Brethren in Adversity: Bishop George Bell, the Church of England and the Crisis of German Protestantism, 1933-1939. - book reviews

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 1998 by Reinhard Groscurth

Andrew Chandler, ed., Brethren in Adversity: Bishop George Bell, the Church of England and the Crisis of German Protestantism, 1933-1939. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, Boydell Press, 1997, 185pp., 35.00 [pounds sterling].

After Dr Willem A. Visser 't Hooft had retired as the first general secretary of the World Council of Churches, he invited from time to time younger staff members to his house where they would be introduced into the history of the ecumenical movement. Visser 't Hooft was afraid that the past and its lessons were too easily forgotten. If I remember correctly, Bishop George Bell was the only one for whom we needed two long evening sessions -- for all the other pioneers one meeting had to suffice. Since I had been privileged to watch the Bishop of Chichester, the chairman of the WCC central committee, as a young steward at the Evanston assembly in 1954 and knew him as one of the closest friends of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, my interest in new insights of this great Christian leader has never ceased.

Now Andrew Chandler, director of the George Bell Institute in Birmingham (who in 1991 wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on "The Church of England and Nazi Germany 1933-1945"), presents on behalf of the Church of England Record Society a remarkable volume. A first glance at the documents leads one to ask whether it is justified to use the name of Bell so prominently in the sub-title. Of altogether 30 documents only 10 are from Bell. Looking, however, at the length of these pieces (about one third of the papers), and trying to estimate their importance, one has to admit that they are the most interesting and relevant parts of the book. Nathan Soderblom's remark of 1925 (Stockholm) "This Bell never rings for nothing" rings true throughout this volume.

In order to assess it one has to consider how the author deals with the texts which he is editing. First of all, he gives his personal introduction in about 30 pages; describing this "ecumenical century", he compares English and German Protestantism and gives a good summary of the German church struggle from 1933-1939. I agree with the observation "that while English Christians lacked a cultural understanding of German Protestantism, they were soon familiar with the narrative details of the controversy..." Then he evaluates the insights gained in the Church of England, the controversies within the newly established Archbishop of Canterbury's Council on Foreign Relations and at the Church assembly, and the reactions of the Church. Then Chandler explains the criteria for selecting precisely those 39 documents out of an overwhelming wealth of collected papers of Bishop Bell and Archbishop Long (who wrote 9 of the papers available here -- a comparison of Bell and Long shows how closely they cooperated and how much they were in agreement). Chandler further helps the reader by providing (a) before the texts, chronologies each of the 7 years; (b) an appendix with nearly 100 biographies; and (c) a selective bibliography. All this provides an access to the rich material of a time which, to some, now seems far away.

To my regret the book is not free from mistakes. A few examples: the famous Barmen declaration was not adopted by the Synod of the Rhineland on 19 February 1934, but by the Synod of the entire Confessing Church at Barmen on May 31 of the same year. Quite a few errors and inconsistencies appear in the biographies of German politicians, theologians and church leaders. Friedrich Wilhelm Krummacher is not Gottfried Adolf Krummacher, Otto Dibelius was General Superintendent, Hans Wahl was never a pastor but church administrator; Heckel and Hossenfelder unfortunately were bishops, not just pastors -- they might have done less harm as pastors! The concentration camp was in Sachsenhausen, not in Sachsenberg. I would have omitted this incorrect explanation "...the Huguenot Church was only a very small Christian sect." In addition I wonder why, for an important publication like this, it was not possible to let a German colleague look into the proofs in order to avoid those mistakes and the mis-spellings of German words.

One of my chief reasons for recommending this book -- and hoping for a continuation(*), if possible including the post-war activities of Bishop Bell, as Edwin Robertson does in his moving book Unshakeable Friend. George Bell and the German Churches, London 1995 -- is the question raised by Bishop Bell in a memorandum of February 1937 ("Private and Confidential", 13 pages!) and still very much with us: "How can foreign churches help?" This problem was under serious discussion within the Church of England itself. Arthur C. Headlam, since 1923 bishop of Gloucester, was not only against the formation of a World Council of Churches, but was rather open to the political developments in Nazi Germany; he "was the leading Christian apologist for the German government", writes Kenneth Slack in his Bell biography of 1971. Now one can read in six documents his sharp criticism of the Confessing Church, of Martin Niemoller (he is a "truculent sailor" -- referring to the fact that he was sub-marine commander in World War I) and of the attitude of Archbishop Long and Bishop Bell over against Hitler. How is it possible that under such opposition the prophetic voices can prevail? How far is interference in political developments in other countries possible, advisable and helpful? And how can information collected in a church as divided as the German church in and after 1933 be interpreted and used in order to find the truth? Is it justifiable to go to the lion's den and approach enemies of the other church directly? Questions of this kind cannot be solved simply by stating general principles. However, I share the hope of Visser 't Hooft that remembering the past may help us to face the challenges laid before the ecumenical movement today.