Transcending Barmen: confessing in word and deed - Barmen Declaration, Barmen, Germany - includes related information on the Barmen Declaration - Cover Story

Christian Century, May 11, 1994 by Victoria J. Barnett

THE SUNNY afternoon of May 31, 1934, was one of those rare moments when human beings become aware of their exact position in history: of the brevity of their lives and the significance of their decisions. According to many accounts, the representatives of the Lutheran and Reformed traditions who met in Barmen, Germany, that afternoon sensed even then the magnitude of what they had done. The Barmen Declaration was approved unanimously. Stefanie von Mackensen, the one woman delegate, later claimed that she had felt the presence of the Holy Spirit sweep the room. Those assembled rose spontaneously and began to sing "Now thank we all our God." The hall resounded; many were moved to tears. The moment, and the document that emerged from Barmen, had transcended the expectations of the delegates.

Given German church history, Barmen was indeed an extraordinary event. Theologically and ecclesiastically the Barmen Declaration was very much a product of its time and of certain strains within German Protestantism, yet it broke decisively with other elements of the volkskirchliche tradition. For many of those gathered at Barmen, it was the bravest thing that they would ever do.

On yet another anniversary of this event, what does Barmen mean for us? Since the end of the Third Reich the commemorations of Barmen that occur every ten years have tried to establish the ongoing significance of the declaration for contemporary Christians. This is a worthwhile exercise, but one that should be undertaken with caution. As William Stringfellow observed 20 years ago on the eve of the 40th anniversary, "History |repeats' itself as parable rather than analogue." In other words, Barmen's lesson for us cannot be revealed entirely by applying the words of the declaration to current situations. Nor is it enough to document what these words actually meant, then and later, to the people who approved them in 1934. We need to remain aware of both levels, the historical and the ethical.

For German Protestants in 1934, Barmen was more a statement of church identity than anything else. In Helmut Gollwitzer's words, the delegates at Barmen decided that "the church is not an auditorium where every religious interpretation has the same rights. There is a line between correct teaching and false teaching, and one has to draw that line." At Barmen, Protestant leaders disavowed the false teachings of the "German Christians," who had altered the Christian faith to conform to Nazi ideology. By drawing the distinction between true and false teaching, Barmen committed the church to a very specific identity and faith.

This distinction set the basis for all subsequent discussion about the church's identity during the Kirchenkampf. In the Confessing Church, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, the confession of faith had to be the foundation of every facet of life. It was the most powerful weapon the church possessed, and it confronted all Christians with a clear choice. For this confession--and Bonhoeffer included here both the Barmen and the 1935 Dahlem synodal confessions--"there can be only a Yes or a No."

As Bonhoeffer's words suggest, Barmen was not an inclusive statement. For those who took it most seriously, it was a very exclusive one. In May 1934 there was one issue that had personally affected all those present at Barmen: Nazism's ideologization of public life and private belief. The Barmen Declaration declared the church free from the demands of any ideology. In the midst of an ideological state that had turned conventional ideas of good and evil upside down, Barmen announced that not all theological views were welcome within the church. It stated further that there would always be a limit to Christian allegiance to any worldly authority. Christians could serve only one Lord, and that could not be a Nazi Fuhrer.

Therein lies Barmen's strength and radicalism. Many observers contend that therein is also its weakness: that the signers of Barmen were so intent on keeping their church free from political pressure that they failed to see the necessity of a more explicit political response to what was happening around them.

For there is much that Barmen failed to say. Sixty years later we measure Barmen's legacy as much by what it did not say as by what it said, and we judge the Confessing Church as much for what it did not do as for what it did. When we read the Barmen Declaration we hear not only the church's voice in 1934, but its silence at Barmen and throughout the Third Reich--about the Jews and others who in May 1934 were already the victims of Nazi persecution. The Barmen Declaration did not prevent Confessing pastors from fighting in Hitler's army from 1939 to 1945. It did not lead the church to condemn the persecution of the Jews. It did not take the church to the forefront of the resistance to Nazism.

Some--including many who were in the Confessing Church--believe that had the church really lived up to its words at Barmen, the murderous course of the Third Reich could have been thwarted. They contend that the seeds of resistance--even resistance on behalf of the Jews--were present in the Barmen Declaration for those Christians who truly understood what this confession of faith demanded of the believer.