This academic year I lectured on  the relationship of the church to political power. In the morning sessions I focused on what the Bible had to say on this relationship, followed by a survey of its history from the 2nd century to the present. In the afternoon sessions I lectured on the Barmen Declaration. I chose this topic not merely or mainly because 2016 compelled the attention of many believers on political issues, but because the church, in some of the countries where I teach, suffer the intrusion of political power, the precise issue that Barmen addressed.  In this posting I share some of my notes on Article 2, Declaration 2. Each of the 6 Declarations in article 2 generated good discussions, but none more than Declaration number 2.

Declaration # 2

“Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”  (1 Cor 1.30)

“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.”

 “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.”

In 1934, writing for and with the critical input of his fellow Swiss theologians, Karl Barth crafted the above words. This is Declaration number 2 of 6 in the Barmen Declaration which I will comment on in this posting. I am not alone in concluding that Barmen represents the high water mark in the church’s understanding of its relation to political power. ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’. Or if this saying is too secular for some readers a Bible text is in order. Paul writes to the Church in Corinth “God will not allow us to be tested beyond are ability to withstand but with every trial/temptation provide a way of escape”. The Mainstream Protestant churches were being tried and sorely tempted by the Nazis, and in order to regain their evangelical footing so as to withstand the immense pressure that was being exerted on them, they gathered at Barmen and drafted a declaration which made an evangelical confession of their position vis a vis the situation at hand.

This pressure was twofold. The Nazis wanted the historic mainstream Protestant churches to formally and ideologically align with their National Socialism vision and program. And with remarkable success they proceeded to effect this alignment. In short Hitler orchestrated a take over of the mainstream Protestant Churches which were known as the Evangelical Churches of Germany. These churches and their synods had enjoyed the privilege of being the established religion for Germany other denominations and faith existed on the periphery. By Hitler’s initiative these historic bodies, linked through a Reich’s Bishop to his office, were being welded into one national church. This was the root and source of the pressure but not its primary face. While Hitler had more or less succeeded in bringing the lion share of the German Evangelical churches into formal unity and under his influence, so as to orbit around his vision to make Germany great again, Barmen was written not directly (although indirectly) to the Nazis.Rather it was written to themselves first and second to their brethren (the DEK) who had been seduced and charmed by Hitler’s new vision for Germany and for their (the DEK’s (German Evangelical Church) new role in restoring the nation’s greatness .

The genius of Barth’s approach in this Declaration, writing with and inside the community of brothers gathered then and there at Barmen, was that it did not attack this church (the DEK) apostasy directly nor did he attack Hitler’s take over of the church directly. Rather he wrote in such a way as to enable the Confessing Church to clearly define themselves.

In Declaration # 2 the leaders gathered at Barmen were addressing something that might be called “parallelism”. Hitler wanted the church and its believers to accord him some autonomous political-national space wherein his authority and influence would be honored and obeyed unfettered by any competing allegiances. His ‘doctrine’ was something akin to the following personification. ” I Hitler affirm with you that religion enjoys a spiritual place in your lives and this space I respect. It is private space, individual space, a ‘soul’ space known between you and God. This spiritual realm is one realm among others. I, as your chancellor, exercise authority over you in another realm. This realm is that of the political – the national. It has to do with what is good for the nation. In this realm your homage belongs to me – I am your fuhrer.”

In actual fact, as Barmen states in another place, Hitler wanted total control over German’s lives in every realm and his respect for the sanctity of the spiritual realm was in one sense vacuous.  In another sense however his ‘concession’ was unfortunately too true to the way religion at that time had come to be viewed. Religion was an individualistic, spiritual, soul centered, inward phenomenon. This overreach by Hitler, i.e. his will to control every realm of life of the German people, is the precise backdrop of Declaration 2. The language in Declaration 2 is over against Hitlers over reach.

In Declaration Number 2,listening to Scripture, the leaders at Barmen asserted that for those in the Confessing Church no realm enjoys final autonomy alongside or above the Lordship of Christ. While it is true that in this world there are many lords who rightfully levy on its subjects many obligations, the authority of these lords and the obedience of the subjects render is relative and conditioned, not absolute – relative to and conditioned by the will of Christ who is Lord over all, and Lord and head of the church. Located inside and under these ‘lords’ believers, like other women and men, are bound to respect and obey them, but this respect can never be absolute. None of these lords enjoy final autonomy. In the context of the situation Barmen addressed, namely that Hitler wanted and demanded final authority over Germans national political existence as well as ecclesial realm, the words in Declaration # 2 were formulated. In these words Hitler’s absolute supremacy was denied and the freedom of the church asserted.

When I discussed Declaration # 2 in my classes what captured the imagination of the students was not only the over reach of the political powers in the life and teaching of the church that they were familiar  (in their land political power had attempted to control, not only congregational life and mission activity, but church teaching) but the wider significance of this truth that Declaration # 2 brought to the front. People live inside of orders where an expected ethos ( ethical culture) and nomos (rules and laws and principles) prevail and many of these ways are contrary to the truth and right of Christ and his kingdom. These orders are familial, economic, academic (schools), the military , recreational (sports)  and national  (political) and often ecclesial. Life is not lived as free individuals. In the real world people live, more or less, inside and under existing orders and institutions, and inside these there are cultures and ethics and rules in play, and authorities or ‘lords’ that enforce these. Inside of these institutions and orders people (and even groups of people) are located. This is where a large share of their life is lived. And as such the people within  these are folded into and conformed to the organizing ethos and noms that prevail. Inside of these the ethos and nomos that are in play often enjoy unfettered power over all.  Christ as Lord is quarantined, cordoned off, made applicable to a little individual – spiritual realm. Straightjacketed in these realms it is domesticated. The prevailing ethos within any institution or group culture often arrests the ‘dangerous’ difference embedded in  Christ’s way rendering it harmless.

Declaration  # 2  writes of “God’s mighty claim upon our whole life” and states that “through him” (through Christ) we are delivered “from the godless fetters of this world” and set “free (for) grateful service to his creatures.”

What is remarkable about the language in this declaration, as in others, is that Barmen brought to the front, not what should be, thereby calling for change and reform, but what is already real through Christ. Inside Christ and his Kingdom humans are already folded into a higher order and reality that is under written by a higher power and authority. No matter how awesome and overwhelmingly powerful and controlling these orders are that we are subsumed into, when they forge godless fetters to bind us the Gospel asserts we are free. As free daughters and sons of God we cease to see these orders and the lords that enforce them as “trees walking”, as the be all and end all that we are helplessly under, and to whom we must conform and revere. When their rule is false and idolatrous we are free and and not bound.

At the time Barmen was drafted the pressure to conform to the Nazi’s , the political lords, was overwhelming. Many church leaders in the mainstay evangelical body called “German Christians’ accused and maligned the Barmen pastors as enemies of the state – against the nation and the campaign to restore its greatness. Add to this the prevailing interpretation of Romans 13 shaped by Luther. Luther had taught near absolute unconditional submission to political power, a position that persisted  hundreds of years and remained enforce thereby exposing the Confessing Church to the charge of treason against state. A final source of pressure was the cost. Refusal to conform brought swift punishments. The withdrawal of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech followed their stand. Seizure of funds, intimidations and threats, and imprisonment in the concentration camps quickly unfolded. Barth and the Barmen Pastors thought in this Declaration does not first, or mainly, ask the believers to reach down and muster up moral courage and heroically resist Hitler’s over reach.  Rather it frames the church and the believer as already free from the godless fetters that the lords of this world bind their subjects. The emperor (in his over reach) has no clothes. The church and its members, viewing itself in and through the reality of the Gospel, knows that they are not exposed to the naked power and authority of these lords. There view is from the inside out. The Gospel frames then them as securely inside and under Christ rule and authority. It tells them that they belong to Christ, are inside and under his rule and kingdom.  Resistance is not heroic it is capitulation to the One to whom they belong. It is a witness to their freedom. Here resistance to the Nazi overreach is an expression and witness of their pre existing location in Christ and his kingdom rule.

As Barth points out in another place the Christian’s obedience to the state is first her free obedience to Christ. It is not an obedience that is parallel to one’s obedience to Christ, it is not alongside Christ. It is not even a hierarchy of authority – God first and the ruler second. The obedience to the state authority that is given by the believers is his or her free obedience to Christ and is limited by whether the ruler is functioning within the purpose and limitations, that God in and through Christ, has given a political ruler to exercise his power – a purpose and limitation that Scripture clarifies. No direct obedience obtains.

The careful reader will recognize that resistance cast in this way does not give place to a militant rebel or revolutionary perse. This is so because as with the Confessing Church a direct challenge to authority was not being formulated. Rather they capitulated to a higher authority. Theirs was not a resistance that said I will not do x, y,  or z  rather they said we cannot do x, y, or z. The freedom exercised was not derived from a swollen “I”, an enlarged claim of individual right, however just or problematic one may view such claims. Rather it stemmed from believers who  openly capitulated to a higher authority and rule that they were folded into. The true church through the ages has no native interest in challenging political power directly, their interest has been only that of being faithful to Christ. The direct action Bonhoeffer was involved in against Hitler, he believed, was merited because he recognized that in Hitler political power had become the embodiment of the antichrist. The distinctions discussed in this posting emerge later in the Barmen Declaration and are endemic to Barth’s evangelical thought.

(Picture # 1 German Churchmen giving the Nazi Salute with the response “Heil Hitler” Picture # 2  A few of the church leaders in the Confessing Church Movement who gathered at Barmen)

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