Liberating dimensions of Church-State relations during Third Reich Fascism
Some lessons from the theologies of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer
What follows is a slightly edited version of a 2nd semester seminar paper presented during a Graduate Programme in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa in 1989. The title of the course was: ‘Church-State in Historical Context.’
This paper focuses briefly on the Church of the Third Reich - the period of Nazi Germany - between 1933 to 1945 - when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country and transformed it into a totalitarian dictatorship.
While many in the Church gave uncritical and often obsequious allegiance to Hitler and the Third Reich, there were Christians who stood up against the tyranny with courage and often at great cost to themselves.
The significance of the liberating resistance to fascism leading up to and during World War II should not be lost on the global Church today as the threat of Fascism looms ever larger right now.
Authors such as C.K. Hopkins write about The Rise of the New Normal Reich (2022). Hopkins presents an unofficial history of the roll-out of the "New Normal" during the 2020-2021 Covid-19 pandemic, and an analysis of this new, pathologized-totalitarian ideology that has radically transformed societies around the world.
Focus
This substack seeks to appropriate the liberating dimensions of the church-state models presented by Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The original context for the theological dialogues with these two German theologians was that of the Apartheid State rule in South Africa near the end of the 1980s. Today, both Barth and Bonhoeffer are important to re-read and dialogue with afresh as the true Church globally confronts the ugly beast of fascism and totalitarian-styled imperial rule and rulers across the globe.
Our treatment here is only cursory, but hopefully these reflections spark creative, critical and courageous responses by those who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ.
Karl Barth’s theological critique of the Third Reich
Barth’s interpretation of church and state relations combines inseparably the Christological centre of his theology and his emphasis on the revolution of God. This model deabsolutises all political programmes, all state systems, and even all church praxis. They are all placed under a sharp eschatological critique.
See my previous substack: https://rogerarendse.substack.com/p/karl-barth-theologian-of-freedom
Neither history, the state, the established church nor humanity in general can ever be deified. While Barth is accused by some of both “quietism” and “anarchy,” within his context Barth provided a decisive theological critique of the Third Reich. He saw that it had co-opted both the dominant German church and the social order over to an acceptance of a form of Christianity defined in terms of National Socialism. The German Church was required to be an organ of the State where church functions were interpreted in terms more political than theological. As Christianity was made increasingly captive to imperial ideology during the Constantine era, so the Third Reich defined legitimate church theology as that which also served the interests of the German volk.
The Barmen Declaration (1934)
While this document may be considered conservative today (cf. de Gruchy 1984:125-128), the Barmen Declaration presented a radical critique and rejection of Third Reich ideology and of the dominant Church theology in Germany. Karl Barth saw in each a capitulation to a form of natural theology which sold out the transcendence of God, the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and the Word of God; and instead stressed divine immanence and “other events, powers, and historic figures, and truths as God’s revelation.” (Villa Vicencio 1986:97).
From Barth’s perspective, the failure of the German church was the failure to affirm the NO of God to all human efforts to construct the Kingdom of God on earth. A false analogy had been drawn between what was the Kingdom of God which Jesus proclaimed and the kingdom of Germany and Christian National Socialism. Like earlier liberal theology which has aligned itself with the bourgeois and dominant German culture and order, so the church in support of the Third Reich had contradicted the very heart of the Kingdom of God where God is seen as committed to the poor and lowly and against the rich and the exalted (Villa Vicencio 1988:84).
Here Barth’s positive YES of God to humanity is expressed. The incarnation of Jesus Christ in particular portrays the political and social ideals of the Kingdom of God which always opposes the oppressive kingdoms of this world.
Dimensions of Barth’s liberating theology
Some liberating dimensions of Barth’s theology of the Church and State can now be highlighted. Firstly, the uncompromising stress on the Lordship of Jesus Christ affirms the rule of God over every sphere of human existence. This denies both the established church and the state any right to abrogate to themselves an absolute control over human existence or to use the church for their own ideological ends. The state is, consequently, reminded that it is not only a “force against evil,” but also “a vehicle for good.” (Villa Vicencio 1986:90). Here “good” is defined from the perspective of God who is committed to the oppressed and marginalised.
Secondly, Barth restates the necessary separation between Church and State. The “Christian State” and the “duplication of the Church in the political sphere” are repudiated. (Villa Vicencio 1986:101). The church is pushed away from captivity to dominant state ideology. But at the same time, the positive connecting lines between the ‘Christian’ and ‘civil’ communities are affirmed. “The constitutive elements of civil society are also proper and indispensable to the Christian community…” (Villa Vicencio 1986:99). Yet the state must fulfil its principle and divinely appointed task which is to maintain justice and peace in society. (Villa Vicencio 1986:98).
On the other hand, we must ask what is normative for the life of the Church in its spiritual rather than its secular task? ‘Spiritual’ is defined clearly in terms of church identity, belief, and praxis as rooted in God rather than implying any escape from the world. For Barth, the church is always active in the political sphere, but it is active as the Church which is under the control of the free and gracious God who gives it life through the free Spirit. And it is precisely as the Church that the church proclaims and demonstrates the rule of God over the world and the hope envisaged by the Kingdom of God (cf. Villa Vicencio 1986:100). The church is never equal to the Kingdom of God nor can it succeed itself in establishing the Kingdom of God in the political sphere. The effect of sin is felt in the church as it is in the state and both are under the judgement of God’s own activity in the world. Yet the church must function before the state both as “model and prototype.” (Villa Vicencio 1986:105).
It is this liberating character of Barth’s theology which challenges the church in any context (whether in South Africa or elsewhere) to be the church which participates with God in God’s revolution of the existing order. The church confronts the state with its oppressive ideology and reminds the state that its recourse to “naked power…is directly evil.”
As disciples of Christ, the members of His Church do not rule: they serve. In the political community, therefore, the Church can only regard all ruling that is not primarily a form of service as diseased and never as a normal condition. No State can exist without the sanction of power. But the power of the good State differs from that of the bad State as potestas differs from potentia. Potestas is the power that follows and serves the law; potentia is the power that precedes the law; that masters and bends and breaks the law – it is naked power which is directly evil.” (Villa Vicencio 1986:104).
In such situations, the Church may be required to support the overthrow of the State!
Diedrich Bonhoeffer – Witness to Jesus Christ
Bonhoeffer’s theology of the state, especially in his early theology, was clearly conservative (de Gruchy 1984:93). His perspective on the state was most often the classic Lutheran one which he sought to rework in his own situation. The state was “God’s order of preservation in a godless world…the sustaining will of God amidst the chaotic godlessness of the world.” (Villa Vicencio 1986:106). Through humanitarian associations and individual Christians, the state could be reminded of “the moral side of any of its measures.” (ibid:106), but the church as church (the Barthian stress) appears to be lacking when it comes to Christian engagement of the political order.
Dimensions of Bonhoeffer’s liberating theology
Bonhoeffer was clearly not unconcerned about the individual and human rights, nor unaware of the dangers of the deification of the state (de Gruchy 1984:93). This points to the liberating dimensions of Bonhoeffer’s theology, affirmed by the fact that “Bonhoeffer and church struggle have become inseparable” not just in his context of German fascism, but in all contexts of church struggle against oppressive rule (de Gruchy 1984:132).
Mention will made of just two liberating aspects of Bonhoeffer’s theology. Firstly, Bonhoeffer always stresses the limited authority of the state. From the church’s perspective, the state “negates itself” when it “endangers the Christian proclamation” (Villa Vicencio 1986:107). Proclamation is to be understood as confession, not merely in words but also in deeds which are together transformed by the Lordship of Jesus Christ (cf. de Gruchy 1084:139). The most radical response of the church to the state is a move beyond humanitarian aid to the victims of the state, “to putting a spoke in the wheel itself,” that is, the church engages directly in political action which obstructs the oppressive functioning of the State. (Villa Vicencio 1986:108)
Contextually applied, whether in South Africa or a similar situation, this theological position permits civil disobedience. It also provides a theological support for church participation in the revolutionary struggle to transform the existing order. Bonhoeffer, of course, strongly sanctioned against anarchic rebellion and always respected the rule of law (de Gruchy 1984:166). Civil disobedience was, moreover, “a paradoxical expression” of the church’s position with respect to the state, involving both conflict with the state and ultimate recognition of the state.” (Villa Vicencio 1986:108). In this sense, Bonhoeffer’s position is close to Barth’s revolution of God which in the German context implied Barth’s “deabsolutising of the revolution and his relativizing of impetuous activism by ensuring that all political action remains human in what is all too often a dehumanising struggle.” (Villa Vicencio 1988:56).
Secondly, Bonhoeffer affirmed that “the Church has the task of summoning the whole world,” including the State therefore, “to submit to the dominion of Jesus Christ.” (ibid:110). Bonhoeffer’s lectures in Berlin in 1933 was a clear acceptance of the Christological centre of the later Barmen Declaration (de Gruchy 1986: 129)
Moreover, Bonhoeffer’s personalising of the Barmen Declaration, most decisively reflected in his participation in the conspiracy against Hitler, challenges Christians in South Africa and elsewhere as it did those in Nazi Germany at the time. What is called for is the concrete and sacrificial witness to the theology of the cross in a context of human suffering, oppression and death. Bonhoeffer could state:
Christ died for the world, and it is only in the midst of the world that Christ is Christ. (de Gruchy 1984:24).
Christ is found among the suffering poor, the marginalised, the oppressed, and dehumanised. And this is where Christians and the true Church must find itself in any time and context.
Thank you for making the time to read this substack.
What resonates with you?
What challenges do you take away from Barth and Bonhoeffer for your own context right now?
What questions come to mind?
What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ in the midst of these times of the “New Normal Reich”?
Silence and complicity are no longer options!
NOW, is the time to step up, stand up, and speak truth to powers!
NOW is the time for considered non-violent disobedience!
I want to trust you with this. I will not suffer indefinitely these excessive calls, Many of them ring hollow and feel haunted Under these layered covers of what is deemed best science. I will not rest forever obedient in its grip, I will discern for myself what is good and best, For the wounded whole and not just the part, I join in with a mounting chorus of dissent, I hear voices rising up from the depths of pain and suffering, They call from the dirty belly of our gross inequality, Now is the time for considered non-violent disobedience. © Roger Arendse – 20200430 ("Compliance", final stanza)
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Blessings!
Select Bibliography
de Gruchy, J.W. 1984 Bonhoeffer and South Africa, Grand Rapids: Michigan: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company
de Gruchy, J.W. 1987 Diedrich Bonhoeffer: Witness to Jesus Christ, The Making of Modern Theology 4, 19th & 20th Century Theological Texts. General editor: J.W. de Gruchy, London/San Francisco: Collins Publishing
Villa Vicencio, C. 1986 Between Christ and Caesar: Classic and Contemporary Texts on Church and State, Cape Town: David Philip/Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Villa Vicencio, C 1988 On Reading Karl Barth in South Africa, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company.