Religion and Politics: "We Reject the False Doctrine"

Religion and Politics Sermon #2
"We Reject the False Doctrine"
Rev. Cynthia O'Brien
Smith Memorial Presbyterian Church
September 14, 2008


1PE 2:4 As you come to him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him-- 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says:
"See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame."
1PE 2:7 Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
"The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone, "
1PE 2:8 and,
"A stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall."
They stumble because they disobey the message--which is also what they were destined for.
1PE 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1PE 2:11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
1PE 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. 16 Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. 17 Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king.


If you believed that the leader of your country were doing something horribly wrong, would you say something? Or would that be unpatriotic?

A few years ago, the Dixie Chicks were on tour in London. Thy had the No. 1 country single and their upcoming world tour was sold out. Lead singer Natalie Mines made an off the cuff remark in London. It was the night before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. She didn’t want her country to go to war and didn’t want people to die. She said she was ashamed that President Bush was from her home state of Texas.

There was a huge uproar. Country music fans boycotted their music right off the radio. Someone wrote a letter to Natalie saying she should just shut up and sing, or something bad would happen to her. The Dixie Chicks were pretty much in exile for about three years, and while they were off the radio they continued to write music and each of them had a couple of kids. Then two years ago they released an album which chronicled the the things that had happened to them. They sang about all the anger and hatred that came at them because they expressed their opinion.

Now imagine if it weren’t her country music fans unleashing all this hatred on her. Imagine if it were her church, saying she wasn’t patriotic and she wasn’t being a good Christian.

If you believed that your country were doing something horribly wrong, would you say something? And if you did, would you be considered unpatriotic? Or even unChristian?

I want to tell you the story behind the Barmen Declaration. This story is largely drawn from this book “Presbyterian Creeds” by Jack Rogers. You can read the declaration online or I have some copies of it in the narthex. It is one of the nine confessions that the Presbyterian Church has adopted over the years as statements of what we believe.

In the early 1930’s, Germany was politically unstable. Adolf Hitler and his socialist party were rising to power, and many Christian churches thought that he was going to bring renewal, including spiritual renewal. Hitler talked about history and traditions. One minister said that this was a gift from God. A movement of churches was formed called the “German Christians.” The German Christians adopted values that were similar to the national Socialist Party – anti-Marx, anti-Jew, for racial purity and “positive Chrisitanity.”

The German Christians had their first national convention in 1933. Their slogan was, “The State of Adolf Hitler appeals to the Church an the Church has to hear his call.” That year, a unified State church was established. Ludwig Müller, a member of the Nazi party, was elected to be the first Reich Bishop. The new church constitution placed two restrictions on the clergy: (1) A clergyman must be politically reliable and (2) a clergyman must accept the superiority of the Aryan race. Hundreds of clergy accepted these demands.

But there were many pastors who did not agree. One was Martin Niemoeller.

Martin Niemoeller had been a German U-boat commander in World War I. He was known as the Scourge of Malta. He was intensely patriotic. In the early years of the Nazi regime, he organized the Academic Defense Corps, which was an armed student nationalist organization. He studied theology and became a Lutheran pastor, and in 1931 he became pastor of an influential church in Berlin.

Niemoeller and some other church leaders believed that it was wrong for Hitler to bring all the churches together into one state church under his rules, so they formed the Pastors Emergency League to oppose the Unified National Church. Niemoeller wrote to all the German church leaders. He reminded them of the Scriptures and the confessions of faith. He said that the cult of Aryanism was a violation of Christian teaching. He relentlessly spoke out against Hitler.

Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer joined him. Barth wrote more letters and papers pointing out that the German Christians were wrong. Many pastors read the letters and were convinced to leave the state church and joined the Pastors Emergency League. This angered the Reich bishop. He worried that if pastors preached about the Nazi’s spiritual errors, they would soon question other Nazi policies. So the Reich bishop issued a decree: Clergy may not discuss any politics or matters of controversy in the pulpit.

On the same day, 320 elders and ministers met in Barmen. They said that faithful ministers could not refuse to preach in the realm of politics "when politics violated the deepest principles of faith." They continued to meet, and approved the Barmen Declaration, which Karl Barth had drafed. The declaration outlined the false doctrines of a Nazi controlled State Church.

The Barmen declaration has six statements from Scripture. After each scripture, there is a statement of belief, and then a false doctrine of the German Christians.

The statements are easier to read on paper than to listen to, so I’ll just give you one of them. Listen for the Scripture, the statement of belief, then the rejection of false doctrine:

First a Scripture.
8.16 - 3. "Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body [is] joined and knit together." (Eph. 4:15,16.)

Here’s the statement of belief.

8.17 The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, (in other words that the church belongs ONLY to Jesus Christ), and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance. (in other words, until he comes again.)

Now, the rejection of the German Christians’ doctrine.

8.18 We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.

Barth mailed a copy to Hitler immediately.

The Nazis began to actively persecute the Confessing Church, while more Germans signed on with Hitler’s Aryan Nation swept over Germany. The Confessing Church stood pretty much alone against Third Reich. Niemoeller was seized by the Gestapo in 1937 and spent 7 years in concentration camps. Bonhoeffer was hanged. Barth managed to return to his native Switzerland.

Niemoeller was one of the first ones to speak out against the Nazis, but after the war, he shared in the guilt of the German people. He spoke about how they could have done more, and he is he one who wrote these words:

In Germany they came first for the communist, andI didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a jew. then they came for the trade unionists, and I ddn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they camefor the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

After he was released from Dachau in 1945 he preached before a gathering of German church leaders. He said, “We have no right to pass off all guilt on the evil Nazis… We the church failed.”

He went on to be a founder and president of the World Council of Churches. At age 89 he marched in Hamburg to protest the arms race. People continued to criticize him for his pacifism. But he always used to say, “Live according to the Gospel without fear, or fail.”