore cannot be taken from us by any political decision. They are of the highest theological significance; for they are “the reflection of the divine power of God in the midst of the fallen world.” 28 In an idiosyncratic manner, Bonhoeffer divides these rights into two groups: the right to physical life and the rights of spiritual life. The basic point of this division is as follows: The human being is an end in itself not only as a rational being, but in his corporeality. The human body must not be used as a mere means for extrinsic purposes, where the human being loses all rights if he is no longer fit for these purposes; rather, the human body is endowed with the dignity that belongs to everything that is “an end in itself.” Therefore, the right to physical integrity has the same status as the right to spiritual freedom. The right to physical life includes, for Bonhoeffer, the prevention of arbitrary killing, the right to reproduction (and thus the protection of the expectant life) and the freedom of physical life from rape, exploitation, torture and arbitrary detention. With breathtaking clarity, he presents these rights in an almost open opposition to the public practice of the Nazi regime, especially the practice of euthanasia. Bonhoeffer sees the natural rights of spiritual life exemplified in the freedom of judgment, the freedom of action and the freedom of enjoyment. Because of the fragmentary nature of the “Ethics,” there is no room for an explanation of these points in detail. One can only guess in which way Bonhoeffer would have further clarified these rights of spiritual life. The freedom of judgment undoubtedly includes the freedom of belief, conscience and expression.

86

Wolfgang Huber

The freedom of action includes the free development of the personality as well as the freedom of occupation and the freedom of movement. The keyword “freedom of enjoyment” suggests—unusual for the theological tradition—a recognition of sensual pleasure and elementary human happiness. The guiding principle is always that no human being must be excluded from these elementary rights. Physical integrity and bodily happiness are seen as elementary rights of every human being in the same manner as the freedom of conscience and belief as well as the free development of the talents of the individual in work and profession. The dignity of the human being is thus not only manifest in its rational nature (as Kant, for example, assumed) but applies to the unity of physical and spiritual existence. Therefore, the rights of bodily life have the same weight as the rights of spiritual life. In Bonhoeffer’s conception, too, human rights are conceived as rights of freedom. However, freedom here does not mean the self-assertion of the human individual, but life in relation to others. It is not enough to understand freedom only as a delimitation against others, that is, as negative freedom. With an expression that Bonhoeffer did not yet use, his conception of freedom can best be grasped with the notion of “communicative freedom.” 29 These are two basic principles from which a comprehensive and substantial theological concept of human rights can be developed. It is characterized by the fact that it is based not only on the freedom of faith and conscience, but with the same intensity on the physical freedom of humanity. And at the same time it is characterized by the fact that it takes the social conditions of personal freedom as seriously as the protection of this freedom from violations by the state authority. Since his death seventy years ago, Bonhoeffer’s life and thought have become among the strongest theological impulses that have worked their way from the last century into our present. His commitment to resistance, about whose scope he had no illusions, encouraged many to resist and engage in political activities. This does not only apply to the divided Germany before and the united Germany after the Peaceful Revolution of 1989. It is valid for Japan and for South Africa, for South Korea as well as for the United States of America. Carved in stone on the West Portal of Westminster Abbey in London, Bonhoeffer stands as one of the ten martyrs of the twentieth century, the open Bible in his hand, a witness of faith for our time. With his entry into resistance as well as the justification he gave for it, he presented an example of how belief in God and advocacy for freedom and the rights of mature people—and, in this way, Church and Enlightenment—can be reconciled with each other.

Confess and Resist

87

NOTES 1. Speech in front of the Brandenburg Provinziell-Genossenschaft des Johannisordens on November 19, 2015 as part of the lecture series on “Kirche und Aufklärung.” 2. See Michael Hüttenhoff, “Theologische Opposition 1933. Karl Barth und die Jungreformatorische Bewegung,” in: Michael Beintker/Christian Link/Michael Troqitzsch, eds., Karl Barth in Deutschland (1921–1935). Aufbruch—Klärung—Widerstand (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 2005), 425–444. 3. Karl Barth, “Theologische Existenz heute” (1933), in: Walther Fürst (ed.): “Dialektische Theologie” in Scheidung und Bewährung 1933–1936. Aufsätze, Gutachten und Erklärungen (Munich: Kaiser, 1966), 43–77 (43). 4. Barth, “Theologische Existenz heute,” 61. 5. Ibid. 6. Barth, “Theologische Existenz heute,” 62. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Karl Barth: Die Kirche Jesu Christi (Munich: Kasier, 1933), 9; see Wolf Krötke, “Theologie und Widertand bei Karl Barth. Problemmarkierungen aus systematischtheologischer Sicht,” in: id.: Barmen – Barth – Bonhoeffer. Beiträge zu einer zeitgemäßen christozentrischen Theologie (Bielefeld: Luther Verlag, 2009), 225–248 (233). 11. See Eberhard Busch: Unter dem Bogen des einen Bundes. Karl Barth und die Juden 1933–1945 (Neurkichen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1996). 12. Karl Barth, “Letter to Eberhard Bethge” from May 22, 1967, in: id.: Letters 1961–1968, eds. Jürgen Fangmeier and Hinrich Stoevesandt (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1975), 403. 13. Carsten Nicolaisen, “Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Barmer Theologischen Erklärung,” in: Martin Heimbucher and Rudolf Weht, eds.: Die Barmer Theologische Erklärung und Dokumentation (Neurkirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2009), 23–29 (24f.). 14. lbid. c. 41. 15. “Protokoll der Vernehmung Karl Barths vom 27.11.1934,” in: Hans Prolingheuer: Der Fall Karl Barth. Chronologie einer Vertreibung 1934–1935 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neurkirchener, 1977), 253–356 (255). 16. See especially the newsletter of the Presidium of the Confessional Synod of the DEK from October 7, 1935, with excerpts from a letter from Karl Barth to Gotthilf Wever, in: Hans Prolingheuer, Der Fall Karl Barth, 353f. Zum Ganzen die zusammenfassende Darstellung bei Eberhard Busch: Karl Barths Lebenslauf (Munich: Kaiser, 1975), 268–275. 17. See Wolfgang Huber, Kirche und Öffentlichkeit, 2nd ed. (Munich: C.E. Beck, 1991), 453–465. 18. Karl Barth, “An Ehemalige Schüler in der Bekennenden Kirche in Deutschland” (1937), in: Karl Barth, Offene Briefe 1935–1942, ed. Dieter Koch (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 2001), 43f. 19. Christiane Tietz, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Theologe im Widerstand (Munich: C.E. Beck, 2013). See for the following: Wolfgang Huber: “The Theological Profile of Bonhoeffer’s Political Resistance,” in: K. Busch Nielsen, R. K. Wüstenberg and J. Zimmermann, eds., Dem Rad in die Speichen fallen. Das Politische in der Theologie Dietrich Bonhoeffers (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2013), 15–33. See also Christoph Strohm: Theologische Ethik im Kampf gegen den Nationalisozialismus. Der Weg Dietrich Bonhoeffers mit den Juristen Hans von Dohnanyi und Gerhard Leibholz in den Widerstand (Munich: C.E. Beck, 1989); Heinz Eduard Tödt: Komplizen, Opfer und Gegner des Hitlerregimes. Zur “inneren” Geschichte von protestantischer Theologie und Kirche im “Dritten Reich,” ed. Jörg Dinger and Dirk Schulz (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997), 342–351. 20. Bonhoeffer’s last words, which he passed on to a fellow inmate, the English intelligence officer Sigismund Payne Best, for Bishop George Bell, are handed down in different versions. The potentially authentic version can be found in a letter from

88

Wolfgang Huber

Payne Best to Bishop Bell in 1953. See the summary of the sources by Tim Lorentzen: Bonhoeffers Widerstand im Gedächtnis der Nachwelt (1945–2006), theological postdoctoral thesis, Munich 2013, 29f. 21. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Die Kirche vor der Judenfrage (1933), in: id.: Berlin 1932–1933, ed. Carsten Nicolaisen and Ernst Albert Scharffenorth (DBW 12) (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1997), 349–58 (353f.). In the plea for a “direct political action,” Bonhoeffer differs from the position of Karl Barth in “Theological Existence Today” presented above. It is therefore wrong, when Andreas Pangritz thinks Bonhoeffer “similar to Barth had set his hope at first on a political resistance of the Church” in this time. Such a political resistance of the Church did not exist for Barth at this time. See Andreas Pangritz, “Politischer Gottesdienst. Zur theologischen Begründung des Widerstands bei Karl Barth,” in: Communio Viatorum 39, 1997, 215–247 (236). 22. Gaetano Latmiral, letter to Gerhard Leibholz from 06.03.1946, in: Dietrich Bonhoeffer Jahrbuch 1 (2003), 30. See Christian Gremmels, “‘Wenn der Kutscher trunken ist’ . . . Religion und Politik: Anmerkungen zum Ernstfall,” in: id., Theologie und Lebenswelt. Beiträge zur Theologie der Gegenwart (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2012), 114–126. 23. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “Nach zehn Jahren,” in: id.: Widerstand und Ergebung. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft, ed. Christian Gremmels/Eberhard Bethge/Renate Bethge/Ilse Tödt (DBW 8) (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1998), 17–39 (25). 24. Karl Barth: “Letter to Dietrich Bonhoeffer” from 09.11.1933 (DBW 12), 125–128 (126). 25. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Zur Frage nach der Kirchengemeinschaft, in: id.: Illegale Theologenausbildung Finkenwalde 1935–1937, ed. Otto Dudzus/Jürgen Henkys (DBW 14), (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1996), 655–680 (676). 26. See Wolfang Huber: Gerechtigkeit und Recht. Grundlinien christlicher Rechtsethik. 3rd ed. (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2006), 298–302; Heinz Eduard Tödt, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theologische Ethik und die Menschenrechte,” in: id.: Theologische Perspektiven nach Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. Ernst-Albert Scharffenorth (Güttersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1993), 138–145; Christine Schliesser, “The First TheologicalEthical Doctrine of Basic Human Rights Developed by a Twentieth-Century German Protestant Theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Human Rights,” in: Kirsten Busch Nielsen, Ralf K. Wüstenberg and Jens Zimmermann, (eds.): Dem Rad in die Speichen Fallen. Das Politische in der Theologie von Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 369–384. 27. They are found in the sections on “Erbe und Verfall” and “das natürliche Leben”; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethik, eds. Ilse Tödt, Heinz Eduard Tödt, Ernst Feil and Cliford Green (DBW 6), (Munich: C.E. Beck, 1992), 116–118, 163–217. 28. Bonhoeffer, Ethik, 174. 29. See Wolfgang Huber: Von der Freiheit. Perspektiven für eine solidarische Welt, (Munich: C.E. Beck, 2012).

SEVEN Two Types of Religious Faith A Conversation with Martin Buber Fred Dallmayr

The Barmen Declaration of 1934 opposed to each other two kinds of churches and also two kinds of faith: a nationalistic church and a scripturally “confessing” church. Members of the first church (called “German Christians”) gave their allegiance to the nation-state under Hitler; members of the second church owed their loyalty first of all to the word of God—a word not radically foreign to worldly affairs but marked by a decisive difference. In a sense, faith in both churches was not just a matter of “noetic” acquaintance; thus, both communities were not just “knowing” (kennend) but “confessing” (bekennend)—although the substance of their confession was radically different: in the one case, the “religious” quality of the nation-state, in the other case, the utter holiness of divine revelation. Looking at it from a different angle, one might say that the first church was “proprietary” in the sense that religion was deemed to be the property of the nation and its self-will; by contrast, religion in the second case was an act of self-giving, surrender or service to others. In neither case, one should add, was faith completely a matter of private preference or idiosyncrasy but was embedded in communal frameworks. The notion that there are several, and especially two, types of faith is not a novel invention, but has a long history. Memorable is the distinction Martin Luther drew in a prayer book (around 1522) between faith as a merely cognitive endorsement and faith as an existential commitment. The first type, he wrote, is actually “more of a science or knowledge than it is faith.” On the other hand, “there is the faith in God, that is, when I do 89

90

Fred Dallmayr

not believe what is said about God, but set my trust in him, move and weigh to act with him, and believe without doubting at all that he will be and act with me as it is said about him. . . . Such is the faith that trusts in God, in life and in death, that makes the Christian man.” 1 About two hundred and fifty years later, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in a similar vein drew a sharp distinction between what he called the “religion of Christ” and the “Christian religion” (or religion about Christ). As he wrote, the first, the religion of Christ, is “the one that he, Jesus, knew himself and practiced”; the other, the Christian religion, is “the religion that considers it as true that he had been more than man and makes him as such an object of adoration.” 2 In the following, I shall not review further historical examples of this genre. Instead, I shall turn to one of the most wellknown recent studies in this field: Martin Buber’s Two Types of Faith (of 1951). After examining in some detail Buber’s arguments in that text, I shall explore an issue lurking behind Buber’s text: the distinction between a dogmatic or blindly held faith and a faith nurtured by understanding and insight. By way of conclusion I shall return to the Barmen Declaration and examine how a “confessing church,” coupled (at least potentially) with a politics wedded to justice and the “good life,” can pave the way to the promised “kingdom of God.” MARTIN BUBER’S TWO TYPES In his “Foreword,” Buber crisply sets forth the tenor of his book. As he writes: “There are two, and in the end only two, types of faith.” Although there may be many diverse contents of faith, the basic nature of faith comes in two forms: one type stems “from the fact that I trust someone, without being able to offer sufficient reasons for my trust”; the other type arises “from the fact that, likewise without being able to give a sufficient reason, I acknowledge a thing to be true.” Both kinds of faith can and do involve a full commitment, a situation where “my entire being is engaged.” But there is a basic difference. The relation of trust depends on “a state of [intimate] contact, a contact of my entire being with the one in whom I trust”; on the other hand, the relation of knowledge depends upon “an act of acceptance of that which I acknowledge to be true.” To be sure, contact can lead to cognitive acceptance, just as cognitive acceptance can lead (and often does lead) to closer contact with the person proclaiming a truth. But in the first case, contact is primary, while in the second it is the [deliberate] act of acceptance. Expressed in different (more sociological) language, one can say that in the first case “the status is the decisive thing,” while in the second case it is “the act.” (One is reminded here of the distinction drawn by Sir Henry Maine between tradition and modernity in terms of “status” and “contract”). 3

Two Types of Religious Faith

91

Further developing his argument, Buber links the two types with the distinction between a primordial community to which one “naturally” belongs and the entry into or creation of a relationship on the basis of individual choice. (The reader is bound to recall at this point the distinction drawn by Ferdinand Tönnies between “community” and “society”). In Buber’s words: “In one type, man ‘finds himself’ in the relationship of faith; in the other he is ‘converted’ to it.” The person finding himself in the relationship is “primarily the member of a community whose covenant with the Unconditioned includes and determines him within it”; on the other hand, the person who is converted is “primarily an individual, one who has become an isolated individual,” and the community arises “as the joining together of the converted individuals.” Having established this distinction, Buber seeks to guard against oversimplification in the sense of a radical antithesis. Although the relation of a person embedded in an original community is marked by “nearness,” this fact does not preclude a (metaphysical) distance; on the other hand, the act of joining a relation presumes an initial “distance between subject and object,” which can be mitigated by prolonged practice. Having established these theoretical preambles, the text finally arrives at its basic thesis or tenet: “The first of the two types of faith has its classic example in the early period of Israel, the people of faith—a community of faith which took its birth as a nation, a nation which took its birth in a community of faith; the second in the early period of Christianity that arose in the decay of ancient settled Israel and the nations and faith-communities of the Ancient East as a new formation.” 4 Adding a cross-cultural dimension to his argument, Buber suggests that the community-based, inherited faith is endemic to the Hebrew testament and especially to the “core of Pharisaism,” while the more noetic type of individual acceptance and conversion is of Greek or Hellenistic origin. The latter type, he states, was made possible “through the [noetic] comprehension reached by Greek thought of an act which acknowledges the truth” (of a fact or proposition). Regarding the beginning of Christianity, the text distinguishes (with Lessing) between the “faith of Jesus” and the “faith about Jesus”: “It becomes evident that Jesus and central Pharisaism belong essentially to one another, just as early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism do.” While, up to this point, the two different stances are both still called “types of faith,” the ensuing discussion makes it increasingly clear that only one type is “genuine” faith, whereas the other is at best derivative. Differently put: only the “faith of Jesus” (together with Pharisaism) is rooted in the depth of human existence, while the “faith about Jesus” is mainly a matter of knowledge and acquaintance. In Buber’s words: “What is it which generally distinguishes the faith of Jesus” (from the faith of his followers)? “It is a difference in kind because the question here is not about the degree in the strength of the faith, but rather a difference which extends to the ultimate depths of the

92

Fred Dallmayr

reality concerned in such a way that only the faith which Jesus knows as his own may be called faith in the strict sense.” Here opens a stark crosscultural gap: “The idea of a person who has [genuine] faith did not spring from Greek or Hellenistic soil.” 5 In central chapters of the book, Buber delineates the character of genuine faith further by linking it with the idea of “trust” (Emunah), the condition of finding one’s life entirely entrusted into God’s hands. Such trust is conditioned or made possible by two other, closely linked factors or dispositions: the urgent expectation of the “kingdom of God,” and the complete turning-around of one’s whole being (Teshuvah) from worldly busyness to God. Of these two principles, he says, the first is mainly of “historical and super-historical” significance; the second concerns the life of the concrete Israelite in whom “the human being is addressed and, through him, Israel as such where the intended humanity has its reality.” Over time, especially in later Christian developments, the original unity of elements held together by trust weakened and steadily disintegrated: expectation of the kingdom of God became increasingly a fable or mystery; “turning around” of the whole being was reduced to a mere “change of mind,” while trust itself was confined to individual “belief” (pistis). “Teshuvah,” he writes, “the turning of the whole person was reduced unavoidably to a ‘change of mind’, to metanoîa, by the Greek translator; and Emunah, resulting from an original relationship to the Godhead, was likewise modified through translation to ‘belief’ (pistis), or the recognition that something is true.” At a later point in the book, the distinction is sharpened into a stark opposition: “The crisis of our time is also the crisis of the two types of faith, Emunah and Pistis. The origin of the Jewish Emunah is in the history of a nation [Israel], that of Christian pistis in that of individuals.” Even more sharply phrased: “Christian pistis was born outside the historical experiences of nations, so to say in retirement from history, in the souls of individuals . . . sharply separated from the community of a nation.” Ultimately, such pistis amounted to a “noetic” attitude: the “recognition as true of a proposition pronounced about the object of faith”—a position “arising from a Greek attitude.” 6 One can readily accept Buber’s judgment about the progressive disintegration of the original unity of trust into dispersed elements and especially its widespread replacement by individual beliefs and preferences. One must also accept that there is a gulf between an existential faith and a mere noetic or cognitive belief (in German between “Glaube an” and “Glaube dass”). What one does not have to accept—and what I certainly do not accept—is the claim that the distinction coincides with the difference between Jewish and Christian faith, and even less with the difference between Jerusalem and Athens. There are too many examples of genuine Christian faith in Western history—examples which often were closely connected with national histories. From the time of the early Middle Ages one remembers the Frankish efforts of God-service (gesta Dei per

Two Types of Religious Faith

93

Francos); a later example of nationally grounded faith is Anglicanism. Equally unpersuasive are Buber’s invectives against Hellenism and Greek thought in general. As one will surely recognize, Greek thinking and questioning can hardly be equated with abstract rationalism or noetic analysis; its high manifestations—from Plato and Aristotle to neo-platonism and Neo-Aristotelianism—touch on the deepest issues of human life in a manner comparable, though not identical with Jewish faith. David Flusser, in his “Afterword” to Buber’s book, seems to me judicious in his final judgment when he writes: “The assumption that there are two types of faith is correct; but their mutual delineation is very difficult. If, in addition, denominational and other forces play a role, the delineation becomes even more questionable.” 7 One argument which plays a central role in Buber’s text seems to me particularly questionable (in fact, so questionable that I confine myself to a brief mention). The argument has to do with the role assigned to St. Paul in the history of religion, particularly in the transition from Judaism to Christianity. Basically, in Buber’s text, Paul plays the role of a turntable paving the way from the existential “faith of Jesus” to a more noetic “faith in or about Jesus” (influenced by Hellenism). As he writes: “The situation for Paul is that man shall recognize Jesus with all the strength of faith to be the one whom he proclaims as the door to salvation.” And he adds: “If one would understand the nature of faith which Paul demands, it is indeed quite correct to proceed from faith in the resurrection of Jesus,” that is, faith in a fact about Jesus. This demand is closely connected with Paul’s distinction between faith and “the law,” where the latter is not fulfillable because of our sinfulness—which, in turn, can only be redeemed through divine grace and faith in Christ. As Buber elaborates, commenting on Paul’s letters to the Romans and the Galatians: “The faith which Paul indicates in his distinction between faith and the law, is not one which could have been held in the pre-Christian era. The ‘righteousness of God’, by which he means His declaration of man as righteous, is that which comes only through faith in Christ—by which he means faith in the one who has come, died on the cross and risen.” In one of the concluding chapters, Buber describes the “Pauline view” not only as post-Jewish but also as post-Christian (in its emphasis on utter sinfulness): “Christianity is receding, but the Pauline view and attitude is gaining mastery. . . . There is a Paulinism of the unredeemed, one from which the abode of grace is eliminated.” 8 FAITH AND UNDERSTANDING Buber’s complaint about the rise of “Paulinism”—meaning by this term a neutral objectivism devoid of existential faith—is touching and elicits support. However, I would ascribe this noetic objectivism to entirely oth-

94

Fred Dallmayr

er factors—including scientism, detached rationalism, and above all capitalist individualism—and by no means to St. Paul and to the emergence of a Christian belief system influenced by Hellenism. As it seems to me, the transition from pre-Christian to Christian faith—that is, from the “faith of Jesus” to the “faith in Jesus”—was not at all the radical break suggested by Buber, for the simple reason that death and resurrection were not mere factual accidents but part of the intrinsic “faith of Jesus” himself. Differently put: the Emunah of Jesus embraced a new disclosure of the meaning of God or the divine which had not previously been fully emphasized or realized: the disclosure that God himself is a “suffering servant,” someone who suffers with and due to the sinfulness of humankind. While previously the divine had been thought of mainly as a realm of absolute and unperturbed permanence, Christ’s suffering and death implicated God in an unprecedented way in human finitude. What this involved was an unbelievable “humanization” of the divine and revealed religion which transformed and deepened the character of Emunah. In this respect, I agree with James Flusser again when he writes: Jesus’ faith and preaching were characterized by his attempt “to regard as null and void all those regulations and imaginations of the tradition that might cause suffering.” 9 What enabled the Emunah of Jesus to have such a disclosive and transformative character? It was not that he stepped outside of faith into a “Hellenistic” kind of noetic belief; rather, it was his ability to enter into the core of faith to unlock a deeper meaning. This is why contemporary listeners to his preaching often stated that Jesus seemed to speak with a special kind of “authority” or authenticity—not in the sense that he wielded superior power but that he spoke like the “author” of scripture itself. Thus, as Mark reports (1:21–22), when Jesus was in Caparnaum, he entered the synagogue to preach: “And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes” (who taught by rote memory). And when he had healed a man of an unclean spirit, Mark continues (1:27): “They were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying: ‘What is this? A new teaching? With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’” As we know, Jesus and his disciples did many things which were not sanctioned by official regulations—like plucking heads of grain on a Sabbath, when the Pharisees confronted him saying: “Why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”, to which he responded by first recounting a story about King David and then adding: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath; so the Son of man is lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2: 24, 27–28). This passage is followed almost instantly by the account of the healing of a withered hand, also on the Sabbath— when Jesus said to the crowd: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” And when they were silent, he looked around of them with anger, grieved at the hardness of their heart (Mark

Two Types of Religious Faith

95

3:4–5). These examples, we know, can be multiplied by many others, all of them revealing a remarkable “humanization” and ethical seasoning of faith. 10 Surely, there was a remarkable authority in the “faith of Jesus,” an authority deriving not only from rote memory but from a deep insight into the meaning of faith. This is an aspect completely ignored by Buber in his radical confrontation between Emunah and noetic acquaintance. The word of God, as the seedbed of faith, addresses itself to the whole human being, that is, to the human “heart-mind”—where mind is the seat of understanding. A faith completely beyond understanding is nothing more than a dogmatic gibberish, uttered in an unintelligible language. This was not the ancient faith of Israel—as is clearly spelled out in Deuteronomy when some people objected to Moses that his teachings were alien and barely intelligible—to which Moses replied (Deuteronomy 30:11–14): “The commandment which I give you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that you should say ‘Who will go up for us to heaven and bring it to us so that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us so that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word [of God] is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” As one can see, divine teachings are not purely esoteric or tailored for a select, particularly gifted elite; rather, they dwell in the core of the human heart-mind so that the resulting actions are not merely arbitrary or willful but guided by wisdom and mature understanding. The connection between faith and understanding was not a peculiar feature of the Mosaic commandments but a continuous emblem of genuine Emunah. In order not to become static, comfortable or stale, a living faith has to be dynamic and allow for a steady deepening and seasoning of its tenets. The most radical formulation of the meaning of deepening, self-transcending faith can be found in the words of Jesus addressed to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. As one will recall, Jesus in this story offered the woman “living water” and she was greatly astonished (because “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans”)—at which point Jesus told her (John 4:21–24). “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain [in Samaria] nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know—for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” As one can see, Emunah is here an evolving faith, a faith on a trajectory: it arises from Israel but is not limited to that location. One of the most puzzling and troubling aspects of Buber’s book is his tight linkage between Emunah and “nation” or nationality, as when he

96

Fred Dallmayr

writes: “The origin of Jewish Emunah is in the history of a nation, that of Christian pistis in that of individuals.” Published in 1951, the book appeared in the aftermath of a World War and a Holocaust unleashed by aggressive chauvinism and nationalistic arrogance. With these events in mind, would “nation” not have to be surrounded by many question marks? To be redeemable for the purpose of salvation history, would any nation not first have to undergo an intense Teshuvah, a radical process of cleansing and purification? Doubts about the virtue of nationalism abound in scripture. The Samaritan woman at the well was just mentioned. Even more pertinent and stirring is the story about the man who, on his way to Jericho, fell among robbers, was stripped, beaten and left for half dead. As he was lying in a ditch, a priest was going down the road, saw him but passed by on the other side; a Levite coming along did likewise; but then a Samaritan came, had compassion, bound up his wounds and took care of him—which leads to Jesus’ question: Who among the three displayed real Emunah in his conduct? (Luke 10:30–36). The issue of nationalism, however, was stirred up not only by Jesus’ stories and encounters, but stretches back deeper into history. When visiting his home town of Nazareth and preaching in the temple there, Jesus recalled in history the time of Prophet Elijah, saying: “There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when heaven was shut up for three years and six months . . . and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarepath in the land of Sidon. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elijah and none was cleansed but only Na’aman, the Syrian.” 11 What these and similar stories indicate is the difficult relation between Emunah and a restrictive or exclusivist nationalism. As shown in Jesus’ stories, God’s holiness and divine grace cannot be appropriated by particular agents (especially agents gripped with enmity toward others). Differently put: God’s divine reign cannot be reduced to a “mascot” of a particular nation, ethnicity, or party. If God’s love or mercy is really genuine (as it must be assumed to be), then it cannot be hoarded up in a particular place but must extend itself at least potentially to humanity at large. This does not mean that divine love is an abstract, uniform principle; as a living force it can take many shapes in different circumstances and contexts—corresponding to different human needs and sufferings. But once God has shown himself to be caringly involved in human affairs, this care cannot be claimed to be a privileged possession. No longer seen as an extra-mundane potentate, God as “suffering servant” must bring healing to the world at large. The promise of such healing is what is invoked in the prayer “Thy kingdom come.”

Two Types of Religious Faith

97

TWO TYPES OF FAITH, TWO KINDS OF POLITICS At this point it seems proper to return to the Barmen Declaration. Basically, the Declaration was a protest against false doctrines and, at the same time, a renewal of genuine faith (Emunah). It lodged a protest against the attempt by the Nazi government to co-opt Christian faith or better: to transform faith into a weapon in the pursuit of nationalist agendas. This attempt preceded the Declaration by a few years. Already in 1932, a movement of “German Christians” had been established who articulated their views in national conventions and programmatic papers. According to their program, the movement wanted Christian faith to be rooted in German nationhood (based on the Aryan model): “We want a vital national church that will express all the spiritual forces of our [German] people.” By mid-1933, a “Reich Church” was established under the leadership of a national bishop. In accordance with the fascist model, the “Führer principle” was adopted in that Church, based on the claim that Hitler was the ultimate “lord” of German Christians (the latter conceived as uniquely Aryan). 12 As one can see, the “Reich Church” was not just a collection of individuals animated by purely noetic beliefs (derived from Hellenistic influences). It was precisely its claim to be nationally or communally grounded that placed this Church into radical opposition to the genuine faith of Christian churches which had undergone a thorough Teshuvah or purification. In the words of the Barmen Declaration: “We reject as false the doctrine that the Church could and should recognize as source of its proclamation, beyond and besides the Word of God, yet other events, powers, historic figures and truths as part of God’s revelation.” In this spirit of protest, the Declaration added a series of other rejections and indictments. Thus we read: “We reject as false the doctrine that the Church could have permission to hand over its message and its order to whatever it itself might wish or to the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of the day.” And further: “We reject as false the doctrine that, apart from its ministry, the Church could, or could have permission, to give itself (or allow itself to be given) special leaders [Führer] vested with ruling authority.” 13 As it is important to note, these rejections did not endorse a complete withdrawal of the Church from society or the state, that is, the thorough “privatization” of faith. Such privatization would have meant that Christian faith is rendered irrelevant to social and public life. To guard against this danger the Declaration stressed that faith penetrates, and is meant to penetrate, all areas of life, thereby rejecting the notion “that there could be areas of life where we would belong not to Christ, but to other lords.” In line with its communal character, the Declaration did not simply reject “nation” or “nationality” as such, provided it is rightly guided. As its preamble (“Appeal”) stated: “Be not deceived by loose talk, as if we

98

Fred Dallmayr

meant to oppose the unity of the German nation. Do not listen to seducers who pervert our intentions, as if we wanted to break up the unity of the German Evangelical Church.” This, of course, was precisely the accusation leveled against the Declaration by extreme nationalists and by the government during ensuing years. Clearly, what lurks behind this conflict is a dispute about the meaning of nation: whether it is tied to “blood and soil,” or else to the summons to be a “holy nation.” As the preamble stated sharply: If anything is breaking up national and church unity it is the machinations of the “German Christians” and of the “Reich Church” which together are “devastating” the unity of Christian faith. 14 In line with its opposition to privatization, the Barmen Declaration is also famous for refusing to endorse a radical “two-world” theory, that is, the rigid separation of the “sacred” from the “secular” domains—a separation often coupled with the marginalization of secular government in favor of the Church. Citing a letter of Peter (“fear God, honor the emperor,” 1 Peter 2:17), the Declaration fully respects the institution of government and the public domain, stating: “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 ability make this possible.” The Church readily acknowledges “the benefit of this appointment” and calls to mind “God’s kingdom and his righteousness” and thereby “the responsibility both of rulers and the ruled.” Despite this acceptance of government and the public domain, however, the Declaration makes clear its strong opposition to totalitarianism, that is, to any totalizing claim to complete power on behalf of the state or political elites: “We reject as false the doctrine that, beyond its special commission [for justice and peace], the State should and could become the sole and total order of human life and so usurp the vocation of the Church as well.” 15 In this connection, and as an offshoot of these assertions, the Declaration ventures (though hesitantly) into political philosophy by intimating a contrast between two kinds of politics. Although favoring a somewhat negative conception of politics (accentuating “the threat and use of force”), the Declaration also acknowledges a more positive conception by emphasizing “the task of maintaining justice and peace.” What emerges behind these formulations is the long history of two opposing conceptions which identify politics either with the struggle for power or else with the striving for justice and well-being. The first conception—usually associated (rightly or wrongly) with Thomas Hobbes—holds that politics boils down to a struggle among competing interests for power where ultimately “winner takes all.” The second conception—prominently linked with Aristotle and his heirs—holds that the task of politics is basically to promote the “common good” and thus the justice and “good life” for all participants. 16 The first conception—vigorously renewed in our time by Carl Schmitt—defends the need for an ultimate public authority

Two Types of Religious Faith

99

(called “sovereignty”) as a means to guarantee public order, security, and obedience. By contrast, the second conception champions the institution of a shared or circulatory authority, that is, the cultivation of a “public realm” based upon to the greatest possible participation of citizens. 17 Curiously, what is happening in the Barmen Declaration is a partial (or at least tendential) convergence of public philosophy and theology along the lines of the second conception. As the Declaration states: “The various offices in the Church do not provide a basis for someone to exercise authority [power] over others, but only for the ministry or service [to others] with which the whole community has been entrusted.” This formulation is forcefully underscored by this well-known biblical citation expressing the “public” faith of Jesus: “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” (Matthew 20:25–26). Thus, although not couched in an overtly democratic idiom, the Barmen Declaration paves the way in the direction of responsible freedom: toward a religious as well as public regime based not on domination and control but on justice and mutual service. Here again we have the two types of faith and the two kinds of politics: one devoted to sovereign power and subjugation, the other to well-being and relief from suffering. One type is purely “worldly,” fueled by power lust and greed; the other is “trans-worldly,” humane and spiritual. The two kinds have been opposed since the beginning of time. In our own time, the conflict acquires a geopolitical and eschatological significance. From this perspective the prayer “Thy kingdom come” is a sheet anchor against Armageddon and global holocaust and a plea for justice and peace to reign “on earth as it does in heaven.” 18 NOTES 1. Martin Luther’s Werke, vol. 10 (Weimar: Verlag Hermann Böhlau, 1907), p. 189. 2. G. E. Lessing, Werke, vol. 7 (Munich: P. Rilla, 1976), pp. 711–712. 3. Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith, trans. Norman P. Goldhawk, 1st ed. 1951 (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2003), pp. 7–8. For Sir Henry Maine see his Ancient Law (London: John Murray, 1861). 4. Buber, Two Types of Faith, pp. 8–9. See also Ferdinand Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Leipzig: Verlag Fues, 1912). 5. Buber, Two Types of Faith, pp. 9–11, 18, 21. 6. Two Types of Faith, pp. 25–26, 170, 172. 7. Two Types of Faith, p. 221. 8. Two Types of Faith, pp. 51, 97–98, 162. 9. Two Types of Faith, p. 204. This is in accord with Paul’s statement in the letter to Titus (3:4): “Apparuit benignitas et humanitas salvatoris nostri (the goodness and humaneness of our Savior have appeared among us).” 10. Given Buber’s tendency to identify the “faith of Jesus” with that of the Pharisees, it is noteworthy how Mark concludes this passage (3:6): “The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him how to destroy him.” Two types of faith in nuce?

100

Fred Dallmayr

11. Finishing his story Luke adds: “When they heard these words, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath” and they drove him from the city (Luke 4:28). Two types of faith again? 12. See “The Protestant Church in Hitler’s Germany and the Barmen Declaration,” Grace Communion International, https://www.gci.org/history/barmen (accessed September 15, 2018). 13. See United Church of Christ, “Barmen Declaration,” http://www.ucc.org/beliefs_barmen_declaration (accessed September 15, 2018). 14. See “An Appeal to the Evangelical Congregations and Christians in Germany,” in Theological Declaration of Barmen, http://www.sacred-texts,com/chr/barmen.htm (accessed September 16, 2018). 15. In this context, the Declaration endorses at least a limited “separation of powers” between Church and State: “We reject as false the doctrine that, beyond its special commission (to justice and peace), the Church should take on the nature, tasks and dignity which belong to the State and thus become itself an organ of the State.” 16. Compare in this respect my In Search of the Good Life: A Pedagogy for Troubled Times (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015). 17. Regarding the “public realm” see Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 45–53; compare also Michael J. Sandel, Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005). For a critique of Carl Schmitt’s political theology (anchored in both divine and human “sovereignty”) see my “The Secular and the Sacred: Whither Political Theology?” in my Integral Pluralism: Beyond Culture Wars (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010), pp. 45–66. 18. Compare my “Post-Secular Faith: Toward a Religion of Service,” in Integral Pluralism, pp. 67–83. According to scriptural passages, the coming of God’s “kingdom” will be preceded by a period of total domination and oppression wielded by an “Antichrist” who usurps God’s power for his own worldly ambitions. See the dream of Daniel (Daniel 7:23–28); the first letter of John (2:18, 22); and Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians which presents the Antichrist as the “man of sin” who usurps the power of God and will “sit in the sanctuary of God, setting himself forth as God” with supreme power (2 Thessalonians 2:3–10).

EIGHT Thy Kingdom Come! The Prayer Of The Church-Community For God’s Kingdom On Earth Dietrich Bonhoeffer

[In this late 1932 lecture from a devotional retreat of the Protestant Continuing Education Institute for Women, Bonhoeffer argues that praying “thy kingdom come” means praying that God’s kingdom comes on earth. It is an escapist misunderstanding, on the one hand, to pray for an otherworldly kingdom; such a prayer forgets that God’s kingdom is on earth. It is equally mistaken, on the other hand, for the church or the individual Christian to take on the responsibility for ushering in the kingdom; such “pious secularism” forgets that God’s kingdom is God’s. Both otherworldliness and “the utopia of this-worldly secularism” reveal that we have stopped believing in the kingdom as God’s kingdom on earth. The lecture also includes a discussion of church and state, since the two are divinely ordained to anticipate the coming kingdom. The earth to which God’s kingdom comes is in its present state a cursed or sinful earth. On this cursed earth, the church is to preach the coming kingdom while the state preserves the world for the kingdom by maintaining order. Lest either the church or the state claim the place of the kingdom itself, Bonhoeffer emphasizes that their mandates are provisional, limited to this state of sin. When the kingdom comes in fullness to create a new earth, church and state pass away. Thus Bonhoeffer offers a vision of the kingdom while targeting a range of opponents. Drawing on his early love of Nietzsche and anticipating his prison critique of religion, Bonhoeffer envisions a this-worldly, 101

102

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

social kingdom that resists escape into individualistic interiority or otherworldliness. With his emphasis on the divine character of the kingdom and the sinful state of the earth and its present institutions, he chastens program-oriented, progress-minded liberal Christianity (familiar especially from his time in New York) as well as the millennial pretenses of the growing Nazi movement.] We are otherworldly or we are secularists, but in either case this means that we no longer believe in God’s kingdom. We are hostile to the Earth, because we want to be better than it, or we are hostile to God, because God robs us of the Earth, our mother. We flee the power of the Earth, or we hold hard and fast to it. Either way we are not the wanderers who love the Earth that bears them, and who only truly love it because it is on it that they travel toward that foreign land that they love above all; otherwise they would not be wandering at all. Only wanderers of this kind, who love the Earth and God as one, can believe in God’s kingdom. We have been otherworldly ever since we discovered the devious trick of being religious, indeed “Christian,” at the expense of the Earth. Otherworldliness affords a splendid environment in which to live. When life begins to be difficult and oppressive, one leaps boldly into the air and soars, relieved and worry free, in the so-called eternal realm. One leapfrogs over the present, scorns the Earth; one is better than it; indeed, next to the temporal defeats, one has eternal victories that are so easily achieved. Otherworldliness also makes it easy to preach and speak words of comfort. An otherworldly church can be sure that it will in no time at all attract all the weaklings, all those who are only too glad to be deceived and deluded, all the dreamers, all disloyal children of the Earth. When the explosions start, who among us is not so human that he won’t quickly mount the chariot that descends from the sky with the promise of taking us to a better world on the other side? What church would be so merciless, so inhuman that it wouldn’t deal compassionately with this weakness of suffering human beings—thereby saving their souls for the kingdom of heaven? The human being is weak and cannot bear having the Earth so near, the Earth that supports him. He cannot stand it because the Earth is stronger than him, and because he wishes to be better than the evil Earth. So he wrests himself from it and refuses to take it seriously. And who can blame him—unless it be the have-nots, in their envy? The human being is weak and this weakling is susceptible to the religion of otherworldliness—should we deny him, should the weak individual remain without aid? Is that the spirit of Jesus Christ? No, the weak human being should receive help and receives it from Christ. But Christ does not want these weaknesses; rather Christ makes the human being strong. Christ does not lead him into the otherworldliness of religious escapism. Rather, Christ returns him to the Earth as its true son. “Do not be otherworldly, be strong!”

Thy Kingdom Come!

103

Or we are children of the world. Those who feel that what has been said up to now does not apply to them at all should give heed to whether what now follows does not strike painfully home. We have succumbed to secularism, and here I mean the pious, Christian secularism. Not godlessness or cultural Bolshevism at all, but the Christian renunciation of God as the Lord of the Earth. Here we can see that we are bound to the Earth. We have to deal with it. There is no escape. Power confronts power. World confronts church; worldliness confronts religion. How could it be otherwise than that religion and church are forced into this struggle, this controversy? Moreover, faith is compelled to harden into religious convention and morality, and the church into an organization of action for religious-moral reconstruction. Thus faith arms itself because the powers of the Earth compel it to do so. After all, we are to represent God’s cause. We need to build ourselves a strong fortress within which we can dwell safe and secure with God. We build the kingdom. We can also live quite well with such cheerful secularism. The human being—including the religious person—enjoys a good fight and putting his strength to the test. Who would begrudge him this good gift of nature—unless it be the havenots in their envy? This pious secularism also makes it possible to preach and say nice things. The church may be certain, if only it makes a somewhat more spirited effort, that it will soon have all the brave, determined, well-meaning, all the all-true sons of the Earth on its side in this happy war. Which upright human being would not gladly represent God’s cause in this wicked world and do so as the ancient Egyptians are said to have done? They carried the images of their gods against their enemies— in order to hide behind them. But in this case the human being wants to hide not just from the enemy, from the world, but from God, from that God who destroys the mask created for him on earth, who does not wish for human beings to assume his role on earth in loud, boastful strength— just as the strong acquire the weak. On the contrary, God manages his own cause and, by free grace, accepts humans or not. God intends to be Lord on Earth and regards all exuberant human zeal on his behalf to be a real disservice. Our Christian secularism lies precisely in our readiness to earn God his right in the world, only to escape from him, and in our love of the Earth for its own sake and for the sake of this struggle. But we do not thereby elude God. We are brought back under God’s dominion. Become weak in the world and let God be the Lord! Now, however, otherworldliness and secularism are simply two sides of the same coin—namely, the lack of belief in God’s kingdom. He who would flee from the world, seeking in the kingdom a place removed from his troubles, does not believe. Nor does the one who presumes that he must establish a worldly kingdom. Whoever evades the Earth finds not God but only another world, his own better, lovelier, more peaceful world. He finds a world beyond, to be sure, but never God’s world, which is dawning in this world. Whoever evades Earth in order to find God finds only

104

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

himself. Whoever evades God in order to find the Earth does not find the Earth as God’s Earth; he finds the jolly scene of a war between good and evil, pious and impious, which he kindles himself—in short, he finds himself. He who loves God, loves God as the Lord of the Earth as it is; he who loves the Earth, loves it as God’s Earth. He who loves God’s kingdom loves it entirely as God’s kingdom, and he loves it wholly as God’s kingdom on Earth. And this because the king of the kingdom is the creator and preserver of the Earth, who has blessed the Earth and taken us from earth. But—this blessed Earth has been cursed by God. We live on cursed ground that yields thorns and thistles; but—Christ has entered into this cursed Earth; the flesh Christ bore was taken from this ground. On this ground the tree of the curse stood, and this second “but” establishes the kingdom of Christ as God’s kingdom on this cursed ground. This is why the kingdom of Christ is a kingdom that has been lowered into the cursed ground from above. It is there, but like a hidden treasure in the cursed field. We pass over it unaware, and this not-seeing becomes a judgment on us. You saw only the field, saw its thistles and thorns, maybe even its seeds and grain, but you did not find the hidden treasure in the cursed ground. Indeed, this is the true curse that is a burden upon the ground of the Earth; not that it yields thistles and thorns, but rather that it hides God’s countenance, so that even the deepest furrows in the Earth do not unveil for us the hidden God. If we are to pray for the coming of the kingdom, we can pray for it only as those wholly on the Earth. Praying for the kingdom cannot be done by the one who tears himself away from his own misery and that of others, who lives unattached and solely in the pious hours of his “own salvation.” The church may have hours in which it can sustain even that, but we cannot. The hour in which the church prays for the kingdom today forces the church, for better or worse, to identify completely with the fellowship of the children of the Earth and world. It binds the church by oaths of fealty to the Earth, to misery, to hunger, to death. It renders the church completely in solidarity with that which is evil and with the guilt of their brothers. The hour in which we pray today for God’s kingdom is the hour of the most profound solidarity with the world, an hour of clenched teeth and trembling fists. It is not a time for solitary whispering, “Oh, that I might be saved.” Rather, it is a time for mutual silence and screaming, that this world which has forced us into distress together might pass away and Your kingdom come to us. It is the eternal right of Prometheus to love the Earth, the “Earth, which is the mother of us all” (Sir. 40:1); this allows him to draw near the kingdom of God in a way that the coward fleeing to other worlds cannot. No one can pray for the kingdom who imagines himself in bold utopias, in dreams and hopes of the kingdom, who lives his ideologies, who knows thousands of programs and prescriptions with which to heal the

Thy Kingdom Come!

105

world. We should look at ourselves very carefully when we catch ourselves thinking such thoughts, and in doing so we will be in for a surprise. None of us knows what we basically want, so let us pose a very simple question: How do you really imagine your kingdom of God on Earth? How do you really want the people to be? Should they be more moral, more pious; should they be more homogeneous? Should they be less passionate; should they no longer be ill and hungry, no longer subject to death? Should there no longer be the smart and the stupid, the strong and the weak, the poor and the rich? It is truly amazing that as soon as we honestly pose this question and attempt to answer it, we are no longer able to provide even one. We want the one all right, and then again, for good reasons, we do not want it either. With a little honesty and some serious thought, it is simply not possible to come up with any kind of utopia for a kingdom of God on Earth. The possibility of thinking in universal terms, of seeing the big picture, fails us. All our longing to transform the cursed field into a blessed one, to regain it, fails because it is God who cursed the ground, and it is God alone who can retract this word and bless the Earth again. We must awaken from the state of intoxication with which the poison of the cursed ground has drugged us and become sober. The Earth wants us to take it seriously. It will not let us escape, not into the salvation of otherworldly piety nor into the utopia of this-worldly secularism. Instead, it comes right out and shows us how it is enslaved in finiteness. Its enslavement is our enslavement; with it we, too, are subjected. Death, loneliness, and desire—these are the three powers that enslave the Earth. Better, they are the one force, the adversary, the evil one, who will not surrender the rights he has gained over the fallen creature. Yet it is the force of the curse that came from the mouth of the Creator. And for this reason we cannot get beyond our death, our loneliness, and our desire with our utopias—they all belong inextricably to the cursed Earth. But in Fact we are not supposed to get beyond them at all. Rather, the kingdom comes to us in our death, in our loneliness, in our desire. It comes where the church perseveres in solidarity with the world and expects the kingdom from God alone. “Thy kingdom come”—this is not the prayer of the pious soul of the individual who wants to flee the world, nor is it the prayer of the utopian and fanatic, the stubborn world reformer. Rather, this is the prayer only of the church-community of children of the Earth, who do not set themselves apart, who have no special proposals for reforming the world to offer, who are no better than the world, but who persevere together in the midst of the world, in its depths, in the daily life and subjugation of the world. They persevere because they are, in their own curious way, true to this existence, and they steadfastly fix their gaze on that most unique place in the world where they witness, in amazement, the overcoming of the curse, the most profound yes of God to the world. Here, in the midst

106

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

of the dying, torn, and thirsting world, something becomes evident to those who can believe, believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here the absolute miracle has occurred. Here the law of death is shattered; here the kingdom of God itself comes to us, in our world; here is God’s declaration to the world, God’s blessing, which annuls the curse. This is the event that alone kindles the prayer for the kingdom. It is in this very event that the old Earth is affirmed and God is hailed as lord of the Earth; and it is again this event that overcomes, breaks through, and destroys the cursed Earth and promises the new Earth. God’s kingdom is the kingdom of resurrection on Earth. We resist this kingdom with our hypocritical lack of faith. We place limits on God by declaring with false humility that God cannot come to us because God is too great and God’s kingdom is not meant for this Earth, that God and God’s kingdom are in the eternal hereafter. But what humility could presume to define the limits of God’s action—the limits of the one who died and rose again? This humility is nothing other than the poorly concealed pride of those who think they know what God’s kingdom is and who then, in equally poorly concealed zeal, wish to perform the miracle themselves. They themselves wish to create the kingdom of God, and they see the coming of the kingdom in the strengthening of the church, in the Christianizing of culture and politics and upbringing, and in a renewal of Christian moral convention. In this way they thus fall once again under the curse of the Earth in which the treasure of the kingdom of God is hidden. Who wish to deceive themselves so completely that they do not see that it is God alone who effects this breakthrough, this miracle, this kingdom of resurrection. It is not what God could do and what we could do that forms the basis of our prayer for the coming of the kingdom, but what God does for us and what God will do for us again and again. It is God’s kingdom for the Earth, on the Earth under the curse; it is overcoming the law of death, loneliness, and desire in the world; and it is wholly God’s kingdom, God’s actions, God’s word, God’s resurrection. It is truly the miracle, God’s miracle, of breaking through death to life, and it is the miracle that supports our faith and our prayer for the kingdom. Why should we be ashamed that we have a God who performs miracles, who creates life and conquers death? We ourselves are a god who cannot perform miracles. If God is truly God—then God is God, then God’s kingdom is miraculous, the epitome of miracles. Why are we so anxious, so cautious, so cowardly? God will shame us all when one day he lets us see things that are a thousand times more miraculous than anything seen until now. We will feel shame before the miraculous God. Thus we look upon God’s miraculous acts and say: Your kingdom come to us. The petition for the kingdom is not the begging of the anxious soul for its salvation. It is not Christian trimming to be used by the world’s reformers. It is the plea of

Thy Kingdom Come!

107

suffering and struggling communities in the world, on behalf of the human race, asking that God’s glory be manifest in it. Not I and God, but we and God, we ask today. Not that God dwell in my soul, but that God should create the kingdom in our midst; that is our prayer today. How does God’s kingdom come to us? No differently than God comes, in overcoming the law of death, in the resurrection, in miracles, and at the same time in the affirmation of the Earth, in entering into its order, its communities, its history. The two belong completely together. For only where the Earth is fully affirmed can its curse be seriously broken through and destroyed; and only the fact that the Earth’s curse is broken through allows the Earth to be taken truly seriously. In other words God directs the Earth in such a manner that God breaks through the law of death. Thus God is always the one who binds himself to the Earth and the one who overcomes its curse. The Earth to which God is bound is the Earth that God preserves, the fallen, lost, cursed Earth. God binds himself to Earth as God’s own work. But where God is, there is God’s kingdom. God always comes with the kingdom. God’s kingdom must follow the same path as God. The kingdom comes with God to the Earth, and it is among us in no other way than a dual form: as the kingdom on Earth for all, the ultimate kingdom of resurrection, of miracles, breaking through, negating, overcoming, destroying all human works, which are subjected to the curse of death; and at the same time the kingdom of order, which affirms and preserves the Earth with its laws, communities, and its history. Miracle and order are the two forms in which God’s kingdom on Earth presents itself and in which it is scattered. The miracle as the breaking through of all order, and the order as the preservation in preparation for the miracle. But also the miracle completely veiled in the world of orders, and order maintained by virtue of its limitation by the miracle. The form in which the kingdom of God is attested as miracle we call—the church; the form in which the kingdom of God is attested as order we call—the state. The kingdom of God exists in our world exclusively in the duality of church and state. Both are necessarily linked to each other. Every attempt to control the other ignores this relationship of God’s kingdom on Earth. Every prayer for the coming of the kingdom to us that does not have in mind both church and state is either otherworldliness or secularism. It is, in any case, a lack of faith in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God takes form in the church, insofar as the church gives witness to the miracle of God. The ministry of the church is to witness to Christ’s resurrection from the dead, to the end of the law of death of this world under the curse, and to the power of God in the new creation. The kingdom of God takes form in the state insofar as the state recognizes and maintains the order of preservation of life and insofar as it accepts responsibility for preserving this world from collapse and for

108

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

exercising its authority here against the destruction of life. Not the creation of new life, but preservation of existing life is its ministry. Thus the power of death, of which we spoke, is destroyed in the church through the authoritative witness to the miracle of the resurrection; it is restrained in the state through the order of the preservation of life. With its entire authority, with which it alone is responsible for the order of life, the state points to the church’s witness to the breaking up of the law of death in the world of resurrection. And the church, with its witness to the resurrection, points to the preserving, ordering action of the state in the preserved world of the curse. Thus they both bear witness to the kingdom of God, which is entirely God’s kingdom and wholly a kingdom for us. The kingdom of God takes form in the church, insofar as here the loneliness of human beings is overcome through the miracle of confession and forgiveness. This is because in the church, in the communion of saints created by the resurrection, one person can and should bear the guilt of the other, and for this reason the last shackle of loneliness— hatred—is shattered and the community is established and created anew. It is through confession, a miracle that defies explanation, that all previously existing community is shown to have been illusory, is annulled, destroyed, and broken through, and that here and now the new community of the resurrection world is created. The kingdom of God takes form in the state, insofar as here the orders of existing communities are maintained with authority and responsibility. So that humanity does not collapse through the will of the individual who wants to go his own way, the state pledges to preserve the order of the community, marriage, family, and nation in the world of the curse. The state does not create new communities, but it maintains the existing ones; that is its office. In the church the power of loneliness is destroyed in the act of confession; in the state it is restrained through preservation of communal order. And in turn the state, in its limited range of action, points to the final miracle of God in the resurrection, just as the church, in its authoritative witness to God’s breaking through to the world, points to the preservation of order in the world under the curse. The kingdom of God takes form in the church insofar as the power of desire is transfigured through the witnessing of God’s miracle. Human desire, which is turned in on itself, is judged, destroyed, nullified in the proclamation of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. On the body of Christ on the cross our desire is judged. Yet, at the same time, transfigured and created anew in the resurrection world, where it becomes the desire of one person for another, for God and the brother, for love, peace, happiness, blessedness. The kingdom of God takes form in the state insofar as here human desire is restrained with authority and responsibility, is kept within the

Thy Kingdom Come!

109

order, to the extent that each is protected and preserved from the desire of the other. However, desire is not destroyed, only restrained, so that it may prove its value and bear fruit in the service of the community of the fallen world. Here, too, is love—although always immersed in the possibility of hate; here, too, is joy—but never without the bitter awareness of its transitory nature;—and salvation—but always at the edge of despair. The power of desire is overcome and transfigured in the church, restrained and ordered in the state. Here, too, the limited range of state action points to the authoritative testimony of the church, just as the church points to the order of the state, which fulfills its office in this cursed world. The church limits the state, just as the state limits the church. And both must remain aware of this mutual limitation and support this tense juxtaposition, which should and never one alone, point to the kingdom of God, which is here attested in position, which should never be a coalescence. Only thus do both together, such a splendid twofold form. This consideration does not remain theoretical, however, but becomes truly serious at the point where between church and state we speak of a people. Because the people are called to the kingdom of God, they have a place in both state and church. As a result, the people, indeed we ourselves, now become the setting in which their encounter takes place. We ourselves become those who are called, on the one hand, to take seriously the limits and, on the other, where the limits truly collide and produce sparks, to perceive the living heart of God’s kingdom itself. When we pray: Thy kingdom come! We are then praying for the church, that it might bear witness to the miracle of the resurrection, and for the state, with its authority, that it may defend the orders of the preserved world of the curse. That the church has its office solely in relation to miracle and that the state has its office solely in relation to order, and that between church and state the people of God, Christendom, live in obedience—that is the prayer for God’s kingdom on Earth, for the kingdom of Christ. Christ’s kingdom is God’s kingdom, but God’s kingdom in the form ordained for us; not as a visible, powerful empire, as the “new” kingdom of the world, but as the kingdom of the other world that has entered completely into the discord and contradiction of this world. At the same time it appears as the powerless, defenseless gospel of the resurrection, of miracle, and as the state that possesses authority and power that preserves order. Only in the true relation and delimitation of the two is Christ’s kingdom reality. This may sound somber, but then it should, and only thus does it call us to obedience. Obedience toward God in the church and in the state. The kingdom of God is found not in some other world beyond but in our midst. It seeks our obedience despite contradictory appearances, and then it constantly seeks, through our obedience, the miracle, like light-

110

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

ning allowed to flash from the perfect, blessed new world of the final promise. On Earth, God seeks to be honored by us in the other, and nowhere else. God plants his kingdom in the cursed ground. We must open our eyes, become sober, obey God here. Come, you that are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom! This the Lord says to none other than those to whom he said: I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. Because God’s kingdom is to exist eternally, God will create a new Heaven and a new Earth. But truly a new Earth. It will then be God’s kingdom on Earth, on the new Earth of the promise, on the old Earth of the creation. This is the promise: that one day we shall behold the world of the resurrection, which we here comprehend in the words of the church and to which the state points. We shall not remain divided, but God will be all in all. Christ will lay his kingdom at God’s feet, and the kingdom of the consummation will be at hand. The kingdom where there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more crying, no more death. It is the kingdom of life, of community, of transfiguration. And there will no longer be church or state; rather, they will return their offices to the One from whom they originally received them, and God alone will be the Lord as the Creator, the crucified and resurrected One, and the Spirit that reigns in his holy community. Thy kingdom come. Thus we pray also for that ultimate kingdom in the certainty that his kingdom has already dawned among us. It comes even without our prayer—says Luther, but in this prayer we ask that it may also come among us, that we not be left outside. The Old Testament tells the strange story of Jacob, who has fled his homeland, from the land God promised, and has lived abroad for many years in a state of enmity with his brother. Then, one day, he can no longer stand it; he wants to return home to the promised land, the land of God’s promise; he wants to return to his brother. He is on his way; it is the last night before he is to enter once again into the promised land. Only a narrow river still separates him from it. As he prepares to cross it, he is stopped. Someone wrestles with him in the dark, someone he does not recognize. It seems Jacob is not to reenter his homeland; he is to be pinned down and to die at the gate to the promised land. But incredible powers come upon Jacob, and he fights back against his attacker and takes hold of him and does not let him go until he hears his attacker say: “Let me go, dawn is breaking.” With his last ounce of strength, Jacob refuses to let his attacker go: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” It seems to him then as if the end had come, so hard his attacker struggles against him. Yet at that moment, he is blessed, and the attacker disappears. Then the sun rises upon Jacob, and limping from one hip, he enters into the promised land. The way is clear; the dark door to the promised

Thy Kingdom Come!

111

land had been blown open. The curse had been transformed into a blessing. And now the sun rises upon him. That for all of us the way into the promised land passes through the night, that we too only enter it as those strangely marked with scars from the struggle with God, the struggle for God’s kingdom and grace; that we enter into the land of God and of our brother as limping warriors—this we Christians share with Jacob. And we know, too, that the sun is destined for us as well. This allows us to bear with patience the time of wandering and waiting and believing that has been imposed on us. But this we know more than Jacob, that it is not we who must go, but rather that God comes to us. Our consolation today, on the eve of All Souls’ Day, is that Advent and Christmas follow. That is why we pray: Thy kingdom come to us as well.

Conclusion Political Theology Again

This book has dealt with the Barmen Declaration and its different readings or interpretations by a number of theologians and intellectuals. As has been shown, the Declaration was written at a certain time and place and in response to a specific provocation: the Nazi regime in Germany during the 1930s. In this respect, the text has a powerful historical relevance and significance. Beyond this, however, the text has a symbolic status or the status of a general parable: because similar events or episodes can and do recur in history in different guises and under different labels. Thus, aggressive nationalism has the habit of raising its head ever so often in the world, always inflicting aggravation on many people, and especially on religious believers. Looked at more closely, the Declaration is parabolic also in another, deeper sense: by disclosing the central character of “political theology” as such. As I have indicated earlier, that phrase is a synonym not for happy merger or synthesis, but rather for a tension and ongoing contestation which can yield a mutual learning experience for both faith and worldly politics. One way in which this learning experience can bear fruit is in moving both sides away from the hierarchical ideology of “throne and altar” in the direction of genuine democratization—a process which (as Woodard-Lehman’s essay shows) can and should lead to a correlation of religious discipleship and democratic citizenship. Another way to articulate this correlation is with reference to the “kingdom of God.” In his concluding essay, Bonhoeffer insists strongly on the correlation of God and Earth, on the need to carry God’s word into the secular-worldly context. In seeking to bring the Lord’s prayer to fruition, he is unwilling to give either theologians or political agents the only or the last word. As he writes, both sides “must remain aware of their mutual limitation and support their tense juxtaposition which should— and never one alone—point to the kingdom of God.” The juxtaposition, he adds, should never be complete fusion or coalescence. They should work “both together,” in “such a splendid twofold form.” Something which is neither fusion nor radical separation in common parlance is called “difference.” In Indian philosophy, the term “advaita” has been used in a similar manner to designate a non-monistic “nondualism” (as the theologian Raimon Panikkar has repeatedly indicated). 1 113

114

Conclusion

Students of modern Western philosophy are likely to be familiar with Heidegger’s expression of “ontic-ontological difference” (the difference between Being and beings), just as they are with Jacques Derrida’s use of “différance” (as part of the “deconstruction” of stable essences). Although frequently denounced as difficult if not esoteric, the language of difference now emerges quite forcefully and near-spontaneously in the discussion of political theology, especially when applied to the meaning of the Lord’s prayer. For when we pray or solicit “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we bring together quite “different” realms or contexts which, however, are not totally separated and somehow impinge upon each other. This differential relation is evident already in the dimensions of space and time, spatiality and temporality. Clearly, when we speak of God’s place in “heaven,” we do not just speak of an “other,” extraterritorial space, but of something like a “non-space,” an a-topos or in Greek a “khora” (which means an interval or something behind space). But of course, by a-topos we do not just mean an empty or vacant space or else the negation of spatiality as such. Rather, we speak of something like a hidden or sheltered space which is waiting to come forward and be revealed. Likewise, God’s time is not just an “other” time, perhaps a very long or extended time like “eternity.” Rather, God’s time is intrinsically “timely,” something that can happen right now (nunc stans) or else “once upon a time.” As in the case of space again, the “timely” happening is not outside of all time or temporality, but rather impinges on and transfigures ordinary chronology, in such a way that it makes all the “difference.” The differential quality is manifest with particular cogency in the “coming” of the kingdom when God’s will shall “be done” on earth as it is in heaven. What is this kind of “coming,” and what is this “doing” that shall take place? In different terms, one can ask: what kind of agency or “praxis” is involved and what kind of “will” is doing the willing? As we must realize—and as Bonhoeffer again has rightly stressed—the “coming” does not just depend on human (or anthropocentric) agency and will power. In fact, reliance on human praxis and will alone insures that God’s kingdom will be missed. On the other hand, if the “coming” relies on God’s willing alone without any human involvement, the outcome will be relevant for God and his angels but would not be a kingdom “on earth” or in the world. Hence, the doing or agency here has to be peculiarly broken or “deferred”: although urgently pleading for the “coming” of the kingdom, the solicitation must differentially relate action and nonaction, willing and non-willing. Philosophers speak in this context of an intentionless intention, an unwilling will, or a “doing by not doing” (wuwei). 2 The differential entwinement of action and non-action is preeminently present in prayer. Usually, a prayer utters a request or solicitation, but

Conclusion

115

leaves the fulfillment of the request entirely elsewhere. Thus, prayer involves an address or invocation but does not depend on the assurance of a positive response. Derrida speaks in this context of a “possible impossibility” or an “impossible possibility,” and he links prayer with such cognate expressions as “promise,” “secret revelation,” and “khora.” 3 Moreover, prayer is not addressed to a worldly potentate or concrete ruler whose reactions could be calculated, manipulated or predicted. Rather, the message of a prayer is addressed in a known language to an unknown (and never fully knowable) addressee; to this extent it involves a transit or transgression between different languages games, a transit between the intelligible and the not (fully) intelligible. For this reason, payer—and faith as such—is necessarily “apophatic” in the sense that it can never fully reach or exhaust its target. If this is so, then political theology necessarily is a “limping” enterprise, one navigating between different tongues. In Bonhoeffer’s words, practitioners in this field are like “travelers” in different realms and between different cities. In a way, they are not just committed to modern Western “enlightenment,” but to a broader worldwide illumination. In the words of the prayer of Simeon (Luke 2:32): “Lumen ad revelationem gentium” (light for the enlightenment of all peoples). NOTES 1. Compare Raimon Panikkar, The Rhythm of Being: The Gifford Lectures (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010), pp. 216–218. 2. See, e.g., Edward Slingerland, Effortless Action: Wu-Wei as a Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). In a similar way, some theologians speak of “theonomous” or else “ontonomous” condict as distinguished from “autonomous” or “heteronomous” action. See, e.g., Paul Tillich, Political Expectation, ed. James Luther Adams (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 66–68, 72; and Raimon Panikkar, The Rhythm of Being, pp. 53–54; also his Worship and Secular Man (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1971), pp. 47–52. From another angle, one might also describe “liturgy” as a non-purposive and non-willful conduct. Compare in this regard Romano Guardini, The Spirit of the Liturgy (New York: Crossroads, 1998). 3. See Jacques Derrida, “How to Avoid Speaking: Denials,” in Harold Coward and Toby Froshay, eds., Derrida and Negative Theology (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992), pp. 84, 108, 130–131.

Bibliography

Relating to the Barmen Declaration Ahlers, Rolf. “The First Barmen Declaration of January 4, 1934.” Reformed Journal 34, no. 5 (1984): pp. 14–20. Ahlers, Rolf. The Barmen Theological Declaration of 1934: The Archaeology of a Confessional Text. New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986. Barth, Christoph. Bekenntnis Im Werden. Neue Quellen zur Entstehung der Barmer Erklärung. Neukirchen Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1979. Barth, Karl. Die Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/2: Die Lehre Vom Wort Gottes. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1932. Barth, Karl. “Der Christ in der Gesellschaft.” In Das Wort Gottes und die Theologie, pp. 33–69. Münich: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1925. Barth, Karl. The Church and the Political Problem of Today. New York: Scribner, 1939. Barth, Karl. “Die Kirche und die Politischen Fragen von Heute.” In Eine Schweizer Stimme 1938–1945, pp. 69–107. Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1945. Barth, Karl. “Die Kirche: Die Lebendige Gemeinde des Lebendigen Herrn Jesus Christus.” Unterwegs 1, no. 4 (1947), pp. 6–26. Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics 1/2: The Doctrine of the Word of God. Translated by George Thomson and Harold Knight. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956. Barth, Karl. “Christengemeinde und Bürgergemeinde.” In Texte Zur Barmer Theologischen Erklärung, pp. 89–136. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1984. Barth, Karl. “Streit in der Kirche.” In Karl Barth Gesamtausgabe: Predigten 1935–1952, pp. 411–14. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1996. Barth, Karl. “The Community: The Living Congregation of the Living Lord Jesus Christ.” In God Here and Now, pp. 75–104. London: Routledge, 2003. Barth, Karl. Community, State, and Church: Three Essays. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004. Barth, Karl. Karl Barth’s Table Talk. Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 2011. Barth, Karl. “The Christian in Society.” In The Word of God and Theology, pp. 31–69. London: T & T Clark, 2011. Bax, Douglas. “The Barmen Theological Declaration: Its Historical Context.” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 47 (1984), pp. 12–20. Beiser, Gerhard. Die Kirchen und das Dritte Reich: Spaltungen und Abwehrkämpfe 1934 Bis 1937. Frankfurt: Ullstein, 2001. Biggar, Nigel. “Saving the Secular: The Public Vocation of Theology.” Journal of Religious Ethics 37, no. 1 (2009), pp. 159–78. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Dietrich Bonhoeffers Werke, vol. 6. Munich: Kaiser, 1992. Buber, Martin. Two Types of Faith, trans. Norman Goldhawk, first ed. 1951. New York: Syracuse University Press, 2003. Burgsmüller, A. and R. Werth, eds. Die Barmer Theologische Erklärung: Einführung und Dokumentation. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1983. Busch, Eberhard. “How the Church Was Once Courageous: The Story of the Barmen Declaration.” Unpublished essay (1984). Busch, Eberhard. Unter dem Bogen eines Bundes: Karl Barth und die Juden (1933–1945). Munich: Kaiser, 1996.

117

118

Bibliography

Busch, Eberhard. The Barmen Theses Then and Now: The 2004 Warfield Lectures At Princeton Theological Seminary. Translated by Darrell L. Guder and Judith J. Guder. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010. Busch, Nielsen K., R. K. Wüstenberg, J. Zimmermann, eds. Dem Rad in die Speichen fallen: Das Politische in der Theologie Dietrich Bonhoeffers. Gütersloh: Verlagshaus, 2013. Coward, Harold and Toby Froshay, eds. Derrida and Negative Theology. Albany: SUNY Press, 1992. Dallmayr, Fred. In Search of the Good Life: A Pedagogy for Troubled Times. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Deneen, Patrick J. Democratic Faith. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Dewey, John. “Democracy and Educational Administration.” In The Later Works: Volume 2, 1935–1937, pp. 217–25. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987. Dorrien, Gary J. The Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology: Theology Without Weapons. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000. Fergusson, David. Church, State and Civil Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Gerlach, Wolfgang. “The Attitude of the Confessing Church Toward German Jews in the Third Reich and the Way After.” In The Barmen Confession: Papers From a Symposium Held April 26–29, 1984, at the University of Washington, edited by Hubert G. Locke, Queenstown, ON: Edwin Mellen Press, 1986, pp. 91–118. Godsey, John. “Epilogue: Barth as a Teacher.” In For the Sake of the World: Karl Barth and the Future of Ecclesial Theology, 202–14. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004. Gremmels, Christian. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Der Weg in den Widerstand. Gütersloh: Verlagshaus, 1996. Gremmels, Christian. Theologie und Lebenswelt: Beiträge zur Theologie der Gegenwart. Gütersloh: Verlagshaus, 2012. Guardini, Romano. The Spirit of the Liturgy. New York: Crossroad, 1998. Hauerwas, Stanley. With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2001. Huber, Wolfgang. Kirche und Öffentlictkeit. 2nd ed. Munich: Kaiser, 1991. Huber, Wolfgang. Gerechtigkeit und Recht. Grundlinien christlicher Rechtsethik. Gütersloh: Verlagshaus, 1996. Huber, Wolfgang. Im Geist der Freiheit: Für eine Ökumene der Profile. Freiburg: Herder, 2007. Huber, Wolfgang. Von der Freiheit: Perspektiven für eine solidarische Welt. Munich: C.E. Beck, 2012. Nicolaisen, Carstens. Der Weg Nach Barmen: Die Enstehungsgeschichte der Theologischen Erklärung von 1934. Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1985. Nicolaisen, Carstens. “Concerning the History of the Bethel Confession.” In Berlin 1932–1933. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009, pp. 509–14. Niemöller, Gerhard, ed. Die erste Bekenntnissynode der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959. Niemöller, Wilhelm. Der Pfarrernotbund: Geschichte einer Kämpfenden Bruderschaft. Hamburg: Wittig, 1973. Prolingheuer, Hans. Der Fall Karl Barth: Chronologie einer Vertreibung 1934–1935. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1977. Schmidt, Kurt Dietrich. Die Bekenntnisse und Grundsätzlichen Äusserungen zur Kirchenfrage I: Das Jahr 1933. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, 1934. Schmidt, Kurt Dietrich. Die Bekenntnisse und Grundsätzlichen Äusserungen zur Kirchenfrage II: Das Jahr 1934. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, 1935. Scholder, Klaus. Die Kirchen und das Dritte Reich: Vorgeschichte und Zeit Der Illusionen 1918–1934. Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1977. Scholder, Klaus. Die Kirchen und das Dritte Reich: Das Jahr der Ernüchterung 1934, Barmen und Rom. Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1985.

Bibliography

119

Scholder, Klaus. The Churches and the Third Reich: Preliminary History and the Time of Illusions 1918–1934. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988. Sonderegger, Katherine. That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew: Karl Barth’s “Doctrine of Israel.” State College: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. Strohm, Christoph. Theologische Ethik im Kampf gegen den Nationalsozialismus. Munich: Kaiser, 1989. Tietz, Christiane. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologe im Widerstand. Munich: C.E. Beck, 2013. Tödt, Heinz Eduard. Theologische Perspektivon nach Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Gütersloh: Verlagshaus, 1993. Tödt, Heinz Eduard. Komplizen, Opfer und Gegner des Hitler Regimes. Gütersloh: Verlagshaus, 1997. Visher, Lukas, ed. Reformed Witness Today: A Collection of Confessions and Statements of Faith. Bern: Evangelische Arbeitsstelle Schweiz, 1982. West, Cornel. Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism. New York: Penguin Press, 2004. Wolf, Ernst. Barmen: Kirche zwischen Versuchung und Gnade. München: Kaiser Verlag, 1957. Woodard-Lehman, Derek. “Reason After Revelation: Karl Barth on Divine Word and Human Words.” Modern Theology 33, no. 1 (2017), pp. 92–115.

Index

action, non-action and, 114–115, 115n2 Acts, 54 advaita (non-dualism), 113 Ahlers, Rolf, 56, 59 Althaus, Paul, 59 Altona Confession, 56, 57, 58 America. See United States of America Antichrist, 100n18 antisemitism. See Jews, persecution of Aristotle, 93, 98 Aryan Paragraph, 55, 61, 77; Barmen Declaration not mentioning, 59, 72n97; Barth on, 83–84; Bonhoeffer and, 82, 83–84 Asmussen, Hans: Altona Confession drafted by, 56, 57, 58; in Barmen Declaration, role of, 42–43, 57–60, 62 authority: of Jesus Christ, 94–95, 99; political, opposing conceptions of, 98–99; political, Scripture on, 18, 22; state, in Barmen Declaration, 18, 22, 60–62, 63, 98–99 Barmen Declaration. See specific topics The Barmen Theses Then and Now (Busch), 5 Barth, Karl, 5; on Aryan paragraph, 83–84; in Barmen Declaration, coauthors of, 56–62; in Barmen Declaration, role of, 3, 8–9, 26, 28, 29, 44, 50, 55–56, 57–62, 78, 78–79; Barmen Declaration precedents coauthored by, 57; on believers, priesthood of, 47; by Busch, biography of, 56; Church Dogmatics, 49, 52, 54, 57–58, 61, 64, 67, 72n89; Community, State, and Church, 49–50; on community, Christian, 63–65, 67–68, 73n98; as Confessing Church leader, 49–50; on confession, 32,

50–55, 67, 68n7, 69n10, 69n12, 69n17; democracy and, 8–9, 51–55, 63–65, 63–66, 72n91; Enlightenment and, 76; on German Christians, 76, 77; Hitler allegiance oath refused by, 79–80; Jewish persecution and, 77, 78, 79; on law, 64, 65–66, 72n89; Nazi resistance of, as theological, 76–78, 79, 80, 88n21; political theology and, 49, 50–51; on politics, 49–50, 63; on reciprocal freedom, 50; on Reformed confession, 50–55, 68n7, 69n10, 69n12, 69n17; on Scots Confession, lectures of, 65, 67; suspension of, 79–80; on thesis, antithesis and, 28; on Word of God, 9–10, 43, 44, 52, 76, 77–78; writings of, 49–50 Barthians, 5, 6, 7–9 bekennend (confessing). See confessing Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church). See Confessing Church Belhar Confession, 71n74, 78 belief: confession and, 33; in Kingdom of God, 103–104 belief (pistis), 92, 96 believers: freedom of, 45–46; priesthood of, 47 Bell, George, 87n20 Bethel Confession, 56, 83 Bethge, Eberhard, 78, 79 Biggar, Nigel, 64, 72n89 binding, 32, 33, 33–34, 35 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 31, 42, 46, 56, 87n20; Aryan Paragraph and, 82, 83–84; Confessing Church and, 80, 83, 84; ecumenism of, 80–81; Enlightenment and, 76, 84; on freedom, rights and, 85–86; human rights and, 84–86; Jewish 121

122

Index

persecution and, 81, 83; on law, order and, 81–82; Nazi resistance of, 80–81, 85; on resistance, theory of, 81–83, 88n21; on state, church and, 81–83 Bonn, Evangelical Church of, 29 Bonn Flyer, 57, 58 Breit, Thomas, 57, 58, 59–60 Buber, Martin: on Emunah, 10–11, 92, 94, 95, 95–96; on faith, types of, 10–11, 90–93, 93–95, 95–96, 99n10; on nation, 95–96; on Paul, 10, 93, 93–94 Busch, Eberhard, 5; Barth biography by, 56; on confession, 53, 66–67 Calvin, John, 33 Chesterton, G. K., 66 Christianity. See specific topics 2 Chronicles, 35 church: Barth on Germans and, 77; as community, 22, 46–47, 51, 52, 73n98; democracy and life of, 8, 53; desire transfigured by, 108, 109; Enlightenment and, 75–76, 86; Hitler opposing confession of, 25; Kingdom of God and, 105–106, 107–108, 109, 110, 113; mission of, 47; order of, 46–47; resurrection witnessed by, 107–108; state and, 18–19, 22–23, 44, 58, 60, 61–62, 100n15, 101, 107–109; state and, Bonhoeffer on, 81–83; Word of God and, 15, 19, 44 Church Dogmatics (Barth). See Barth, Karl Cioffi, Todd, 64, 72n89 citizenship, 63–64, 65, 66, 72n82, 113 collectivism, 35 community: Barth on Christian, 63–65, 67–68, 73n98; Buber on faith and, 91; church as, 22, 46–47, 51, 52, 73n98; democracy and Christian, 64–66, 67 Community, State, and Church (Barth), 49–50 concentration camps, 81 confessing (bekennend): confession and, 30–31; knowing and, 89; law of, 64

Confessing Church (Bekennende Kirche), 27, 29–30, 72n97, 89; Barth as leader of, 49–50; Bonhoeffer and, 80, 83, 84; Nazis and, ix–x, 3, 4, 39–41, 79, 79–80; origins of, 39–41; South African Confessing Church modeled after, 71n74 Confessing Movement, 55, 56–57, 57, 59 confessio continua, 52–53, 54, 62–63, 67 confession: Barmen Declaration as, 5–6, 27–28, 33–35, 36, 37–38, 41–43, 59, 78; Barmen Declaration reviving, 28–29; Barth on, 32, 50–55, 67, 68n7, 69n10, 69n12, 69n17; belief and, 33; binding of, 32, 33, 33–34, 35; Busch on, 53, 66–67; church, Hitler opposing, 25; common, Barmen Declaration as, 37–38; as communal, 62–63; confessing and, 30–31; of Confessing Movement, declarations and, 56–57; decline of, 28–29; democracy and, 62–63, 66; ecumenical church and, 29; as ethos, 52; form of, political theology determined by, 50, 63–65, 66; of German Christians, 26, 40–41; living, active, 28, 30; loneliness and, 108; Lutherans on, 28–29, 30–31; miracle of, 108; in 1933, other than Barmen Declaration, 27–29, 30; Paul on, 32, 33; political theology and, 8; praxis of, 52, 67–68, 69n17, 69n23; rejections in, 31; repentance in, 31–32; resistance and, 9–10; Scripture and questioning of, 42; Scripture in, 32–33, 41; separations in, 31; status confessionis, 31, 53, 54, 62, 67, 84; as term, resurfacing, 26; timely, 5; wide and narrow, 52–53, 54, 69n21, 69n23 Consequences of Christian Freedom (Huber), 9 1 Corinthians, 21 2 Corinthians, 32 Coulter, Dale M., 5 cultural Protestantism, 75–76 Daniel, 100n18

Index death, 104; cursed Earth and, 105–107, 108; resurrection and, 106–107, 107, 108; state and, 108 democracy: American, flag in, 4; Barmen Declaration as affirming, 8, 50; Barth and, 8–9, 51–55, 63–66, 66, 72n91; Christian community and, 64–66, 67; Christian discipleship proximate to, 9, 63–64, 113; in church life, 8, 53; citizenship in, 63–64, 65, 66, 72n82, 113; confession and, 62–63, 66; democratic faith, 66; doctrinal analogy of, Barth on, 9, 65; with faith, tension of, 2–3; Reformed church as pattern for, 9, 50, 51–52, 53–54, 54–55, 63–65, 67 Derrida, Jacques, 114, 115 desire, 108–109 Deuteronomy, 95 Deutsche Christen.. See German Christians Dewey, John, 66 dialectical theology, 13n4, 75 difference, 113–115 discipleship, Christian, 9, 63–64, 113 doing by not doing (wuwei), 114 Earth: as cursed, 104, 105–107, 108; Kingdom of God on, 101–102, 104–107, 109–110, 113; in Lord’s prayer, will and, 11–13 ecclesiastical law, 64 ecumenical church, confession of, 29 ecumenism, 80–81 EKD. See Evangelical Church in Germany Elijah, 96 Emergency Covenant of Pastors (Pfarrernotbund), 76 Emunah (trust), 97; Buber on, 10–11, 92, 94, 95, 95–96; of Jesus, humanized, 94; nationalism and, 11, 95–96; understanding and, 95 Enlightenment, 115; Barth and, 76; Bonhoeffer and, 76, 84; church and, 75–76, 86 Ephesians, 22, 72n82 ethos, 52

123

Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), 9, 23, 26, 36, 38n22; constitution of, 16, 33; situation of, Barmen Declaration on, 16–19; unity of, 15–16, 16, 17, 32–33, 33, 34, 35, 98; Word of God exclusive for, 27, 28 evangelical churches, German: centrist faction of, 26; in 1933 and 1934, situation of, 26–30 evangelical truths, 17 faith: Buber on, 10–11, 90–93, 93–95, 95–96, 99n10; community and, Buber on, 91; for Confessing Church, 89; with democracy, tension of, 2–3; democratic, 66; Emunah, 10–11, 92, 94–96, 97; German Christians and, 4, 39; Hellenistic, 10, 91–92, 94; in Jesus, humanized, 94–95; Jewish and Christian, 10, 91–93, 94; of Jews, Mosaic, 95; Lessing on, 90, 91; Luther on, 89–90; market and, 4, 7, 13n6; Nazis transforming, 97; as noetic, 10, 89, 91–93, 93–95, 97; Paul on law and, 93; politicization of, 4; politics and types of, 97–99; privatization of, 97–98; with secular, tension of, 1–2, 3–4, 13n1; types of, 10–11, 89–93, 93–95, 95–99, 99n10–100n11; understanding and, 93–96 false doctrine: in Barmen Declaration, rejection of, 6, 15, 17, 18, 18–19, 19, 21, 22, 22–23, 23, 31, 41, 43, 59, 61–62, 79, 97; of Jesus, other lords than, 22; on political authority, 22; separation and rejection of, 31; on state, 18, 18–19, 22–23, 61–62, 79, 97; Word of God and, 17, 23, 43 federation, in Barmen Declaration, 57, 58–59 “Five Minutes of Church History” (Nichols), 5 Flusser, David, 93 freedom: in Barmen Declaration, as keyword, 19, 23, 39, 47–48; of believers, responsible, 45–46; human rights and, 85–86; reciprocal,

124

Index

Barth on, 50; in witness and ministry, 46–48 Führer. See Hitler, Adolf Führer-principle, 40, 41–42, 46–47 German Christians (Deutsche Christen), ix, 3, 27, 39, 44; Barmen Declaration on, 17, 21, 34, 34–35, 41, 89, 97, 98; Barth on, 76, 77; confessional commitment of, 26; confession of, 40–41; Hitler and, 40, 41, 97; Jewish persecution and, 40; North German Reformed Church aligned with, 30; politicized faith of, 4; racism, nationalism of, 6–7, 40–41, 89, 97; resistance to, 55, 76 German Church Struggle, 49–50, 54 Gleichschaltung (incorporation), 55, 61 Godsey, John, 62 Greeks. See Hellenism Güstrow Confession, 26 Harnack, Adolf von, 76 Hebrews, 44 Heidegger, Martin, 114 Hellenism, 10, 91–92, 93, 94 Hirsch, Emanuel, 40 Hitler, Adolf, 55, 76; allegiance oath to, Barth refusing, 79–80; Barmen Declaration on, 41–42; church confession opposed by, 25; conspiracy against, 83; as Führer, 40, 41–42, 79, 97; German Christians and, 40, 41, 97 Hobbes, Thomas, 98 Huber, Wolfgang, 9 human rights, 10; American theory of, 84–85, 85; Bonhoeffer and, 84–86; Christian outlook on, 85 humility, 106 immanence: in Barmen Declaration, 4; in political theology, transcendence meeting, ix, 1–3, 13n4 incorporation (Gleichschaltung), 55, 61 individualism, 35 interval (khora), 114, 115 Jacob, 110–111

James, 9, 54 Jeremiah, 35 Jerusalem, Council of, 54–55 Jesus, 2–3; authority of, 94–95, 99; in Barmen Declaration, 5, 16, 17, 17–18, 21, 21–22; Emunah of, humanized, 94; humanized faith in, 94–95; liberation through, 21; lords other than, false doctrine of, 22; nationalism and, 95, 96; Samaritan woman and, 95, 96; as Word of God, 7, 17, 21, 43–44 Jews, faith of: Christian faith and, 91–93; Hellenistic faith and, 10, 91–92, 94; Mosaic, 95 Jews, persecution of, 10, 40; Barmen Declaration not mentioning, 7, 42, 72n97; Barth and, 77, 78, 79; Bonhoeffer and, 81, 83; Confessing Church and, 72n97; German Christians and, 40. See also Aryan Paragraph Jihadism, 1–2, 75 John, 21, 100n18 Jungreformatorische Bewegung (Young Reform Movement), 76 kennend (knowing), 89 khora (interval), 114, 115 Kingdom of God, 18, 72n91, 110; belief in, 103–104; church and, 105–106, 107–108, 109, 110, 113; difference in, 114; on earth, 101–102, 104–107, 109–110, 113; as resurrection, 106–107, 109; state and, 108, 108–109, 109, 110, 113; utopias and, 104–105. See also Lord’s prayer knowing (kennend), 89 Koch, Karl, 59–60, 60, 62 Kritzinger, Klippies, 63 Latmiral, Gaetano, 82 law: Barth on, 64, 65–66, 72n89; Bonhoeffer on order and, 81–82; confessing, 64; Paul on faith and, 93 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 90, 91 Leuenberg Fellowship of Evangelical Churches in Europe, 33

Index literature, on Barmen Declaration, 36–37 liturgy, 115n2 logos, 52 loneliness, 108 Lord’s prayer, ix, x, 113; difference and, 114; earth and will in, 11–13 Luke, 54, 96, 100n11 Luther, Martin, 28, 89–90, 110 Lutherans, 9, 37; Barmen Declaration, writing of, and, 29–30, 57, 59, 60–61; to Barmen Declaration, commitment of, 41; Barthians and, 6, 7; on confession, confessing and, 30–31; on confessions, composition of, 28–29; on Word of God, Jesus as, 43 Maine, Henry, 90 mandatary, 51, 57, 69n10 Mark, 94–95, 99n10 market, faith and, 4, 7, 13n6 Matthew, 22, 23, 33 miracle, 109–110; of confession, 108; order and, 107; of resurrection, 106–107, 108, 109 modernity, crisis of, 1–2, 11 Moses, 95 nationalism: Barmen Declaration and, 97–98, 113; Buber and, 95–96; Emunah and, 11, 95–96; German Christians and, 6–7, 40–41, 89, 97; Jesus and, 95, 96; in Scripture, doubts about, 96 natural theology, 43 Nazis, 75, 102; Barmen Declaration responding to, 42–43, 50, 54, 61, 113; of Barth, theological resistance to, 76–78, 79, 80, 88n21; of Bonhoeffer, resistance to, 80–81, 85; Confessing Church and, ix, 3, 4, 39–41, 79, 79–80; faith transformed by, 97; incorporation program of, 55, 58, 61; Protestant Christians under, 6; slogans of, 5–6; state of, Barmen Declaration not opposing, 42–43; state of, centrist evangelicals on, 26 Nichols, Stephen, 5

125

Niebuhr, Richard, 13n6 Niemöller, Martin, 55, 76 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 101–102 noetic faith. See faith non-dualism (advaita), 113 North German Reformed Church, 30 nunc stans (right now), 114 Öffentlichkeit (public role), 9 order: of church, 46–47; law and, Bonhoeffer on, 81–82; miracle and, 107 ordinances, 61 otherworldliness: in religion, 12, 101, 102; secularism and, 12, 101, 102, 103–104, 105, 107 Pangritz, Andreas, 88n21 Panikkar, Raimon, 13n1, 113 Paul, 32, 33, 54, 63, 99n9; on Antichrist, 100n18; Buber on, 10, 93, 93–94 PCUSA. See Presbyterian Church, American Peter, 11, 22, 54, 98 1 Peter, 22 Pfarrernotbund (Emergency Covenant of Pastors), 76 Pharisees, 91, 94, 99n10 pistis (belief), 92, 96 political authority. See authority political theology, 68n4; Barmen Declaration as work of, 3, 66–67, 113; Barth and, 49, 50–51; confessional form determining content of, 8, 50, 63–65, 66; difference and, 113–114; of faith and secular, tension in, 1–2, 13n1; immanence and transcendence meeting in, ix, 1–3, 13n4; as limping, 115 politics: Barth on, 49–50, 63; believers, freedom of, and, 45; conceptions of, 98–99; faith, types of, and, 97–99; faith in, 4; of Reformed confession, 50, 62–68; Word of God and, 11, 22, 23, 79 praxis: confessional, 52, 67–68, 69n17, 69n23; deferred, will and, 114 prayer, 114–115

126

Index

Presbyterian Church, American (PCUSA), 4–5 Presbyterian Church, United, 33, 36 privatization of faith, 97–98 Prometheus, 104 public role (Öffentlichkeit), 9 Rechtsstaat, 64, 72n87 Reformation, 16, 30, 31, 75 Reformed church, 37; Barmen Declaration, writing of, and, 29–30, 60–61; on Barmen Declaration, commitment to, 41; on believers, priesthood of, 47; on confession, confessing and, 30–31; confessional politics of, 50, 62–68; confession declining for, 28–29; confession of, Barth on, 50–55, 68n7, 69n10, 69n12, 69n17; democracy and, 9, 50, 51–52, 53–54, 54–55, 63–65, 67; North German, 30; political theology of, Barmen Declaration and, 68n4 Reformed confession: Barth on, 50–55, 68n7, 69n10, 69n12, 69n17; politics of, 50, 62–68 Reich Church, 17, 21, 35, 97, 98 rejections, 31 repentance, 31–32 resistance: Bonhoeffer on, 81–83, 88n21; confession and, 9–10 resurrection: church witnessing, 107–108; Kingdom of God as, 106–107, 109; miracle of, 106–107, 108, 109 revelation, 43–44 right now (nunc stans), 114 Romans, 33, 35, 63 sacred secularity, 13n1 Samaritan woman, 95, 96 Sasse, Hermann: Barmen Declaration and, 57, 59, 61, 71n65, 71n71; Bethel Confession co-authored by, 56 Schmidt, Kurt Dietrich, 26 Schmitt, Carl, 98 Scots Confession, 65, 67 Scripture: confession, questioning of, and, 42; in confession, 32–33, 41; nationalism doubted in, 96; on

political authority, 18, 22; on state, 22, 44 secular: with faith, tension of, 1–2, 3–4, 13n1; sacred, 13n1; from sacred, Barmen Declaration not separating, 98; totalitarianism as, ix secularism: aggressive, 3; Christian, 103; otherworldliness and, 12, 101, 102, 103–104, 105, 107 Simeon, 115 sinners, pardoned, 22 South African Church Struggle, 63, 78 South African Confessing Church, 71n74 sovereign power, 98–99 space, time and, 114 state: authority of, in Barmen Declaration, 18, 22, 60–62, 63, 98–99; church and, 18–19, 22–23, 44, 58, 60, 61–62, 100n15, 101, 107–109; church and, Bonhoeffer on, 81–83; death and, 108; democratic, Reformed church as pattern for, 9, 50, 51–52, 53–54, 54–55, 63–65, 67; desire restrained by, 108–109; false doctrine on, 18, 18–19, 22–23, 61–62, 79, 97; force of, in Barmen Declaration, 58, 98; Kingdom of God and, 108, 108–109, 109, 110, 113; Rechtsstaat, 64, 72n87; Scripture on, 22, 44; Word of God and, 44. See also Nazis; politics status confessionis.. See confession Stoll, Christian, 59–60, 61 suffering servant, God as, 94, 96 Switzerland, 79–80 Teshuvah (turning around), 92, 96, 97 theocracy, 1–2 thesis, antithesis and, 28 Tillich, Paul, 13n4 time, space and, 114 timely, confession as, 5 2 Timothy, 23 Titus, 99n9 Tönnies, Ferdinand, 91 totalitarianism, x, 3, 67; Barmen Declaration opposing, 18, 22, 98; secular, ix

Index transcendence. See immanence translation, of Barmen Declaration, 4–5 trust (Emunah).. See Emunah turning around (Teshuvah), 92, 96, 97 Two Types of Faith (Buber). See Buber, Martin UCC. See United Church of Christ understanding: Emunah and, 95; faith and, 93–96 United Christians. See United Church of Christ United Church of Christ (UCC), 4–5, 29, 37 United States of America: democracy of, flag in, 4; human rights theory of, 84–85, 85; Presbyterian Church of, 4–5 utopias, 104–105 Virginia Bill of Rights, 85

127

Vischer, Lukas, 28 West, Cornel, 66 will: in Lord’s prayer, earth and, 11–13; unwilling, 114, 115n2 witness: freedom in, 46–48; of resurrection, church, 107–108 Word of God: in Barmen Declaration, 10, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 39, 43, 97; Barth on, 9–10, 43, 44, 52, 76, 77–78; as concrete, 45; as exclusive, 27, 28, 29; human addressed by, 95; Jesus as, 7, 17, 21, 43–44; as logos, 52; Lutherans on Christ as, 43; not fettered, 19, 23; outside Christian church, 44; politics, state, and, 11, 22, 23, 44, 79 wuwei (doing by not doing), 114 Young Reform Movement (Jungreformatorische Bewegung), 76

About the Contributors

Eberhard Busch was born in 1937 in Witten/Ruhr. He studied Protestant theology in Wuppertal, Göttingen, Heidelberg, Münster and Basel. After his studies he served as personal assistant to Karl Barth in Basel from 1965 to 1968. He completed his theological and practical examinations in 1970 at the University of Basel. From 1969 to 1986, Busch served as Evangelical Reformed Pastor in the canton Aargau in Swiss Mittelland. From 1973 to 1981 he also was radio announcer on Swiss Radio BRS. During 1982–1983 he substituted for Professor Klaus Scholder at the University of Tübingen. Starting in 1986 he has served as Professor of Systematic Theology at the Georg-August University in Göttingen. He has widely lectured abroad, including the United States (Princeton University and Whitworth University in Spokane). He is the author of the internet platform “Göttingen Sermons on the Internet.” Wolf Krötke was born in 1938 in Berlinchen (Neumark). He studied Protestant theology at the universities of Leipzig, Naumburg, and Berlin. In 1967 he obtained his doctorate with a dissertation on “Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Nothingness and Sin.” After serving as pastor in several communities, he became teacher of pastoral affairs in Berlin. From 1987 to 2015 he served as a member of the Theological Committee of the Evangelical Church. In 1990 he was the recipient of the Church’s Karl Barth Prize. In 1991 he completed his “Habilitation” in Leipzig and thereupon became Professor of Systematic Theology at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He retired in 2004. He is still active in many church-related capacities. Since 2010 he has been co-publisher of the weekly paper “The Church.” Derek Woodard-Lehman was born in October 1975. He studied philosophy, ethics, and politics at Duke University and Princeton Theological Seminary. He has taught at Princeton University and the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia. He has also served as a Fellow at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies and the Louisville Institute. Most recently he serves as Lecturer in Theology and Public Issues in the Department of Religion at the University of Otago in Wellington, New Zealand. Wolgang Huber was born in 1942 in Strasbourg. From 1960 to 1966 he studied Protestant theology at the universities of Heidelberg, Göttingen and Tübingen. He received his doctorate in Tübingen in 1966 and com129

130

About the Contributors

pleted his “Habilitation” in 1972 at the University of Heidelberg. From 1968 to 1980 he was researcher and later director of the Protestant Institute for Interdisciplinary Research in Heidelberg. In 1980 he was appointed as Professor of Social Ethics at the University of Marburg and in 1984 as Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Heidelberg. In 1989 he served as Lilly Visiting Professor at Emory University in the United States. In 1993 he was chosen as bishop of the Evangelical Church of Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia. From 1998 to 2001 he served on the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches. He retired from his position as bishop in 2009, but continues to serve on the German Ethical Council. Fred Dallmayr was born in 1928 in Ulm, Germany. He studied at the University of Munich where he received a Doctor of Law degree in 1955. In 1957 he immigrated to the United States and studied political science and philosophy at Duke University where he received a PhD in 1960. After teaching at Purdue University and the University of Georgia he joined the University of Notre Dame in 1980 where he has served as the Packey J. Dee Professor in the Departments of Philosophy and Political Science. He has been a visiting professor at Hamburg University in Germany and at the New School of Social Research in New York, and a fellow at Nuffield College in Oxford. During 1991–1992 he was in India on a Fulbright research grant. He has served as president of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (SACP) and as Co-chair of the “World Public Forum-Dialogue of Civilization,” headquartered in Vienna and Rhodes. He retired from Notre Dame in 2010 and serves now as member of the Board of the Dialogue of Civilizations-Research Institute in Berlin. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906 in Breslau (now Wroclaw). He studied Protestant theology at the University of Tübingen and received a Doctor of Theology degree in 1927 from Berlin University. During the 1930’s he served as student pastor and as lecturer at colleges in Berlin; he also was active as a teacher of the “Confessing Church” at the pastoral college in Finkenwalde. He also gained pastoral and theological experience in London and the United States. He was arrested by the Gestapo in April 1943 and imprisoned at Tegel prison for one and a half years, then transferred to a Nazi concentration camp in Flossenburg. He was executed by hanging on April 9, 1945.