You Need to Know About the Barmen Declaration

What Happened Ninety Years Ago Matters Today

Ninety years ago today, church leaders in Germany gathered in a community called Barmen to address the rise of Adolf Hitler’s influence in Germany. From May 29 to May 31, 1934, pastors and theology professors made a courageous stand in opposition even though many German church leaders saw no conflict between Christianity and the ideals of Hitler’s Nazi party.

Hitler’s triumphal message appealed to most Germans, living in the aftermath of Germany’s humiliating defeat in WWI. Hitler cast a persuasive vision for restoring Germany’s greatness, but he knew he needed the support of the church to accomplish his goals. The “German Christian” movement grew in popularity because it cleverly and deceptively asserted that Christianity and Nazism were compatible partners. The Synod of Barmen was called by faithful believers to set the record straight.

The Political Air Germans Breathed In 1934

Here are some of the main components of Nazism that the church needed to evaluate:

1.    Nationalism. The passionate devotion to the German language, German history, German traditions, and German religion (Christianity). While love of country can be a good application of the command to “love our neighbors,” it can also become idolatrous if making the nation great takes priority over glorifying God.

2.   Racial Supremacy. As members of the “Aryan” race, Nazis considered Germans physically, intellectually, and morally superior to other races, especially the Jews. This ethnocentric pride fueled the antisemitism already present in Europe. The Jews became scapegoats to blame and eradicate. Nazis presented themselves as the protectors of the German people from inferior races that had infiltrated Germany.

3.    Anti-Marxism. As a right-wing ideology, Nazism opposed the left-wing ideology of Marxist Communism. It’s common today for evangelicals to appeal to the leaders of the Barmen Synod as examples for us to resist Marxist influence in the United States (as we should) but many forget that the Nazis resisted Marxism as well. The Barmen Synod was opposing a toxic form of right-wing nationalism that was seeking to use Christianity and the church to secure political power.

4.    Political idolatry.  In the relationship between church and state, the Nazis saw Christianity as the privileged religion of Germany (either Roman Catholic or Protestant). Here’s Article 24 of the 1920 Nazi Party Platform:  

"We demand the freedom of all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not jeopardize the state's existence or conflict with the manners and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The Party as such upholds the point of view of a positive Christianity without tying itself confessionally to any one confession. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit at home and abroad and is convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only be achieved from within on the basis of the common good before individual good."

In other words, Hitler’s Germany would give freedom to the church if the church submitted to Germany’s Hitler. Too many Christians and church leaders found the Nazi message attractive and intentionally overlooked its blatant antisemitism and racism in pursuit of a perceived higher good: the “permanent recovery” of the German nation, restoring it to its former greatness.

Many German Christians were seduced into thinking that the church would be led and fed, protected and promoted by a government that would put Christians in charge, making Christian laws and upholding Christian values. The Nazi government had no place for godless Marxists or Christless Jews, but plenty of room for German Christians just like them. And the charismatic Adolf Hitler convinced them that he could be trusted with this great power. In other words, most Christians in that particular political environment proved to be dangerously and tragically gullible, helpless against the propaganda machine of the Nazi party.

But the church leaders who met at Barmen ninety years ago today were different. They confessed that only Jesus is “Lord of every area of life,” not a charismatic politician or a political party. If obeying Christ means resisting the political prevailing winds, then the church must resist.

The Barmen Declaration

The result of the Barmen Synod was a declaration in which they affirmed “six evangelical truths.” You can read the whole document here but I’ll summarize and paraphrase the six points below:

1. Jesus is Lord, the Word of God made flesh, the final authority in all things, and the ultimate arbiter of truth. Implication: Hitler is not.

2. Jesus reigns over every area of our lives without exception. Implication: Jesus reigns over our political engagement.

3. The true church belongs to Jesus and it has no right to accommodate current and popular ideologies. Implication: The church must not abdicate to the Nazi party.

4. The leaders of the church must meet Biblical qualifications but there is no single leader [Fuhrer] over the church except Jesus. Church authority must not be given to any political leader. Implication: Hitler has no say in the church and his opinions carry no weight in matters of doctrine.

5. Both church and state are ordained by God but separate. The state is required to restrain evil and promote justice by the power of the sword and not assume the role of the church. The church is required to draw attention to God’s universal reign through the proclaiming of the Word and not assume the role of the state. Implication: Hitler is accountable to God and has no authority in the church.

6. The church is commissioned to preach the message of God’s grace in Jesus Christ and must never place this commission in the service of the state, any political party, or politician. Implication: The true church will not cooperate with the unjust aims of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.

Costly Discipleship

Those who subscribed to the Barmen Declaration became known as “The Confessing Church.” One of the leaders of the Confessing Church movement was Deitrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor and theologian. Bonhoeffer has been revised by many evangelicals today who re-write history to make his theological views compatible with our own, but there are serious deficiencies in his theology. However, in The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer got this right:

“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate” 

Being faithful to Christ against the prevailing political winds has always been costly for faithful Christians. For Bonhoeffer, resisting Nazi pressure to put the church in the service of a party’s political agenda would cost him his life. He was executed by the Nazis on April 9, 1945.

Ninety years ago today in Germany, the church had to ask itself: “By identifying with this political party, is the church really influencing the political realm or is the political realm influencing the church?” It’s a good question for any church at any time in any nation.

[Note on this image: Barmen Declaration Memorial in Wuppertal, Germany (Image credit: Frank Vincentz) This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The front of the monument depicts Germans facing and saluting Hitler, while the back of the monument shows Germans with their backs turned to Hitler, not saluting, but instead facing the church where the Barmen Synod met, gathered around what appears to be a Bible. For a clearer views click here. The image above is via this recommended article.]