The prophetic confession, known as the “Barmen Declaration” was written in 1934 as the Third Reich was taking over the German Evangelical Church (composed of Lutheran, Reformed, and United churches).  Professor Karl Barth was a primary author. Barmen galvanized the new “Confessing Church” which was a dissident voice against the national Reichskirche that would become an arm of state policy.

Barmen affirmed the sole Lordship of Jesus Christ in a perilous time: “In view of the errors of the ‘German Christians’ of the present Reich church government, which are devastating the church and…  breaking up the unity of the German Evangelical Church, we confess the following evangelical truths…”  

One of those truths is: “Scripture tells us that, in the as yet unredeemed world in which the church also stands, the state has by divine arrangement the task of providing for justice and peace…. The church… reminds us of God’s kingdom, of God’s commandment and righteousness, and thus the responsibility of rulers and ruled….” Then Barmen names several false teachings, including: 

• We reject the false doctrine… as if the state should and can, beyond its special commission, become the single and total order of human life, and thus also fulfill the purpose of the church.
• We reject the false doctrine… as if the church should and can, beyond its special commission, appropriate the nature of the state, the tasks of the state, and the dignity of the state, and thus itself become an organ of the state.

Among younger theologians in the Confessing Church, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eberhard Bethge, the Riech’s take over of the Protestant church was called, “The Nazification of the Church.”  As I research and write about this period, I find myself asking, “What are the lessons we can learn here?”