Category Archives: News and Notes

Article Note: Caitlin Carenen, “The American Christian Palestine Committee, the Holocaust, and Mainstream Protestant Zionism, 1938-1948”

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2010

Article Note: Caitlin Carenen, “The American Christian Palestine Committee, the Holocaust, and Mainstream Protestant Zionism, 1938-1948,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 24 no. 2 (Fall 2010): 273-296.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Caitlin Carenen’s article describes the activities of a small but influential committee of American churchmen, the American Christian Palestine Committee (ACPC), established after the November 1938 pogrom in Germanyand comprised mainly of liberal Protestants. Its purpose was to mobilize support in American churches for the persecuted victims of Nazism and in particular to urge their resettlement in Palestine, along the lines advocated by Jewish and Zionist supporters. Carenen shows that this was a politically well-connected and effective lobby, motivated by the horrors of the Holocaust and sincerely dedicated to the idea of Zionism. At the time, the majority opinion among American Protestants was strongly isolationist and even pacifist, as reflected in their principal journal: The Christian Century. Events inEurope brought about a reluctant change.

One of the strong advocates forAmerica’s involvement in world events was Professor Reinhold Niebuhr ofNew York’sUnion TheologicalCollege. His ideas are well examined here. Thanks to his efforts and those of more than 300 leading political figures, support for the Zionist cause was advocated as a Christian duty, on humanitarian and pragmatic grounds, but also as an overdue response to the long history of Christian antisemitism.

This ACPC found itself allied to the much older Christian Zionism favoured largely by fundamentalists and biblical literalists, but studiously avoided any appeal to missionary ambitions, arguing instead that the return of Jews to their ancient home in Palestine would create a potentially democratic ally for American policy-makers in the Middle East. Considerable political pressure was mobilized by the ACPC against the restrictive policies of the British Mandate, which only increased after the Nazi defeat. Strong support was given to the 1945 Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry which advocated allowing 100,000 Jews to immigrate toPalestine. The British Government’s refusal to accept this policy was deplored, and subsequently the ACPC urged President Truman to throw his support behind the plans for the establishment ofIsraelas a state. His immediate recognition of this state’s existence in May 1948 can be seen as a vindication of the ACPC’s views. In subsequent histories, the contribution of these Protestants has been ignored or downplayed. This article provides a valuable corrective.

 

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Article Note: R. Gribble, “Cooperation and Conflict between Church and State: The Russian Famine of 1921-1923”

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2010

Article Note: R. Gribble, “Cooperation and Conflict between Church and State: The Russian Famine of 1921-1923,” Journal of Church and State 51 no. 4 (Autumn 2009): 634-662.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Richard Gribble’s article describes the unprecedented and unrepeated international and interdenominational efforts made to relieve the severe and widespread famine inRussiain 1921 to 1923. Brought about largely because of the mismanagement and misallocation of food resources by the newly-established Communist regime in theSoviet Union, this famine cost millions of lives. The enforced requisition of food grains from the peasants to feed the Red Army’s soldiers was a political decision which had catastrophic consequences. It was only when Lenin realized that not only his prestige but even the future of his regime was at stake that he accepted offers of help from outsiders. However, it was only on condition that no criticism or disruption of the Communist political control was undertaken. Complications and political difficulties abounded, but by early 1922 the American Relief Administration (ARA) under Herbert Hoover was able to bring in grain supplies to feed the starving population of millions.

Similarly, the Papal Relief Mission gathered up help from Catholic agencies in Europe and, along with the US National Catholic Welfare Council, coordinated its activities with the ARA, establishing numerous feeding centres, especially in the southernUkraineand theCrimea. Both Pope Benedict XV and his successor Pius XI saw this assistance as an opportunity to demonstrate theVatican’s commitment to compassion and charity even in a non-Catholic milieu. Pius XI donated 2 million Lire to the fund.

But none of this changed the Soviet Government’s hostility to Christianity and its clergy. Despite the Orthodox Church’s readiness to help feed the starving people, Communist repression of the church was stepped up. Leading clergy were put on trial. Church wealth was confiscated. The last significant bastions of the old regime were eliminated. The Russian famine did however demonstrate that international cooperation between church and state was possible. Even when the political and logistical circumstances were so adverse, millions of people were saved from certain starvation.

 

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Conference Report: Pius XI and America, October 28-30, 2010, Brown University, Providence, RI.

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2010

Conference Report: Pius XI and America, October 28-30, 2010, Brown University, Providence, RI.

By Charles R. Gallagher, S.J., Boston College

An international conference on the connections and impact of Pope Pius XI on America was held on October 28 to 30 at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Dr. David Kertzer was the lead organizer along with Dr. Alberto Melloni of the University di Modena e Reggio and director of the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII in Bologna.

The compelling research motive for the conference was to gather scholars in one place who have been studying and examining the papers of Pope Pius XI which were opened by the Archivio Segreto Vaticano in 2006. The conference was the third in a series of conferences organized by the European Network of Scholars on Pope Pius XI and the Secret Vatican Archives. Over forty scholars from Europe and North America attended. It should be mentioned that his Excellency Romano Prodi, the 80th Prime Minister of Italy, set the tone of the historical reflection by pointing out during his remarks that the cultural history of Italy in the 1930s cannot adequately be written without assessing the important role of the Roman Catholic Church. It was Prime Minister Prodi’s hope that the archival research conducted by the scholars would shed light not only on Italian concerns, but also American matters and the worldwide scope of the papal diplomacy of the era.

As the organizers had hoped, the value of the conference was anchored in the new revelations and rich discoveries of the archives. David Kertzer showed, for example, that President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought a strong Papal denunciation of the Italian racial laws of 1938. Full diplomatic relations between the U.S.and the Vatican, a long-sought goal of many Catholic officials, was to be the reward for such a denunciation. But Roosevelt’s offer failed to shake the Holy See from its decision not to speak out. In the same vein, the paper of Lucia Ceci of the University of Rome showed that the United States also pushed Pius XI to speak out regarding the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and that in fact this initiative was perhaps the first full-scale diplomatic project between the U.S. and the Vatican during the 1930s, when there was no formal diplomatic relationship between the pope and the United States.

The conference was designed not only to gather new research on political and international relations, but also to delve into questions surrounding Catholic culture as well. Issues such as birth control, the economics of the Vatican, and the emerging Vatican position on human rights were examined. All of the scholars anchored their presentations in the Pius XII papers in the Secret Vatican Archives, and all generated new questions. The conference was fortunate to have a large number of scholars from Italy provide reporting on new evidence pertaining to Brazil,Iraq,Poland, and political activities in Italy during the 1930s. Since his role was central to questions connected to his later papacy, the behavior and positions of Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli were also examined. For Holocaust scholars, the research contained a great deal of material related to the comportment of the Holy See in the run-up to World War II, with much of the discussion reviving the Anti-Semitism/anti-Judaism debate.

The conference concluded with an update concerning one of the latest and most significant projects of the European Network or Scholars on Pope Pius XI, namely its initiative to draw-up a pan-European study of Catholic Action – Pius XI’s hierarchically-sponsored movement of spirituality and social reconstruction. Because each of the papers represented work in sources which were previously inaccessible, the revelations will be published as a compendium – with comment – by the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII in Bologna.

A full conference schedule with participants and panel details may be found at its website:  http://www.watsoninstitute.org/conference/PiusXI/schedule_public.cfm.

 

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Conference Report: Intellectual Freedom and the Church: A Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte/Contemporary Church History Symposium, November 19-21, 2010, George Bell House, Chichester Cathedral

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2010

Conference Report: Intellectual Freedom and the Church: A Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte/Contemporary Church History Symposium, November 19-21, 2010, George Bell House, Chichester Cathedral.

By Andrew Chandler, George Bell Institute, University of Chichester

George Bell House was formally opened by the Archbishop of Canterbury in October 2008, on the fiftieth anniversary of Bell’s death. Set beside the cathedral, where Bell’s life and work is much commemorated, the house also stands outside the gate to the Bishop’s Palace, where visitors like Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, T.S. Eliot and Henry Moore came now and then across almost three decades. Today, George Bell House offers a valuable venue for small conferences. It certainly proved a very happy setting for this particular conference, held under the auspices of the journal Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte / Contemporary Church history. Speakers from a number of countries arrived on November 19 and throughout the following day they were joined by members of the University of Chichester, the cathedral, local people from Chichester itself and visitors from the breadth of the county.

The conference began with a paper on Ignaz von Döllinger, given by Dr. Charlotte Hansen, a Danish scholar now working with the George Bell Institute at the cathedral. The paper focussed attention on the confident character of Döllinger’s thought, his determination to rejuvenate Catholic theology and the response of the Vatican to what was increasingly viewed in those quarters as a challenge to its own theological authority. Yet Döllinger was a far from negligible figure: he won friends and admirers acrossEurope. Matters came to a head after the Vatican Council in 1870: from this point Döllinger’s fate was sealed. He was excommunicated, converged briefly with the Old Catholic Church, and soon retired from public life. Dr. Hansen concluded by drawing upon statements by Pope Benedict XVI and placing Döllinger’s ideas and experiences in a broader, unfolding context of Catholic theological life.

Professor Robert Ericksen of Pacific Lutheran University gave a paper on Emanuel Hirsch and “the turn towards Hitler.” Hirsch was a thinker who practiced and admired intellectual freedom in his own understanding of the Christian faith and message.  However, he also saw intellectual freedom in the modern world leading almost inevitably toward what Kierkegaard called the “all-encompassing debate about everything.” He feared this turn toward radical scepticism, both in religion and in democratic politics; so he turned toward the discipline and control promised by Hitler, accepting Hitler’s claims to represent the traditional values of the German Volk. Only an authoritarian, völkisch, unified Germany could prevent the threat of nihilism and chaos he saw threatening in the modern world, and especially in Weimar. The way was open for an accommodation with the Deutsche Christen movement and National Socialism. Professor Ericksen suggested that questions about intellectual freedom remain relevant and difficult for us in our multicultural world. They cannot easily be resolved, but at least we can recognize how disastrous Hirsch’s turn toward Hitler proved to be.

Professor Gerhard Besier of the Technische Universität Dresden examined the careers of two more German thinkers, this time drawn from the post-war period. Hans Küng is, of course, a well-known name; in the Protestant Gerd Lüdemann there was something of a counterpart. Much of the paper examined the character of their thought and the reasons why they had become controversial within their own confessions. Both had very different church authorities with which to contend, but in both cases the story was one of confrontation, a good deal of manoeuvring over academic positions, a certain amount of avoidance, censure and repudiation. Küng earned many supporters within his own church and across Protestantism too. Lüdemann ended up with a Chair in the United States, from which he continues to write freely. This paper produced an extended discussion on the place of church authorities in the selection of theological faculties in universities, and also began to point towards the distinction to be found between the perceived responsibilities of teaching ordinands on the one hand and those of teaching students from all backgrounds.

In his contribution Professor Torleiv Austad of the Norwegian School of Theology looked at these themes from a Norwegian perspective, but also as one at various times involved in them as a senior church leader and a scholar. He began with the promise to the ordaining bishop with which an ordained minister begins their career and examined the story of Helge Hognestad, ordained in 1965. Hognestad was first influenced by Marxism, but soon became drawn to ‘New Age’ ideas and also became increasingly critical of the theological traditions of his church. In 1984 he resigned from office and five years later asked to be released from his ordination promise. In 1998 he sought to be readmitted, claiming that his thought was now compatible with Evangelical-Lutheran doctrine. This provoked a new debate and deliberations of the bishop, the Doctrinal Commission of the church and, in time, the state itself. Professor Austad concluded, “Intellectual freedom is important. But it cannot be used to undermine an ordained minister’s obligations and to break his or her promises.”

In the final paper, Professor Gerhard Ringshausen of the Leuphana Universität Lüneburg presented a paper which did much to complement this, but also enhanced the discussion of the meaning and reality of “freedom” in the context of Christian theology at large. He showed how the expression of freedom involves a wide range of meanings: first, the Christian understanding of freedom, which is founded in Jesus Christ, who makes his believers free of their sins and free to love to him; second, the sense that freedom is also a basic value of political and social life; third, the problem of differentiating and connecting both these understandings of freedom. Here, for example, it had to be asked if academic freedom in the Church and in theology could be understood as part of Christian freedom or as a consequence of it. The paper proceeded to explore these ideas in the theology of Luther, Troeltsch, Harnack and, most recently, Wolfgang Huber.

The conference concluded with the evensong service at the cathedral and a brief tribute at the spot where Bell’s ashes are interred. It was the eve of the festival of Christ the King. As we left, the cathedral organist could be heard practicing Bell’s own hymn, written for that festival while he was bishop here.

 

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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.

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2010

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.

By Mark 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 focus on modernization processes in U.S. and German religious life after 1945, when churches in both countries were increasingly challenged by rapid changes in the societies around them. The rise of television, the development of new forms of public discourse, and processes like democratization, liberalization and the increased influence of science all influenced and transformed the self-understanding of religious bodies and produced new forms of religious life and discourse.

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.

Conveners:

Uta A. Balbier, German Historical Institute,Washington,D.C.

Wilhelm Damberg, Bochum University

Lucian Hoelscher, Bochum University

Mark Ruff, Saint Louis University

Contact:

Mark Ruff, St. Louis University

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

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2010

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

By Victoria J. Barnett, General Editor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, English Edition and Director of Church Relations, U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

With the publication this summer of Letters and Papers from Prison in the Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, the twenty-year project approaches completion. Volume 15 (covering the period from 1937-1939) will be published next year and the files of the final two volumes will be at Fortress Press. An electronic edition is also being planned.

The Editorial Board is pleased to announce that an international conference to celebrate this monument of theological publishing will be held November 13-15, 2011, at Union Theological Seminary, New York.

In addition to honoring translators, editors, donors and other supporters of the project, the conference will feature two days of presentations and discussion about new insights learned from the edition and new perspectives on Bonhoeffer interpretation.

One day of the conference will focus on the Bonhoeffer Lectures in Public Ethics, which have been held on alternating years in Germany and the United States for about fifteen years. Sessions on this day will examine how Bonhoeffer’s legacy has engaged public issues such as peace, poverty, racism, genocide and church-state issues over the last sixty years; speakers will also address emerging public issues and new research.

The conference is a public event, open to all interested in Bonhoeffer’s life, theology and ethics. More details about program, speakers, accommodation, and cost will be announced in coming months. Official registration will begin in 2011. The conference coordinator is Dr. Guy Christopher Carter. For initial expressions of interest and inquiries he may be reached at: drguychrcarter@comcast.net, phone 717 938 1098.

 

 

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New Research: Church of England and the Early Cold War, 1945-48

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2010

New Research: Church of England and the Early Cold War, 1945-48.

By Tina Alice Hansen,Trinity College, Oxford University

Tina Alice Hansen is a D.Phil. Candidate at Trinity College, Oxford University, studying in the Department of Politics and International Relations. Here she describes her dissertation research. Ms. Hanson can be reached at tina.hansen@politics.ox.ac.uk.

This thesis investigates the role of Church of England in the early Cold War years, 1945-1948. It has an institutional focus in the Church of England itself. It sets out to explore the Church’s collaboration with British government institutions, and involvement in the rehabilitation of the British Zone in Germany and the subsequent shaping of the Cold War framework. The role of Church of England in the shaping of a ‘Spiritual Union’ established between United Kingdom and United States will be investigated with particular examination of the role of the church in the shaping of a Cold War rhetoric and mindset.

It is known that leading bishops within Church of England had a significant role in creating a Cold War strategy and culture in Britain and abroad. This thesis takes these arguments further and looks at the double role of the church as a politically powerful institutional actor in Britain itself, where the church was in a position of both autonomy and state power through its links to the British government, and as a well-established trans-national actor with strong global network ties. It thus situates itself within recent historiography on the cold war as a domestic cultural phenomenon, as well as with political-scientific scholarship on institutions.

Based on archival work in United Kingdom, Germany and the United States, three cases will be examined: the role of Church of England in the re-construction and division of Germany; the role of Church of England domestically in the shaping of a Cold War mindset and, finally, Church of England and the idea of a Western Spiritual Union as a counter force to Communism.

The case studies involve examination of the Church’s work with the Labour government and the Control Commission in Germany, as well as with other churches in the UK. It also involves examination of Church of England’s influence through the British Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches and its close collaboration with the German Evangelical Church.

Although the analysis will be mainly of the church, the focus of the study will also need to be upon the British government as well, given my interest in the dialectic relationship between these two institutions and the institutional implications of decisions reached among them. The aim of this study is not to establish an academic account of the relationship between state church and state in Britain in general, but to come to an understanding of how they got to a mutual understanding of how to confront the challenges of the beginning Cold War, based on their experiences from total war, Nazi atrocities, the rise of Communism, and a shifting power balance in Europe, as well as their institutional relationship within the UK power structure. Further, I am interested in how the church managed its spiritual obligations while performing as a political and diplomatic institution; how the Cold War shaped the mindset of the Christian churches; how the British state managed to ‘harness the power of Christianity’ for political purposes; and how their joint strategy fitted into the larger puzzle of western political strategy-making in this period.

 

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Conference Announcement: Intellectual Freedom and the Church

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2010

Conference Announcement: Intellectual Freedom and the Church: A Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte/Contemporary Church History  Symposium, November 19-21, 2010, George Bell House, Chichester Cathedral.

By Andrew Chandler, University of Chichester

The George Bell Institute of the University of Chichester is pleased to host a Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte/Contemporary Church History Symposium on “Intellectual Freedom and the Church,” this coming November 19-21 at George Bell House, Chichester Cathedral. Scholarly contributions will be made by Gerhard Besier, Robert Ericksen, Charlotte Hansen, Torleiv Austad and others.

For details, please contact Dr. Andrew Chandler, George Bell Institute, University of Chichester, PO19 6PE email: A.Chandler@chi.ac.uk.

 

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

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2010

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.

By Mark Edward Ruff

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 inGermanyas in theUnited 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 focus on modernization processes in U.S. and German religious life after 1945, when churches in both countries were increasingly challenged by rapid changes in the societies around them. The rise of television, the development of new forms of public discourse, and processes like democratization, liberalization and the increased influence of science all influenced and transformed the self-understanding of religious bodies and produced new forms of religious life and discourse.

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.

Conveners:

Uta A. Balbier, German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.

Wilhelm Damberg, Bochum University

Lucian Hoelscher, Bochum University

Mark Ruff, Saint Louis University

Contact:

Mark Ruff, St. Louis University

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Conference Announcement: Celebrating the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English Edition

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 3, September 2010

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

By Victoria J. Barnett, General Editor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, English Edition and Director of Church Relations, U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Intellectual Freedom and the Church

A Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte/ Contemporary Church History Symposium

Hosted by the George Bell Institute, University of Chichester,

19-21 November 2010

At George Bell House, Chichester Cathedral

 

With contributions from Gerhard Besier, Robert Ericksen, Charlotte Hansen, Torleiv Austad and others.

For details please contact Dr Andrew Chandler, George Bell Institute, University of Chichester, PO19 6PE email: A.Chandler@chi.ac.uk

With the publication this summer of Letters and Papers from Prison in the Bonhoeffer Works English Edition, the twenty-year project approaches completion. Volume 15 (covering the period from 1937-1939) will be published next year and the files of the final two volumes will be at Fortress Press. An electronic edition is also being planned.

The Editorial Board is pleased to announce that an international conference to celebrate this monument of theological publishing will be held November 13-15, 2011, at Union Theological Seminary, New York.

In addition to honoring translators, editors, donors and other supporters of the project, the conference will feature two days of presentations and discussion about new insights learned from the edition and new perspectives on Bonhoeffer interpretation.

One day of the conference will focus on the Bonhoeffer Lectures in Public Ethics, which have been held on alternating years in Germany and the United States for about fifteen years. Sessions on this day will examine how Bonhoeffer’s legacy has engaged public issues such as peace, poverty, racism, genocide and church-state issues over the last sixty years; speakers will also address emerging public issues and new research.

The conference is a public event, open to all interested in Bonhoeffer’s life, theology and ethics. More details about program, speakers, accommodation, and cost will be announced in coming months. Official registration will begin in 2011. The conference coordinator is Dr. Guy Christopher Carter. For initial expressions of interest and inquiries he may be reached at: drguychrcarter@comcast.net, phone 717 938 1098.

 

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Book Note: Victims of Nazism: Bonhoeffer and Jägerstätter

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 2, June 2010

Book Note: Victims of Nazism: Bonhoeffer and Jägerstätter

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Keith Clements, The SPCK Introduction to Bonhoeffer (London: SPCK, 2010), 106 pp. ISBN: 978-0-281-06086-3.

Jeffrey C. Pugh, Religionless Christianity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Troubled Times (London and New York: T & T Clark International, 2008), 171 pp. ISBN: 0567032590.

Franz Jägerstätter, Letters and Writings from Prison, edited by Erna Putz, translated with commentary by Robert A. Krieg (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), 252 pp. ISBN: 1570758263.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed on April 9th, 1945, less than a month before the Nazi regime was overthrown, for his involvement with the plot to assassinate Hitler. His tragic death, along with his provocative writings from prison, made him a significant figure in the post-1945 years, when he became Germany’s best-known theologian of recent times. The account of his life, written by his friend Eberhard Bethge, and more recently translated into English by Victoria Barnett, is probably one of the twentieth century’s outstanding biographies. But it is compendious. Hence the need for more concise introductions for newer audiences.

The English author, Keith Clements, and the American scholar, Jeffrey Pugh, have recently supplied us with the latest useful additions to this genre, following in the steps of the Australian John Moses, whose book The Reluctant Revolutionary was reviewed here last year (see Vol. XV, no. 7/8, July/August 2009). Clements, a leading figure inEurope’s ecumenical fraternity, is keen to stress the young Bonhoeffer’s early enthusiasm for the movement which eventually culminated in the World Council of Churches. In those early days, Bonhoeffer felt a strong attraction towards pacifism. His biographers have therefore had to explain why he later came to advocate the forcible overthrow of the Nazi totalitarian system and the murder of Hitler. Clements believes this was because he came to realize that his hopes for a universal Ecumenical Council proclaiming peace to the world was simply unrealistic. Pugh leaves the issue open but points to a change in orientation after 1935 with Bonhoeffer’s greater emphasis on the personal appropriation of faith through the Sermon on the Mount.

Similarly all his recent biographers have felt a need to include a chapter on Bonhoeffer and the Jews. Difficulties arise from the fact that Bonhoeffer’s most significant writing on this subject dates from early 1933, and contains a highly traditional Lutheran view of “reprobate” Judaism and the need for conversion. There are only minor utterances in later years and no references at all to Judaism in his Letters and Papers from Prison. But Moses asserts that Bonhoeffer, along with Karl Barth, led the way in repudiating Christian anti-Judaism and embraced Jews as Jews. On the other hand, Stephen Haynes (see review here Vol. XII, no. 9, September 2006) is sceptical of any claims making Bonhoeffer out to be a precursor of post-Holocaust Christian theology. Clements sits on the fence, but has to admit that such a novel stance can only be inferred, in the absence of any sustained treatment.

Clements seeks to avoid hagiography, but points out that both in his theology and in his participation in the anti-Nazi Resistance, Bonhoeffer transcended the cultural and political limitations of his generation. In his final chapter he describes how Bonhoeffer’s radical demands have continued to provoke churches and ecumenical communities to renounce their traditional attitudes. Bonhoeffer’s theology, he concludes, will continue to be relevant, because it deals so centrally with the nature of human existence.

Pugh equally deplores hagiography on the matter of Bonhoeffer’s legacy in more recent American political controversies. But he also draws parallels, and much of his book seeks to warn his countrymen of the dangers of capitulation to or complicity with the military and political goals of their governing structures of power. The German churches’ attitudes in the 1930s, he asserts, constituted one of Western Christianity’s greatest failures. Bonhoeffer’s prophetic witness and resistance are therefore still significant for us today.

Pugh’s chief emphasis is on Bonhoeffer’s more radical theological challenges as found in his prison letters from the last months of his life. His critique of the religious subculture of his day is one which Pugh seeks to correlate not only to today’s politically obedient churches but also to the current secular states and their ideologies of power. In a world come of age, he asks, where can the individual find guidelines for his own or his community’s behaviour? How can Christianity and Scripture be interpreted in a non-religious sense? We have, he suggests, to respond first to the sufferings created by those who so ruthlessly wield power in the world. The answer lies not in any theology of power, but in the theology of the cross, in “watching with Christ inGethsemane”.

For Pugh, identification with the suffering and oppressed peoples of the world justifies, both for Bonhoeffer and for us, the need to confront the powers of domination, after so many centuries when the church has so often allowed itself to be compromised. In a world come of age, Christians urgently need to find a new relationship to the power structures so often bent on destructive paths. This is the heart of Pugh’s message, and he sees Bonhoeffer as his mentor in this process. Religionless Christianity bars us from allegiance to any particular church structure or political order, but instead calls us to the discipline of peace and reconciliation so that we may witness to God’s reconciling and healing.

Franz Jägerstätter was executed on August 9, 1943 for refusing to serve in a combatant unit of the Nazi Wehrmacht. He was a largely self-taught peasant farmer, living in a small village on the western border ofAustria, and a very devout Catholic. Since Nazi Germany had no tolerance for conscientious objectors, his refusal to serve led to his imprisonment, transfer to Berlin, court-martial, and finally to the guillotine. But sixty years later, in 2007, his resolute witness was recognized by theVatican which approved his beatification in an impressive ceremony attended by his 94-year old widow and descendants. To mark this occasion, an edition of his surviving letters and writings was published, which has been skilfully edited and translated by Robert Krieg, and now made available to the English-speaking audience by the publishing arm of the Maryknoll Fathers inNew YorkState.

Krieg’s useful edition and commentary clearly owes a debt to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison. By a remarkable coincidence, both men were held in Tegel prison inBerlin during several months from May to August 1943, though there is no record that they actually met.

Jägerstätter’s heroic resistance was first known to the wider world some forty-five years ago when an American pacifist professor, Gordon Zahn, discovered his story in the Austrian church archives, and published his seminal account In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964). Zahn’s book contained long extracts from the surviving letters and testimony. But the present work is more comprehensive, is chronologically arranged, and includes numerous letters to the prisoner from his wife. The picture however remains the same. So does the unresolved enigma of why this peasant farmer should have resolved to adopt this dedicated and costly stance. He was one of only a handful of Catholic conscientious objectors who suffered the same fate. He was not politically engaged, as was Bonhoeffer, nor does he seem to have had contacts with any anti-war or anti-Nazi groups. His was very much a lone decision. The suggestion remains unproven that he had been influenced by Jehovah’s Witnesses, of whom some two hundred were executed during these years for refusing to take up arms or join the army.

What comes through in his letters is his absolute confidence in his Catholic beliefs, strengthened by an intimate knowledge of the Bible. All the more notable is therefore his unwillingness to agree to any compromise, despite the earnest pleas not only of his family and friends, but also of his priest and bishop. His reflections on “What Every Christian Should Know” and his “Last Thoughts” are moving testimonies of faith, conveying both his passion and his pain, but also his stubborn determination not to take the military oath of obedience to his Führer because the call of Christ came first.

Zahn’s book appeared at the time of the Second Vatican Council where Jägerstätter’s intransigent and unwavering stand received much acclaim. The respectful acknowledgement of his sacrifice may have assisted in bringing about changes in Catholic attitudes towards the morality of war. Subsequent history has reinforced the recognition that Christians have a duty to resist evil even at the cost of their lives. And it is notable that the twentieth century has brought forth more Christian martyrs than ever before. Jägerstätter’s witness is therefore both a voice from the past and a call for similar obedience in the future.

 

 

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Article Note: Research on German Free Churches and Sects

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 2, June 2010

Article Note: Research on German Free Churches and Sects

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia and Kyle Jantzen, Ambrose University College

Andrea Strübind, “German Baptists and National Socialism,” Journal of European Baptist Studies 8 no. 3 (May 2008): 5-20.

Carl Simpson, “Jonathan Paul and the German Pentecostal Movement—the First Seven Years, 1907-1914.” JEPTA: Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 28, no. 2 (2008): 169-182.

Andrea Strübind’s article provides the English-speaking audience with a valuable summary of her earlier findings in her book on the Baptist Church during the Nazi era, Die unfreie Freikirche: der Bund der Baptistengemeinden im “Dritten Reich” (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991). Strübind is Professor of Church History in the Protestant Faculty of Oldenburg University, and an authoritative, but not uncritical, observer of her denomination’s chequered record during the turbulent years of Nazi rule.

German Baptists were among those small groups of free churches which had to struggle throughout the nineteenth century to gain a foothold in Germany against the intolerant pressures of the established Lutheran church. By the twentieth century they had become a conditionally recognised religious community on the edges of society. They sought to encourage the ideal life of true believers, separated from the rest of sinful society and its politics. Hence abstention from all worldly associations was coupled with the demand for freedom from all state interference in church life.

Hitler’s rise to power was greeted by most Baptists as a welcome development. His stress on a healthy and purified society and his anti-communism drew much support. At the same time the Baptist leadership under the strongly nationalist and conservative Paul Schmidt adopted an emphatic affirmation of the state and took no action in support of those in the Protestant Confessing Church who recognised the dangers of Nazi totalitarianism. For instance, in 1937, German Baptists were permitted to attend the Oxford Ecumenical Conference on Life and Work, at which they spoke up loyally in favour of the Nazi regime and its seeming tolerance of Free Church activity.

Despite the increasing evidence of political repression against many of the small sects in Germany, the Baptists remained staunchly loyal to the state. At the same time, the leadership sought to concentrate on the missionary task at home, exclusively concerned with the personal salvation of its adherents.

Given such a stance, it is hardly surprising that German Baptists behaved passively towards the Nazi persecution of the Jews, all the more since there were virtually no Jewish converts in their community. By contrast Hitler’s military victories were hailed as an opportunity for new missionary endeavours. Only one Baptist is known to have become a conscientious objector and was hanged in 1943 for subversion of the armed forces. No protest on his behalf was made. In 1944, after the attempted assassination plot against Hitler, the Baptist leadership sent a congratulatory telegram to prove their unbroken loyalty to their Führer.

This attitude of uncritical support undoubtedly saved the Baptists from the repression and closure meted out to other small sects. But Strübind rightly points out that the narrow focus on such biblical precepts as Romans 13 meant that the Baptists were wholly unequipped to tackle questions of resistance to Nazi tyranny on Christian grounds. Obedience to the state was upheld even after the anti-Christian character of the regime had become terribly evident. Indifference to the political system and individual passivity were this biblically legitimised. The protection of the church’s existence and the survival of local churches were perceived to be the highest aims. And since the same leadership under Schmidt continued in office for many years after 1945, there was never any acknowledgment of these shortcomings or apologies for the enthusiastic loyalty paid to Hitler and his regime.

Like other small sects and Free Churches, German Pentecostals in the Third Reich were both more vulnerable to state repression than the large Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic churches and less likely to attract the concerted attention of police or party authorities. Indeed, judging by correspondence in the files of the Ministry of the Interior and Ministry of Religious Affairs, the Gestapo and other state officials were often highly confused about the identity of obscure Pentecostal groups, regularly confusing them with various pseudo-Christian spiritualist movements.

But who were the German Pentecostals, and how did they get their start? This is what Carl Simpson sets out to explain as he introduces us to Jonathan Paul, the early leader of Pentecostalism in Germany. Simpson describes the dramatic conferences which led to the organization of the German Pentecostals in 1907, then outlines the early opposition from other German churches, and the creation of the Mülheimer Verband (the largest Pentecostal Association). Along the way, he argues that, while the American Azusa Street Revival was an important factor, the Pentecostal movement developed a unique and largely independent identity across Europe, with German leaders like Jonathan Paul, Emil Meyer, and Emil Humburg, and Carl Octavius Voget leading the way.

Pentecostalism arrived in Germany from Norway when German evangelist Heinrich Dallmeyer and two Norwegian sisters, Dagmar Gregersen and Agnes Thelle, held evangelistic meetings in Kassel. Conversions, healings, and experiences of speaking in tongues soon aroused a great deal of interest, scandal, and controversy, so that city officials eventually ordered the meetings ended. Within eighteen months, however, Pentecostalism had spread to at least eighteen different German communities, in part through the influence of the pietistic and revivalistic Gemeinschaftsbewegung loosely associated with Lutheran and Reformed churches. By the end of 1908, German Protestant pastor Jonathan Paul had assumed the leadership of German Pentecostals, largely through his position as editor of its official organ, the Pfingstgrüße. Paul set an independent course for his movement, affirming glossolalia as a spiritual gift but not a necessary sign of spirit-filling, asserting that a fruitful Christian life was a more important measure of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Despite Paul’s efforts to chart a moderate course, most German church leaders decisively rejected Pentecostalism, regarding the speaking in tongues as a manifestation of evil, not a divine gift. Other points of controversy were the leadership of women in the Pentecostal movement and the doctrine of Christian perfection, the holiness teaching that asserts spirit-filled Christians can be free from the taint of knowing sin (a “purity of intention,” to use a Wesleyan phrase). On September 15, 1909, this opposition reached a head, when members of the Gnadauer Verband (of the Gemeinschaftsbewegung), the Evangelical Alliance, and other German Free Churches overwhelmingly repudiated the Pentecostal Movement. In response, Pentecostals issued the Mülheim Declaration, a document carefully defining the role of glossolalia and affirming their desire to work with other evangelical movements in Germany. Soon Mülheim became the important centre for German Pentecostals, as evidenced by annual conferences and the name it gave to the association of German Pentecostal churches. By forming as an association rather than as a denomination, Pentecostals could retain membership in their Lutheran or Reformed church homes, while cultivating a more vibrant Christianity among their spirit-filled brothers and sisters in Pentecostal assemblies. Thus it was that Pentecostalism remained in an anomalous position, growing up alongside but not officially connected to other sects and Free Church associations in Germany.

 

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Article Note: “Holy See Documents From World War II Go Online. Researchers Welcome Availability of Pius XII Information”

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 2, June 2010

Article Note: “Holy See Documents From World War II Go Online. Researchers Welcome Availability of Pius XII Information” Zenit, March 25, 2010.

By Kyle Jantzen, Ambrose University College

Scholars have long desired greater access to the Vatican Archives, not least for the era of National Socialism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust. This article, in the March 25 issue of Zenit, explains that the Vatican has now made material from the Actae Sanctae Sedis and the Acta Apostolica (the official acts of the Holy See) available online in pdf format. While some of this material had already been published in the Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Acts and Documents of the Holy See Related to the Second World War) between 1965 and 1981, it is a hopeful sign that theseVatican holdings are now appearing digitally.

To view the entire article in Zenit, go to: http://www.zenit.org/article-28755?l=english.

To view the document collection online, go to: www.vatican.va/archive/atti-ufficiali-santa-sede/index_en.htm.

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Conference Report: 40th Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 2, June 2010

Conference Report: 40th Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, March 6-8, 2010, St. Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA.

By Suzanne Brown-Fleming, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Plenary Session: “Three Institutional Responses to the Early Persecution of the Jews and to Kristallnacht: The Canadian churches, the Vatican, and the Federal Council of Churches in the United States.”

This plenary session, organized by the Committee on Church Relations and the Holocaust of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, featured three presentations. The first, by Victoria J. Barnett, Staff Director of Church Relations in the Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, was titled, “Seeking a United Voice: The Federal Council of Churches (FCC) and the Kirchenkampf, 1933-1938.” Barnett argued that some of the most activist early responses, both to the German Kirchenkampf and the Nazi measures against the Jews, came from the Protestant ecumenical Federal Council of Churches in New York. FCC officials worked with Jewish organizations in the United States, visited Germany and issued public statements, and in particular pressed their German colleagues to condemn the Nazi anti-Jewish measures. As the Kirchenkampf progressed, however, the FCC position shifted to a more neutral tone.  Her comments focused particularly on the reasons why the FCC reactions changed and the way in which FCC officials helped shape the U. S.reaction to Kristallnacht.

Barnett’s presentation was followed by Suzanne Brown-Fleming, Director of Visiting Scholar Programs in the Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Brown-Fleming’s paper, “The View from Rome: The Vatican’s Response to Reichskristallnacht,” contextualized the decision by the Holy See to decline an open condemnation of the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom, despite receiving full reports about this landmark event. While many U.S. religious groups responded swiftly and sharply, Brown-Fleming offered, in contrast, insight into the concerns and preoccupations that shaped the Holy See’s muted response to Kristallnacht.

The final paper, by Kyle Jantzen, Associate Professor of History at Ambrose University College, Calgary, Alberta, Canada and Jonathan Durance, Graduate Student, University of Calgary, was entitled “‘Our Jewish Brethren’: Christian Responses to Kristallnacht in Canadian Mass Media.” Jantzen and Durance examined the early responses of Christian clergy and lay people in the Canadian Protestant churches to Kristallnacht through an analysis of newspaper coverage from across the nation in November and December, 1938. In contrast to the “silence” often attributed to Canadian churches, they presented evidence that many Canadian Christian clergy and lay people engaged in principled protests against Nazi brutality and made energetic calls for government action to alleviate the growing refugee crisis in Germany by allowing Jews into Canada.

The session was lively and well-attended, with many questions raised (perhaps inevitably) concerning the record of Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) during the Third Reich. While (also perhaps inevitably), no definitive conclusions could be reached on the topic, the discussion pointed to the need for more research not only on the role of the Roman Catholic Church, but also on the Protestant Churches worldwide during the Nazi era.

 

 

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Conference Report: Third Annual Powell and Heller Family Conference on Holocaust Education

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 2, June 2010

Conference Report: Third Annual Powell and Heller Family Conference on Holocaust Education, March 18-20, 2010, Pacific Lutheran University Tacoma, WA.

By Robert P. Ericksen, Pacific Lutheran University

On March 18-20, 2010, Robert Ericksen, Kurt Mayer Chair in Holocaust Studies at Pacific Lutheran University, hosted the Third Annual Powell and Heller Family Conference on Holocaust Education. This program grows out of generous gifts from the Mayer, Powell, and Heller families which have made possible an endowed chair as well as this annual conference.

The sessions began on March 18 with a lecture by Christopher Browning. He spoke on “Holocaust History and Survivor Testimony: Challenges, Limitations, and Opportunities,” based upon his research for his most recent book, Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave Labor Camp. Browning gave a nuanced analysis of the benefits and difficulties in using survivor testimony. While he discussed in detail various aspects of survivor testimony which must be considered by historians, he also concluded with the thought that it is not the obligation of survivors to give testimony which matches our expectations.

Friday’s sessions began with two presentations by Holocaust survivors. Philip Waagner, who is a member of the Speakers Bureau of the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center (Seattle), described his remarkable experiences as a child survivor in Holland. Sarah Tamir also described her childhood experiences, as well as the Holocaust memory activities now undertaken by the large survivors’ community in her home of Melbourne. The afternoon session began with a presentation by Sara Horowitz, Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at York University, speaking on her latest project, “Gender, Genocide, and Jewish Memory.” Professors Lisa Marcus, Rona Kaufmann, and Jennifer Jenkins, all of PLU, spoke on “Jewish Literacies and the Holocaust;” and Tomaz Jardim, a recent Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, spoke on “Ambiguous Justice: The Mauthausen SS Before American Military Commission Courts.” Friday ended with the announcement of two student winners of the Raphael Lemkin Student Essay Contest at PLU, highlighted by James Waller speaking on the themes within his important book, Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Mass Murder and Genocide.

Saturday’s session focused on the theme of bystanders. First, Carl Wilkens described his experience of the Rwandan Genocide. As the only American who stayed in Rwanda throughout the violence, he took great risk but survived without harm and was able to intervene successfully in several situations. Victoria Barnett then continued our discussion of bystanders, with recent reflections on her book, Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity during the Holocaust. John Roth responded to her presentation in a session chaired by John Conway. Throughout this day, students and others in attendance were inspired to consider the importance of their own response to injustice and also the potential for brave individuals actually to make an impact.

The next PLU Holocaust Conference will take place March 17-19, 2011. Interested persons are invited to contact Robert Ericksen (ericksrp@plu.edu) with inquiries or suggestions.

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