The German Lutheran Church and the Rise of National Socialism

1972 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Tiefel
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
Lutheran Church ◽  
Confessing Church ◽  
Impossible Task ◽  
Objective Understanding ◽  
Protestant Christians ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The attempt to arrive at a balanced and objective understanding of the relationship between the German Protestant church, which is predominantly Lutheran, and the rise of National Socialism is an almost impossible task today. For what we now hear about the Protestant church of the thirties tends to be written by those who were vindicated by the turn of events, while those who supported Hitler and National Socialism have tended to remain silent, understandably enough. The flood of books and articles by the Confessing Church gives the misleading impression that the stand of the church toward the Nazi state was one of resistance and opposition. Instead, the main Protestant response to Hitler and to the nationalistic forces he represented ranged from inactive indifference to over-whelming support. The Confessing Church, which did display a courageous though not always consistent opposition, at best never spoke for more than about one tenth of all Protestant Christians.

Nazifying Christian Theology: Walter Grundmann and the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life

1994 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 587-605 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susannah Heschel
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
The Third ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Confessing Church ◽  
Church Life ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Doctrine

The Third Reich's Kirchenkampf (church struggle) is sometimes mistakenly understood as referring to the Protestant churches' resistance to National Socialism. In fact, the term refers to an internal dispute between members of the Bekennende Kirche [Confessing Church (hereafter BK)] and members of the Deutsche Christen [German Christians (hereafter DC)] over control of the Protestant church. While not all members of the BK opposed Hitler's policies, the movement called for an autonomy of the church from National Socialist legal measures, particularly the racial laws, motivated both by theological and political considerations. The DC, by contrast, sought to introduce National Socialist policies and ideology into the church, especially Nazi racial laws, and modify church doctrine in accord with National Socialist ideology. Yet the antisemitism at the heart of the DC has been either ignored or marginalized by most historians. Indeed, some historians have incorrectly suggested that the DC underwent a dissolution at the end of 1933, from which it never recovered, or have presented the DC as a political creation of National Socialism, ignoring its theological roots.

Konfessionsbündische Unübersichtlichkeit oder unevangelische Zentralisierung?

2003 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-152
Author(s):  
Jörg Dierken
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Institutional Structure ◽  
General Question ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
Lutheran Church ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
Spiritual Communication ◽  
The Church

AbstractIn the current debate of possible ways to reform the structure and organisation of the protestant church in Germany (Landeskirchen, Konfessionsbünde, EDK) the general question has come up, whether concepts of the Lutheran church, which are founded on ecclesiology or protestant ecclesiastical law, in principle prohibit institutional changes or not. Regarding this problem, the essay discusses the institution of the Protestant church in aspects of theology and ecclesiasticallaw. The CA assumes that religious belief constitutes the church and gives structure to it as a means for spiritual communication between the faithful. Starting from this point the essay argues that the church is essentially non-institutional. Nevertheless it is a part of the dialectics of the concept of the institutionally organised church that even this non-institutionality gains itself an institutional structure. Because of this the essay pleads for a pragmatic view on church institutions: there are reasons to change or to cling to these structures, but these reasons are only pragmatic ones, when the concept of the church, which is derived from theology and protestant ecclesiasticallaw, is considered as given.

scholarly journals Syncritism in Pentecost-Charismatic Movement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredy Simanjuntak ◽  
Alexander Djuang Papay
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Charismatic Movement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The history of the church notes that to this day the Protestant Church is a family whose history is most often divided. Nevertheless the development is quite significant in the present. The process of developing the church resulted in various streams in the church such as Lutheran, Calvinist, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Evangelical, Adventist, until Jehovah's Witnesses, in the course of the Pentecostal & Charismatic flow so fertile in today's growth. The flow of Pentecostalism and Charismaticism, in its origin and method, has a unique and phenomenal history in Indonesia. The uniqueness of Indonesia's spiritual context is illustrated by rapid growth. The Pentecostal and Charismatic movements felt their influence in various churches around us. Phenomena such as the ability to speak in tongues, healing, and prophecy and aspects of emotional experience that are so prominent in this movement make the public wonder, is it true that all of this is the work of the Holy Spirit? The purpose of this paper is to provide an observation of facts, spiritual life background, the meaning of faith, and understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit adopted by followers of the Pentecost-Charismatic Movement in the context of the challenges of contextualization and syncretism in the relationship between Pentecostal-Charismatic and Christian spirituality in Indonesia. In light of the significant regional diversity in Indonesian religious thought and experience, the scope of this research is limited to the idea of contextualization also limited to its use in the missiological context.

Ding Guangxun: Maintaining the Church

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloë Starr
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Church Leader ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Theological Thought ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Intense Debate

Ding Guangxun (K. H. Ting, 1915–2012) was heralded during his lifetime as the premier church statesman of the PRC era, a figure whose leadership of the authorized Protestant church and its national seminary spanned five decades and whose theological thought guided the church through much of that period. Ding’s theology is highly pragmatic in orientation, and his effect as a church leader was as important as his effect as a theologian. This chapter concentrates on the early writings of Ding Guangxun, from the 1940s and 1950s, to create a base understanding of his theological position in the first years of his ministry as comparator for later developments. The period encompassed intense debate on the relationship of church and state and includes Ding’s difficult debates with the staunchly separatist church leader Wang Mingdao—debate that precipitated the split of the Chinese Protestant church and whose ramifications are still ever-present.

scholarly journals Syncritism in Pentecost-Charismatic Movement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredy Simanjuntak
Keyword(s):  
Holy Spirit ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Charismatic Movement ◽  
The Public ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
The Holy Spirit ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The history of the church notes that to this day the Protestant Church is a family whose history is most often divided. Nevertheless the development is quite significant in the present. The process of developing the church resulted in various streams in the church such as Lutheran, Calvinist, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Evangelical, Adventist, until Jehovah's Witnesses, in the course of the Pentecostal & Charismatic flow so fertile in today's growth. The flow of Pentecostalism and Charismaticism, in its origin and method, has a unique and phenomenal history in Indonesia. The uniqueness of Indonesia's spiritual context is illustrated by rapid growth. The Pentecostal and Charismatic movements felt their influence in various churches around us. Phenomena such as the ability to speak in tongues, healing, and prophecy and aspects of emotional experience that are so prominent in this movement make the public wonder, is it true that all of this is the work of the Holy Spirit? The purpose of this paper is to provide an observation of facts, spiritual life background, the meaning of faith, and understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit adopted by followers of the Pentecost-Charismatic Movement in the context of the challenges of contextualization and syncretism in the relationship between Pentecostal-Charismatic and Christian spirituality in Indonesia. In light of the significant regional diversity in Indonesian religious thought and experience, the scope of this research is limited to the idea of contextualization also limited to its use in the missiological context.

The Reports of the Sicherheitsdienst on the Church and Religious Affairs in Germany, 1939–1944

1971 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 437-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald D. Wall
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
National Socialism ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Past ◽  
Confessing Church ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Church ◽  
Comprehensive Study

The volume of literature on the Kirchenkampf is expanding at an accelerating rate. Several bibliographical articles have already appeared, the most recent of which is by the Canadian scholar, John S. Conway. Of the 63 titles of books, articles, and collections discussed by Conway, 47 were published in the 1960s. Nearly all studies of the Kirchenkampf either defend or criticize the church in varying degrees. Most of the older accounts, as Conway points out in the introduction to his own comprehensive study, were written by clergymen and historians who actually participated in the Kirchenkampf. These scholars selected those facts which demonstrated that the church steadfastly, if not always effectually, opposed National Socialist tyranny in word and deed. The larger volume of Protestant works emphasized the activity of the Confessing Church, while the unaccountably smaller number of Roman Catholic accounts focused upon particular bishops and priests who protested courageously and suffered imprisonment or martyrdom. During the past ten years, however, a small group of mostly younger historians have published works sharply critical of the Roman Catholic Church in particular. These historians, the most prominent of whom are Gordon Zahn, Hans Müller, and Guenter Lewy, assert that the Roman Catholic Church failed to exert the kind of moral and political leadership which might have mitigated the horrors of National Socialism.

Mission from the inside Out: An Integrative Analysis of Selected Latin American Protestant “Writings” in Spirituality and Mission

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Gallagher
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Good News ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Christian Mission ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
American Scholar ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Inside Out ◽  
The Church

Contemporary mission is still struggling with how to connect the contemplative inward journey of the spiritual practices, the outward actions of social justice, and the proclamation of the good news in the ongoing activities of the church today and specifically in its missional task. While the Protestant church is divided over the issue, this paper proposes that there is a possibility of significant convergence of the inner and outer lives of the church, which results in an inner spiritual liberation of mission. This article examines the correlation of spirituality and mission from the “writings” of selected Protestant Latin American scholar-practitioners focusing on the relationship between the inner and outer dimensions of Christian mission, wholeness and integrity of mission, spiritual practices and mission, and worship and mission. In their integration, these emphases provide insights that answer the ecclesiastical question that exists in mission today and provides renovated foundations for the continuing development of the global missional force.

Encouraging an Organic Ecclesiology for Adolescents: Deconstructing the Church from Institution to Instituted

2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-48
Author(s):  
Harmen van Wijnen ◽  
Rein Brouwer ◽  
Marcel Barnard
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Small Groups ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Church Attendance ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
Protestant Church ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The relationship between adolescents and the church is troubled. Recent quantitative research in the Netherlands has shown that church membership and church attendance of adolescents are at an all-time low. This article tells the story behind the numbers, based on the results of qualitative research among adolescents in five small groups affiliated in some way with the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. Based on their perspectives, it can be concluded that the relationship between adolescents and the church is indeed problematic, mainly because of the institutional and organisational characteristics of the church. This article suggests that a new, organic approach, beyond the traditional institutional and organisational perspectives, is needed for the Protestant Church and its associated youth organisations.

The Architecture of Faith under National Socialism: Lutheran Church Building(s) in Braunschweig, 1933–1945

2015 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 340-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRIEDRICH WEBER ◽  
CHARLOTTE METHUEN
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Church Architecture ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Lutheran Church ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Church Building ◽  
National Socialists ◽  
Building Community ◽  
The Church

It has frequently been assumed that church building ceased after the National Socialists came to power in Germany in 1933. This article shows that it continued, and considers the reasons why this was the case. Focussing on churches built in the Church of Braunschweig between 1933 and 1936, it explores the interactions between emergent priorities for church architecture and the rhetoric of National Socialist ideology, and traces their influence on the building of new Protestant churches in Braunschweig. It examines the way in which Braunschweig Cathedral was reordered in accordance with National Socialist interests, and the ambiguity which such a reordering implied for the on-going Christian life of the congregation. It concludes that church building was widely understood to be a part of the National Socialist programme for creating employment, but was also used to emphasise the continuing role of the Church in building community. However, there is still much work to be done to investigate the ways in which churches and congregations interacted with National Socialism in their day-to-day existence.

The Protestant Churches in Saxony-Anhalt in the Shadow of the German Christian Movement and National Socialism, 1945–1949

2013 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 877-903
Author(s):  
Luke Fenwick
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Nazi Party ◽  
The Third ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Confessing Church ◽  
The Third Reich ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Church

The two major Protestant churches in Saxony-Anhalt, the Church Province of Saxony(Evangelische Kirche der Kirchenprovinz Sachsens[KPS])and the State Church of Anhalt(Landeskirche Anhalts[LKA]), undertook denazification processes against “compromised” pastors and church hierarchs after 1945. Where the Church Province faced secular criticism about “lenient” denazification, the Anhalt Church enjoyed state support, largely because it admitted political representatives to its review commission. Hierarchs in the KPS explained their leniency with reference to the resistance of Christians in the Third Reich, a particular theology of church and state relations, and forgiveness. The verdicts handed down, nonetheless, were premised primarily on each clergyman's affiliation to the former German Christian movement and not on Nazi party membership; denazification was therefore “de-German-Christianization.” (The German Christian movement was a heterodox movement heavily influenced by Nazism.) However, quite apart from de-German-Christianization, there was also pragmatism within both(mutatis mutandis)the KPS and the LKA. Both desired a fully manned and unified pastorate in a time of acute need. Most churchmen withstood denazification as a result. One pastor in Anhalt exemplifies the process. Formerly a member, Erich Elster renounced the German Christian movement as a “false path” after 1945. He continued in his pastoral duties, albeit with an admonishment to preach orthodoxy. The general continuity of churchmen did not provide for unity in any case, and it even led to recrimination and in places a post-war perpetuation of the Third Reich “church struggle”(Kirchenkampf)that had pitted German Christians against members of the Confessing Church.

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