The person who made this sign didn't know very much about the times of Hitler, the Confessing Church or the German Christians. This lack of knowledge is not unusual. What many Christians do not know is that Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached one of his best sermons during the Olympics held in Berlin in 1936.
Sadly as far as I know no one has Bonhoeffer's sermon or those of the other members of the Confessing Church who preached that day.
But they did preach and in Berlin and at the invitation of the German government.
But they did preach and in Berlin and at the invitation of the German government.
Edwin Robertson in his book, The Shame and the Sacrifice: The Life and Martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, details the events of those days. He writes:
"Daily addresses were given by leaders of the Confessing Church in a central church in Berlin and Bonhoeffer was one of those chosen to speak. He was invited in July and at first thought he would refuse. He was obviously going to be used for propaganda purposes and this fear was intensified when he was asked to provide a photograph, which he refused to send. He did however agree to lecture on the Wednesday of the Olympiad at 5 p.m. His chosen subject was 'The Inner Life of the German Evangelical Church Since the Reformation,' which he had to deal with in half an hour!He chose to speak largely about the hymns of the church, from Luther, Gerhardt, Zinzendorf and Gellert."
As Bonhoeffer read the words he was appalled by some of the piety of the words of the authors especially Zinzendorf. And some might ask why? Robertson writes that Bonhoeffer, "felt the air to be much cleaner when he was dealing with the Bible - 'We need the fresh air of the Word to keep us clean.'"
Robertson writes that the lecture was given in St Paul's Church and that Bonhoeffer wrote a letter about the lecture:
"Yesterday evening was very good. The church filled to overflowing, people sitting on the altar steps and standing all around. I wished I could have preached instead of giving a lecture! Some 1,500 or 2,000 people came and an overflow service was needed. "
But the official report was one of displeasure. Robertson gives the Die Christliche Welt's report.
"While the lectures given in the church of the Holy Trinity were academically satisfying, they were hardly well attended; those in St Paul's were the opposite of this. Night after night the enormous church was not only filled to overflowing, but parallel meetings had also to be held in another large church to cope with the mass of visitors. Dr. Bonhoeffer struck the same note as Dr. Jacobi had done and illustrated his exposition with a number of hymns. According to him, the decline began as early as Paul Gerhardt; pietism and the Enlightenment and the nineteenth century sink lower and lower. Only in the present and especially in the hymns of Heinrich Vogel (!) do we begin to rise again to the heights of the Reformation. The Speaker tried to prove his thesis by means of selected hymns and was even successful because of the complete arbitrariness of his selection. He did not shrink from quoting the first half of a verse, when the second, left unquoted, made the quite opposite point. When we consider that here we have a pupil of Harnack, we can only deplore this treatment of history. The third speaker, Dr. Iwand of Konigsberg, followed much the same line.
To sum up: in Holy Trinity, valuable theology developed in a scholarly way, but a very small audience; in St Paul's, narrow and very suspect theology, but great religious enthusiasm and vast congregations, listening with the deepest devotion. This state of affairs must cause great alarm among those concerned with the future of the Evangelical Church."
What is important to know here is that pietism set the stage for a faith totally wedded to experience rather than the word of God. By the time one gets to Friedrich Schleiermacher and then Harnack the Christian faith is simply grounded in human experience. Schleiermacher grounded the Christian faith in the experience of a sense of dependence which only God could meet. He and others denied all but the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Jesus Christ was only human, not God. Humanity should strife to be perfect as the Father was and there was no need of redemption. Undoubtedly Bonhoeffer and others of the Confessing Church made their case against such unbelief during the Olympics.
I have looked in vain for a hymn by Heinrich Vogel, but I did find that he was a Confessing pastor and theologian. And I found this prayer given by Vogel on the German Repentence Day of 1945. It is from a Time article, Bowed Heads, written in 1945. "God has made us as dirt and dung among the nations. . . . We are deserving of all that is happening to us at this time. It is our, fault, our great fault. . . . O God . . . watch over those who have power over our powerlessness and show them that hate can never accomplish anything."
Picture taken from The Reformed Pastor by David Fischler
7 comments:
Viola,
I don’t usually respond to blogs, and I was trying to find a way to politely acknowledge your and Will’s responses and make my exit when I saw this next post of yours. I have to confess I am a bit confused about where you are going with it.
You opened by making what appear to be disparaging remarks about the presuppositions behind a poster, but for the life of me I can’t tell why you think those assumptions apply. Actually, I really do wonder if those of us alive today would have allowed Germany to host the Olympics. Maybe yes and maybe no. What do you think, and why?
I am also puzzled why you say Bonhoeffer preached one of his best sermons at the Olympics and yet nobody seems to have a copy of it. How do you know it was one of his best?
And, I am troubled by your remarks regarding Pietism. I don’t care much for Pietism myself, but the Nazarenes that I know are good people and I don’t see anything seriously wrong with the Moravians either. Both of these denominations are the direct descendents of the Pietism movement, and carry the banner of Pietism quite well today. But you seem to believe Pietism evolved into something almost not Christian and had something to do with the Protestant churches in Germany not being able to resist Nazism. I am sure the Nazarenes and the Moravians would strongly object to such characterization.
It is curious that a great crowd applauded Bonhoeffer’s sermon, so I imagine they agreed with his message and theology. But it would seem this great crowd is the same one that failed to hold the line against Hitler. That is what is implied in the article you mentioned at the end of you post. I wonder who can say they would have drawn the line – back to the original question of the protest poster.
"The church did not win, it failed, and is still failing because it maintains that though the world all around it is being judged, the church is above criticism. We Protestants must repent, we did badly. There were only 45 Protestant pastors in Dachau concentration camp as opposed to 450 Catholic priests."
These would not be the deistic “unbelievers” talking, these would be people who agreed with Bonhoeffer. It is not because they abandoned their faith that they failed, it is because they were too proud to believe that Bonhoeffer’s criticisms applied to themselves. Their sin was hubris. Their sin was to think it was the generic “they” that failed to stay true to the calling of Jesus Christ when in fact it was “we” that had failed. At least it would seem that is how some repentant survivors saw it in Dec of 1945.
I think that is the real lesson out of what happened in Germany, and it applies to all of us. It is not that people let their faith degenerate and therefore they allowed Hitler. It is that people of orthodox reformed beliefs allowed him just the same. Why?
Carl Hahn
Carl,
You ask some really good questions. But I also think you might be a bit confused and also I am probably not writing very well. Anyway let me try to answer your comments.
First, my assumption is that the person who made the poster didn’t realize that the Western world did allow Germany and Hitler to host the Olympics in 1936. I think they needed a history lesson. And I was saying that most people don’t know a whole lot about those days.
Second I was using some hyperbole in saying that Bonhoeffer preached one of his best sermons. But here is my reasoning. Although it was really a lecture and not a sermon it was about the Christian Faith and it was about the history of the decline of the Christian religion in Germany. I like history, to say the least. I have a Master’s in History focused in the Humanities and I find the time of Hitler and the Confessing Church era one of the more interesting in Church History. The thought that others could set and hear these lectures by members of the Confessing Church is of great interest to me. If so many came it must have been very good.
Third, the beginning of pietism was not really bad. It was in fact a movement in reaction to too much emphasis on systematic theology minus the devotional side of Christianity. The problem was it was about the human experience of Christianity more than the biblical certainty of the work of Christ. This wasn’t so bad until the time of the enlightenment, which notice is mentioned in German newspaper account. The authority of the Bible was devalued during the enlightenment with the rise of textual criticism and other methods of biblical research. All that was left to liberal Christianity was humanity’s religious experience. Friedrich Schleiermacher used human experience as his apologetic for Christianity. Karl Barth was writing against Schleiermacher with all of his theology. God’s revelation was found in Jesus Christ not in human experience. This was what the Barmen Confession was about.
Fourth, and finally, the Church must always confess the sins of the whole Church. Remember in the book of Daniel, Daniel confesses the sins of Israel. Here this prophet who has been faithful to the point of death takes on himself the sins of his nation. “Righteousness belongs to You, O Lord, but to us open shame, as it is this day—to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of their unfaithful deeds which they have committed against You. Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes and our fathers, because we have sinned against You.” (All should read the whole confession which begins Daniel 9:2)
You will have noticed that Pastor Martin Niemöller is also mentioned in the Times article. The important thing here is that those who belonged to the Confessing Church, those who did hold the line against Hitler because they made Jesus Christ their only Lord, are the ones who are confessing the sins of the whole Church. And so must we all. It does not prove that the Confessing Church failed in their attempt to be faithful that they confessed their sins. After all we are all sinners. Do you realize that 7000 pastors from the Confessing Church went to prison during this time. Yes the Protestant Church reacted horribly to Hitler but there were those who did not and they are the ones I am writing about.
Viola,
Thanks for the explanation. See, I focused on the “We” word on the poster. I’ve seen so many references to the German Olympics that I would assume if anybody heard of Hitler, they also heard of the German Olympics and how Jesse Owens supposedly embarrassed him (according to Owens he received more honor and recognition in Germany than he did in the US). I assumed they knew that part of history, so the question must have been if we today, with the values we have today, would we have allowed Germany to host the Olympics. The implication being that we would not, so why are we letting China host them. That’s how I would have read the poster. But maybe we would. Like you said, we did. But I think it was on that basis that Carter boycotted the Soviet Olympics. OTH, most people today think that was a bad thing. So, has anything changed?
Which brings me to my other question. I too have read a lot of history, though probably not as much as you, and a lot of Bonhoeffer, though it has been a few years. The last thing I read by him was a monograph on the Lord’s Prayer, and I found his vocabulary stiff and archaic in places, so maybe I’ve changed. But “Life Together” should be mandatory reading. But I digress.
I wanted to bring the lessons of history to the present.
Do you think we would follow a charismatic leader who was also nationalistic and militaristic if one rose to power in the US today? If we had a national leader who preached American supremacy, who advocated that America had a historical right and destiny to be the preeminent power in the world, and that we had a God given right to conquer other countries to guarantee our own safety, security, and status in the world, and if various religious leaders endorsed his actions as being God’s will, who would go along with that and who would resist? If he or she blamed and/or demonized an ethnic or religious minority for causing or wishing us harm, and said we should arrest, punish and or deport them without trial, who in the church today might stand up against that? And why? Who and where would they draw the line? Would they be a majority or a minority in the church? Would remaining true to the Authority of the Scriptures figure in? Would somebody pick up the banner of the German confessing pastors and say “NO”? Any thoughts or speculations on how that scenario would play out?
Carl
Carl,
You are asking hypothetical and rhetorical questions and I am writing about real life situations in the past and today. In the last post I was trying to write about the Confessing Church’s idea of the Church within the Church. In this posting I am writing about how the Church in Germany was devastated by a liberal theology that knew only experience and not Jesus Christ as Lord. In my last posting and comments I have suggested there is a raising anti-semitism in the mainline denominations and that it will take Christians holding to the Word of God to withstand that. When the Church does not acknowledge the authority of Scripture but acknowledges other types of revelation such as culture or art or different religions or simply human experience they will not withstand the onslaught that comes at them.
While I have enjoyed dialoguing with you I would prefer to keep it real.
Carl,
You may have already come back and left but I meant to second your statement that “Life Together” should be "mandatory reading." But then so should his "The Cost of Discipleship." Also "Christ the Center" which was the first book of his I read. And his "Ethics" is the only ethic's book I care much about. In "Ethics," Bonhoeffer also gives a Confession of sin for the whole Church much like Heinrich Vogel.
I was going to write some about that here but I think I will save that for a posting.
Carl's question about the "strong man" leader and whether there would be resistance has now gone beyond the theoretical in the campaign and general popularity of Donald Trump. Interested in your thoughts now, Viola.
-- Susan
Hi Susan,
Great question. We certainly do have a "strong man" who is also a racist and doesn't treat women very well and when he talks about protecting Christianity he sounds like all the many lies Hitler told. I see some of the church caving into this but a great many Christian leaders warning others against him. Dr. Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist, another Baptist, a historian, Kidd is his last name I can't think of his first, many Catholics- the list goes on.
Donald Trump is an egotistical jerk, if I can be so precise: ) He is immoral and as someone said today an opportunist. If he becomes president we are all in trouble and the church will have once again a great confession to make, because there are too many people willing to trust such a person.
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