Sacramento Presbytery passes overture on Belhar Confession

Yesterday,December 5th, the Sacramento Presbytery passed an “Overture on Belhar” to be sent to the 219th General Assembly. The overture motion was brought by Fremont Presbyterian Church, my church. I am very grateful it passed; its words are just right for dealing with the issues revolving around the attempt at adopting Belhar. Originally adopted by the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church in South Africa to deal with their horrific racism there are those in several North American reformed denominations attempting to misuse the confession. There are advocates wanting to use Belhar to promote gay ordination, for rebuke of Israel and even pluralism.

You can read about those problems here and here and here.

The Overture begins with commendation of all anti-discrimination policies in the Presbyterian Book of Order. It also offers sections from the “Brief Statement of Faith,” and the “Confession of 1967” which clearly and practically speak about and against racial discrimination. Then it asks the General Assembly to discontinue attempting to adopt the Belhar Confession as another confession in the PCUA Book of Confessions.

But it does this with a comment about its link with the Barmen Declaration and a section from Barmen which allows understanding about the boundary that is missing in Belhar which is a proper confession of Christ:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6), “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.... I am the door; of anyone enters by me, he will be saved.” (John 10:1, 9.)

Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and death.

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God’s revelation. (8.10–8.12)"

The rationale for this overture speaks to how confusing Belhar is and offers a quote about what a confession should be written by Dr. Arthur C. Cochrane who spent time with the early Confessing Church in Germany and was a Barth specialist. That quote is:

"A Confession is therefore not the publication of the opinions, convictions, ideals, and value judgments of men. It does not set forth a program or system of theology or ethics. It is not a set of principles or constitution for a fraternal order, social service club, or a religious society. It is not a political or ethical, religious platform. It does not bear witness to certain events, powers, figures, and truths in nature and history that may be championed by certain groups in society.

It confesses Jesus Christ as the one Lord, the one justification and sanctification of men, the one revelation, and the one Word of God which we have to hear, trust and obey in life and in death. "

Until it is placed on the 219th GA site, it can be read on the Presbyterian Coalition site under Draft Overture. Look both here and here. I am guiding you to these pages because you may be interested in using some of the other resources found there.

The Church within a Church: declaring for the Confessional Church 6

I have so far covered four faith statements and/or declarations written by Free Confessional Church Synods in Germany during the time of Hitler. There were other statements written as there always are during stressful times in the Church.

Likewise, in just the last few months various presbyteries and elders have offered statements concerning the extreme problems connected with the 218 General Assembly. For Instance San Diego Presbytery, or An Open Theological Declaration by some Elders of the Beaver Butler Presbytery or A Response by the Presbytery of San Joaquin.

Likewise various renewal groups, pastors and theologians have been writing about solutions. For instance see Michael Walker’s "What Way Ahead?"and What Way Ahead? Part Two: Initiating the Case for Realignment, or Pastor Mark Robert’s series.

Now I want to move toward the declarations passed by the Barmen Synod after they affirmed the Declaration of Barmen. With the additional declarations the members of the Synod shaped the life of the Confessing Churches in very practical ways.

But first they affirmed who they were as members of the Church. They, with the beginning of the Barmen Declaration and the 4th declaration, adopted May 29-31 1934, averred themselves the true Church under the Constitution of the German Evangelical Church. The constitution had been accepted by the whole Reich Church on July 14, 1933.

There was an attempt to change the constitution for the benefit of the German Christians. The Confessional Churches fought this move. They were, however, very clear about their reasons for declaring themselves the “legitimate German Evangelical Church.” And at this time it was the “Reich Church Administration” which they rejected. They would later, when the constitution had been effectively ruined, insist the Confessional Church members not obey any command of the administration.1

But their stand as the legitimate Church was based on their acceptance of the Holy Scriptures and the Confessions of the Reformation. The members of the Barmen Synod wrote:

“Only those who are called and who desire to hold fast to Holy Scripture and to the Church’s Confession of Faith as its inexpugnable foundation, and who desire to make both the authoritative standard of the German Evangelical Church again, may legitimately speak and act in the name of the German Evangelical Church.”

It was in this part of the Declaration, IV, that they insisted that the Church could not in its structure be hierarchical since that would be contrary to the “Reformation Confession of Faith.” Along side the denial of a hierarchical structure they insisted on the independence of the churches declaring that they should be free from harassment by either a Church administration or “external compulsion.”

I will, with my next posting, look at Declaration V. “Concerning the Practical Work of the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church.


1 With this link as you read you will find that in the coming years the Confessional Church would be greatly weakened as an institution. However to think about it in a different way read my posting Paul Schneider: A Chestnut Tree and the Confessing Church

The Church within a Church: manipulation versus peace and unity 5

How do members of a Church, who are trying to bear a faithful witness to Jesus Christ, react when higher authorities use their positions to manipulate the situation in the Church? Does this scatter the sheep or draw them together? Is the Confession torn apart or lifted up by faithful witnesses?

In my last posting, The Church within a Church: The Church's message and form 4, I wrote about the “The Declaration Concerning the Right Understanding of the Reformation Confessions of Faith in the German Evangelical Church of the Present,” a statement written by Karl Barth and confirmed by most of the Free Synods. In this posting I am writing about “The Ulm Declaration” written in 1934.

This declaration was the Confessing Church’s answer to the hierarchical manipulation of the Churches in Germany. In this case it was the attempt by the German Christians to bring the “southern provincial churches of Baveria and Württemberg” into the Reich Church which was under the control of the German Christians. The attempt was manipulative, dishonest and included an attempt to remove a Pastor from his Church.

Dr. August Jäger, the “Legal Administrator” stepped into a conflict between the German Christians in “the Standing Committee of the Church Council” and the Bishop of the Württenburg Church, Theophil Wurm. He attempted to use the conflict as a way of influencing the Church to dispose of their Pastor. The attempt included a radio broadcast which lied about the Pastor and his Church.

This drew the churches of Baveria and Württemberg into the Free Synod movement. Arthur Cochrane writes of the Ulm Conference, “It was the most representative gathering of ‘Confessionals’ that had been held, bringing together delegates from Bavarian and Württenburg Churches, the Free Synods in the Rhineland, Westphalia, and Brandenburg, as well as many ‘confessing’ congregations throughout Germany.”1

The Ulm Declaration is the beginning of the Confessing Church’s insistence that they represented the true Church within the Evangelical Church of Germany. At the same time they understand that the German Christian’s call for peace and unity in the Church was totally political and had broken the peace of the Church.

So, one important action of this particular declaration was to tell the truth. The German Christians’ call for peace and unity was deceptive. The authors of the declaration wrote:

“It is not possible to preach peace and then immediately do violence to a Church that is bound to a Confession of Faith such as the Württenburg Church.”

The next action was to call for a true unity connected to the Church’s faithfulness to the Confessions. The authors wrote:

“Because of a constant endangering of the Church and its Confession and also in the interest of the truth, we exhibit, before Christendom and all who are willing to hear, a unity in which we intend, with the help of God’s strength, to remain faithful to the Confession, even though we have to expect that in doing so we will incur much trouble.”

After this the authors of the declaration confront some of the errors perpetrated against Bishop Wurm, and finally they give a call to faithfulness and offer a prayer, parts of which could be prayed by many in the PCUSA today.

“As a fellowship of determined fighters obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray Almighty God to open the eyes of all Christians to the danger that threatens our beloved Church. May he not let us waver in remaining faithful to his honor and in his service.”


1 This is just a small part of the incident for more information read, The Church’s Confession Under Hitler by Arthur C. Cochrane 137-139.

The Church within a Church: The Church's message and form 4

The Confessing Church in Germany, during the time of Hitler, was in many ways a Church within a Church. This is because the denominational institutions of the day were gathered under an artificial structure lead by a political bishop. It is also because its ideology and theology were attached to the German government‘s ideology.

Only those who resisted the artificial structure and denied the prevailing ideology and theology existed as the body of Christ. They became a Church within a Church.

Sinful and often failing, yet hid in the righteousness of Christ, they, from our historical perspective, can be seen as the faithful body of Christ.

The ideology of the compromised German Church was racist and nationalistic, the theology was liberal, denying the unique Lordship of Christ and the revelation of God found only in the Holy Scripture. By merging the two positions the German Christian’s provided themselves a basis for revering Hitler while rejecting both the Hebrew Bible and its Jewish people.

In the last posting of my series the “Church within a Church,” I wrote about two confessional statements that were written by the Confessing movement before the Free Synods were called. In this posting I will write about one of two statements that were written during the time of the “synodical movement.” In my next posting I will write about the second one which also entails the manipulative actions of the German Christians toward their brothers and sisters in the Confessing Church.

All of the statements, before and during the time of the Free Synods, are concerned with the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the form or structure of his Church.

The very first Free Synod, held in Barmen, produced a declaration that was the closest of all the statements to the Barmen Declaration. Like the Barmen Declaration, its author was Karl Barth. It was “The Declaration Concerning the Right Understanding of the Reformation Confessions of Faith in the German Evangelical Church of the Present.”

The Declaration first addresses an error. The error:

"It consists in the opinion that beside God’s revelation, God’s grace, and God’s glory, a justifiable human arbitrariness also has to determine the message and form of the Church, that is to say the temporal way to eternal salvation.”

Here the Declaration uses both the picture of the medieval Pope and the “fanatics” that the Reformation Confessions rejected. This is about the structure of the Church and its unity which is found in its confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. In other words rather than a unity that is demanded by human institutions (the Pope)or human ideals (the Fanatics), unity would be found in the Church’s confession of Jesus Christ as her unique Lord.

Next the Declaration speaks of “The Church Under Holy Scripture.” After insisting that the Old and New Testament are a unity, the Old witnessing to “the coming of Jesus Christ,” the New to “Jesus Christ who has come,” the Declaration defines for the Church those events that count as God’s activity. That is, God’s activity is seen in his action in Jesus Christ “testified to by Holy Scripture,” rather than God’s activity seen in current events.

Under “The Message of the Church,” the Declaration speaks of God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ. It is a rejection of any kind of justification or sanctification accomplished by doing good works.

The last part of the Declaration is about the “Form of the Church.” Here once again is an insistence that the form of the Church flows out of its head which is Christ. The Church is “called, assembled and upheld, comforted and ruled, by the Lord himself through the ministry of proclamation.”

The Church’s message and form is “one and the same in different times, races, peoples, states, and cultures. The justification for differences in Churches in this or that place depends upon whether they are consistent with the unity of the Church’s message and form.”

This meant that the German Christians’ insistence that there be a German Church aligned with German culture and a rejection of the Hebrew Bible and its Jewish authors was not consistent with the Church’s message. This meant that the German Christian’s insistence on a human authority along side Jesus Christ was not consistent with the Church' form and was rejected.

Differences in Churches are justified when they are consistent with the Church’s message which is the gift of grace. As Barth puts it under “The Church’s Message":

“The gift of grace is our membership in Jesus Christ: in him we are justified by the miracle of faith which ever again excepts the forgiveness of sins, which has taken place in him. And in him we are sanctified by the miracle of obedience that ever submits itself to the judgment and direction of the commandment, which comes from him.”

All quotes taken from The Church's Confession Under Hitler, Arthur C. Cochrane.

The Church within a Church: The Lordship of Christ and the form of the Church 3

Some Churches in the Presbyterian Church (USA), who have gone to court to keep their property, are losing court cases around the issue of whether or not the denomination is a hierarchical institution. Whether one agrees or disagrees with going to court over property, the issue of the Church being hierarchical is also a part of the history of the German Church struggle.

The Lordship of Jesus Christ, the form of the Church and a hierarchical view of the Church were all intertwined in the confusion that existed before and during the rule of Hitler’s Nazis.

It was for this reason that many of the confessional statements written in the few years before the Declaration of Barmen had as their concern how the form of the Church must grow out of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And it was for this reason that during the synod that produced the Declaration of Barmen a resolution was also approved that contained this statement about the Church:

“It is impossible to divorce the Church’s outward order from the Confession of Faith. …

The unity of the German Evangelical Church is also not achieved by recklessly setting up a central authority that is based upon a worldly Führerprinzip foreign to the Church. A hierarchical structure of the Church is contrary to the Reformation Confession of Faith.” (emphasis mine)1

As has been stated this statement grew out of a dispute about the Lordship of Christ over the Churches. In Germany it was a dispute about placing a Reich bishop along with lesser bishops over the Church.

The writing of faith statements and confessions of faith began before the free synods and accrued until members of the Barmen Synod wrote and accepted the Declaration of Barmen. In this posting I deal with two statements written before the beginning of free synods and in the next I will look at two that were written during the free synod meetings. They are all concerned with the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the form of his Church.

There is not an English translation of the first one but Arthur C. Cochrane explains its content in his book The Church’s Confession Under Hitler. The “Altona Statement,” or “A Word and Confession to the Need and Confusion in Public Life” was written “a few weeks before Hitler assumed power.” One of its authors, Hans Asmussen, would later give the sermon that explained the Declaration of Barmen to the members of the Synod of Barmen.

This statement simply explained what the Church was, how Christians were to function in the public forum and the relationship between the Church and the State. It stressed the sinfulness of humanity and the forgiveness given by Jesus Christ to his people.

The second statement is the “Düsseldorf Theses,” written in May 1933. It began with a statement from the “Ten Theses of Berne,” written in 1528. “The holy, Christian Church, whose only head is Christ, is born of the Word of God, abides in the same, and hears not the voice of a stranger.”

The Theses emphasized that Jesus Christ was the head of the Church and that the ministries within the Church are “ordered by him." The statement speaks to each ministry, preachers, elders, teachers, etc., explaining what the duties are and that it is only in the grace of Jesus that they have their usefulness. The offices are always referred to as ministries and their authority is grounded in the grace of Christ.

Number 12 of the Theses is “Jesus Christ is the only ‘spiritual leader’ of the Church. He is its heavenly King who lives on earth through his Spirit in every one who is obedient to his commission in serving him in the Church.”

Only Jesus Christ has ultimate authority, any other ministry is just that a ministry. The authority of each ministry is established as it functions in the Spirit through the grace of Jesus Christ.

The Confessing Church appealed to the Reformation Confessions and declared that any other form of the Church grew out of arbitrary human ideals and was an unacceptable way of ordering the Church. Within the free synods a hierarchical Church was denied on the ground that Jesus Christ alone was head of the Church. It is with this denial that they stood against a corrupt German institution, a heretical Church.

1 “Declaration Concerning the Legal Status of the German Evangelical Church,” in The Churches Confession Under Hitler by Arthur C. Cochrane, 242. It seems to me that since we have the Declaration of Barmen in our Book of Confessions and since this statement is based on that and other Confessions that should be proof enough that we are not a hierarchical Church.

The Church within a Church: Free Confessional Synods as Witness 2

Over the weekend my husband and I re-watched the movie “Witness.” The movie centers on an Amish community and a little boy who is the only witness to a murder in a train station. As I was watching the movie I realized that not only was the boy a witness to the evil of a corrupt police department, but the whole Amish community was a witness to the invasion of the corrupt officials as they invaded the peaceful community.

Because of the community’s witness, as a group, the murderers were not able to complete their unspeakable deeds.

I am reminded of this as I write on the witness of the free synods of the Confessing Church in Germany during the time of Hitler. I am also reminded of this as I think about those in the PCUSA who hold an orthodox view of the Christian faith and choose, out of obedience to Jesus Christ, to stay in the denomination. Often, all that is required of a witness is to observe and state the truth. Or conversely to state the truth and observe.

Beginning very early, in 1934, the Reich bishop, Ludwig Müller, committed many “dictatorial acts” by eliminating many pastors from their positions. “Over two hundred ministers were subjected to disciplinary measures, suspensions, and dismissals.” Martin Niemöller was the first of this group to lose his position. This was the beginning of the call for free synods which were not official synods of the Church in Germany, but rather began with local meetings of those who had protested but now needed to simply stand in faithfulness.

The first free synod was a Reformed synod. It met in Barmen-Gemarke on January the 3- 4th. 1 There were “320 elders and ministers representing 167 congregations.” The next meeting was in “Pomerania on February 4.” The third free synod was held again in Barmen and was a Free Evangelical Synod consisting of Reformed, Lutheran and United ministers and elders. That was in February the 18 and 19th.

Next, members of the Council of Brethren of the Pastor’s Emergency league meeting on February 20 asked to become members of the free Evangelical Synod of the Rhineland and brought with them the congregations of the league. On March the 7th, congregations from Berlin met for a “Free Evangelical Synod for Berlin and Brandenburg.” Arthur C. Cochrane, author of The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, gives some interesting statistics here. He writes that four laymen and two ministers from each Church attended; “four hundred men and forty women altogether.” (My emphasis; a new history project for someone!)

The next meeting also has an interesting piece of data beside it. In March the 16th “the day the Secret Police dissolved the regularly called [official] Synod of Westphalia,” the First Westphalian Confessional Synod was held in Dortmund. On April the 29th the Free Evangelical Synod of the Rhineland met with the Westphalian Confessional Synod.

With further manipulative actions by official Church leaders in takeovers of Churches and dismissal of pastors many more congregations in Germany joined the Free and Confessional synods. By April 22 the Ulm Conference was held which had delegates from, “Bavarian and Württenburg Churches, the Free Synods in the Rhineland, Westphalia, and Brandenburg, as well as many ‘confessing’ congregations throughout Germany.”

Of course the most important meeting was held in Barmen on May 29-31 when the "Declaration of Barmen" was formulated, presented and accepted.

Several actions occurred within these free synods. The first was the formulating and acceptance of several confessional statements. The first statement was the “The Declaration Concerning the Right Understanding of the Reformation Confessions of Faith in the German Evangelical Church of the Present.” This, like the later “Declaration of Barmen” was written by Karl Barth. Another Confession was the “Ulm Declaration.” I will write about these statements in my third posting on this subject.

The Second action was the formation of leadership groups in the form of councils of brethren. The third inevitable action happened in the midst of severe crisis and persecution. Members of the synods came to the conclusion that they were the “legitimate” Church in Germany. This recognition of their own legitimacy can be traced to their stands on the faith and confession of the Church rather than any political viewpoint.

The members of the free synod and confessional gatherings were certainly witnesses to the German Church, the German people and later to the worldwide Church. They shared a witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the midst of a Church which wanted to share his Lordship with other gods. In gathering together they stood as one against an egocentric culture within Germany. And they spoke truth when everywhere lies and manipulation were the norm. Because of their witness paganism never totally engulfed the whole Church.

But, most important, it was the unique act of calling together "free synods" as a way of addressing the crisis within the official Church which allowed the confessing Christians and congregations to bring orthodox teaching and structure to the churches while speaking confessional truth to the German people.

1 All of the material about the free synods is taken from The Church’s Confession Under Hitler by Artur C. Cochrane.

The Church within a Church: a possibility 1 A revisit of the subject

Over at A Classical Presbyterian we have been having an interesting discussion on the Church, and various groups within the Church. Exploring Covenanted Fellowships, Part Four: The company we keep. As I was writing my last answer I remembered this series of postings and have decided to re-post them. Besides I noticed I didn't finish them-has anyone else ever done that? Anyway I hope this will contribute to the conversation.


This series will deal with how the Confessing Church in Germany, during the Nazi years, dealt with its position as a Church within a Church and how that is relevant to the orthodox in the PC(USA) today.

The official Church was a combination of the Lutheran, Reformed and United Churches gathered together under a Church government shaped, promoted and used by the Nazi Government. Many will see this as a non-relevant subject for the orthodox within the PCUSA today, and clearly the differences are vast. But surprisingly the most basic issues, the Lordship of Jesus Christ, revelation, atonement and ideas about the form and nature of the Church are the same.

With this beginning post I lay out the vast differences, the similarities, and the Confessing Church’s path of resistance that I believe offer some clues toward the future.

Certainly the most serious differences were the dictatorship the Church struggled under and the real issues of life and death. The most serious symptom of the real theological issues within the Church was the German Church official’s refusal to allow Jewish Christians a place within the Church as well as the end of missionary activity to the Jewish people.

Confessing Church pastors and officials faced loss of their ordination; they faced prison and death. All of those involved in youth ministry faced the despair of watching their organizations be dissolved into Hitler’s youth organization. Theological professors lost their university jobs. But one Professor, in particular, noted that the problem was much deeper than the militant dictatorship that existed in his day.

Karl Barth understood that the Church's theological problems began in Germany two-hundred years before and stated that after the, “Church will have finished with the public, savage heretics [the German Christians],” …”who will save her from the blandishments of those who seem correct as to the standards of the Church, Bible and Reformation. And yet, in principle do not think differently from those heretics.”

So, for similarities the most basic sameness in the two Church struggles has to do with revelation. Without dictatorships, without Nazis or any other evil ideology some fail to see that the two struggles are the same. The theologians of Germany for two hundred years had prepared the Church of Germany to recognize other forms of revelation beside Jesus Christ as he is found in Holy Scripture. Today it is reason, science, culture, gender, community, etc. Then, culture, soil, community (volk) and the events of history became the revelation German Christianity placed beside Jesus Christ.

Christianity became Germanic; Hitler and National Socialism were the great gifts and revelation that God had supposedly given to Germany. This is why the German Christians rejected the Jewish people and the Hebrew Bible. This is also why many of the German Christians rejected the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross. For them Jesus became a kind of super hero, some one to emulate rather then kneel before. The culture of Germany became more important than the blood of the cross.

Ideas about the Church changed with the new revelation. The Church was seen as a means to unify the community, the volk. The Church was to be an instrument for building up people and culture. The Church took on a new appearance. The German officials rejected the Reform understanding of parliamentary governance. Leaders of the German Faith movement wrote in their "Guiding Priniciples":

“The time of parliamentarianism has outlived itself even in the Church. Ecclesiastical parties have no religious sanction to represent Church people and are opposed to the lofty purpose of becoming a national Church.”1

The leaders believed parliamentary governance destroyed the unity of the Church and the nation. Instead they opted for a hierarchical structure that went well beyond the Lutheran tradition since it was shaped on an administrative rather than a spiritual foundation.

The orthodox in the midst of the Church crisis began to call for free synods. Arthur Cochrane writes:

"There remained for Christ’s flock the one thing possible—the one thing the Church can do when all other possibilities have been exhausted, namely, a common Confession of Christ in the face of a heresy that threatens the life of the Church as the true bride of Christ. Thus in the early months of 1934, a new movement appeared on the scene, in which the laity played as important a part as the clergy. A.S. Duncan-Jones has called this the ‘synodical movement, because it took the form of local synods of clergy and laity who expressed their mind on the dangers that threatened the Church.’”

As part of this movement and alongside it several declarations were formulated which eventually led to the Declaration of Barmen. Beyond this, at the same synod that produced the Declaration of Barmen, the Confessional Synod voted for a resolution that dealt with such things as the Confessing Church's legality, their practical work, the spiritual renewal of ministers, education and the mission of the Church, (which included among other projects ministering to Storm Troopers and Hitler Youth!).

With further postings I intend to deal with the “free Synods,” the gathering declarations and finally with the various resolutions the members of the Synod of Barmen approved to guide them as they became a Church within a Church.

1 “The Guiding Principles of the Faith Movement of the ‘German Christians,, June 6 1932” Appendix II in The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, Arthur C. Cochrane, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press 1961) 222.