The Confession of the Church 4

There are often times in history when the Church is hardly visible and in need of renewal. These are times of brokenness when unfamiliar and false teaching breaks apart the unity of the Church. Jesus in his great love for his people lifts to the Father that need for unity in his high priestly prayer given to and for the Church.

“The Glory which you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them even as You have loved Me.” (John 17: 22-23)

Arthur Cochrane, in his chapter on “The Nature of a Confession,” in The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, is so very clear about his fourth point that I will quote the first whole paragraph. He writes:

“4. A Confession of faith is an act in which the Church is born or reborn. In and with its Confession of Faith, the Church’s outward unity becomes visible. Of course, the Church exists prior to its Confession but in such a way that its unity and faith are scarcely manifest. Hence the Declaration speaks of its common confession and unity being ‘grievously imperiled’ and ‘threatened,’ about its theological basis having been ‘continually and systematically thwarted and rendered ineffective by alien principles.’ ‘When these principles are held to be valid … the Church ceases to be the Church.’ The Church is ‘devastated’ and its unity ‘broken up.’ Thus with its Confession, the Church emerges where it had been scarcely recognizable.” (Italics the author's)

Cochrane goes on to write how Barmen partially brought unity to the Churches of Germany, but as often happens politics entered in and broke apart the unity that was building with a Confession of faith. The Confessing Churches struggled because of a problem that arose within the Lutheran bodies.

As Cochrane points out the various Church bodies were meant to work out their own interpretations of Barmen along the lines of their particular Confessions. This was to be done in their conventions. He writes, “The responsibility for convening the Lutheran convention was left with Bishop Meiser. Unhappily he never called it. Had he done so, it might have prevented, or at least narrowed, the breach that developed between the Confessing Church and the Lutheran confessionalists.”

That breach between the Confessing Churches and the Lutheran Churches was to hamper the Confessing Churches throughout the years of Hitler’s rule. But still the one, holy, apostolic Church did confess in unity including Lutherans such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

One of the important thoughts here is that it is sometimes false teaching, ‘alien principles,’ that weakens unity in the Church. And, it is sometimes the political maneuvering of those in the Church. But generally it is the two forces working together.

But, undoubtedly, the most important point is that the one, holy, apostolic Church still stood, armed with her Confession, although she stood as always in the midst of devastation and suffering.