30 years ago — June 4, 1984
“May 31, 1984, marks the 50th anniversary of the most important church confession of the 20th century, the Theological Declaration of Barmen.” Many churchgoers resisted Hitler and the Nazi party’s seizure of the church in Germany. The “‘First Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church’ met at Barmen in Westphalia from May 29-31, 1934. One hundred thirty-nine delegates from 18 provincial churches attended.” The document that emerged was “fully titled ‘Theological Declaration Concerning the Present Situation of the German Evangelical Church.’’’
The confession affirms “loyalty to Christ and set forward limits of the secular government. Specifically, it rejected as ‘false doctrines’ the Nazis’ ‘totalitarian rule of society,’ the view that the church was an organ of the state, claims that secular ‘events, powers, figures and truths’ were revelations of God and the belief that there exist ‘some areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords.’”
From the article, “The Barmen Declaration after 50 years” by Donald McKim.
