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Book Comment: Ecumenical, Academic, and Pastoral Work: 1931-1932. Volume 11 of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2011

Book Comment: Ecumenical, Academic, and Pastoral Work: 1931-1932. Volume 11 of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, publication forthcoming in 2012).

By Victoria Barnett, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

While the Bonhoeffer Works series is primarily a portrait of the biographical and theological path of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in many places it also offers a uniquely detailed historical portrait of his church, political, and ecumenical context. This is particularly true of the forthcoming volume 11 of the series, which documents Bonhoeffer’s entry into the ecumenical world in the final years of the Weimar Republic. The volume offers some rare insights into the debates about nationalism and the emerging völkisch movements that were taking place in 1931 and 1932 within German Protestantism and in the European ecumenical movement. In many respects, this volume traces the beginnings of the fault lines that would soon place Protestants in Germany on opposing sides of the Kirchenkampf.

Like his ecumenical colleagues during the 1920s, Bonhoeffer was searching for the common ground that would unify “the church among churches.” But for Bonhoeffer, this common ground could exist only among churches that remained true to the confessions and the Word. This led him, at a very early stage, to criticize the notion of a national or any ideologically constrained church. As early as Sanctorum Commmunio (published in 1930), he warned that, “There is a moment when the church dare not continue to be a national church. . .”[1] This put him on an early collision course with German theologians such as Emanuel Hirsch, who in 1925 was already opposing German participation in the ecumenical movement. Hirsch’s position reflected the political isolationism of a German still angry about Versailles, but it was also based on the conviction that, as Robert Ericksen paraphrases it, “the ideal boundaries of a church should correspond to those of a Volk.”[2]

During the 1920s, then, opposing concepts of church were already evident in Germany, based in part upon contradictory views of the church’s role in a national culture. These issues began to dominate the ecumenical debates of the late 1920s and early 1930s, with both sides seizing ecumenism as a possible vehicle to further their cause. As Swiss ecumenical leader Adolf Keller noted in 1936, the interwar ecumenical movement found itself opposing a “rival, hostile, secular ecumenism” that sought not common religious ground, but rather the establishment of churches along the divisive boundaries of race and nationalism.[3]

In Germany, the Deutsche Christen were not alone in arguing for church recognition of those boundaries; even more mainstream Protestant leaders (including some who would join the Confessing Church) welcomed a new national destiny for Germany and saw this as part of some divine plan. The particular danger for the church came from within: from theologians and pastors who believed that religion and the new ideologies could be merged, as Gerhard Kittel contended when he supported Nazism as “a völkisch renewal movement on a Christian, moral foundation.”[4]

Thus, even before 1933, the lines of demarcation and the cast of characters who would soon play leading roles in the German church struggle had been established.[5] And this is where DBWE 11 begins: in the summer of 1931, after Bonhoeffer’s return from his year at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Before beginning his time as a lecturer in Berlin, Bonhoeffer traveled to Bonn where he met Karl Barth for the first time, attended the World Alliance conference in Cambridge and was appointed one of the three ecumenical “youth secretaries.” In the year that followed he attended ecumenical gatherings in Czechoslovakia, Geneva, and Gland, Switzerland, and he became an active participant in German ecumenical discussions.

One of the striking things about these ecumenical gatherings is the number of Germans in attendance who subsequently became prominent Deutsche Christen or openly embraced a nationalistic theology: in addition to Paul Althaus and Emanuel Hirsch, Hermann Sasse, Reinhold Krause (who delivered the infamous Sportpalast speech in November 1933), Friedrich Peter, Adolf Schlatter, Georg Wobbermin, Theodor Heckel, Hans Schoenfeld, August Schreiber, Fritz Söhlman, Wilhelm Stählin, and Erich Stange all make appearances in DBWE 11. In particular, the minutes and documents from the ecumenical meetings in this volume offer a detailed picture of the debates among the Germans. At the April, 1932, Berlin conference of the German Mittelstelle for ecumenical youth work in Berlin, Bonhoeffer disagreed with practically everyone present, including Theodor Heckel, who as bishop in charge of the church’s foreign office subsequently tried to block foreign recognition of the Confessing Church (and who after Bonhoeffer’s return from London denounced him to authorities as an “enemy of the state”).

This is a meeting where Friedrich Peter (later the Deutsche Christen bishop of Magdeburg) spoke of the need for the “völkisch self- preservation” of the church, and Bonhoeffer openly criticized the racialized language that had found its way into German theology, most specifically the concept of a divine order of creation that stressed the “separation and differences of peoples, their characteristics and fate.” Here Bonhoeffer scholars can find the political context of Bonhoeffer’s opposition to the fixed order of creation (Schöpfungsordnung) being promoted by the nationalist theologians, and read his highly political articulation of the “order of preservation” (Erhaltungsordnung) that he promoted to counter the nationalists.

The volume also documents Bonhoeffer’s relationship to those at the opposite end of the spectrum, particularly the individuals who were working in the early 1930s with Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze in his social ministry in eastern Berlin: Franz Hildebrandt, Richard Jordan, Renate Lepsius, Gertrud Staewen, and Hermann Maas. The rich details of the ecumenical documents and correspondence in this volume give a clear portrayal of the theological and political fault lines within German Protestantism on the eve of Nazism, before the real madness began.

 


[1]. Bonhoeffer, The Communion of the Saints (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), 189.

[2]. Robert Ericksen, Theologians Under Hitler (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985) p. 142.

[3]. Keller, Adolf. Church and State on the European Continent. (London: The Epworth Press, 1936), p. 361.

[4]. Ericksen, p. 35.

[5]. See Glenthoj, 131ff, and Marikje Smid, Deutscher Protestantismus und Judentum 1932/1933 (Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1990).

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Article Note: New Research on Churches in Postwar Germany

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2011

Article Note: New Research on Churches in Postwar Germany

Francis Graham-Dixon, “A ‘Moral Mandate’ for Occupation: The British Churches and Voluntary Organizations in North-Western Germany, 1945-1949,” German History 28, no.2 (2010): 193-213.

Ian Connor, “The Protestant Churches and German Refugees and Expellees in the Western Zones of Germany after 1945,” Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 15, no.1 (April 2007): 43-63.

By Steven Schroeder, University of the Fraser Valley

The extraordinary transformation of Germany after 1945 from Nazism to peaceful integration into international systems continues to draw considerable interest, as scholars attempt to render clarity to the complexities of postwar reconstruction. By looking at the various motives and actions of British government representatives, churchmen, and relief workers in Germany—and the interplay between them—Graham-Dixon’s study of the British zone sheds new light on the nature of occupation, and aspects of reconstruction, in this part of Germany.

The author argues that Britons agreed, in general, about their ‘moral mandate’ in Germany after the Second World War. However, some believed that the mandate “embodied a moral, Christian purpose,” whereas others wished to merely “exploit its use for propagandistic purposes” (193). Regardless of motive, the moral campaign proved useful for all British activities in Germany, especially when British policies and actions proved questionable, or even immoral. Focusing on the humanitarian crisis of the 1945-1946 population transfers (which was particularly acute in Schleswig-Holstein), Graham-Dixon asserts that it was church leaders and voluntary organization personnel (e.g., Bishop Bell of Chichester, Victor Gollancz) who ensured maintenance of the moral component in British policy, devoid of the exploitative component. Rather than resenting this action, British policy makers (e.g., Anthony Eden, Ernest Bevin)—who were generally less optimistic than churchmen about German rehabilitation—made good use of church leaders and relief workers in forging peaceful relations with a generally disgruntled German public, and in “validat[ing] … the worthiness of the British cause” (201).

The fusing of these two viewpoints became evident in 1947, when British troubles were at a peak. Some British church leaders (e.g., British Anglican Church head, Geoffrey Fischer) and some politicians (e.g., Lord Pakenham), openly tied the work of the Church and the Crown. Most politicians disavowed the connection and relied on voluntary organizations to work directly in aiding, and rehabilitating, the German people. Voluntary organizations (e.g., Save Europe Now!) labored in concert with German church organizations (e.g., Hilfswerk, Innere Mission, Caritas) to fulfill the occupiers’ goal of solving the humanitarian crisis in Germany. The British government hoped that this work would embed “higher spiritual and moral values within German society,” (208) and foster general goodwill. With demonstrable success in material aid and improved relations between Britons and the German people, these organizations filled the “policy vacuum,” and fulfilled the moral mandate claimed by the British government.

This is an important article that exposes new aspects of British occupation politics. It also reveals the significance that voluntary organizations can (and did) have in post-conflict stabilization. In this case, the British government exploited the goodwill of voluntary organization personnel by having them alleviate the humanitarian crisis it had helped create. In the end, good things came of their combined efforts regardless of motive and despite the misallocation of credit. One wonders how these elements of occupation appeared in the other zones, and about their long-term impact in Germany, and in British-German relations.

Ian Connor is well-known for his 2008 book Refugees and Expellees in Post-War Germany, in which he describes how the millions of displaced persons in occupied Germany posed numerous challenges to German reconstruction after 1945. This article is an offshoot of that larger project. It examines how some leading German Protestant churchmen and relief personnel feared that ethnic German expellees would stray from mainstream Protestantism to embrace Communism or Catholicism. Playing an “active role in the reconstruction of Germany” (44) by employing their “wide-ranging autonomy” (43), Protestant Church elites prevented, in a few cases, the escalation of political radicalism, even while operating on some misguided assumptions.

Connor argues that the central concern of Protestant elites (i.e., some pastors, but mainly key figures in Protestant relief work) was “the political and ideological implications of the refugee problem” (60). Protestant churchmen viewed the expellees as not only physically, but spiritually, dislodged and impoverished. Protestant churchmen founded the Hilfswerk of the Protestant Church in August, 1945 to assist the expellees, and to keep them from turning to political and religious alternatives. The idea was that the material aid and spiritual support of the organization would keep the expellees on the right track by providing them with stability and hope for a brighter future.

The Hilfswerk provided shelter, food, and clothing for expellees primarily in the western zones, while its eastern office operated under the wary surveillance of Soviet authorities. Indeed, fused into its material aid campaign was the Hilfswerk’s political agenda of expunging Soviet influence in the political unification of Germany. Whereas Protestant churchmen were overly concerned about the refugees embracing Communism (few voted for the KPD), they “ignored or failed to recognize the refugees’ undoubted susceptibility to the slogans of radical right-wing parties” (60). With questions lingering about the ideological and political foundation and motives of the Hilfswerk, the author offers an example of the organization’s success. When Trek Association leaders threatened to lead thousands of expellees on marches to less crowded areas within western Germany, Hilfswerk personnel intervened. Negotiations between the two organizations averted what one Protestant aid leader called, “a terrible catastrophe” (57).

Study of the immediate postwar period reveals widespread concern over political radicalism in western Germany. For example, the formation of the Catholic Kirchliche Hilfstelle in October 1945 stemmed, in part, from concerns about Catholic expellees turning to political extremism. Questions arise regarding German attitudes and agency under occupation, particularly concerning the establishment of the Federal Republic (and the GDR). Connor argues that relief organizations, like the Hilfswerk, played an important role in German reconstruction by fostering peaceful relationships. Still, the political agenda of the Hilfswerk, and other relief organizations, remains unclear. So does the broader implications of their work. Laudably, the author has contributed a significant component of an under-researched portion of the postwar development of Germany, and has opened doors for further examination of the role of relief organizations and other NGOs in the construction of the two Germanies.

 

 

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Article Note: Edward Mathieu, “Public Protestantism and Mission in Germany’s Thuringian States, 1871-1914”

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2011

Article Note: Edward Mathieu, “Public Protestantism and Mission in Germany’s Thuringian States, 1871-1914,” Church History 79 no. 1 (March 2010): 115-143.

By Heath A. Spencer, Seattle University

In this article, Edward Mathieu examines the religious and social activism of Thuringia’s bourgeois Protestants. His conclusions are not earthshaking, but his focus on a particular region allows him to qualify some of the conventional wisdom on topics such as secularization and the interplay of theology, class, and politics.

Mathieu challenges the notion that religion was simply retreating from the public sphere by the end of the nineteenth century. In fact, Thuringia’s voluntary Protestant associations were on the rise even as church attendance declined. Rather than fading out, Protestant religiosity was taking on new forms. Mathieu also counters the argument that Lutherans were driven by their theology to leave social problems to the state and limit the church’s role to an exclusive focus on the inner, spiritual life. Rather, Thuringian Protestants demonstrated a high level of social and civic engagement. On the flip side, “secular” press organs such as the Weimarische Zeitung and associations like the Meiningen District Education Association openly expressed an interest in religious and moral questions, and one cannot help but note the “religious tone of bourgeois public discourse” (125). Finally, Mathieu points out that there was considerable overlap in membership across Protestant associations that—at least on the national level—seemed to represent different political, theological, and social-cultural milieus (for example, the Protestant League and the more “conservative” Home Mission).

Throughout the article, Mathieu’s coverage of Protestant discourse is often more descriptive than analytical. However, he does note that Thuringia’s Protestants assumed a close correspondence between Protestant Christianity and German-ness, that liberal ideology and Protestant theology drew inspiration from one another, and that Protestant and bourgeois values (duty, hard work, respect for authority, objectivity, tolerance, intellectual freedom) were often indistinguishable from one another. Like their counterparts throughout the rest of Germany, bourgeois Protestants defined themselves against Catholics on the one hand and proletarians on the other. They found it hard to imagine working-class people as anything other than socialists, delinquents, and a threat to public order—antithetical to Christianity as they imagined it. Mathieu also points to some interesting parallels between Home Mission rhetoric oriented toward working-class Germans and foreign mission pronouncements regarding “savages” in overseas colonies.

Mathieu reminds us that the story of German Protestantism during the Kaiserreich cannot be reduced to a conservative/liberal binary, nor can German religious history be reduced to a simple story of secularization and declining church attendance. Thuringia’s liberal Protestants were involved in the “conservative” Home Mission, public school teachers were affiliated with Protestant missionary societies, bourgeois associations working with delinquent youth tried to place them in “proper” Christian homes, and Protestant liberals and conservatives were members of many of the same associations and united in their opposition to Catholics and socialists.

 

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Article Note: Marcus Tomalin, “Exploring Nineteenth-Century Haida Translations of the New Testament”

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2011

Article Note: Marcus Tomalin, “Exploring Nineteenth-Century Haida Translations of the New Testament,” Journal of Religious History 35 no. 1 (March 2011): 43-71.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

It is interesting to find an article about a Canadian missionary experience, written by an English scholar, and appearing in an Australian journal. Dr. Tomalin, a Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, gives us a detailed account of the translations by Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries sent out in the nineteenth century to the Haida Gwai, (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands), a collection of islands off the coast of north-western British Columbia. Early contacts with white traders and settlers had brought diseases which rapidly reduced the Haida population. But the missionaries believed the language was still vibrant enough and that the New Testament and various Offices of the Book of Common Prayer should be translated for daily use. By the end of the century however, the Haida communities themselves wanted to learn English, so these translations have largely been forgotten. Study of the Haida language was largely left up to secular ethno-linguists. Tomalin’s detailed examination of these texts explores the difficulties and complexities involved in such trans-cultural transfers. Their authors’ efforts were clearly prodigious and thus form an integral part of the story of the Anglican Church’s establishment in western Canada.

 

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Program and Conference Report: Mennonite Studies at the University of the Fraser Valley

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2011

Program and Conference Report: Mennonite Studies at the University of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada

By Steven Schroeder, University of the Fraser Valley

The Fraser Valley, nestled between Vancouver and the coastal mountains of British Columbia, is home to a diverse population of which Mennonites comprise roughly 20 percent. Wishing to reflect the regional population in its academic curriculum, the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV), in cooperation with the local Mennonite community, has launched a program in Mennonite Studies. January 2011 marked the implementation date for the Mennonite Studies Certificate. Currently, the University is working toward the establishment of a Centre, and a Chair, in Mennonite Studies.

To raise awareness for the program, the University launched a speakers series in Mennonite Studies in fall 2010. Two events took place in Abbotsford, on the main campus of UFV. The first, entitled “Perceptions,” took place on October 19, 2010. A panel of Royden Loewen, Chair of Mennonite Studies at the University of Winnipeg, Marlene Epp, Associate Professor of History at Conrad Grebel University College, and Bruce Guenther, Associate Professor of Church History and Mennonite Studies at Trinity Western University addressed the question: what constitutes Mennonite Studies? In various ways, all three panelists responded by tackling the thorny, but central, question of Mennonite identity. Loewen identified seven categories of Mennonites, all of which related in some way to how the individual situates him/herself vis-à-vis the Mennonite faith tradition and Mennonite ethnicity. Riding above this taxonomy was Loewen’s notion that: “if you say you are a [Mennonite], you are one,” which underscored the diversity of the Mennonite community, and study of it. Epp agreed with Loewen’s assertion of Mennonite diversity, and focused her talk on aspects of Mennonite ethnicity. Referring to her own work, Epp posited that studying Mennonite culinary practices is a useful way to understand Mennonite ethnicity, particularly as food and cookbooks have been used to preserve Mennonite traditions amidst acculturation. Finally, Guenther addressed Mennonite diversity and identity differently, asserting that Mennonite ethnicity, like all ethnicities, is dynamic. In his view, academics building Mennonite Studies programs must broaden their scope beyond focus on the Dutch-German roots of the Anabaptist movement to reflect the diverse worldwide Mennonite community—including its many ethnicities—and to foster dialogue with non-Mennonites.

The second event, held on November 23, 2010, centered on the theme “Reflections,” and the question: what is the reciprocal relationship between Mennonite writing and Mennonite culture? Responding to this question were Andreas Schroeder, Rogers Communications Chair in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, Hildi Froese Tiessen, Professor of English at Conrad Grebel University College, and Rudy Wiebe, Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta. Schroeder provided an historical overview of Mennonite literature from the inauguration of its “golden age,” with the advent of Rudy Wiebe’s work in the 1960s, to the present. Therein, he revealed how Mennonite writers—most of whom are not affiliated with, or interested in promoting, the Mennonite faith community—have, for decades, represented the Mennonite community to the outside world. Tiessen agreed, but blurred Schroeder’s demarcation locus by pointing out that this “outsider’s group” also included people who were members of Mennonite churches, and that negative stereotypes of Mennonite writers are inaccurate. Pointing to the “insider’s knowledge” of the writers, she stressed the positive contributions that they have made to understanding Mennonite life—including its many ethnic sub-groups—both inside, and beyond, the Mennonite community. Finally, Wiebe offered an historical narrative that complimented Schroeder’s and stressed Tiessen’s focus on the positive. Wiebe pointed out that the “the origins of Anabaptism is rooted in anything but fundamentalist, conservative, rural, uneducated people,” and that Mennonites owe their very existence to the scholarly acumen of people like Felix Manz, Conrad Grebel, and Menno Simons. Over the centuries, Mennonites worked as artisans and architects throughout Europe, often shaping the local landscape and culture. Moreover, Mennonite communities had songwriters and poets who commemorated Mennonite experiences and crafted the Mennonite heritage. All three panelists encouraged the University to promote the Mennonite literary tradition, which contributes significantly to Mennonite, and Canadian, culture.

These events provided useful information and engendered important discussion at a timely juncture, as UFV administrators and faculty move forward the Mennonite Studies program. During the question period after each event, the panelists offered specific recommendations for the new program, all of which were well-received. A third event in the speakers series, with the theme “Engagement,” will take place at UFV’s Abbotsford campus in fall 2011.

Please visit the following websites for additional information:

For details on the event to be held at UFV in fall, 2011:

http://www.ufv.ca/MarCom/newsroom.htm

For details about the Mennonite Studies Certificate at UFV: http://www.ufv.ca/arts/Arts_Programs/Certificates/Mennonite_Studies.htm

 

 

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Conference Announcement: Celebrating the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2011

Conference Announcement: Celebrating the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, November 13-15, 2011, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

By Victoria J. Barnett

Plans are well under way for the upcoming conference celebrating the completion of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition. Organized by the International Bonhoeffer Society, “Bonhoeffer for the Coming Generations” will take place at Union Seminary in New York, where Bonhoeffer came to study and teach in 1931 and 1939. The conference program is as follows:

Sunday | November 13

11:00 a.m. Optional Worship at Abyssinian Baptist Church

3:00 p.m. Check-in at Union Theological Seminary

8:00 p.m. Keynote Address “Bonhoeffer: Theologian, Activist, Educator. Challenges for the Church of the Coming Generations” | Sam Wells, Duke University

Monday | November 14

Bonhoeffer, Ethics, Public Life 1945-2010

“Inspiration, Controversy, Legacy. The Response to Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Three Germanys” | Wolfgang Huber, Germany

Panel: Bonhoeffer in International Contexts | John de Gruchy, South Africa; Keith Clements,

United Kingdom; Larry Rasmussen, USA; Carlos Caldas, Brazil; Kazuaki Yamasaki, Japan

Emerging Issues, New Research 2011-

“Bonhoeffer’s Strong Christology and Religious Pluralism” | Christiane Tietz, Mainz

Panel: New Research, New Issues | Florian Schmitz, Mainz; Reggie Williams, Pasadena; Brigitte Kahl, Union Theological Seminary

Tuesday | November 15

Translation and the Interpretation of History and Theology

“Translating Bonhoeffer. Intercultural Theological Challenge” | Hans Pfeifer, Düsseldorf

Translators Panel: Bonhoeffer in Translation: Challenges and Discoveries | moderated

by Victoria Barnett, USA

Historians Panel: History and Theology in Bonhoeffer Interpretation | moderated

by Andrew Chandler, Chichester

Theologians Panel: Reading Bonhoeffer the Theologian | Michael DeJonge and Clifford Green

Concluding Banquet

A banquet celebrating all the translators, editors, publishers, financial supporters and volunteers of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition will mark the conclusion of the conference on Tuesday evening.

For more information about the conference, as well as the registration form, please go to http://dietrichbonhoeffer.org/BonhoefferConf.brochure_Feb.2011.pdf.

 

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Article Note: Hedwig Richter, “Der Protestantismus und das linksrevolutionäre Pathos. Der Ökumenische Rat der Kirchen in Genf im Ost-West Konflikt in der 1960er und 1970er Jahren”

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 2, June 2011

Article Note: Hedwig Richter, “Der Protestantismus und das linksrevolutionäre Pathos. Der Ökumenische Rat der Kirchen in Genf im Ost-West Konflikt in der 1960er und 1970er Jahren,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 36 no. 3 (July-September 2010): 408-436.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Hedwig Richter, who teaches in Bielefeld, takes a highly critical, indeed sceptical, look at the World Council of Churches’ political attitudes in the 1960s and 1970s, claiming that these amounted to an attempt to give legitimacy to left-leaning utopian ideals, including even the idea of revolutionary violence.

The World Council of Churches was officially established in 1948,but had been preceded by several decades of endeavour to foster ecumenical cooperation between the Protestant churches, and to overcome the doctrinal animosities which had for so long marred their relationships. In the eyes of church leaders, these scandalous divisions had rendered in vain the churches’ witness for peace and international brotherhood in a century when the world was torn apart by war and revolution The task of creating a credible international institution to give effect to these goals was superbly carried out by the first General Secretary, Willem Visser ‘t Hooft. But its political outreach concentrated on rebuilding Europe after the catastrophes of the Second World War, which had shown the fragility of church relations, and their lack of influence on national politics.

By the end of the 1950s, however, a new era began. This was a period of rapid secularization. The churches lost support, their social relevance diminished, and their funding bases declined. In this crisis, Richter contends, the WCC’s leaders believed they could regain credibility for the Christian cause and for their institution by embracing the left-wing politics of the radical Christian fringe. Under the leadership of the third General Secretary, Philip Potter, a West Indian, the WCC promoted the slogan that the Church and the WCC shoud become “the voice of the voiceless” and that its resources should be used to advocate policies of benefit to the world’s neediest and most oppressed peoples. Such a stance included a deliberate bias against colonialism, capitalism, overseas exploitation, the arms race and other forms of military tyranny. Not surprisingly, the increasing power of the United States, and its European-based military alliance, NATO, became an easy target, despite the fact that the American Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, had been an early champion of the WCC in the 1940s.

In 1961, at the WCC’s third General Assembly in New Delhi, representatives of the Orthodox Churches, including those from the Soviet Union, joined the Council, obviously with Moscow’s agreement. The predictable result was to curtail criticism of conditions in the Soviet-controlled parts of Europe, and the suspicion, which Richter does not refute, that the WCC was used to infiltrate Soviet agents to the west. The fact is undoubted that in the 1960s the WCC’s witness was unbalanced—polemic against the West, silence towards the Communist empire. Even the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 was passed over without protest. Khruschchev’s anticlerical persecution in Russia, and the Orthodox Church’s apparent complicity, though deplored, was not allowed to hinder the continued adherence of this Church in Geneva.

In the 1970s the WCC took the significant step of promoting its Programme to Combat Racism, which sought to oppose, and even overthrow, those regimes, particularly in southern Africa, which practised racial discrimination. Large sums of money were raised to support the opponents of apartheid. Enormous controversy arose when it was rumoured that these monies were being used to purchase arms for revolutionary attacks by guerrilla forces against the oppressors. The World Council was at pains to claim that its assistance was solely for humanitarian purposes, but the lack of controls and its unilateral approval of the anti-apartheid cause weakened its stance. In Richter’s view, a double standard prevailed. By adopting what she calls the “mythology” of the anti-racial campaign, the WCC sought to gain institutional legitimacy and popular endorsement from left-wing circles beyond the church doors. This policy, she believes, was a serious distortion of the WCC’s original priorities to promote mission and church unity. Theological insights were displaced by overly political considerations, as though the vocal support of left-wing policies could restore the churches’ fortunes when their proclamation of the Gospel had so obviously failed.

 

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Article Note: D. Gorman, “Ecumenical Internationalism: Willoughby Dickinson, the League of Nations and the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches”

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 2, June 2011

Article Note: D. Gorman, “Ecumenical Internationalism: Willoughby Dickinson, the League of Nations and the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches,” Journal of Contemporary History 45 no. 1 (March 2010): 51-73.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The League of Nations was the twentieth century’s most idealistic project in international politics. It failed because of the entrenched nationalism of Europe’s leaders, particularly Germany. Consequently the reputation of its supporters suffered in the history books. Amongst them was the upper-class Englishman Willoughby Dickinson (1859-1943), whose life was devoted to moral uplift and public service. His contributions have now been excellently described in this fine article by Daniel Gorman, who teaches at Waterloo University, Ontario.

Dickinson’s career began with his service on the newly-created London County Council in the 1890s, where he campaigned eagerly for progressive causes. It was a natural step-up for him to become an M.P. in the Liberal landslide of 1906. His vision was enhanced by his sincere devotion to his Anglican faith, refuting the calumny that the Church of England was ”the Conservative Party at prayer”. Likewise he was drawn to the Quaker ideal of world peace, and already before 1914 was active in promoting this cause. In 1919 he became very involved with an international body of church laymen called the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches. This group sought to mobilize the churches on an ecumenical basis for the prevention of any future war. They deliberately avoided any kind of denominational or theological controversy, but instead concentrated on the world’s need for a new political order to replace the militarism and jingoism which they believed had caused the catastrophe of the Great War.

In the 1920s the World Alliance spread rapidly throughout Europe and North America. Dickinson gave much of his time and wealth in organising high-minded meetings to propagate this programme of international peace. A parallel endeavour, with the same aims of promoting peace, cooperation, disarmament and world order, led Dickinson to become a vocal supporter of the League of Nations, and of its public education activities through the League of Nations Societies established in each member state. In the 1920s Dickinson worked hard to bring about the international collaboration of these volunteer groups, and eventually became President of the International Federation of League of Nations Societies (IFLNS).

In 1930 the Labour Government gave him a peerage,but he found increasing opposition to his ideals for genuine peace and international friendship. His final years before and during the Second World War were a period of bitter disillusionment. Nevertheless his example deserves to be better known. His campaign for what he called ecumenical internationalism, designed to ameliorate world conditions through public education and leadership, combined religious motivation with political planning.

Gorman’s article is a valuable contribution by throwing light on this ardent crusader for peace and the institutions he helped to build in order to bring about this ideal at a most unpropitious period of the world’s history.

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Conference Report: Fourth Annual Powell and Heller Holocaust Conference, March 17-19, 2011

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 2, June 2011

Conference Report: Fourth Annual Powell and Heller Holocaust Conference, March 17-19, 2011, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA.

By Robert Ericksen, Pacific Lutheran University

On March 17-19, 2011, Pacific Lutheran University hosted the Fourth Annual Powell and Heller Family Conference on Holocaust Education. This event began on the evening of March 17th with the showing of a film, The Last Survivor. This documentary focuses on survivors of four genocides—one from the Holocaust and one each from Rwanda, Bosnia, and the Congo. The co-directors, Michael Pertnoy and Michael Kleiman, introduced and discussed the film. They were joined by Justin Semahoro Kimenyerwa, a child survivor of the genocide in the Congo who now resides in the United States. The next morning Carl Wilkens spoke about another recent genocide. He was the only American to stay in Rwanda throughout the killing there, despite many who urged him to leave. His description of the genocide, in words and photos, helps explain his present work, which is to travel around the United States, sometimes by bicycle, raising awareness about genocide and other extreme forms of injustice.

Another highlight on Friday involved a discussion of the Huguenot rescue of Jewish lives in and around Le Chambon, France. This story about Pastor André and Magda Trocmé, along with other rescuers, is well known. Patrick Henry, a recent author on the rescue of Jews in France, gave the main presentation. He was assisted by Nelly Trocmé Hewett, a teenage daughter of the Trocmés at the time, who gave her first-person account of the rescue activities. Saturday morning included a dramatic presentation by “Living Voices.” This involved a one-woman show, “Through the Eyes of a Friend: The World of Anne Frank.” We also had a presentation on artistic responses to the Holocaust, including the work of Anselm Kiefer. A session on “Poetry after Auschwitz” began with a presentation on Theodor Adorno, followed by readings of poetry by writers such as Irena Klepfisz, a poet in Yiddish and English, who is also a child survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto. An afternoon session on Saturday included a presentation by two professors from Concordia University in Portland, Oregon. Kevin Simpson (psychology) and Joel Davis (history) described their interdisciplinary course on the Holocaust in a presentation under the title, “Explaining Evil: Cross-disciplinary Approaches to Teaching the Holocaust.”

Readers of this journal are reminded that PLU will host a Holocaust conference each spring. Planning for the next conference, scheduled for March 15-16, 2012, has just begun. Interested persons are invited to contact Robert Ericksen at ericksrp@plu.edu.

 

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Conference Announcement: Celebrating the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, November 13-15, 2011

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 2, June 2011

Conference Announcement: Celebrating the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, November 13-15, 2011, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

By Victoria J. Barnett

Plans are well under way for the upcoming conference celebrating the completion of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition. Organized by the International Bonhoeffer Society, “Bonhoeffer for the Coming Generations” will take place at Union Seminary in New York, where Bonhoeffer came to study and teach in 1931 and 1939. The conference program is as follows:

Sunday | November 13

11:00 a.m. Optional Worship at Abyssinian Baptist Church

3:00 p.m. Check-in at Union Theological Seminary

8:00 p.m. Keynote Address “Bonhoeffer: Theologian, Activist, Educator. Challenges for the Church of the Coming Generations” | Sam Wells, Duke University

Monday | November 14

Bonhoeffer, Ethics, Public Life 1945-2010

“Inspiration, Controversy, Legacy. The Response to Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Three Germanys” | Wolfgang Huber, Germany

Panel: Bonhoeffer in International Contexts | John de Gruchy, South Africa; Keith Clements,

United Kingdom; Larry Rasmussen, USA; Carlos Caldas, Brazil; Kazuaki Yamasaki, Japan

Emerging Issues, New Research 2011-

“Bonhoeffer’s Strong Christology and Religious Pluralism” | Christiane Tietz, Mainz

Panel: New Research, New Issues | Florian Schmitz, Mainz; Reggie Williams, Pasadena; Brigitte Kahl, Union Theological Seminary

Tuesday | November 15

Translation and the Interpretation of History and Theology

“Translating Bonhoeffer. Intercultural Theological Challenge” | Hans Pfeifer, Düsseldorf

Translators Panel: Bonhoeffer in Translation: Challenges and Discoveries | moderated

by Victoria Barnett, USA

Historians Panel: History and Theology in Bonhoeffer Interpretation | moderated

by Andrew Chandler, Chichester

Theologians Panel: Reading Bonhoeffer the Theologian | Michael DeJonge and Clifford Green

Concluding Banquet

A banquet celebrating all the translators, editors, publishers, financial supporters and volunteers of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition will mark the conclusion of the conference on Tuesday evening.

For more information about the conference, as well as the registration form, please go to http://dietrichbonhoeffer.org/BonhoefferConf.brochure_Feb.2011.pdf.

 

 

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Call For Papers: Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, 2011 Volume

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 2, June 2011

Call For Papers: Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, 2011 Volume.

The editorial board of Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, a peer-reviewed electronic journal, invites submissions for its 2011 volume. SCJR publishes scholarship on the history, theology, and contemporary realities of Jewish-Christian relations and reviews new materials in the field, providing a vehicle for exchange of information, cooperation, and mutual enrichment in the field of Christian-Jewish studies and relations.

Submissions on the 2011 volume’s feature topic “Constructing Saints and Heroes” are especially welcome: A recurring issue in Catholic-Jewish relations has been the beatification and canonization of men and women who, from the perspective of those involved in dialogue, have had questionable qualifications for this elevation. Given that humans of all religious traditions identify certain individuals as heroes who served and serve as sources of blessing to the world in various ways, the editors of Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations invite submissions for volume 6 (2011) that explore this phenomenon from any relevant perspective. What qualifies a person to be considered a saint or tzaddiq or religious role model in Judaism or Christianity? To what extent does (or should) that person’s evaluation by other denominations or religions play a role? What sorts of issues require clarification for inter-religious understanding on these issues? Figures that authors might want to address may include historical figures like Martin Luther, the various cults connected to medieval blood libels, or sainted authors of Adversos Iudaeos literature; or more contemporary figures such as Pope Pius IX, Pope Pius XII, Edith Stein, Pope John Paul II, Mother Theresa, Martin Niemoeller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Krister Stendahl, Martin Luther King, Theodor Herzl, Baruch Goldstein, or Abraham Joshua Heschel. Papers may be comparative or address the question from within a single tradition.

Interested authors are encouraged to contact the editors in advance. For publication in the 2011 volume, papers should be submitted by September 1, 2011 through the journal’s website. All papers will be subject to peer-review before acceptance for publication. For more information, please see www.bc.edu/scjr.

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Article Note: Malgorzata Rajtar, “Jehovah’s Witnesses in Eastern Germany: Reconfiguration of Identity”

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2011

Article Note: Malgorzata Rajtar, “Jehovah’s Witnesses in Eastern
Germany: Reconfiguration of Identity,” Religion, State and Society
38 no. 4 (December 2010): 401-416.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The Jehovah’s Witnesses suffered extensive persecution during the Third Reich. But the same stubborn refusal to bow down to the state authorities led to them being banned by the Communist rulers of East Germany in 1950, as a dissident and disloyal group, or alternatively as agents of “American monopolism”. Nevertheless the Witnesses maintained their close-knit structures, despite a further escalation of conflict over the resumption in 1962 of compulsory military service, which Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse. Most young male Witnesses suffered twenty months imprisonment. The consequent hardships for their families were however compensated for by other members, and their sense of victimization only strengthened the community. The adults refused to allow their children to join socialist youth groups, which led to further tensions. The Stasi attempted to infiltrate informers but with little success. Group solidarity was too strong.

By the 1980s, the state persecution relaxed, and after 1990 was abolished. Throughout the communist years, the Jehovah’s Witnesses had managed to maintain their numbers, but after unification, the community faced new problems in refashioning their identity. After several years of legal battles, they successfully managed to gain recognition as a public corporation in German law, but the wider issue of public acceptance still remains. The media still reflect a general disapprobation, aided by an active hostility by some of the more established church groups against the proselytizing undertaken by Jehovah’s Witnesses. They can no longer seek sympathy as the victims of political persecution, but have yet to be granted a social standing comparable to other religious groups. The search for a new identity in the new Germany for the Jehovah’s Witnesses still continues.

 

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Conference Report: “Christianity During the Era of Total War,” Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, January 7, 2011

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2011

Conference Report: “Christianity During the Era of Total War,” Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, January 7, 2011,  Boston, MA.

Doris L. Bergen, University of Toronto

This session, sponsored by the Conference Group for Central European History and moderated by Donald Dietrich (Boston College), spoke directly to the theme of the 2011 AHA meeting: “History, Society, and the Sacred.” It was an international panel, with members from the United States,Canada, and the U.K. Although scheduled for the first time slot on the opening day, it drew an audience of some twenty people, among them military, diplomatic, and women’s historians as well as historians of British imperialism,France, and the U.S.In other words, in both content and participation, the session embodied the degree to which study of religion has entered the historical mainstream.

Because of a delay in setting up the PowerPoint projector, the papers were given in reverse chronological order, so that the presentation on World War II by Lauren Faulkner (U of Notre Dame) preceded the papers by Patrick Houlihan (U of Chicago) and Michael Snape (U of Birmingham) on World War I. This switch highlighted the benefits of discussing the World Wars together while it underscored the differences in how Christian responses to those two conflicts are assessed.

Under the title “Priests in Dark Times: Catholicism, Nazism, and Vernichtungskrieg, 1939-1945,” Lauren Faulkner examined the thousands of Roman Catholic priests and seminarians who served in the Wehrmacht as chaplains, medics, and in some cases, in active combat. She drew on personal accounts, including wartime correspondence and postwar memoirs and interviews, to argue that these men, led by the energetic and dedicated Catholic field vicar-general Georg Werthmann, aimed above all to care for the religious needs of soldiers. Devotion to their vocation and to the souls of the men they served drove them to make compromises with their Nazi masters to the extent that the contradiction they lived became all but invisible to them. Indeed, in Faulkner’s analysis, faith in God not only bolstered the courage of priests and seminarians and made them an anchor for the soldiers around them; it enabled them to exculpate Nazi crimes, justify their own lack of resistance, and present their participation in the war as suffering to preserve the “great Christian legacy.”

Patrick Houlihan’s focus was not failure but success, in this case the surprising effectiveness of Catholic chaplains in the Austro-Hungarian war effort of 1914-1918. In “Imperial Frameworks of Military Religion: Catholic Military Chaplains of Germany and Austria-Hungary during the First World War,” Houlihan called for a “more nuanced cultural history of religion for the losing powers.” Modernist depictions of the Habsburg chaplains as bumbling hypocrites – most famously, in Jaroslav Hašek’s Good Soldier Schweik – have influenced subsequent interpretations, but in Houlihan’s view they should not be taken at face value. In fact, he showed, chaplains of the Habsburg Army were well organized under the leadership of Emmerich Bjelik, commander of the apostolic field vicariate, and attuned to the changing needs of soldiers. In contrast to Prussian divisions, which were served by two chaplains, a Catholic and a Protestant, divisions of the Austro-Hungarian army had between twelve and twenty-six Catholic chaplains. In rural regions, notably Tyrol, Houlihan indicated, military chaplains, and Catholic religiosity in general, provided meaning and stability amidst the upheavals of war and defeat.

Michael Snape’s analysis of “The YMCA and the British Army in the First World War” showed the Young Men’s Christian Association as a major source of practical care for the British soldier. In makeshift huts and marquees, the Y’s workers provided postcards and notepaper, hosted recreational activities, distributed refreshments, sold cigarettes, held prayer services, and dispensed good cheer, not only on the Western Front but wherever the war took British forces, from the Dardanelles to Italy and East Africa. The result, Snape argued, was a significant contribution to sustaining British morale. Military commanders valued the Y as what Sir Arthur Keysall Yapp, the YMCA’s wartime National Secretary, called “the embodied goodwill of the British people towards its beloved army.” There was a cost, Snape showed: the Y ended the war in debt, its financial integrity under investigation (charges were eventually disproved), and dependent on the help of people previously outside its purview: women, liberal Protestants, and agnostics. Yet it also emerged from the war a truly national institution.

In her comments, Doris Bergen (U of Toronto) made four observations that linked these stimulating papers. First, she noted that all three presenters expressed their central arguments in terms of success and failure. But can a success-failure binary do justice to these complex situations? Second, she pointed out the contrast between the moral tone of Faulkner’s assessment and the more pragmatic nature of Houlihan’s and Snape’s conclusions. This difference mirrors tendencies in the historiography of the two World Wars, but hearing these papers together suggests how productive it might be to identify and interrogate conventions in our respective subfields. Third, Bergen emphasized the elusive nature of sources for studying wartime religiosity and the wonderful work all three speakers did to locate fascinating and challenging materials. Finally, Bergen highlighted the papers’ connections to “current events” – in their awareness of the ways Christianity is embedded in relations to its “others”; in their empathy for people who suffer in wartime; and in the increased public interest in the subject of our panel, given developments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the lively Q&A that followed, almost everyone in the room spoke. Gerhard Weinberg reminded us that history is lived looking forward but written looking back. He and others thanked the panellists for giving us ways to address the challenges that fact poses for understanding the history of Christianity in the face of total war.

 

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Conference Report: “German Catholics negotiate National Socialism: Three Case Studies,” Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, January 7, 2011

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2011

Conference Report: “German Catholics negotiate National Socialism: Three Case Studies,” Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, January 7, 2011, Boston, MA.

By Mark Edward Ruff, St. Louis University

Sponsored by the American Catholic Historical Association as a contribution to its annual meeting, the panel, “German Catholics negotiate National Socialism: Three Case Studies,” put on display the work of three scholars of German Catholicism who directed their attention to the thirty-year span from 1933 through 1963. Ulrike Ehret of the University of Erlangen in Germany analyzed the attitudes of German Catholics towards the Nazi state. Kevin Spicer of Stonehill College honed in on the small number of German Catholic priests who spoke out on behalf of the beleaguered Jewish population. Mark Edward Ruff of Saint Louis University moved ahead to the postwar period to analyze the efforts of the Berlin Prelate, Walter Adolph, to commemorate the German Catholic martyrs from the Nazi era. Beth Griech-Pollele, professor at Bowling Green State University, chaired the panel.

In her paper, “Negotiating ‘Volksgemeinschaft:’ Roman Catholics and the NS-State.” Ulrike Ehret discussed how the National Socialist ideal of Volksgemeinschaft (national unity) became so persuasive to ordinary Catholics. Ehret argued that ordinary Catholics, like most Germans, nurtured and supported the idea of a revived and strengthened nation, even if it meant establishing a German nation without Jews. Drawing on her examination of government reports on public opinion as well as of petitions and denunciations addressed to the government as well as to the bishops, Ehret suggested that the Catholic bishops and clergy turned the concept of Volksgemeinschaft into a means to protect particular Roman Catholic interests and traditions. To warn their flock about divisive state politics, Catholic leaders frequently revived the memories of the nineteenth-century Kulturkampf.  Most of their protests were directed against Nazi religious policies; relatively few focused on Nazi racial policies. Yet most German Catholics, according to Ehret, insisted that the Volksgemeinschaft needed to be properly rooted in religious traditions. In popular opinion, this meant ignoring National Socialist midsummer festivals, attending mass and participating in pilgrimages in growing numbers. One needs to look at what Catholics did rather than at what they said.

Compared to Catholic anti-Semitism during Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, Catholic publications rarely reverted to anti-Jewish images. However, Catholic popular defense literature clung to traditional creeds and values of the Catholic Church. It defended biblical Jewry but failed to defend modern Jewry against contemporary anti-Semitic prejudices. Indeed, the Catholic defense was often clad in the language of the time and consequently used images of Jews that strikingly resembled those used in the Nazis’ notorious racial rhetoric. The defense drew on images of Jews as the sources behind Bolshevism, as usurers and as men and women of a different race. These were all images that may have been the essence of how Catholics viewed Jews at the time.

In his paper, “Catholic Clergy and Jews under National Socialism,” Kevin Spicer continued his examination of the relationship of Jews and Catholic priests during the Third Reich.  In particular, he examined the portrayal of Jews in priests’ sermons and public addresses.

Mark Edward Ruff’s paper, “Walter Adolph and the Construction of Catholic Martydom”  analyzed how one leading Catholic chronicler of the past constructed images of Catholic martyrdom. Between 1945 and 1965, Adolph penned more than six books that described Catholic opposition to Nazism and the suffering of Catholic victims of National Socialism, including Bernhard Lichtenberg and Erich Klausener. As the editor of the diocesan newspaper for Berlin, Das Petrusblatt, he composed and put the finishing touches on many additional commemorative articles. In addition, he spearheaded the effort to build a church to memorialize Catholic victims, Maria Regina Martyrum, which was consecrated in 1963.

Yet Adolph’s commemorative efforts were inextricably bound up with the political and ideological battles of the postwar era. His diocese straddled both the Western and Eastern zones of Berlin. From the former, he was confronted by an array of church critics who denounced Catholic resistance during the Third Reich as feeble. From the latter, he was confronted by regular articles in the Communist press that argued that the church had been in league with Fascism. These articles extolled Communist victims of the Third Reich as the sole legitimate martyrs of the past and typically couched their suffering in a quasi-religious language.  To defray the charges of Western church critics like Rolf Hochhuth, he and others claimed that Maria Regina Martyrum was the answer to Hochhuth’s play, The Deputy.

Ruff’s paper argued that Adolph’s created a hermeneutic of martyrdom that was, in fact, a combination plate. It was written in a language equal parts theological, journalistic, and political. But it also necessitated glossing over the less savory aspects of those Catholic victims of National Socialism he placed into the category of martyrs. In his profile of Erich Klausener, the leader of Catholic Action who was murdered on the night of the Röhm purge in 1934, he carefully deleted all of the sentences from the original manuscript that described Klausener’s sympathies in 1933 and 1934 for the National Socialist movement.

The comments were offered by James Bernauer, SJ, professor of philosophy at Boston College, who expounded upon the theme of martyrdom that linked the three papers. At the end of the war, he noted, Pope Pius XII spoke of the “sorrowful passion of the Church” and of the “incessant opposition maintained by the Church” in the Nazi years.  “But did the German Bishops,” he asked, “ever summon Catholics to heroic resistance?  Did the Bishops themselves ever risk real as opposed to symbolic martyrdom?” Pope John Paul II’s numerous apologies, he suggested, might be thought of as a “corrective embrace of reality for Church responsibility in what had happened to Jews, women, Protestant reformers, American Indians, the Eastern Churches and so forth.”

 

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Conference Announcement: Secularization and the Transformation of Religion in the U.S. and Germany after 1945

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ACCH Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2011

Conference Announcement: Secularization and the Transformation of Religion in the U.S. and Germany after 1945, March 17-19, 2011, German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.

Mark Edward Ruff, St. Louis University

At first glance, the religious landscapes of the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States would seem to be worlds apart. Religion appears to play a much more significant role in the American public arena than in the German. Televangelists, radio evangelists, Roman Catholic bishops and evangelicals have flexed their political muscle and have become important players in American political life. The United States records higher rates of attendance at church and mass. In fact, however, religious institutions in both societies have had to struggle with similar challenges—emerging multi-religious realities, strong secular movements and declining membership rosters, processes that they often subsume under the heading of “secularization.” Religious bodies in both nations have had to recognize that they operate in a competitive media-driven cultural and religious marketplace, even if the transformations emerging in this new environment are not as outwardly visible in Germany as in the United States.

This international conference seeks to explore the history and meaning of secularization and the transformation of the religious landscape of both the United States and Germany after 1945. It will challenge traditional narratives that focus on the disappearance of religion in modernity and instead highlight the transformation of religion within larger societal changes. Our approach is transnational, inter-disciplinary, and multi-confessional.

The conference will feature twenty-five participants from the United States, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. Their papers will fall into five formal rubrics: religion and media, secularization, religion and social movements, religion and civil society and, finally, larger religious transformations.  The papers will examine both Protestants and Roman Catholics. The conference conveners include Uta Balbier of the German Historical Institute in Washington, Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Damberg and Lucian Hölscher of the Ruhr-Universität-Bochum and Mark Edward Ruff of Saint Louis University.

For more information, contact Dr. Uta Andrea Balbier, German Historical Institute, 1607 New Hampshire Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20009-2562, U.S.A., or at balbier@ghi-dc.org

and www.ghi-dc.org.

 

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