Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

December 2007— Vol. XIII, no. 12

Dear Friends,

As we approach the end of the year 2007, it is time to send you my very best wishes for a festive season of remembrance, when we celebrate the coming of Our Lord. It is also the end of Volume XIII of this Newsletter. I began this venture on the occasion of my retirement from full-time teaching, expecting that it would provide a stimulating occupation for a few weeks. Instead, we have now completed thirteen years! Because of the rich plethora of publications in the field of contemporary church history, I have never had any lack of material to share with you through these short reviews which have appeared each month. I am of course deeply indebted to those of you who have contributed articles or reviews, or allowed their pieces to be reprinted from other sources. We also owe a great debt of thanks to Randy Bytwerk of Calvin College, who manages the website, to be found at the end of each issue. How long this service can continue I can’t tell, but I hope to be able to provide you with this kind of theological insight as long as possible. I am all the more encouraged to do so by the letters and messages I have received from so many of you, usually with favourable comments on the contents.

You will be interested to know that, at present, this Newsletter goes out to nearly 450 subscribers. Just out of interest I calculated the geographical distribution as follows:

USA – 182; Canada – 96; Britain – 56; Germany – 51; Australia – 22; France – 5; Italy, Denmark and Austria 4 each; Switzerland, South Africa and New Zealand 3 each; Ireland – 2; and Nigeria, Norway, Belgium, Japan, Phillipines, Holland, Finland and Oman – 1 each.

So we have a global outreach which is rather gratifying. And if you have any friends who might like to join us, please send me their names and addresses, both email and postal.

Contents:

1) Franz Jägerstätter –
2) Book review, Mitzscherlich, History of the Diocese of Meissen, Saxony.

1) On October 26th in Linz, Austria, in the presence of his 94 year-old widow, and conducted by leading members of the Austrian Catholic hierarchy, the service of beatification of Franz Jägerstätter was celebrated. One of our members, William Doino, wrote the following description of Jägerstatter for the journal First Things, which is reproduced here (slightly abridged) with thanks.

a) Executed in 1943 for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army, Jägerstätter was once known only to his relatives and neighbors—many of whom considered him mad. Born out of wedlock in 1907 in the tiny village of St. Radegund, his natural father was killed in the Great War. His mother eventually married a farmer named Jägerstätter, who adopted him. A Catholic from birth, Franz didn’t always follow church teaching. Rumor has it that he lived something of a wild life—possibly even fathering an illegitimate child—before reclaiming his faith and marrying.

In 1956, the American sociologist Gordon Zahn, then researching a book in Germany on another subject, came across Jägerstätter’s story. Transfixed, he thought it worthy of a serious biography and visited Austria to write it. After recovering Jägerstätter’s papers and interviewing surviving relatives and friends—including two priests who served as his spiritual counselors—Zahn published In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter (1964).

The book has since been translated into various languages, and it had a significant impact on the Church’s support for conscientious objectors. As the biography reveals, Franz Jägerstätter was the unlikeliest of heroes. He was “a relatively untutored man from a remote and isolated rural village,” writes Zahn. Moreover, he was “a married man with a wife and children for whom he was responsible and whose future welfare he was morally bound to consider.” . . .

After Hitler’s forces annexed Austria, completing the Anschluss, Jägerstätter was the lone voice in his village to oppose it and was appalled by the willingness of many of his countrymen, including high-level prelates, to acquiesce. “I believe there could scarcely be a sadder hour for the true Christian faith in our country,” he wrote, “than this hour when one watches in silence while this error spreads its ever-widening influence.” Commenting on the Austrian plebiscite, which gave approval to the Anschluss, he lamented: “I believe that what took place in the spring of 1938 was not much different from what happened that Holy Thursday 1,900 years ago when the crowd was given a free choice between the innocent Savior and the criminal Barabbas”. . . . .

As the takeover of Austria proceeded, Jägerstätter knew he would be asked to collaborate at some point. In early 1943, it came: He was ordered to appear at the military induction center at Enns, where he declared his intention not to serve. The next day, he was hauled off to a military prison at Linz, to await his fate. “All he knew when he arrived,” writes Zahn, “was that he was subject to summary execution at any moment.”

A parade of people—relatives, friends, spiritual advisers, even his own bishop—pleaded with Jägerstätter to change his mind. Some did not disagree with his anti-Nazi convictions or his moral stance; they simply argued he could not be held guilty in the eyes of God if he offered minimal cooperation under such duress, given the extreme alternative.

Jägerstätter, however, saw things differently. He believed Christians were called precisely to meet the highest possible standards—“be thou perfect,” said Our Lord—even at the cost of one’s life, if fundamental Christian principles were at stake. Serving Germany in a nonmilitary post would simply make it easier for someone else to commit war crimes. He could not participate in the Nazi death machine, even indirectly. He would not be swayed: “Since the death of Christ, almost every century has seen the persecution of Christians; there have always been heroes and martyrs who gave their lives—often in horrible ways—for Christ and their faith. If we hope to reach our goal someday, then we, too, must become heroes of the faith.” Indeed, he added, “the important thing is to fear God more than man.”

After several months of imprisonment in Linz, Jägerstätter was taken to Berlin, where he stood military trial. According to witnesses, Jägerstätter was quite eloquent in his defense, but he was sentenced to death for sedition. On August 9, 1943, Jägerstätter was informed he would be beheaded that day. His last words as he was taken to the gallows were ones of peace, testifying to his faith: “I am completely bound in inner union with the Lord.” The prison chaplain who ministered to him that day later remarked, “I can say with certainty that this simple man is the only saint I have met in my lifetime.”

During his ordeal, many of Jägerstätter’s neighbors considered his act unnecessary and foolish, a sentiment that remained long after his death. Zahn, who interviewed Jägerstätter’s critics, examines all the explanations offered to question Jägerstätter’s sacrifice—that he was selfish, reckless, spiritually vainglorious, or even disturbed—and makes a convincing case that none of them hold.

The most unfair charge is that Jägerstätter put himself above his family. “I have faith that God will still give me a sign if some other course would be better,” he wrote, as he struggled to find a solution to his dilemma. Images of the Passion filled his mind: “Christ, too, prayed on the Mount of Olives that the Heavenly Father might permit the chalice of sorrow to pass from His lips—but we must never forget this part of his prayer: ‘Lord, not my will be done but rather Thine.’” . . .

The letters and statements he made to his wife and family at this time show the anguish his decision brought; he was overwhelmed with the sense that he was abandoning them and feared reprisals against them lay ahead. But Jägerstätter knew that God was watching and would ultimately avenge his elect, and so expressed hope of a reunion yet to come.

Because his country’s establishment did not choose the path of martyrdom, his witness has been contrasted unfavorably to that of the Catholic hierarchy. Jägerstätter, however, was not a critic of the episcopacy, much less the Magisterium. In fact, he was a strong defender of the papacy and cited the authoritative teachings of Rome—particularly the famous anti-Nazi encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge (1937)—as a rebuke to the Catholics around him. “Many have not forgotten what the Holy Father said in an encyclical several years ago about National Socialism,” he wrote in 1942, contemplating his line of action, “that it is actually more of a danger than Communism. Since Rome has not to this day rescinded that statement, I believe it cannot possibly be a crime or a sin for a Catholic simply to refuse the present military service even though he knows this will mean certain death.” . . .

Since his cause was set into motion, predictably—and perhaps unavoidably—Jägerstätter has become a kind of political football, both in his home country and outside it. During the Vietnam War, he was invoked by its opponents as the ideal Christian, a prophet whose time had arrived. (Daniel Ellsberg actually said that Jägerstätter’s story influenced his decision to release the Pentagon Papers.)

Similarly, many pacifists have found in Jägerstätter a kindred soul. Zahn himself is a pacifist who refused service during World War II, serving instead in a work camp. Today, Jägerstätter is often cited by those who oppose the Iraq War. . . .

In his Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, Robert Royal devotes an entire section to Jägerstätter’s martyrdom; and in his influential book on the Catholic just-war tradition, Tranquillitas Ordinis, George Weigel compares Jägerstätter to Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. The wide differences among Jägerstätter’s Catholic supporters reveals that he is actually a unifying figure, a Catholic who transcends politics and calls all members of the Church back to Christ.

There is a profound lesson in Franz Jägerstätter’s life and martyrdom. It compels us to be brutally honest with ourselves, teaches us never to bow to the powers of this world, and challenges us to live an authentic Christian life. Among the last words Jägerstätter wrote are these:

Just as the man who thinks only of this world does everything possible to make life here easier and better, so must we, too, who believe in the eternal kingdom, risk everything in order to receive a great reward there. Just as those who believe in National Socialism tell themselves that their struggle is for survival, so must we, too, convince ourselves that our struggle is for the eternal kingdom. But with this difference: We need no rifles or pistols for our battle, but instead, spiritual weapons—and the foremost among these is prayer. . . . Through prayer, we constantly implore new grace from God, since without God’s help and grace it would be impossible for us to preserve the Faith and be true to His commandments. . . . Let us love our enemies, bless those who curse us, pray for those who persecute us. For love will conquer and will endure for all eternity. And happy are they who live and die in God’s love.”

b) One of Europe’s leading church historians, Victor Conzemius, writes from Luzern, as follows

Ein österreichischer Kriegsdienstverweigerer wird selig gesprochen.

Am 26. Oktober wird im Linzer Dom der oberösterreichische Bauer und Kriegsdienstverweigerer Franz Jägerstätter (1907-1943) selig gesprochen. Dass die Feier am österreichischen Nationalfeiertag stattfindet gibt ihr eine besondere Note. Es waren aber nicht die Österreicher, die den am 9. August 1943 im Brandenburger Zuchthaus enthaupteten Jägerstätter als Kultgestalt entdeckten, sondern der amerikanische Soziologe und Pazifist Gordon Zahn. . . . .Sein Opfertod wurde von der Mehrheit der Dorfgemeinschaft nicht verstanden und stiess auch manche Jahre nach dem 2. Weltkrieg auf Unverständnis. Doch dank der Biografie von Gordon Zahn, die in verschiedenen Übersetzungen verbreitet wurde, wurde Jägerstätter zu einer Leitfigur christlichen Pazifismus und über Österreich hinaus bekannt. Er inspirierte die amerikanische Friedensbewegung gegen den Vietnamkrieg und fand gewissermassen über den englischen Sprachraum den Weg zu seiner österreichischen Heimat. Weitere Biografien zu seiner Person entstanden; im Schul-und Religionsunterricht wurde er bald zum Begriff. Axel Corti drehte einen Fernsehfilm, der israelische Regisseur Joshua Sobol schrieb ein Drama. 1997 hob das Berliner Landgericht das Todesurteil gegen ihn auf. Die kirchliche Seite begleitete den wachsenden Kult um den Bauern aus St. Radegund und leitete 1994 in Rom den Seligsprechungsprozess ein. Im August 2006 weihte Bundespräsident Heinz Fischer einen Jägerstätter-Gedenkpark in Braunau – Hitlers Geburtsort- ein. Dass es heute noch Leute gibt, die in dem Kriegsdienstverweigerer einen irregeleiteten religiösen Fanatiker sehen, zeigen die Aufsehen erregenden unrühmlichen Äusserungen eines österreichischen Militärdekans (vgl. NZZ Nr. 189 vom 17.08.2007, S. 5.). Auf ihr Leben mit Franz angesprochen antwortet die heute 95jährige Franziska Jägerstätter in schöner Bescheidenheit: Wir haben einander gestärkt.

2) Birgit Mitzscherlich, Diktatur und Diaspora. Das Bistum Meissen 1932-1951. (Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte. Reihe B: Forschungen, Band 101). Paderborn, Schöningh 2005. 725 pp ISNB 3-506-71799-5

(This review first appeared on H-German on October 18th 2007)

The political division of Germany after 1945 into the rival states of the western Federal republic and the eastern, communist-controlled, German Democratic Republic necessarily affected the German Catholic Church too. This enforced separation led to very different developments on either side of the Iron Curtain. In West Germany, the Catholic Church regained virtually all of its privileges removed by the Nazis, successfully defended the validity of the 1933 Reich Concordat, and enjoyed an estimable place in the social and political life of the half-nation. By contrast, the Catholics in the GDR, like other religious communities, found themselves under a renewed political dictatorship, imposed by the central Marxist government in East Berlin, subjected to continual harassment and even persecution, and constantly spied on by the agents of the notorious ‘Stasi’.

The number of Catholics in East Germany was not large. The diocese of Meissen, which is almost coterminous with the state of Saxony, and includes the cities of Dresden and Leipzig, had only approximately 250,000 Catholics. Meissen derived this position from its mediaeval roots, and still retains the bishop’s seat in the small town of Bautzen. Compared to the much larger dioceses in western and southern Germany, Meissen was considered an outpost in the diaspora of the former Prussia. Nonetheless its comparative history during both the Nazi and Communist dictatorships is an illuminating and instructive chapter. It is all the more fitting because, throughout the period of 1932-1951 chosen for closer study, the diocese was under the leadership of one man., Bishop Petrus Legge. The nineteen stormy years of his episcopate are now thoroughly and excellently analyzed by Ms Mitzscherlich, formerly a doctoral student at Leipzig University, where she studied under Professor Ulrich von Heyl.

This volume appears, like many other previous dissertations, as a part of the renowned Blue Series published by the Catholic Commission for Contemporary History, which was first established in West Germany in 1967. There are now over a hundred similar studies in this series, forming an impressive record of first-class Catholic scholarship. (It would be fair to say that no other country or community can match this achievement). The original aim of the Commission was in part to provide documentary evidence of the Church’s experiences under Nazi rule, and in part to answer those critics who had challenged the hierarchy’s view, adopted immediately in 1945, that the Catholic Church had been a prime victim of Nazi totalitarian onslaughts. This aim was later expanded to cover earlier periods of German Catholic life, and more recently has been extended to the history of Catholicism in the German Democratic Republic. Mitzscherlich’s researches, which would clearly not have been possible during the period of communist rule, can therefore be regarded as a significant product of Germany’s and the Catholic Church’s reunification.

In Mitzscherlich’s view, the Catholics of the Meissen diocese were twice the targeted victims of totalitarian oppression. Their experience was brutal at the hands of the Nazi Gauleiter Mutschmann, one of the more radical of Hitler’s henchmen. So too, Saxony and its people suffered from the fact that the post-1949 communist regime aimed at remaking society along Marxist lines. Her concern is to depict how the Catholic population and its leaders coped with these onslaughts, and to describe in detail the successive waves of state-induced intimidation and indoctrination, At the same time she shows how the experience of Meissen was conditioned by the fact that the Catholics had all along been a minority and considered themselves as living in an isolated diaspora. Approximately half the book is devoted to the Nazi period and half to the post-war developments, and closes with the death of Bishop Legge in 1951. Its length derives from the need to consult the official archives in both west and east Germany, as well as the fortunately well-preserved local church records, and those of the Vatican for the early years. In addition, the author has been able to interview some survivors among the diocesan clergy, and adds this oral history to the record. As such, this is a meticulous and pioneering work.

When Bishop Legge was appointed in 1932, shortly before the Nazis took over power, the diocese of Meissen was a small and relatively poor Catholic outpost in a part of the country known for its strongly socialist, even communist, tendencies. Bishop Legge was a “”pastoral” bishop and resolutely abstained from all political utterances. But the dramatic events of 1933 evoked in Saxony the same ambivalent responses as elsewhere. The initial prohibition of Catholic membership in the Nazi Party was withdrawn by the bishops in March, and in July the signing of the Reich Concordat aroused hopes that the new political order would not only remove for ever the danger of a communist coup, but would lead to a working alliance with the church. In Meissen as elsewhere many churchmen came to believe they could be good Nazis and good Catholics at the same time.

Mitzscherlich’s narrative of events covers virtually all aspects of Catholic public life, but especially those which had political dimensions, such as the press, the schools, the associations or the youth work. Her examination of these different aspects is thorough and obviously based on exhaustive research. So her conclusions are all the more well-founded. She shows that for the first two years the Catholics of Meissen enjoyed a relatively quiet life, which only reinforced their illusions about their new political masters.

The situation changed drastically in 1935 with the arrest of several youth chaplains and leaders. This initiative apparently came from the Gestapo’s new campaign against “political Catholicism”, coupled with the Nazi drive to monopolize all youth work in the hands of Baldur von Schirach, the Hitler Youth leader. At the same time, the Saxon Gauleiter Mutschmann took over the executive control of the provincial government. Matters quickly escalated. A series of edicts against Catholic youth clubs, including prohibitions, was issued during the summer months. And worse followed in October when the Bishop himself, as well as his Vicar-General, was arrested and imprisoned on alleged grounds of smuggling currency out of the country. Even though later acquitted, he had to take a leave of absence from his duties and spent more than a year in exile in west Germany.

Despite this clear evidence of Nazi hostility, the Catholic faithful continued their support of the regime, endorsed the Nazi anticommunist and anti-Semitic propaganda, and welcomed Hitler’s expansionist goals. The bishops were equally timid in failing to protest the persecution of their colleague Legge, were unwilling to mount any form of public protest, and instead merely attempted to uphold the legalities of the Concordat. As for Bishop Legge, the public humiliations of his trial, the lack of confidence demonstrated by his clerical superiors, and the imposition of an unwanted Coadjutor bishop, affected him deeply and had lasting consequences during the remainder of his episcopate.

In these depressing circumstances, the Catholics in Meissen were faced with ever-increasing Nazi depredations. Catholic schools were closed, newspapers and journals censored, building permits refused, festal processions prohibited, and state subsidies curtailed. Catholic officials were constantly walking on a tight-rope. Priests could not fail to note that their church services and sermons were under surveillance. Approximately thirty priests were put on trial for alleged anti-state activities, and eleven (nearly 10% of the diocesan clergy) were sentenced to a concentration camp. where three lost their lives. This atmosphere of intimidation went hand in hand with the belief amongst Catholics that supporting Hitler and his regime would be rewarded by more favourable treatment in the future. Particularly after the outbreak of war, the clergy were at pains to demonstrate their national loyalties and to preach obedience to their flocks.

Passivity, isolation and fear of the consequences led Catholics to concentrate on their internal religious life, as an alternative to the strident Nazi propaganda in their surroundings . Mitzscherlich’s skillful researches in the surviving documentation led readily enough to her view that the Meissen Catholics were victimized. At the same time, however, she found no evidence in the archives of any discussion of other aspects, viz.. the Catholics’ response to the Crystal Night pogroms, to the war-time mass murder of the Jews, to the so-called “euthanasia” program , or to the bestiality of the campaigns of the eastern front. But it was just these areas which demonstrated the Catholics’ failure to oppose the criminal regime which they had for the most part, loyally and vocally supported, or to take more than isolated measures to uphold Catholic and Christian values. How far such matters were spoken about privately in the parishes canot now be reconstructed. But the silence on these subjects in the Catholic records is rather glaring.

In the second half of the book Mitzscherlich pays the same close attention to the fate of the Meissen Catholics under the Soviet occupation and later East Communist dictatorship. She naturally stresses both the continuities and the discontinuities between the two regimes. Again her narrative and analysis of these new circumstances is insightful and exemplary. One of the first significant developments under Soviet rule was the re-establishment of political parties. Shortly after, the Christian Democratic Party was founded, appealing to both Protestants and Catholics. But within a year, and before the official establishment of local governments, it became clear that the Soviet authorities were determined to place power in their hands of their Marxist followers in Germany, many of whom had spent the war in exile in the Soviet Union. In Saxony, the so-called Socialist Unity Party came to dominate. Its leading officials included communist hard-liners who made no secret of their virulent anti-clerical and indeed anti-Christian antipathies. In such circumstances the CDU was quickly reduced to being a mere front party, which served to disguise the basic hostility of the new regime.

In Meissen, Bishop Legge showed no willingness to allow himself to be drawn into any new political troubles. He and his officials sought in vain to regain lost ground in the matter of schools, press publications and youth work. But with the official establishment of the German Democratic Republic in 1949, it was clear that only a repetition of totalitarian repression was to be expected. Which indeed followed. The few priests who had believed it possible to achieve a Christian socialism were soon enough disillusioned by the barrage of stereotyped defamation against the Catholic Church members as the agents of the imperialist west, in the pay of Rome, ex-Nazi sympathizers, or unrepentant warmongers. The 1950s saw a continuous onslaught which differed little from that of the Gestapo. The aim was clear: to achieve a complete separation of church and state, and to assert the ubiquitous political control of the ruling party.

Despite all this, the new regime sought to attract the support of those it called “progressive Catholics” who would demonstrate their anti-fascist credentials by aligning themselves with the goals of the new communist rulers, especially in the creation of a “peace front” against the ”revanchists”. The evidence, as Mitzscherlich tell us, is that such propaganda was virtually everywhere ineffective. Catholics had for too many years been indoctrinated against the errors of Marxism. There was little of the self-deluding wishful thinking they had displayed under the Nazis. And the outspoken opposition of both the Vatican and their West German colleagues to any such compromises or concessions prevented the emergence of any group of Catholic “fellow-travelers”.

With the growing tensions of the Cold War and the unremitting ideological campaigns of the SED party, the pressures increased on the Catholic church to conform with suitable messages of support for the communist aims. Any refusal was naturally seen as a sign of the “reactionary and state-hostile” attitudes of the clergy, a few of whom suffered imprisonment as a result. So discretion led to an almost complete silence on political matters. At this point, it would have been helpful if Mitzscherlich had made some comparisons with the parallel experiences of the Evangelical Church, though this might well have led to an unmanageable expansion of her text.

Bishop Legge’s final years were ones of great disappointment. His hopes of recovering from the Nazi depredations were increasingly frustrated by the deliberate plans of the new Saxon authorities to impose their own totalitarian monopoly over all aspects of communal life. The result was once again to force the church to withdraw into its liturgical sanctuary and to concentrate on inner spiritual tasks. The Catholic community became an island of ideological nonconformity. This stance was to be maintained throughout the forty years of the GDR’s existence, and as such enabled the church to emerge in 1990 relatively uncompromised. This retreat was only strengthened by Legge’s unwillingness to associate himself with colleagues beyond the diocese’s borders. He only once attended the national bishops’ conference in Fulda, which may be seen as a sign of his continuing frustration. He died early in 1951 as the result of a car accident.

No one familiar with the events of the German Church Struggle, or the vast historiography which has since been written, can fail to admire Mitzscherlich’s praiseworthy industry. This is a story which will not need to be told again. Mitzscherlich is to be congratulated in her fine analysis of the developments in an undistinguished minority diocese and on the even less than striking leadership of its bishop. It can only be regretted that similarly insightful studies of other larger and more significant dioceses are still to be written. Yet she is quite right in seeing this as another chapter in the long history of struggle in Germany between the religious milieu and in this case two variants of political power. Avoiding any hagiographical overtones, the author presents her material more as an omen for the future. As such we can be grateful for her diligent research and perceptive analysis.

Appended are some useful statistics relating to the Catholics in Saxony; biographical notes on the personalities mentioned; and a full bibliography and index.

JSC

3) Call for Papers:

The Canadian Catholic Historical Association will be holding its annual meeting for 2008 at the University of British Columbia from May 31st – June 8th, as part of the Annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation.

The general theme of the Congress is “Thinking Beyond Borders’

Proposals are invited for scholarly papers on Canadian Catholic history, or on any aspect of Catholicism in Canada. These should be sent with a 250 word summary and a one-page c.v. before January 31st 2008 to the President and Program Chair, Dr Heidi MacDonald of the University of Lethbridge, Alberta = heidi.macdonald@uleth.ca

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas, and God’s blessings on all your endeavours,

John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

November 2007— Vol. XIII, no. 11

Dear Friends,

This month is the month for remembrance. On November 5th, we are pleased to remember Guy Fawkes, the seventeenth century’s notorious “terrorist”. He became the centrepiece of England’s most vicious outburst of deliberately organized Protestant bigotry. Church and state combined to ensure that his treason was remembered by having his effigy burnt every year on innumerable bonfires – a tradition which still continues four hundred and two years later. So it is perhaps fitting that I send you two reviews from the recent history of the Anglican Church, both of which I believe have a more positive message to convey for the present. But I also add a short piece reviewing an article by a young German scholar which exemplifies the contradictions in much of the history of the German churches during the traumatic Nazi years.

Do please feel free to send me your comments – to my home address – jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Please do NOT press the reply button above, as this will then bring your views to the total membership on my list

Contents:

1) Book reviews:

a) John Allen, Rabble-Rouser for Peace: Desmond Tutu

b) Andrew Chandler, The Church of Engand Commissioners

2) Journal article: H. J .Buss, An Evangelical Martyr: K.F.Stillbrink

1a) John Allen, Rabble-Rouser for Peace. The authorized biography of Desmond Tutu New York, London: Free Press 2006. 481 pp. ISBN 13 978-0-7432-6937-7

South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s was blessed with two outstanding leaders of world renown, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Mandela’s political achievements in bringing about the overthrow of the apartheid system and his election as the nation’s first black president have been well described in numerous biographies. Recently he was honoured by having his statue erected in London’s Parliament Square. Desmond Tutu’s achievements are less spectacular and belong more fittingly in the category of being inspirational or even “spiritual”. His biography by John Allen is therefore most valuable in letting us see how he succeeded in gaining this kind of international fame, which many consider puts him in a similar class to Martin Luther King or even Mahatma Gandhi.

The dangers of such authorized biographies are obvious. They can so easily become sanctimonious or over laudatory. But John Allen is one of South Africa’s most experienced journalists who has worked with Tutu for forty years, and was latterly director of communications for Tutu’s most notable sphere of activity, the famous Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He is therefore careful not to become unbalanced or one-sided in his presentation and skillfully interweaves quotations from Tutu’s critics or opponents, which allow his readers to judge for themselves.

In addition Allen has done extensive archival research, even obtaining material from the former regime’s security services. His acquaintance with the literature on South Africa’s recent history is exemplary, and his writing style is authoritative and convincing. He thus updates the previous excellent biography by Shirley Du Boulay written twenty years ago.

The picture Allen draws is complex. Tutu is shown to have been throughout his life – and is still – caught in an on-going state of tension between his career as a pastor and his calling as a prophet – both spent on the intrinsically dangerous fault-line between religion and politics. His success has lain in his ability to steer a careful course between being dismissed on the one hand as a religious zealot or idealistic dreamer, or on the other as a political schemer or even “terrorist” who deserved to be locked up. His opponents, as quoted by Allen, continually tried to vilify and entrap him – there is even talk of a possible assassination – but failed to do so. In part, this was because of the widespread popular support he consistently enjoyed, not just from his African followers with whom he shared their anguish over the oppressive evils of the apartheid regime, but also from the international community, especially in the Christian churches.

Tutu’s father was a teacher, and Desmond followed in his footsteps, until the South African government imposed new restrictions on Bantu education. He then turned to the Anglican Church, where he was sponsored by members of the British-based Community of the Resurrection in Johannesburg. Their ministry in the slum parishes of Sophiatown gave them a clear insight into the plight of the African urban poor. But their white skins and paternalist manners inevitably separated them from the aspirations for political freedom, increasingly being voiced by Africans. It was Tutu’s success that he combined the priestly caring habits of the Community’s leaders, especially Trevor Huddleston, with a passionate engagement with African sufferings and protest.

Shortly after Tutu’s ordination, the Community arranged for him to spend three years at King’s College, London for further theological education. They recognized his gifts as a potential African theologian – a virtually non-existent quality. In England, he was a great success. His personality expanded in an atmosphere of freedom where he and his wife Leah could walk everywhere and be respected as individuals. In addition his irrepressible sense of humour made him the life and soul of the party. He learnt how to gain and hold the sympathy of white audiences with his appeal to their consciences and his vivid evocation of African sufferings. He established good contacts in English society which were to serve him in good stead.

On his return to South Africa in 1967 he was briefly attached to the Anglican theological seminary for black students. This too was subject to the oppressive restrictions of the apartheid government. Tutu was soon personally confronted with the intimidating tactics of the police. It was here, Allen suggests, that Tutu recognized the need to transform his burning sense of injustice into a creative ministry to the victims of violence. But his next posting from 1972-75 was as vice-director of the World Council of Churches’ Theological Education Fund, based in London. Here he gained a most significant overview of the needs of the whole African continent, and in particular of the need to develop an African theology of liberation which would be authentic. Political freedom, already achieved in many parts of the continent, had to be matched by cultural change which would reflect a true emancipation from European models. He resolutely opposed the view of some missionaries that Africans had first to become westerners before they could become Christians.

But Tutu’s energies were never fully devoted to exploring this new theological frontier. He remained attached to the traditional formsof language and piety, especially in the Anglican church. In part, this enabled him to relate so well to his white South African, European and North American supporters.

In 1975 Tutu was elected to be the first African Dean of Johannesburg, but only a year later was chosen to be Bishop of Lesotho, in the nearby black-ruled mountainous and poverty-stricken enclave. Two years later he returned to the more strategic post as executive director of the South African Council of Churches, again based in Johannesburg, which gave him a highly visible platform both nationally and internationally. Here he used his oratorical skills in addressing both black and white audiences, and became one of the best known advocates of the World Council of Churches’ plea for solidarity with the world’s poor and marginalized as “the voice of the voiceless”.

In so doing, he circumspectly steered through the dangerous waters of political controversy. He knew full well the risks he ran in alienating not only the government by his outspoken attacks on the state’s injustices, but also the militant blacks, no longer ready to listen to a message of peace. It was a daunting challenge to uphold the Christian hope of liberation not only for the oppressed but also for the oppressors. Confrontation had to be matched with dialogue in the hope of gaining some alleviation from a rigidly biased government.

This balancing act was enormously helped by Tutu’s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1984. Allen suggests that the Norwegian selection committee was strongly influenced by the need to widen its horizons and to show its regard for campaigners for human rights as an integral part of the peace process. After the awful riots in Soweto and the repressive responses of the government, South Africa seemed to be the right place, despite the limited impact of the award being given to another black activist, Albert Luthuli two decades earlier. But there were several candidates for this honour. In Allen’s view, Tutu was chosen as the man whose political reputation was the least controversial. But certainly, as the Committee later acknowledged, their hope was that this presentation would help in the process of obtaining political change in South Africa.

The Nobel Prize gave Tutu a world fame, which he was soon to exploit. His growing prominence produced a sharply polarized reaction. His supporters around the world loved and admired him for his inspirational leadership. White supremacists regarded him as a dangerously turbulent priest, and even threatened him with death. But he himself increasingly saw himself as a reconciler, seeking the goal of racial harmony. Yet he could also appear in contradictory guises. “One week he makes a speech of Christian love and the next week he makes a speech which sends a shiver down the spines of white Christians”. Or as another witness recalled: “One minute he seems to be whipping up a riot. The next minute he has stopped it cold. And then he has his audience laughing”. Hence the somewhat ambivalent title of this book, which might seem to cast doubt on whether peace is best served by the kind of rabble-rousing at which Tutu excelled.

There can be no doubt that Tutu was genuinely outraged by the inflexible and discriminatory policies of the government. His speeches during the 1980s took on a note of angry defiance. But he stopped short of openly advocating violence, even at the risk of being dismissed as irrelevant. The courage needed to adopt such a precarious stance is well attested by his biographer. He relied extensively on his intuition, or, as he believed, the call of God. Yet he could also be willful and obstinate, much to the distress of those who had to work with him. But many of these faults could be ascribed to his innate anger against the oppressive system under which he lived.
It is still too early to say how much Tutu’s influence can be credited in bringing about the downfall of white supremacy rule in South Africa, or more particularly the prevention of bloodshed in the process. Certainly his commitment to inter-racial reconciliation became more pronounced as his responsibilities grew. His short tenure as Bishop of Johannesburg was followed by a decade as Archbishop of Cape Town. In both spheres he was much engaged in his pastoral role of seeking peaceful change as well as presenting South Africa’s case to sympathetic audiences abroad, especially in the United States. Allen gives a full description of Tutu’s largely unsuccessful attempts to persuade the U.S. government, particularly under Ronald Reagan, to impose punitive economic sanctions on South Africa. But among the more liberal sections of the community he was wildly popular Allen also pays tribute to Tutu’s solidarity with the blackvictims of violence by attending and speaking at innumerable funerals. He was appalled by the thought that South Africa might be engulfed in flames, and sought to moderate counsels of extremism. He remained a pastor whose humility, dedication and commitment was placed in the service of those suffering on the front line of injustice. His emphasis on the need for discipline in a non-violent struggle was remarkable. His ability to maintain such a stance, despite all the frustrations anad apparent lack of success, has to be seen as one of his main achievements.

The other notable achievement was his success in chairing the post-liberation Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His contribution was to lend his undoubted reputation to what might have been a highly divisive policy, or turned into a vindictive witch hunt. But Tutu managed to bring about a constructive atmosphere of reconciliation through amnesty of the wrong-doers, both black and white, and through forgiveness by those wronged. This was for Tutu a gospel imperative. He singled out witnesses who embraced forgiveness, and made their stories his leitmotif. Even if the chief politicians of white South Africa could not be brought to acknowledge how misguided their policies had been, the whole process can be judged to have had a salubrious, even redemptive effect. It has established a model which the world may well want to adopt elsewhere.

Following his retirement, Tutu wanted more time for meditation and prayer. But there were rival attractions, such as the innumerable invitations to speak, which were also lucrative. He enjoyed the limelight, the first-class air travel and the publicity his appearances evoked. But he also welcomed the opportunity to protest against injustice, or to expound the gospel in its contemporary, often political, setting. Allen entitles his final chapter: “The International Icon”, which aptly summarizes Tutu’s status in recent years. As the most prominent exponent of the power of moral leadership, Tutu embodies a Christian faith which is both active and yet “spiritual”. His vision of reconciliation which can heal society’s wounds and his embodiment of an African model for human community living in peace will surely be regarded as a legacy of great significance.

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1b) Andrew Chandler, The Church of England in the Twentieth Century: The Church Commissioners and the politics of reform, 1948-1998, Woodbridge. U.K.: Boydell Press 2006, xii + 542 pp. ISBN 978-1-84383-1655.

The Church of England is a venerable institution. Over the centuries it has garnered a treasury of riches, both spiritual and material. Andrew Chandler’s concern is with the latter, or more specifically with the management of the central funds held by the church during the latter half of the twentieth century. In 1948, the gifts of earlier benefactors and grants from Parliament, made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, were amalgamated and placed under the jurisdiction of a body known as the Church Commissioners. Their responsibilities were wide, even awesome. Their mandate was to provide support for the cure of souls in the Church of England. This was interpreted as the use of the proceeds of their endowments to support the clergy and make their ministry more effective. Chandler’s achievement is to chronicle the next fifty years of the Commissioners’ activities, on the basis of full access to the voluminous papers this bureaucracy created. The story is complex, at times dramatic, and full of intriguing surprises. Chandler’s style is incisive. His judgments are eminently fair. And he manages to keep his balance and not be overwhelmed by the amount of detail. This is not a book for beginners. A knowledge of the Church of England’s structures is required. But the book’s length is justified, not merely because the story has not been told before, but because the complexity and the interwovenness of the structures, both of church and state, need sufficient space to be understood.

In the aftermath of the Second World War and the Great Depression, all sections of English society needed a fresh start. The Church of England had its established place in society. It had a representative of the church in nearly every village – though many of them were pitifully paid. It had thousands of ancient churches – no fewer than 8000 dating from the later Middle Ages – most of which needed repair and upkeep. It had 43 dioceses across the face of England, each with its own bishop and cathedral – often scenically beautiful but also nearly bankrupt. The Church Commissioners were the only group which had an independent source of funds, and a bureaucracy based in London. Its leaders were drawn from the civil service, and their mindset was administratively bureaucratic. So they set to work.

Their authority derived from a Board, over ninety strong, on which were represented all sections of the church, also officials from the government, the ancient universities and sundry other interests. It was chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. Luckily for this fledgling experiment, the then Archbishop Fisher took a keen interest, was easily available, recognized the issues and encouraged the bureaucrats. Chandler obviously disagrees with those critics who were to denigrate Fisher for his “dull schoolmasterly” style and his lack of ecumenical vision. But in practical terms he was the right man.

The church after the war faced horrendous problems, all of which would cost money. The resources from past centuries had been carefully hoarded, but the Commissioners’ staff recognized from the first that more was required. They embraced the post-war climate of expansion, made shrewd investments in thriving companies and housing estates, sold off marginal and agricultural properties, and sought to become the model of capitalist enterprise – all for the benefit of the clergy and their dependents. But there were limits. The Board of Governors prohibited certain categories of firms, such as armament manufacturers, or the makers of alcohol and tobacco. Even if profitable, these would not be approved of. Their Assets Committee was composed of experienced financial experts, many of whom also sat in the Church Assembly, later the General Synod. All were convinced that modernization was the way to improve the lot of the poorer clergy, whose penury had been a scandal for generations. As a national body they sought to implement schemes for equalization of the clergy’s stipends, and particularly to help the poorer dioceses to make step by step improvements.

In earlier years, many parishes had been supported by lay patrons – usually local aristocrats – who paid the vicar’s salary and maintained the vicarage. But with the post-war economic changes, the increased mobility of the population, the rapid growth of new towns and the needs of the urban populations, such a system would no longer work. At the same time, the laity in the past had rarely been motivated to contribute themselves. The Church of England had pockets of wealth, to be sure, but this didn’t trickle down to those who needed it most. The Commissioners saw their duty in reforming the system for the benefit of those at the bottom. In four decades they were to be remarkably successful. Their income rose more rapidly than the often precipitous rate of inflation, so that they could keep pace with the frequent demands of their beneficiaries. Their expertise came to be seen as beyond criticism, and their confident pride in their own achievements was undoubted.

But as their financial gains grew, so did expectations. Chandler gives a perceptive picture of how their horizons expanded, to include the repair of dilapidated vicarages and the care of redundant churches. On the personnel side, they saw the justice of including part-time clergy and non-ordained church workers. Above all, they were persuaded that they should contribute to a much more generous pension scheme, nationally funded and covering widows and dependents. These projects involved vast, often incalculable commitments. But with their portfolio’s value rising rapidly, and with rents and dividends flowing in, the managers were confident the targets could be met. Their achievements and style of operation were practical and mundane. While theologians might paint images of the Christian church in rich colours and poetic eloquence, the Church Commissioners’ preoccupation with the ongoing realities of money and bricks and mortar demanded a less exciting vocabulary. Chandler’s success is that he describes these unspectacular but necessary facets of the Church’s life with clarity, and conveys to the reader the sense of successes achieved.

But they were not allowed to boast. The Church of England’s leaders felt the ambivalence of an ever-more wealthy church, even if the resources were humanely spent. Such worldliness seemed to contradict the Church’s spiritual calling. And in part this reticence was responsible for the absence of any effective scrutiny of what the Commissioners, or more specifically its Assets Committee, were doing. Chandler lays some of the blame for the lack of interest in such matters on the shoulders of the later Archbishops, particularly Ramsay and Runcie, whose godly leadership was more directed to the devotional and missionary tasks confronting the Church, But the Synod was also at fault. Its preoccupation with the affairs of the Commissioners was more political than financial. Contention over their investment policies in countries with despotic regimes, such as South Africa, generated a great deal of heated debate. Simplistic and sweeping remedies were often proposed without fully realizing the consequences. But how to sort out the ethical issues in the complex and interlocking world of international banking was not easy. And satisfaction was rarely gained, or consciences eased by the results.

During the 1970s the economic climate improved. The Assets Committee now began to look for more ambitious schemes. They were already one of the largest institutional investors and major landowners in the country. They now drew up plans to advance considerable amounts of their capital to undertake large-scale developments, such as office blocks, shopping malls and entertainment complexes, including several in the United States, whose future looked so promising. And if investment cash was short, they were ready to borrow it from the banks to seize the opportunities offered. These were speculative tactics, but at first they succeeded. In Chandler’s view, the managers became over confident in their own abilities, and had no one to warn them of the potential dangers. They were not dishonest, but were misled by their over-optimistic partners, particularly in the United States. In the mid-1980s too many of these ventures fell apart as the economy went into recession.

The last quarter of the book takes on a much more dramatic tone. Chandler portrays the agonizing dilemmas of the church authorities. For the first time in decades, their commitments outstripped their resources. The value of their portfolio took a staggering nose-dive, as did the income derived from it. There were loud screams of outrage that the Church should have “lostä so much of its inheritance. It was not enough for the bureaucrats to argue that this was only a temporary setback, and that recovery would eventually happen. In the meanwhile, the pensioners had to be supported, the clergy’s incomes sustained and the whole apparatus re-examined. Alarm bells rang in the Church’s General Synod, and even in the House of Commons, where some percipient members knew enough to ask penetrating questions about the Commissioners’ investment strategies. The feeling mounted that for too long the Commissioners had been a secretive bureaucratic body making major decisions on their own. Reform was called for.

This was only one part of a wider assessment of where the Church of England stood. It was undeniable that its membership had declined, its position in society had weakened, its faithful attachment to historic traditions was no longer as accepted by the general population. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Carey, was a resolute Evangelical, but even his example could hardly settle the question of the Church’s future. Internally there was much dissension, even turmoil. What should the priorities be? Each diocese had its own opinion, each affected group its own remedy. As Chandler rightly points out, it was debatable whether all this discussion achieved anything fundamental beyond the generation of piles of new papers and an increasingly oppressive quality of self-absorption. It did not get the Church Commissioners out of their old binds.

The Archbishops established a new Commission to review the whole situation. It sought to clear the Church’s decision-making bodies of ambiguity and confusion, principally by amalgamating them under a new Archbishops’ Council. As for the Commissioners, their functions would be cut down, their authority transformed and their assets subjected to a powerful Audit Committee. Not surprisingly these suggestions gave rise to a “cacophony of debate”.

This all took time to sort out, despite the pressure for speedy action. Not until 1998 did Parliament approve what the General Synod had passed, namely the establishment of the Archbishops’ Council as part of the National Institutions Measure of 1998. Its responsibilities included the allocation and distribution of the Commissioners’ revenues, but still gave priority to the care of souls in parishes where such assistance was most required.

It is still too early to say how this new arrangement will work. But Chandler’s masterly account of the fifty years of the Church Commissioners pays tribute to their successes as well as acknowledging their shortcomings. His assessments are eminently fair, all the more because he recognizes that the historian’s duty is not to become overwhelmed by the weight of archival records. This study will certainly stand the test of time. It will not need to be done again. The clarity of Chandler’s descriptions, and the generosity of his sentiments are significant contributions to the book’s merits. Above all, he makes the intricacies of the Church of England’s internal affairs available to the wider audience. This is no small feat, and it is one for which we can be most grateful.

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2) Hansjörg Buss, Ein Märtyrer des Evangelische Kirche. Anmerkungen zu dem Lübecker Pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink. In Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, Vol. 55, no 7/8, July/August 2007, pp. 624-644.

Martyrs are usually defined as those who have been put to death by wicked men or oppressive rulers as witnesses to their faith in Jesus Christ. In the early church, the fate of these men and women at the hands of the Roman or pagan authorities was recognized as exemplary sacrifices whose blood built up the church. So too, in later centuries, Protestant martyrs were found amongst those who perished at the stake after proclaiming their confidence in God’s mercy. But in more recent times, this concept of martyrdom has been questioned. Is a public confession of faith at the moment of death mandatory? Or is it enough that the martyr should have lived a dedicated life in the service of the Church? Is the nature of the so-called crime for which he or she was executed by orders of the state a relevant factor?

Such were the questions raised in the 1990s when the decision was taken by the authorities of Westminster Abbey in London to commemorate ten Christian martyrs of the twentieth century with sculptures placed on the Abbey’s west portico. Amongst them was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the only Protestant German to be so honoured. But few of those who today visit this memorial could know that Bonhoeffer’s reputation was, for many years, a matter of dispute. At the time of his death, and for at least thirty years, he was seen by many Germans, including prominent members of his own Evangelical Church, not as a Christian martyr, but as a political traitor. His association with the organizers of the 20 July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, his imprisonment and subsequent execution in April 1945, were regarded as evidence of his disloyalty to the nation and its leader. His punishment was therefore deserved. Attempts to vindicate his conduct, and to elevate him to martyr status were therefore wrong-headed. The majority of the church conservatives could not understand, let alone condone, such treachery from one of their clergy. Only in more recent years has this pejorative verdict been revised, and Bonhoeffer’s status been fully rehabilitated both at home and in the ecumenical community.

But there is another case which is still more troublesome. Hansjörg Buss has written a masterly article about the fate of Karl Friedrich Stillbrink, who was a pastor of the Lübeck Evangelical Church. He has the unique distinction of being the one and only Evangelical Church pastor in the Nazi era to be arraigned before the Volksgerichtshof (the People’s Court), the Nazi agency notorious for its fanaticism and brutality, convicted of treason and sentenced to be executed under the guillotine. He was accused of engaging in “seditious acts undermining the military forces, linked with treacherous behaviour towards the nation through encouragement of the enemy by listening to forbidden radio broadcasts” (Zersetzung der Wehrkraft in Verbindung mit landesverrätischer Feindbegünstigung und Rundfunkverbrechen). The Gestapo’s case was straightforward. In April 1942 Lübeck was heavily bombed. On the following Palm Sunday Stillbrink had declared in a sermon that this was a divine punishment for the sins of Lübeck, its people and its government. He was denounced to the Gestapo by a member of the congregation, and shortly afterwards was taken into custody, never to return. His trial, in June 1943, was held together with three Roman Catholic chaplains, also from Lübeck, who were accused of similar crimes. All four were sentenced to death and executed six months later in Hamburg. Stillbrink left behind a sick wife and three children.

As could be expected, Stillbrink’s execution was an embarrassment to his clerical colleagues. The majority of the Lübeck pastors belonged to the “German Christians”, and were fervent supporters of the Nazi regime. They were predictably shocked by Stillbrink’s behaviour, and regarded his punishment as deserved. Public figures such as the clergy were expected to uphold the national cause, especially in war-time. If anyone deliberately engaged in forbidden activities such as listening to enemy radio broadcasts, and spread these defeatist views around, they could expect little sympathy. In addition Stillbrink had already isolated himself from most of his colleagues amongst the pastorate. His reputation was that of a brusque and uncooperative loner, consumed with the importance of his own ideas. His previous history was complex and idiosyncratic. He had been appointed to a German-speaking parish in Brazil, but returned to Germany in 1933 convinced that the Nazi takeover was a blessing from God. However, he soon became disillusioned and was to make no secret of his hostile attitude. He had never shown any sympathy for the Confessing Church, and later began to argue in favour of the “German Church movement” which advocated a “blood and soil” theology and sought to purge all non-German elements from the church, especially the Jews. He was known to hold strongly antisemitic views. And finally he had never hidden his vocal opposition to the Nazis’ aggressive conduct of the war. In short, his opinions, both theological and political, veered from one extreme to another. At every twist he defended his views with incorrigible dogmatism. He was indeed an odd man out. There could be therefore no expression of support for such a character.

In May 1945 the church situation in Lübeck altered radically. The surviving members of the Confessing Church immediately took over control, and ejected a quarter of the clergy on the grounds of their Nazi sympathies. But what to do about Stillbrink? While the Catholic authorities in the city made large-scale plans for the commemoration of these victims of Nazi injustice, the Protestants were in a virtually insoluble quandary. Stillbrink’s heretical and disloyal behaviour had made him a most unsuitable person to be commemorated for the sacrifice of his life. Was he a martyr? Even now, sixty years later, the Church in Lübeck, now incorporated into the North Elbian Church, has its doubts. Public commemoration is largely left up to the Catholics, while Stillbrink is remembered only as one who gave up his life for the truth as he saw it.

In the wider German public, let alone in the ecumenical fraternity abroad, it is safe to say that no one has ever heard of Karl Friedrich Stillbrink. Buss’ contribution is therefore a valuable addition to the rounding out of local church histories and filling in previously ignored gaps.

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Every best wish
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

October is the month when Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving. Although this is now a secular holiday, it obviously looks back to the earlier religious services of gratitude which the first European settlers held, and also to the traditions of Harvest Festivals which acknowledged God’s bounty and loving kindness. In Vancouver we have had a magnificent September, so we too have every inducement to be unfeigned thankful for all the blessings we have received. I trust that many of you also may feel the same at this time of the year, and send my greetings to all five hundred of you, scattered across the globe from Poland to Australia. I am always glad to hear from you if you care to write, but please only to my private address: Jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Contents:

1) Book reviews:

a) Coupland, British Churches and European Integration

b) Schidtmann, German Catholic Students post-1945

c) Snape, God and the British Soldier

1a) Philip M. Coupland, Britannia, Europa and Christendom: British Christians and European Integration. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan 2006. ix + 284 pp. ISBN 1-4039-3912-8.

The contribution made by the Christian churches of Europe to the evolution of what has now become the European Union is little known. So Philip Coupland’s comprehensive and illuminating account of the role of the British churches, and especially of their leaders, in these developments over the past sixty years is a welcome addition to our knowledge. Little in their past had fitted these churchmen to be interested in the niceties of political structures or organizations, or to embrace ideas of European integration. Public and private morality not political science was their concern. The Protestant churches, created four centuries ago by individual rulers, had become established parts of their respective nations, providing religious validation for each state’s national identity. The Orthodox churches, at least until 1917, followed the same course. Only the Catholics could claim to belong to a supranational institution, but their image was heavily influenced by a nostalgia for the mediaeval past, when all of Europe belonged to Christendom, and owed allegiance to the Pope.

The traumatic and violent events of the early twentieth century, however, challenged European church leaders to reexamine their traditional loyalties. The catastrophes inflicted by two major wars were seen to be the result of unbridled national rivalries, heightened by political and totalitarian extremism. With the failure of the first attempts to solve these problems in the League of Nations, churchmen were obliged to recognize that they needed to think more deeply and `carefully about the problems of power, the nature of the nation state, and the role of the churches as the guardians of public morality. If the preservation of peace demanded an abandonment of traditional nation states, and their attendant ideological support systems, what should replace them? Should the reconstruction of Europe lead to new political structures rising above the existing national borders, and if so, what were the moral and ideological implications?

Philip Coupland provides us with a masterly description of the often intense debates conducted in Britain ever since 1939 on the subject of the future of Europe. These issues were an integral part of the planning for the post-war era. It was notable that leading churchmen, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, Bishop George Bell of Chichester, and the ecumenical strategist William Paton, joined in these debates with academics and politicians. They were convinced that the international anarchy they were living through could be attributed to the misalignment of political power and moral authority. The churches too needed to overcome their internal cleavages which had added to national animosities. What was now required was a reborn Christendom in a reborn Europe.

The leadership given by these churchmen assured that their contributions were taken seriously and that the voice of the churches has continued to play a small but significant part in the on-going deliberations and planning for the integration of Europe. Coupland’s research into the intricacies of the various schemes adumbrated in the immediate post-war years makes clear that the churches’ moral impetus was an important factor. The church leaders learnt from their experiences after 1919 that naive idealism and wishful thinking were not enough. They needed to face the issues of power seriously and precisely. And on this basis they were often listened to. For their part the politicians also began to realize the advantages of having the moral backing of the churches. As the Cold War began, so the value of the Christian churches’ ideological support was recognized by all.

In 1945 Britain faced a variety of political choices. She could seek to uphold and rebuild her status as a world power either in association with a reborn Europe; or by recasting, on some new co-operative basis, the existing structures of her Empire and Commonwealth; or she could place her future alongside the growing power of the United States in some new Atlantic arrangement. Each alternative had its advantages and more pertinently its bloc of followers among the British electorate. The churches were equally divided, and so called on their leaders to provide guidance and expertise. The result was a period of vigorous and lively debates. The factors of history and tradition had to be weighed against the pragmatic necessities of a now much impoverished economy. By the end of 1947, however, the early hopes were to be disappointed for a co-operative relationship with the Soviet Union in rebuilding a democratic Europe, and thus maintaining peace in a disarmed continent. Instead, the menace of Soviet aggression limited the options and swung the balance to supporting western Europe as a Christian alternative to Marxist totalitarianism. The British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, himself called for “a spiritual union of the west” and saw the churches as indispensable partners in propping up an anti-Communist front.

The British churches had not yet achieved a sufficient degree of ecumenical harmony to speak with one voice, let alone to agree on practical details for any integrative ideas of European unity. But the politicians were equally divided. Churchill spoke warmly about European unity but made it clear that Britain was not to be included. Britain’s destiny lay elsewhere. What form of unity the continental Europeans would choose was their affair. Britons would watch from the sidelines.

For its part, the newly-created World Council of Churches, based in Geneva but heavily staffed by British churchmen, was also involved. While opposed to totalitarianism, the WCC sought to avoid becoming the religious auxiliary of any western crusade against communism. At its first Assembly in 1948, even though the participants were mainly European survivors of German nationalism and its evils, the WCC did not support any practical plans for European political integration but concentrated on the need to avoid any nuclear Armageddon.

These debates threw up the issue of whether Christianity was to be seen as the cement of the new post-war Europe, as it had been of the old. Churchmen naturally held the view that the moral force of the Christian tradition should be seen as a paramount factor, even a prerequisite for any rebuilt structure. On the other hand, such arguments met with vigorous opposition from anti-Christian secularists, in whose eyes the churches had played a sinister role in the past, especially in support of such regimes as those of Hitler and Mussolini. In their definition of the continent’s future, only a non-religious pragmatism was necessary. The ownership of the idea of Europe between these two groups was to become a potent source of friction, which has continued unresolved until the present.

The dramatic political events at the end of the 1940s, with the Communist seizure of Czechoslovakia, the institution of the Berlin blockade, the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and even the outbreak of the Korean War – all served to hasten developments. Paradoxically however, British opinion about European Union became even more divided. Whereas the churches could unite in supporting the spiritual but vaguely-defined dimensions of the movement, there was little or no agreement on practical matters, especially on the extent of British involvement. By contrast, the initiative for unity was surprisingly seized by the Europeans themselves, particularly the French and Germans, who led the way by starting with small but significant steps of economic co-operation. The leading advocates were Catholics such as Robert Schumann, Jean Monnet and Konrad Adenauer, but the impetus was explicitly pragmatic not ideological.

The result was that in Britain the relationship became deeply ambiguous, almost schizophrenic in its varying moods of enthusiasm and engagement, disenchantment and retreat. Ultimately, however, the disinclination by both the Conservative and Labour Parties to be drawn into any European commitments which might compromise wider British interests blocked any more positive steps. As one commentator noted at the end of 1951: “Individuals from Britain have done much to advocate this idea, but when it comes to action, both national parties begin to lean backwards” (p. 128-9). Indeed, under Churchill’s second government, the opportunity to take a leading role in European integration was finally discarded. The British churches raised no protests.

Coupland’s explanation for these developments is that the cause of European integration had never enjoyed popular confidence. Despite having several notable churchmen, writers and political pundits on its letterhead, support for the European movement in Britain was never more than an inch thick. Protestant suspicions that this was essentially a Catholic power grab were still evident and fears were even expressed that Britain’s Protestant identity would be compromised. In the 1950s, other concerns, such as the need for nuclear disarmament, or the evils of apartheid, captured the churches’ attention and focused awareness elsewhere. And for many Anglicans, the residual ties to the British imperial heritage proved stronger. As the general secretary of the British Council of Churches stated in 1964: “We British feel we only belong in a very partial way to Europe. It is not only our island state .`. . It is that our lines have gone out to Canada and Nysasaland, to New`Zealand and India every bit as much as across the narrow strait of Dover” (p.138).

If such traditional ties barred the way to joining any western European union, the barriers to establishing good relations with eastern Europe were even greater. The temporary sentiment of sympathy for the Soviet Union during the war was quickly replaced by the pronounced hostility of the post-war years. From Moscow’s point of view, the projects for western European integration inevitably appeared as anti-Soviet in intent. So too did the creation of NATO in April 1949. As Coupland rightly points out:` “for the Kremlin to see this bloc as defensive rather than a political threat would have required a miracle of faith and optimism which neither Marxist teleology nor contemporary Russian history made possible” (p.155). In addition the only British churchman advocating for the Soviet Union was the fellow-travelling Dean of Canterbury, Hewlett Johnson. He enjoyed no support inside the Church of England, and less outside it. He was in fact the last ecclesiastic to share the illusion that Communism and Christianity were much the same thing. British Catholics were even more determined in their hostility. The containment of Communism was, for them, a sacred Christian duty.
In these circumstances, British churchmen cannot be acquitted of having contributed to the sterile political culture of the Cold War. Although only a few subscribed to the ideological extremism of American anti-Communists, those churchmen who sought to keep open the lines of communication to the churches under communist control found it difficult to establish credibility for their ecumenical and eirenic policies. For the majority of churchmen, prudence outweighed prophecy, and continued to do so until whole political scene changed in 1989.

The British churches therefore watched with hesitation the various moves taken in the 1950s and 1960s to promote European integration, and followed with even more ambivalence Britain’s belated attempts to join the Common Market after 1967. But by the 1970s the climate of opinion was more favourable than before. Churchmen were no longer persuaded that they need jealously guard British sovereignty from the ambitions of greedy foreigners. Instead the gradualist approach of small accretions gave the cause of European integration more credibility and hence support. No moral reasons could be found for continued abstention. Certainly the incredible success with which the western Europeans had dispelled the fateful legacy of their past played a significant role. International conflict between western European states was now unthinkable. Instead Europe could unite in undertaking new projects to bind up the wounds of the wider world. This was an agenda which all Christians could endorse.

Even if British Christians for the last thirty years have maintained only a sporadic interest in the growth of the European Union, nevertheless no significant opposition has been voiced. The most recent attempts to give the Union a specifically Christian character in the proposed constitution have failed. The current forces of multiculturalism are now too evident to allow any one element to claim such a spiritual pre-eminence. But Christians can live in a pluralistic political world, and in Coupland’s view should welcome the opportunity to do so. Their task is not to try and recreate a unified Christendom in Europe, but rather to stress the Union’s continuing and world-wide ethical responsibilities. At the same time, the churches’ watchful eye will have to be focused on possible misuses of the power now enjoyed by this multinational Union. In an era when the churches no longer enjoy their former political or cultural influence, such tasks will require the witness of resolute individuals conscious of their opportunities and responsibilities. In Coupland’s opinion, in an increasingly fluid and multicultural situation, the Christian churches can provide the foundations for a strong and stable community, which can encompass differences and set generous margins of tolerance. This would be a fitting fulfillment of Europe’s Christian heritage.

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1b) Christian Schmidtmann. Katholische Studierende 1945-1973: Eine Studie zur Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2006. 535 pp. Illustrations, bibliography, index. EUR 69.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-506-72873-9.

(This review first appeared on H-German on September 6th 2007, and is here reprinted by kind permission of the author).

The volume under review is a revised version of Christian Schmidtmann’s dissertation. It fills a gap in the research of postwar German Catholicism while at the same time confirming scholarly trends established by Mark Edward Ruff in The Wayward Flock (2005) and other scholars of postwar German Catholicism.

In the introduction, Schmidtmann explains that his work is not a “coherent, stringent narrative of Catholic students and their organizations, but a postmodern analysis of a constructed reality” (p. 15). Katholische Studierende is not a typical organizational history–although there is much of that in this work–but rather an analysis of the way in which German Catholic university students defined their relationship with their faith, their social organizations, and their church hierarchy. The work itself is free of explicitly postmodern analyses; indeed, in the body of the work, Schmidtmann does not address the “constructed” nature of reality. Instead, he offers an excellent analysis of the ways in which German Catholic university students took ownership of their faith in ways the Church hierarchy found difficult to accept. When the Church, by means of the Second Vatican Council caught up, so to speak, with the students, they were already moving on to a new understanding of their faith that almost made the Church seem irrelevant.

The volume is divided into four larger sections and numerous chapters and sub-chapters. The first three sections are arranged chronologically, while the chapters and sub-headings are arranged thematically or by groups of students. Schmidtmann examines students organized in the Catholic student fraternities, who made up the majority of all organized Catholic students, and then students in other organizations, as well as women as a special category of Catholic student.Schmidtmann notes that the share of Catholic students formally organized in fraternities or other groups never was more than a third of all registered Catholic university students. In this regard, the book’s title is a little misleading, since Schmidtmann leaves more than half of all Catholic students unconsidered. In part, this is caused by the author’s reliance on the records of the Katholische Deutsche Studentvereinigung (KDSE), the umbrella group of Catholic student groups in Germany, in the historical archives of the Cologne archdiocese. Still, one would have liked to have learned more about the majority of Catholic students and their attitudes towards ecclesiastical and civic roles as well as towards student life and academic preparation.

Schmidtmann notes the crucial role the Catholic Church played in the immediate postwar years at the local level. As the universities resumed classes, Catholic chaplains often provided both material and spiritual support to a generation seeking new values and goals. Quickly, however, a development began in the student body that Schmidtmann, without explicitly acknowledging it, sees coming to its fulfillment in the radicalization of the Catholic student movement in the late sixties and early seventies. Catholic students no longer considered mass attendance and participation in exclusively milieu-driven activities sufficient or even necessary markers of their Catholic identity. In the wake of National Socialism, living a Christian life meant bringing Christ into one’s everyday life and work. As Schmidtmann himself puts it, Catholic students did not seek a restoration of a pre-national socialist order, but rather something qualitatively new (pp. 43-45). Although recognizing that the postwar generation desired a qualitatively different Catholicism is not a new scholarly insight, Schmidtmann’s research shows how this desire for Catholicism in and of the world extended to Germany’s future Catholic elites.

Indeed, Schmidtmann’s more original contribution is to demonstrate the difficulties younger German Catholics faced in their dealings with the older generations in preparing for future leadership in economic, political, and social life. The older generation included the Catholic hierarchy, whose efforts to control Catholic student groups lasted almost thirty years, until the bishops gave up their attempts in the early seventies. Schmidtmann shows younger Catholics who joined the student fraternities reshaped these according to their own values, often to the dismay of the fraternities’ alumni. For example, in the early fifties, when university rectors banned uniformed fraternity members from marching in university processions for fear of resurrecting nationalist attitudes that fraternities had demonstrated in the twenties, the students insisted on wearing their colors as equal members in a tolerant, pluralistic society (p. 129).

Schmidtmann traces carefully how, during the later fifties and throughout the sixties, Catholic student groups began to struggle with the same conflicts that their fellow students faced: confronting the Holocaust, the Cold War, and so on. Catholic students, however, increasingly questioned the KDSE’s alignment with the Christian Democrats, much to the hierarchy’s dismay. By the early sixties, KDSE functionaries rejected grass-roots requests for open dialogue about the political roles of Catholic students in the modern world. Functionaries, even lay ones, blamed the students for declining participation in Catholic student group activities. This attitude was particular noticeable in activities aimed at female students, for whom the dominant message that a Catholic woman should prioritize her role as wife and mother over her academic prospects became irrelevant, if not off-putting. Students increasingly went their own way, organizing their own groups that relied on the hierarchy only for considerable financial support.

By the late sixties, Catholic student groups in Germany were fully in the throes of the early excitement surrounding the implementation of the reforms introduced at the Second Vatican Council. Sermons on Marxism were the least of the bishops’ concerns. By the early seventies, the bishops decided to withdraw their financial support from the student groups, which led to the demise of many of them.

At this point, Schmidtmann unfortunately leaves the reader without a fully developed analytical conclusion. Instead, the reader isoffered the fourth section of the work, in which Schmidtmann presents the results of his interviews with members of Catholic student groups from the period in question. It would have been useful had the analysis of these sources been integrated better into the main body of the work, rather than left as a separate section. Furthermore, Schmidtmann notes much of the relevant literature in the footnotes and in his extensive bibliography, but one wishes that he might have engaged the scholarly context more directly. One wonders what Protestant student groups were doing during the same time and about the same issues? Furthermore, as mentioned above, one wished that at least some statistical data had been included about the activities of those Catholic students who were not formally members of Catholic student organizations.

All in all, however, Schmidtmann has offered an important contribution to our understanding of postwar Catholicism and the transition of German Catholicism to the supposed age of the laity. The Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, Germany’s leading Catholic historical research organization, is to be commended for its increasing focus on postwar Catholicism and its movement beyond strictly institutional church history.

Martin Menke, Rivier College, New Hampshire

1c) Michael Snape, God and the British Soldier. Religion and the British Army in the First and Second World Wars. London/New York: Routledge 2005 xv + 315 pp. ISBN 0-415-33452 – 7 (Pbk).

Michael Snape begins his well-researched and sprightly account of religion and the British soldier by challenging the widely-held view that the de-Christianization of Britain in the last century was due to the violence and disasters of the world wars, particularly the first. Instead he seeks to absolve both the military leadership and the individual soldier from blame. He does admit that, over the century, there was an obvious decline in individual church attendance and a widening of the social oral parameters, including personal ethics. But he argues that Christianity continues to characterize British institutional life, from the monarchy down. Britain’s historic Christian identity, and the sacrifices made to uphold it by the soldiers of both wars, are stressed every year in well-attended Remembrance Day services. The military establishment, and its attendant chaplaincy branch, are still held with regard, even by those who are no longer observant Christians.

Snape acknowledges the corrosive impact of the post-1919 mood of remorse over the nationalism and blood-letting of the First World War, especially as interpreted by such writers as Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. Their attacks on the hypocrisy, self-serving and ultra-imperialism of the army brass, including the chaplains, found much resonance in the pacifist-inclined and repentant elite circles of the 1920s. But how representative were the examples they cited? Snape sets out to present a much more nuanced picture, which is sympathetic in tone both to the army establishment and to the individual soldier. The sources he uses were drawn from an extensive array of personal memoirs, reports and contemporary publications, which he has diligently researched to present an excellently rounded picture.

The British army has had a long tradition of adhering to an Erastian form of Protestant Christianity, when duty to God and King could be combined to form the essential bond of military service. Such feelings were only reinforced by the fact that virtually all of the regular army’s officers were trained in the public school variety of British Christianity, strong on personal morality and service to the community. Compulsory church parades stressed the morale-building unity of the army under God’s guiding hand, and drew upon whatever background its recruits may have had in popular hymn singing and prayer. In short,throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Christianity remained dominant in shaping the moral and spiritual horizons of the populace and hence of the vast numbers of young men who joined the army, whether as volunteers or conscripts.

Snape shows how, in both wars, several leading generals, such as Douglas Haig and Bernard Montgomery, were explicit and keen advocates of an evangelical form of Christian obedience. He rightly believes their faith in God’s leadership gave them added determination and consolation, though he admits it could also increase their sense of infallibility. In the aftermath of the first war, Haig’s confidence in God’s guidance came to be much criticized, whereas Montgomery escaped, largely because his successes in public relations and his victories were more evident. Whether either general’s religious devotion was taken as a role model by lesser ranks remains unclear. But certainly, their form of Christian commitment was widely seen as proof of the morality of the war effort, and of the conviction that God was indeed on Britain’s side.

The British army leaders regarded religion and religious agencies as important sources of inspiration and discipline. Indeed, as the recognition grew, especially in the second war, that large numbers of men needed to be inspired to fight rather than merely commanded, so the matter of morale came to be seen as vitally important. Both Haig and Montgomery saw the role of chaplains as essentially morale-builders, and encouraged those chaplains who best succeeded in such a prophetic and missionary task. Montgomery was himself a magnificent morale-booster who readily used Judeo-Christian imagery to claim that the Lord mighty in battle would be sure to give them victory. The evidence is that many chaplains followed his example, and were consequently appreciated by the men.

As Snape makes clear in his first-rate chapter on Command and the Clergy, the chaplains filled an important role in providing supportfor the soldiers, both collectively and individually. They developed a powerful moral and religious idiom, prepared the troops for battle, consoled and comforted them in their losses, and offered a vestige of dignity in death. Behind the lines, the chaplains, assisted by an enormous array of church-related philanthropic groups, led by the YMCA, were invaluable in providing recreational and rest facilities, looked after the wounded in hospital, and acted as welfare officers with the men’s’ domestic problems. The most famous of such services was given by Toc H and its ebullient pastor, Tubby Clayton. His witness was indeed to be carried forward and in part mitigated the post-war mood of disillusionment.

In attempting to assess the religious impact of such chaplaincy and welfare services, Snape points out that many of those who availed themselves were drawn from the church-attending constituency. But, particularly in the First World War, the devastating casualty rate wiped out most of that generation of young men and leaders. The introduction of conscription brought in a different sort of men with less enthusiasm and often less religious commitment. Nevertheless, in the extreme conditions of the battle front or in the grim condition of prisoner-of-war camps, religion and British loyalties combined as a moral force to enhearten and uplift.

Yet, as Snape admits, the conditions of war created moral problems, both collectively and individually, of a particularly intractable kind. The contradiction between the war’s conduct and Christianity’s call for love and peace posed for many men a crisis of credibility. As the brutalities of the wars escalated, so the belief in the “just war” theory, so rigidly held by their commanders, came to be subject to ever-increasing doubt. And the mounting toll of casualties and suffering confronted every soldier with the insoluble problems of evil and death. The chaplains’ responses to such challenges were closely observed, and any prevarication or evasion served only to discredit not only his ministry but the religion he supposedly served. The chaplains’ duty to uphold the image of a loving and merciful God presented many difficulties in the midst of ruthless and costly slaughter. Particularly the temptation to engage in hatred for the enemy had somehow to be resisted even in the bloody and bitter circumstances of battle. Many men lost their faith after such experiences.

But in Snape’s view, it was not so much the loss of faith per se as the widespread deterioration in moral standards which undermined the churches’ hold and esteem amongst the soldiers in the years of the two world wars. Indeed, the immoral behaviour of so many of their charges concerned the chaplains far more than the apparent disregard for church doctrine. The ubiquity of swearing, the widespread incidence of petty theft and gambling, the acceptance of drunkenness, the temptations of sexual promiscuity and its consequent venereal diseases, were evidence of the coarsening, even the brutalizing of a predominantly male society.

At a deeper level, the impact of mass slaughter in the trenches in the First World War, or the horrific effects of mechanized destruction in the second, did not affect religious attitudes as much as some commentators feared. In Snape’s opinion, the mores of Victorian religiosity remained largely entrenched in British Christianity. There was no widespread slide into atheism, even though the social and personal disruption of war-time experiences undoubtedly hastened the erosion of pre-war religious values.

Snape does not touch on the equally problematic issue of how British Christians could reconcile the readily apparent contradiction that both they and their enemy were praying to the same God The more militant zealots of the first world war easily demonized the enemy as anti-Christian, but in the second church leaders, such as Archbishop Temple and Bishop George Bell, were more circumspect. Snape could have said more about the costly lead such bishops gave in refusing to cut off hopes for a re-Christianization of Europe, including the defeated Germans and Italians, and their resistance to theories of their enemies’ collective guilt. The word reconciliation prevailed over revenge. This was an aspect of religious witness about which more needs to be said.

In conclusion, Snape contends that the experience of two world wars cannot be described as a secularizing influence in relation to British public life. Religion clearly remained close to the centre of British national consciousness. In terms of the historiography, Snape’s evidence goes a long way to refute the negative assessments of religion in army life, and expressly of the chaplains engaged in what he rightly sees as a difficult. but often greatly appreciated role. So too those church historians whose pacifist sympathies led them to regret the churches’ active involvement in the two wars should now be encouraged to revise their verdicts. Above all, military historians who are tempted to see the role of religion as an obsolete survival, and chaplains as dubious or peripheral figures, should also look again with greater sympathy and understanding. If this can be achieved, Snape’s forthright and excellently readable contribution will be vindicated.

JSC

With every best wish
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

 Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

Contents:

1) Book review: J. Peart-Binns, Biography of Bishop Richard Harries

2) Journal Articles:

a) Studies in Christian-Jewish relations, Boston College issue on Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
b) Daniel, The Children of Perestroika

3) Obituaries: Wolf-Dieter Zimmermann, Raul Hilberg, Cardinal Lustiger

4) Conference Report: Elisabeth Schmitz (1893-1977)
1) John S. Peart-Binns, A Heart in my Head. A biography of Richard Harries. London: Continuum 2007, 275pp. ISBN 0-8264-8154-X

Bishops have always been an integral part of the historic Christian churches. So the writing of the lives of these bishops also has a long tradition. Such biographies are not in the same category as the biographies of other public figures, such as politicians. Politicians can be attacked, their mistaken policies criticized, their actions denounced and their characters reviled. The tone of such books is often highly critical. But bishops are expected to be upright and estimable men. (I have yet to read a biography of a woman bishop). So their lives must be depicted in a positive, indeed uplifting, tone since they stand as encouraging witnesses in the continuing life of the Church.

This puts constraints on biographers. If they paint the bishop as a saintly figure who cannot err, their portraits become too smug and hagiographic. Or else they become unbelievably dull. However unworldly the bishop may have been, he is still a man with faults. How to describe him, warts and all, is a delicate task. It is particularly so when dealing with the leading figures in the Church of England. The Church of England has a venerable, tradition-ridden history of nearly five centuries, which has seen many outstanding bishops of great renown. But it is also a complex institution with its own peculiar features accrued from ancient days and lovingly preserved. Furthermore it has its own vocabulary derived from the past which is often baffling to the outsider. How many readers can tell the exact roles of a suffragan bishop, an archdeacon, a prolocutor, or a perpetual curate, let alone the functions of synod, a general synod or a convocation? But all these details have to be known to any episcopal biographer.

Fortunately John Peart-Binns is a skilled practitioner of this art, having written several similar books before. His latest biography of Richard Harries, the bishop of Oxford from 1987 to 2006, is a masterly account, written with obvious sympathy but not entirely uncritical. Its value consists in the nice balance between an assessment of the man and a description of the multitasked functions of a modern bishop. As such it presents a revealing portrait of how the Church of England recruits its leaders and how it uses their talents.

Traditionally the Church of England bishops came from well-to-do families and were educated at either Oxford or Cambridge. Richard Harries followed this pattern. His father was a senior army officer, and he himself first went to Sandhurst and served for a while in the signals corps. But then he realized that his true calling was to be ordained. He went to Cambridge for that purpose, and later to Cuddesdon, the seminary for top-flight ordinands. He served six years as a curate in a lively parish in Highgate, an intellectually-active suburb in north London, followed by a short spell at Wells Theological College, and a fine period as Vicar of Fulham in outer London on the River Thames. Peart-Binns tells us that Harries was a genial friend to his congregation, conducted the services with reverence and dignity, carried out the parish business efficiently, adopted a liberal stance on wider issues, and was generally “laid-back”. In short, he was the very model of a modern Anglican vicar.

But one thing, Peart-Binns assures us, he was not: ambitious. But what kind of a career pattern was he to follow? Like the army, the Church of England has a hierarchical ranking of its officers, though age and service do not necessarily ensure advancement. But as a long-established and wealthy institution, the church has a number of plum positions for the higher ranks of the clergy, many of them in highly attractive cathedral cities. But appointments to the highest ranks, such a bishops, are – or were until last month – made by the Prime Minister of the day. A list of three names is submitted, and the Prime Minister’s choice is then forwarded for approval by the Queen.

As in any large institution, and as readers of Trollope’s novels will know, pursuit of such positions – or preferment as it is called in church circles – is not unknown. Indeed Peart-Binns declares: “Preferment is a contagious disease in the Church of England. Each week the ecclesiastical newspapers provide possibilities and hope: bishops retire, die or are translated to other sees; archdeacons advance to mitred status; deans resign or die. . . The temptation is for elevation-addicts in clerical collars to meet the ‘right people’, especially those who are deemed to have influence in high places.” It was by this rather arcane system that Harries – to his considerable surprise – was invited to become Bishop of Oxford at the end of 1986.

Oxford is one of England’s largest dioceses, encompassing over two million people in nearly six hundred parishes. For centuries the diocese has had an integral, if sometimes problematical, relationship to the University. Its cathedral is, in fact, situated within the walls of one of the Colleges. Despite having three area bishops under him, the diocesan bishop has an enormous burden of responsibilities. He naturally has to play a large part in the wider concerns of the Church, to attend synods, boards and endless committees, for many of which he has to commute to London at least once a week. In due course, his seniority will earn him a place on the bench of bishops in the House of Lords, where he will be expected to attend regularly and speak on issues of special concern.

Little prepares a clergyman to become a bishop. The majority are drawn either from the limited horizons of a local parish or from the classrooms of a university professorship. There are serious drawbacks. The bishop can no longer enjoy his regular weekly worship in his usual parish. He is cut off from the pastoral care of individual parishioners. He has to administer a large diocesan office, and is frequently called to make speeches or even give sermons on subjects about which he has virtually no time to prepare. If he has interests in such wider areas as the ecumenical or mission fields, he can be sent to far-off countries to represent the Church of England at such international gatherings. His frequent absences can and indeed do take a toll on his family life. Each bishop has therefore to consider carefully what should be his priorities, and where his individual contribution can best be made.

One of Harries’ main achievements in Oxford was the leadership he provided on the subject of Christian-Jewish relations. As a student, he had heard a lecture on this subject given by James Parkes, the maverick Anglican cleric who had long been ignored by his colleagues. Parkes had begun his pioneering attempts to overthrow the traditional anti-Judaic prejudices amongst Christians already in the 1930s. His vigorous campaigns to rescue Jews from the Nazis’ clutches, and to support the cause of the state of Israel, had however largely fallen on deaf ears. Not until the 1970s, when the events of the Holocaust and the complicity of the Christian churches in the underlying cause of antisemtiic intolerance had been extensively discussed, were Parkes and his teachings vindicated. Harries was particularly impressed by the need for a theological reassessment of Judaism in Christian eyes. Following the lead given by the Second Vatican Council, he consistently approved of the campaign to overcome Christian antisemitism, and in particular the long-held view that the Jews deserved their centuries of ill-fortune because they had put Christ to death. Similarly, he opposed the centuries-old calumny that Christians had superseded the Jews as God’s Chosen People, or that Judaism was nothing more than a religious fossil, as the noted Oxford scholar Anold Toynbee had once proclaimed. Instead Harries shared the opinion that Jews were the older brethren of Christians in the faith, and that Christians should acknowledge how much of their liturgical and prayer lives were drawn from Judaism. Repentance and a resolve to purify the Christian faith of all negative attitudes towards Judaism was and is a vital concern.

In 1987-8 Harries led the way in preparing guidelines on Jewish-Christian relations for the whole Anglican communion, showing how these should be more positively treated and stressing the need to see Judaism as a living and on-going religion, people and civilization. An understanding of Judaism, he stated, is fundamental to Christianity’s own self-understanding. In 1988 he was one of the hosts of a major international conference in Oxford, where several hundred scholars of the Holocaust debated the role of the churches during these traumatic events. (As one of the participants, I can recall Harries’ inspiring words of welcome).

Such a liberal stance was, however, to cause Harries difficulties. On the one hand, evangelicals were offended because the idea of mission to the Jews was deliberately omitted. On the other hand, many Anglicans were not prepared to follow the logic that affirmation of Judaism should include support for the state of Israel. Particularly after the turbulence of the 1967 War, when the new state of Israel seized possession of the entire West Bank, many, indeed most, churchmen were ready to support the people of Israel theologically, but at the same time supported their opponents, the Palestinians, on humanitarian grounds. Harries’ book After the Evil: Christianity and Judaism in the Shadow of the Holocaust (2003) is a masterly summary of the issues, and a strong plea for mutual understanding.
Harries obviously excelled as a convenor, facilitator, and chairman of numerous groups engaged in inter-church or inter-faith dialogue. But overcoming entrenched stereotypes of other people’s religions is a time-consuming business. Inevitably the task was not completed by the time he retired. More rewarding was his support for the ordination of women. He was sure the Church would be greatly enriched by the ministry of women, and so it has proved. By the time of his retirement in 2006, the diocese of Oxford had more than two hundred women priests. Their gifts have been much appreciated.

In 2003 Harries became involved in a far more controversial issue which was to overshadow the remainder of his episcopate. After some consultations, he decided to offer the post of the area bishop of Reading, part of his diocese, to Dr. Jeffrey John, an open advocate of the view that homosexual relationships should be accepted and blessed by the Church. There was an immediate outcry from conservatives and evangelicals. Unwisely, in Peart-Binns’ view, Harries chose to ignore this, believing that once Dr. John was installed, it would all blow over in a couple of months. How wrong could he be?

The timing of this announcement was also unfortunate. Only a week later, the Canadian bishop of New Westminster, Michael Ingham, authorized a liturgical rite for the celebration of gay and lesbian covenants in six parishes in the Vancouver area. And ten days after that, the first openly gay priest was elected Bishop of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church of the United States.

`In Oxford the response to all these startling measures was a wave of outrage and protest by many of the senior clergy and laity, who sought to defend the traditional orthodoxy of Christian doctrine on this matter. Similar opinions were voiced around the country. The Archbishop of Canterbury himself stepped in and ordered Dr. John’s nomination to be withdrawn, much to Harries’ dismay. But the issue itself was not resolved, and indeed, as Peart-Binns rightly notes, the Archbishop of Canterbury continues to be mired in the morass of fruitless controversy concerning human sexuality.

Writing the biography of someone still alive is a problematic venture. But Peart-Binns knows how to avoid the pitfalls. One of his difficulties was that Harries was and is a shy man, who did not display his emotions, and could appear cold. So Peart-Binns is left on occasion to speculate about the bishop’s motives, or why he should have taken up one or other of the many endeavours in which he became involved. On the other hand, Peart-Binns knows the Church of England expertly from the inside. So he always gets the context right, and is able to assess and evaluate Harries’ numerous contributions. As a bishop, Harries was not an institutional manager. Nor was he a remote scholar, even of theology. Rather he was a motivator, whose wide human sympathies were matched with an eirenical and ecumenical Christian understanding of society and history. Oxford was therefore an ideal place for such a diocesan leader. And this is why he was also so successful in the House of Lords. It was a notable acclamation that, after he retired in 2006, the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, made him a life peer, and hence enabled him to return to the House of Lords. He still sits there on the cross benches, independent of party but intensely loyal to the tradition and the institution. This can also be taken as an appropriate assessment of Harries’ place in the Church of England in the later twentieth century. We owe Peart-Binns our gratitude for this intelligent and perceptive biography.

JS

2) Studies in Christian-Jewish relations, an electronic journal published at Boston College, marked the 100th aniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s birth with a special issue dedicated to his memory. The following are abstracts of important articles, which can be downloaded in their entirety from the Boston College site:: http://escholarship.bc.edu/scjr

a) Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Relevance for Post-Holocaust Christian Theology

The Protestant theologian and resistance figure Dietrich Bonhoeffer is often portrayed as a hero of the Holocaust, particularly in popular films and literature. Much of the academic literature also assumes a clear relationship between his concern for the Jewish victims of Nazism, his theology, and his participation in the German resistance. A counter-narrative exists, however, which focuses on the anti-Judaism in his writings and contends that a heroic portrait of Bonhoeffer is simplistic and that Bonhoeffer’s significance for post-Holocaust thought is tenuous at best. A key problem here is the volume and complexity of the relevant historical and theological material. The thesis of this essay is that only an in-depth understanding of his theology as a dialogue with the historical complexities of his times can offer insights into his potential contribution to post-Holocaust thought. This essay will review the most salient theological and historical points, focusing on two often overlooked topics: 1) his actual role not only in the German resistance but in the larger ecumenical resistance network that helped Jews across Europe and 2) his own very concrete reflections on guilt, leading to his conviction of the necessity for a different self-understanding among Christians — and a different kind of Christianity — in a post-Nazi world. His experience under Nazism and in the resistance led to a radical reformulation of Christian identity that may be relevant for post-Holocaust theology.

Victoria J. Barnett, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

b) The Church Struggle and the Confessing Church: An Introduction to Bonhoeffer’s Context

This article traces the German church struggle form 1933 to 1945 with particular emphasis on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s role. Although Bonhoeffer’s status in the world today is that of a great theologian and courageous opponent of the Nazi regime, he did not have much of an impact on the direction of the Confessing Church during the church struggle. Bonhoeffer’s striking albeit marginal role in the German church struggle and his inability to affect significantly the direction of the Confessing Church was due to many factors, including his young age, his liberal-democratic politics, his absence from Germany from October 1933 to April 1935, his vacillating and at times contradictory positions on central issues, his radical theological critique of the Nazi state, his friendship with and family ties to Christians of Jewish descent, and ultimately his willingness to risk his life to destroy Hitler’s regime.

Matthew D. Hockenos, Skidmore College

c) Bonhoeffer, the Jewish People and Post-Holocaust Theology: Eight Perspectives; Eight Theses

Over the years since his death, dozens of interpreters – scholars, novelists, dramatists, filmmakers and devotional writers- have offered a variety of perspectives on Bonhoeffer’s relationship to the Jewish people. This article describes eight distinct, though overlapping and largely compatible, perspectives on this question. It then identifies the author’s own view of this important relationship by presenting and developing eight theses. The author concludes that the desire to portray Bonhoeffer as a guide for post-Holocaust theological reflection is based less in Bonhoeffer’s theological achievements than in the compelling nature of his witness and the dire need for Christian heroes from the Nazi era.

Stephen R. Haynes, Rhodes College

(This article is a shortened version of Haynes’s latest book The Bonhoeffer Legacy, reviewed in this Newsletter, September 2006).

b) Wallace Daniel, The Children of Perestroika, Two sociologists on religion and Russian society, 1991 – 2006 in Religion, State and Society, June 2007

Professor Daniel’s review of the resrearches undertaken by two Russian sociologists surveys the changes in Russians’ religious understanding in the last fifteen years. The rapid breakdown of boundaries and ways of thought in Russia lend themselves to new sociological investigations by these two leading scholars, Furman and Filatov. They provide data for the sudden reinvigoration of interest in religion at the end of the 1980s, the time of ‘sobering up’, 1996-1997, and the present relationship between faith and power, 2000 – 2006. While sociologists look at church affairs through different lenses than historians, nevertheless, in Daniel’s view, they have important perspectives to contribute. Daniel is the author of The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia: Texas A and M University Press, College Station, Texas 2006.

3) Obituaries:

a) It is with regret that we learn of the death in May of Wolf-Dieter Zimnmermann at the age of 95. Zimmermann was one of Bonhoeffer’s early students, and participated in eager theological debates in the period before and after the Nazi seizure of power. He later went on to become an “illegal” Confessing Church pastor. In the immediate post-war years, Zimmermann played a significant role in the Unterwegskreis, a group of reform-minded clergy in Berlin’s Protestant churches who sought to incorporate Bonhoeffer’s ideas, even though he was no longer with them. Zimmermann made many contributions in the area of radio and television communications during his long and productive career in the service of the Berlin church. He is probably best known to English-speaking readers through the four chapters he contributed to the book I knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which he edited along with Ronald Gregor Smith.

I am glad to tell you that one of the few surviving contemporaries from that era, Rudolf Weckerling, now 97, is still active and busy writing and speaking about his friend Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He recently wrote to me asking for a reprint of one of my articles so that he could translate it into German!

b) We are also sorry to hear of the death in August of our colleague, Raul Hilbert, emeritus professor of the University of Vermont, one of the leading scholars of the Holocaust. His book The Destruction of the European Jews (1961) with its thorough examination of the documentary sources, and its sharp analysis of the perpetrators, the victims and the bystanders, established the standard for all such accounts of this terrible tragedy. In our field he will be remembered for his epigrammatic comment on the complicity of the Christian churches in the tragic history of the Jewish people:

The missionaries of Chrstianity had said in effect: you have no right to live among us as Jews. The secular rulers who followed had proclaimed: you have no right to live among us. The German Nazis at last decreed: you have no right to live.

c) We also learn with sorrow of the passing of the French Cardinal Lustiger who was converted from Judaism as a boy, and later rose to become Cardinal Archbishop of Paris. He contributed much to the improvement of relations between Christians and Jews, and upheld the view that, where Christian anti-semitism existed, it was a consequence of the infidelity of Christian nations to Biblical Judaism. In 1997 he prompted his fellow French bishops to issue a public apology for their predecessors’ failure to protest theVichy government’s anti-semitic laws – a move which strengthened the campaign led by Pope John Paul II.

4) Conference Report: A forgotten heroine of the Church Struggle: Elisabeth Schmitz.

In the historiography of the Church Struggle against the Nazis, very little has ever
been written about the role of women. One of those largely forgotten figures was Elisabeth Schmitz, who was the author of a significant memorandum in 1935/6 on the plight of the Jewish Christians in Germany, and who urged the Confessing Church to take measures in their defence. Unfortunately all too little was done to follow up her suggestions, and her initiative was forgotten. Recently a conference on her life and work was held in Berlin under the auspices of Prof Manfred Gailus. The following report was kindly supplied to us by Hansjorg Buss, the archivist of the North Elbian Church in Kiel.

Tagungsbericht: “Konturen einer vergessenen Biographie: Elisabeth Schmitz (1893-1977)”, (7.05.2007, Berlin), veranstaltet von der Evangelischen Akademie zu Berlin in Zusammenarbeit mit Professor Dr. Manfred Gailus, Berlin. – Erstveräffentlichung der Langfassung: ULR: http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/tagungdsberichte/id=1592

Elisabeth Schmitz wurde 1893 als Tochter eines Gymnasialprofessors im hessischen Hanau geboren. Von 1914 bis 1920 studierte sie, anfangs in Bonn, seit 1915 in Berlin Geschichte, Theologie und Germanistik. Ab 1929 arbeitete sie als Studienrätin in Berlin-Mitte, bis sie 1935 ob ihrer ablehnenden Haltung gegüber dem NS-Staat versetzt wurde. Nach der Einführung neuer Lehrpläne, in denen die Erziehung zum “nationalsozialistischen Menschen” als Bildungsziel ausgegeben wurde, und unter dem Eindruck der Reichspogromnacht bat sie Ende 1938 um ihre Versetzung in den Ruhestand, der ihr unter Einschluss einer Pension auch gewährt wurde. Nach Kriegsende trat Schmitz in Hanau erneut in den Schuldienst und arbeitete bis zu ihrer Pensionierung im Jahr 1958 als Lehrerin. Am 10. September 1977 starb sie unbekannt und vergessen im Alter von 84 Jahren.

Die historische Bedeutung von Elisabeth Schmitz liegt vor allem in ihrem Eintreten für die so genannten “nichtarischen” Christen und anderen “rassisch” Verfolgten. In Korrespondenz mit führenden Theologen und Repräsentanten der Bekennenden Kirche (BK) setzte sie sich wiederholt für eine konsequente Stellungnahme der evangelischen Kirche zur “Judenfrage” ein. Einen hervorragenden Platz nimmt dabei ihre ausführliche Denkschrift zur “Lage der deutschen Nichtarier” aus dem Jahr 1935/36 ein, in der sie ausführlich die innere und äußere Not der verfolgten Juden beschrieb und eine scharfe Anklage gegen das Schweigen der Kirche, insbesondere der BK, führte. “Die Kirche macht es einem bitter schwer, sie zu verteidigen.” Daneben setzte Schmitz sich auch konkret und mit hohem persönlichen Einsatz für verfolgte “Nichtarier” ein, denen sie Zuflucht in ihrem Wochenendhaus gewährte oder die sie mit Geld und Nahrungsmitteln unterstützte.

Elisabeth Schmitz gehört zu jenen Frauen, die nach 1945 über Jahrzehnte in Vergessenheit geraten sind. In einleitenden Worten hoben sowohl Ludwig Mehlhorn (Evangelische Akademie) als auch Gailus hervor, dass dieser beklagenswerte Zustand der Vergessenheit ein Anlass für die Tagung war, um die “biographischen Konturen dieser in Berlin weithin unbekannten Frau” nachzuzeichnen. Dass dieses Anliegen auch im Interesse der Kirche liege, bekräftigte Präpstin Friederike von Kirchbach im Namen der Evangelischen Kirche Berlin-Brandenburg-schlesische Oberlausitz.

In einem ersten Beitrag gab die Pfarrerin a.D. Dietgard Meyer — sie kannte Elisabeth Schmitz seit ihrer Schulzeit und publizierte 1999 erstmals den Nachweis ihrer Urheberschaft der genannten Denkschrift — eine persänlich gehaltene Einführung zu Leben und Werk. Sie hob die Konsequenz ihrer Handlungen hervor, die sie in einer zutiefst christlich-humanistischen Grundhaltung begründet sah. Auch nach Kriegsende habe Schmitz ihre Weitsichtigkeit bewiesen und unter Einbeziehung der Opferperspektive eine schnelle Aufarbeitung der NS-Zeit, vor allem die Erforschung der Ursachen angemahnt.

Manfred Gailus setzte sich anschließend mit der wissenschaftlichen Ausbildung von Elisabeth Schmitz auseinander. Er wies dem Historiker Friedrich Meinecke, vor allem aber dem bedeutenden Kirchenhistoriker Adolf von Harnack einen prägenden Einfluss zu. Im liberal-aufgeklärten Umfeld der beiden republikanisch eingestellten Professoren bildete Schmitz letztendlich jene ethische Wertebindung aus, die auch in der NS-Zeit für sie handlungsleitend sein sollte. Zuletzt machte Gailus die starken theologischen Interessen Schmitz` geltend. Nur auf Grund der Tatsache, dass ein theologisches Examen für Frauen zu dieser Zeit keinen “Brotberuf” bot, entschied sie sich für das Lehramt.

Zu dem beruflichen Werdegang und Schmitz` Wirken als Lehrerin sprach anschließend der Berliner Schulpsychologiedirektor Rolf Hensel.

Nach der Mittagspause referierte die Journalistin und Pfarrerin a.D. Marlies Flesch-Thebesius über die Korrespondenz von Elisabeth Schmitz mit Karl Barth, die hauptsächlich in den Jahren 1933 bis 1936 stattfand. Während Schmitz schon im April 1933 ein kirchliches Eintreten gegen Antisemitismus forderte und schwere Vorwürfe gegen die evangelische Kirche erhob, war für Barth die “Judenfrage” nur eine Teilfrage in der Auseinandersetzung mit dem NS-Staat. Eine äffentliche Stellungnahme lehnte er ab. Neben der Korrespondenz sind auch mehrere Besuche bei Barth in seinem Schweizer Exil dokumentiert. Hier wies die Referentin darauf hin, dass der theologische Gedankenaustausch mäglicherweise ein Umdenken bei Karl Barth ausgeläst bzw. dieses bestärkt haben kännte, das ab 1936 auch in seiner wissenschaftlichen Arbeit Niederschlag fand.

Im Anschluss referierte der Jurist Gerhard Lüdecke über einen überraschenden Dokumentenfund – eine Tasche von Elisabeth Schmitz mit persänlichen Dokumenten – in den Kellerräumen einer Hanauer Kirchengemeinde im Jahr 2004. Von besonderem Wert ist eine handschriftliche, mehrfach überarbeitete Fassung der Denkschrift, die letzte bestehende Zweifel an ihrer Urheberschaft endgültig beseitigt.

Die Vorgeschichte der Denkschrift beleuchtete der Berliner Kirchenhistoriker Hartmut Ludwig in einem instruktiven Beitrag. Er warf die These auf, dass es sich bei Denkschrift, um eine (falsch verstandene) “Auftragsarbeit” für die Berlin-Brandenburger BK gehandelt habe. In seiner Analyse unterstrich er nochmals deren weitreichenden theologischen Ansatz: Schmitz bezog sich nicht allein auf getaufte “Nichtarier”, sondern weitete ihre Forderungen nach kirchlicher Solidarität auf alle Verfolgten aus. Hierin sah Ludwig einen der Gründe, warum Schmitz’ Denkschrift durch die BK kaum rezipiert wurde.

Martina Voigt von der Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand beschäftigte sich in ihrem Beitrag “Vernetzungen und Parallelbiographien” mit zwei Frauen, die in engem Kontakt mit Elisabeth Schmitz standen: Die Biologin Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Schiemann und die Studienrätin Dr. Elisabeth Abegg. Vorbehaltlich weiterer Untersuchungen machte Voigt deutlich, dass alle drei aus unterschiedlichen Positionen heraus sich in Schrift, Wort und auch der konkreten Tat für verfolgte “Nichtarier” eingesetzt haben und auf Grund ihres Engagements berufliche Nachteile bzw. den Verlust ihrer Stellung in Kauf nehmen mussten. Religiäse Beweggründe scheinen hier trotz großer Unterschiede — Schiemann engagierte sich innerhalb der BK, während Abegg der Minderheit der Quäker angehärte — bei ihren Entscheidungen ausschlaggebend gewesen zu sein.

Im letzten Beitrag beschäftigte sich der Bonner Theologe Andreas Pangritz mit den persänlichen Konsequenzen der Reichspogromnacht vom 9./10. November 1938. Auch er betonte die Radikalität ihrer Forderungen, die sich fundamental von anderen kirchlichen €ußerungen abhoben. So mahnte Schmitz eine namentliche Fürbitte für alle verfolgten “Nichtarier” an, unabhängig von ihrer Religionszugehärigkeit oder der konfessioneller Bindung. Zudem forderte sie die finanzielle Unterstützung der bedrängten jüdischen Gemeinden und die Bereitstellung von Kirchen für jüdische Gottesdienste. Mit ihrer Betonung der jüdischen Wurzeln als unabdingbarer Grundlage des Christentums ging Schmitz auch in theologischer Hinsicht weit über die gängigen zeitgenässischen Interpretationen hinaus.

Auf Grund der fortgeschrittenen Zeit verzichtete Manfred Gailus auf seinen resümierenden Beitrag zum Thema “Nachkriegszeiten: Die große Vergessenheit und späte Erinnerung”. Zugleich kündigte er einen Tagungsband mit sämtlichen Beiträgen an und stellte eine Folgekonferenz in Aussicht. Er verwies zudem auf die Notwendigkeit der Erarbeitung einer wissenschaftlich fundierten Biographie dieser “unbesungenen Heldin par excellence”. Es bleibt zu wünschen, dass beide Vorhaben einen ähnlich erfolgreichen Verlauf nehmen werden.

Wishing all of you in the northern hemisphere, a profitable return to your teaching duties,
and hoping you all had a good holiday, despite the turbulent weather conditions in so many parts of the world.
Sincerely,

John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Contents:

1) Reactions to Dick Pierard’s review of The Theocons
2) Book reviews:

a) K-J Hummel and C Kösters, Kirchen im Krieg
b) ed. Austin and Scott, Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples

3) Rolf Hochhuth Reassessed

a) Feldkamp, Hochhuth Exposed
b) Ritzer, Alles nur Theater?

4) New publication

a) Representation of the Holocaust in Literature and Film
b) Mark Noll, What happened to Christian Canada?

1) a) William Doino writes: As a long-time reader of your newsletter, which I greatly admire and appreciate, I just finished reading the June issue, especially the reiew of Damon Linker’s book, The Theocons. With all due respect, I think this review falls well short of your journal’s usually high standards. The review, like the book itself, is not a thoughtful Cjhristian critique, but rather – in my opinion – a diatribe – overly-partisan, and marked by caricature. And it is written as if the only thoughtful Chriistians in the world are those who agree with the reviewer. For a much different persepctive on Fr Richard John Neuhaus and his journal First Things – and one I think far closer to the truth – I suggest two other reviews, one by Michael Uhlmann in the Claremont Review of Books (http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1342/article_detail.asp), or alternatively Melinda Henneberger’s review from last October in Commonweal.

1b) Bob Doll writes: I found the latest issue, June 2007, particualrly enlightening and useful. Thank you for the work you continually do with these compilations.

2a) Karl-Joseph Hummel and Christoph Kösters, ed., Kirchen im Krieg: Europa 1939-1945 Paderborn: Schöningh, 2007, 614 pp.

In the last several years, historians and theologians have increasingly turned their attention to the role of the European churches during the Second World War. For decades, the relationship between Christianity and antisemitism and the churches’ response to the Holocaust dominated historical controversies. The newer emphasis on the churches’ conduct between 1939 and 1945 marks, in fact, less of a new beginning than a return to questions raised already in the late 1950s by the American sociologist, Gordon Zahn – what was the relationship between the European churches and the Second World War?

This extensive collection of essays, edited by Karl-Joseph Hummel and Christoph Kösters of the Kommission für Zeitgeschichte in Bonn, is the fruit of an interdisciplinary and interconfessional conference, “Kirchen im Krieg, 1939-1945” held in October 2004 at the Catholic Academy in Bavaria, an event sponsored by the Kommission für Zeitgeschichte and the Marburger Lehrstuhl für Kirchengeschichte under the aegis of Jochen-Christoph Kaiser.

The size and scope of this collection alone is impressive. The 23 individual chapters draw upon a variety of historical and theological methodologies, examine more than one dozen countries and look at both the responses of both Protestant and Roman Catholic (but unfortunately, not the Orthodox) churches to the war. As such, this volume provides a sweeping survey of the current scholarly landscape, as many of the contributors stem from younger scholars.

It is, of course, impossible to summarize 23 individual chapters in a brief review. The volume itself, however, is divided into four major parts. In the first section, the reader will find excellently nuanced summaries of the responses by the churches in nations that were occupied by the Nazis, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Norway, France, amongst others. The chapter by Lieve Gevers, a Belgian historian, is particularly well crafted, comparing the responses by the Roman Catholic and Calvinist churches to the persecution of Jews, the deportations and the larger occupation in the Netherlands and Belgium, two nations whose religious and historical traditions differed significantly. She shows that the protests against the Jewish deportations in the Netherlands were far more vocal than in neighboring Belgium, but the Roman Catholic’s quieter approach in Belgium paradoxically succeeded in rescuing more Jews.

Part II of this volume contains three chapters that examine the changes in what might be termed war theology. Wilhelm Damberg’s chapter argues that the church returned to its traditional understanding of war, which maintained that war is a punishment for having fallen away from God. Subjects had a duty to obey authority. . The experiences of the Second World War, however, shattered this traditional understanding, and many Catholic leaders were at a loss to give any sort of convincing meaning to this six year period. In his chapter, Jochen-Christoph Kaiser noted a significant transformation in Protestant theology as a result of the experiences during the Third Reich. Many Protestants learned that they could no longer rely on the generosity or neutrality of state authority, a shock which indelibly influenced debates after 1945 over how to restructure the Evangelische Kirche Deutschland (EKiD).

The third and most extensive section of this volume, which includes ten chapters, analyzes Christian society in Germany during the war. Individual chapters focus on the seizure of monasteries, on the leadership of the Catholic military chaplains, the use of forced laborers in the Protestant and Catholic churches, and gender relations in the Protestant church during the war, the churches’ efforts for Christians of Jewish descent, amongst others.

Part IV turns to an area which has become the focus of significant historical attention during the last ten years – memory and the creation of what have been called ãcultures of memory.ä Of the four chapters, the most extensive Ð nearly sixty pages – was penned by Karl-Joseph Hummel. This chapter “Geschichtsbilder im deutschen Katholizismus,” focuses on the controversies since 1945 regarding the relationship between the Roman Catholic church and National Socialism. Hummel is clearly very critical of many of the critics, as he points out the dark side of many of their own positions and personalities. Walter Dirks, the co-founder of the Frankfurter Hefte, published an article on July 7, 1933, claiming: “(the youth) recognizes with passion the historical task in National Socialism, which has moved closer by one epoch with the overcoming of liberalism and liberal-parliamentary democracy.” Finally, Franziska Metzger’s concluding chapter on Catholic discourses of memory about the Second World War in Austria and Switzerland successfully integrates newer approaches of cultural history into this volume.

For scholars in the field, this volume will be indispensable, as it brings together some of the most important research of the last decade. It is also worth pointing out that this volume contains a brief summary in English, adeptly translated by the German-American historian, Christof Morrissey.

Mark Edward Ruff, Saint Louis University

2b) Edited by Alvyn Austin and Jamie S. Scott, Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples: representing religion at home or abroad. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. 330 pp. $65.00 cloth, $29.95 paper.

This review appeared in Church History, Vol. 75, March 2007, and is reprinted by kind permission of the author.
Lately, Canadians have become ashamed of their missionary past. High profile court cases involving abuse by missionaries in institutions and in Aboriginal communities, or the public reaction to an exhibit on Canadian missionary work in Africa at the Royal Ontario Museum in the early 1990s, tended to give Canadians the sense that they knew all there was to know about Christian missionaries in Canada’s past, and what they knew was that they were bad. Fortunately scholars, like those whose work is included in Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous People: Representing Religion at home and abroad, have begun to bring this past out of the dark corners of Canadian consciousness and to subject it to more probing and nuanced analysis.

This collection of essays shows that the history of Canadian missions is both more complex and more significant internationally than many recognized. The book is divided into three sections dealing with home missions, the foreign field and material histories of mission work. Certain themes dominate, including the involvment of Christian missions with imperialism, the tensions surrounding indigenizing Christianity and the prominence of Canadian missionaries on the world stage. This latter point, along with the quality of the scholarship presented herein, and the importance of its subject matter, recommends this volume to a broad audience.

The role that missionaries played in imperialism is an obvious theme and one that emerges most clearly in the first section on home missions to Aboriginal people. Here is where many Canadians feel most uncomfortable and the first three articles, by Scott, Rutherdale and Edwards will confirm that discomfiture. Collectively, these articles explain the discursive formations of missionary work to Native Canadians that led to the invasive practices of residential schooling and forced cultural change. Gail Edwards’ article, in particular, explores the limits of the category ‘missionary’, one that excluded Aboriginal converts, even (or Edwards argues especially) when they married white missionaries and were the principal representatives of Christianity to their own people.

Neylan’s article in the same section, offers another view one from an Aboriginal perspective that simply refused to accept the Christian mantel that colonialism wore on the North Pacific coast. Rather, Neylan’s subject, Tsimshian Christian Arthur Wellington Clah, challenged the local agent of government control by asking: “Did you ever see a Christian take land from another Christian, and sell it, not letting him know anything about it?” Incorporating Christianity into Tsimshian culture, Clah drew conclusions about the Christianity of white people that defied the standard rhetoric of savagery and redemption.

Indigenizing Christianity was a process that preoccupied missionaries the world over. In written texts, the tendency remained to make the white missionary the hero and the convert the subject of shifting descriptors serving the needs of larger missionary narratives. Margo Gewurtz’ article analyzes the story of “Old Blind Chou” and reveals how gender and race were deployed to shape the story of Christian missions by ‘writing out’ the agency of women as well as that of non-white converts. By contrast, Brouwer’s article foregrounds the work of women but complicates our view of that work. While some women missionaries still embraced ‘motherhood’ as their activating metaphor (in this volume Rutherdale demonstrates this among missionaries in Canada’s arctic), Brouwer’s subjects, working between the two world wars, rejected the restrictions of ‘women’s work for women,’ and focused on preparing Christian men to claim power within emerging Indian, Chinese and Korean nations. Ironically, this connection between masculinity, indigenized Christianity and nationalism may have paved the way for secularism’s ascendancy. Austin’s study of Edward Wilson Wallace in China and A. Hamish Ion’s analysis of Christian missions under Japanese Imperialism furthers our understanding of the complex connections between Christianity and nationalism under imperialism.

For some time historical studies have explored the dialectic between headquarters and periphery in missionary circles, how policy developed in Toronto was transformed in remote locations like Kitamaat or Pangnirtung, Kangra or Vanuatu. The place of missionary narrative in shaping public opinion in Canada about imperialism, subaltern or indigenous peoples, however, remains largely a mystery. The third section of this volume, which examines ethnographic research and collecting by missionaries, offers opportunities to examine this question. Articles by France Lord, Barbara Lawson and Arthur Smith study ethnographic collections, demonstrating how these artifacts display the complexity of mission contact zones. France Lord shows how Jesuit collecting was oriented towards their own history and has had a profound impact on the writing of Canadian history. Lawson and Smith using Oceania collections offer us intriguing glimpses into how gendered colonial agendas influenced the science of collecting. The last chapter by Linfu Dong on the remarkable scholarship of James Mellon Menzies brings home the international importance of Canadian missionary work. Menzies’ archaeological study in Chinese history, language and theology, though directed to finding a monotheistic Chinese past, established scientific archaeology in China.

Canadian missionaries engaged in important work abroad. Whether establishing medical schools and teaching hospitals, systems of education or making important discoveries in Chinese history, Canadian missionaries worked with post-colonial agendas as well as with imperial ones. Interestingly, this appears to be less the case at home with Aboriginal people than on the international stage but further work may reveal more parallels. Nonetheless, the complexity of missionary relationships with subaltern peoples, with the creation of knowledge around gender, colonialism and nationalism indicate that far from a parochial preoccupation, Canadian mission history has much to say to an international audience.

Mary-Ellen Kelm, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia

3) Rolf Hochhuth Reassessed The following two contributions are paired in their reassessment of the German playwright Rolf Hochuth and his impact on literary and political culture in the 1960s.

a) Michael Feldkamp, Hochhuth Exposed.

This article appeared in the German edition of In The Vatican, and is here translated by John Jay Hughes, and reprinted by permission of the author

For over 40 years Rolf Hochhuth has been surrounded by scandal. He drew attention most recently with his expression of sympathy for the British historian and Holocaust denier, David Irving, in the journal Junge Freiheiton 18 Feb. 2005, managing to provoke indignation not only from the Chairman of the Central Jewish Council in Germany, Paul Spiegel (who called Hochhuth “an intellectual arsonist”), but also from Hochhuth’s fellow travellers on the Left.

Hochhuth’s notoriety stemmed from his provocative attacks on well-known and respected public figures. Examples from his often mediocre plays and stories are his charge that Winston Churchill arranged a murder, his attacks on the pharmaceutical industry, superficial tirades against “Ossies” [inhabitants of the former East Germany] in Hochhuth’s work “Wessies [West Germans] in Weimar,” slanders against business consultants in “McKinsey,” and back in 1978 his claim to have “toppled” the Minister-President of Baden Württemberg, Hans Filbinger. Hochhuth has repeatedly used self-invented legends to manipulate public opinion. After the fall of the Berlin wall we learned that at least in the case of Hans Filbinger, Hochhuth had used reports from the secret police of the German Democratic Republic. Now we learn that in his 1963 work, The Deputy, which catapulted its previously unknown author to worldwide fame overnight, Hochhuth used forged reports from Eastern European police sources.

The Pope’s “Silence”

Hochhuth’s play about Pope Pius XII and his supposed silence about Nazi Germany’s murder of millions of Jews won its author a place in the canon of the twenty most important literary works in German. ãThe Deputy,ä first performed on Feb. 20th, 1963, and published simultaneously in book form, sold over a million copies in the original German. It continues to shape the prevailing negative image of Pius XII as a man who, out of indifference to European Jews, fear of Communists, and for financial reasons, not only remained silent, but remained a cowardly spectator of Adolf Hitler’s murder of Europe’s Jews.

When Hochhuth made these charges, he said that he was availing himself of an author’s ãliterary license.ä He also claimed that he had received documents from priests in the Vatican, whose names he had promised not to disclose. A claim of this kind opens the door to unlimited speculation. Even Pius XII’s’ longtime secretary, Fr. Robert Leiber SJ, was charged with betrayal. Others suspected that Bruno Wüstenberg, a German priest in the papal Secretariat of State whom Pius XII had refused to promote because of homosexual tendencies, had sought revenge.

Soviet propaganda

One can speculate endlessly about Hochhuth’s informants. But his charges were clearly not new. They had been launched long ago by communist propagandists in the Soviet Union. As early as the winter of 1944-45, shortly before the end of the Second World War, the Soviet newspaper Pravda called the Pope a fascist and an ally of Hitler. On Jan. 9, 1945 Hitler’s Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, called such charges “completely laughable.” A few months later the Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow charged that the Vatican had protected Nazi Germany and engaged in light hearted attempts to evade its responsibility for crimes against the Jews. Finally historians in the Soviet Union, under a pretense of objectivity, made selective use of the sources, which they interpreted in one direction only.

It was in the interest of the Soviet Union to undermine the open and worldwide regard for the Pope and the Catholic Church, in Germany especially. For it was Pius XII who, as Nuncio in Germany after its loss of World War I, helped the new Weimar democracy to achieve worldwide respect. Later, as Pope, he rejected the charge of German collective guilt for the Second World War and the Holocaust. And he intervened successfully with the victorious western allies to free Germany quickly from the bonds of military occupation, so that it could get on its feet economically and emerge from political isolation.

The Vatican’s reaction to Soviet slanders was prompt. In 1959-1960, at the very time that Rolf Hochhuth was in Rome carrying on his research for The Deputy, Alberto Giovannetti, a priest on the staff of the papal Secretariat of State and subsequently papal observer to the United Nations in New York, was permitted to make use of extensive documentation for his book, The Vatican and the War, which was published in Italian in 1960 and the year following in German. He emphasized the Pope’s efforts for peace, which had brought him worldwide recognition during his lifetime, as well as thanks from the State of Israel and from numerous Jewish organizations both in the United States and in Europe.

The year 1963 brought a radical change. Hochhuth’s dubious and scurrilous charges are still being discussed today. In the summer of 1963 the Vatican pointed out “numerous similarities” between Hochhuth’s play and “the usual communist propaganda against the Church and the Pope,” among them the charge of a “common crusade with Hitler against the Soviet Union,” and the claim that the “enormous economic power” of the Holy See and the Jesuit order explained their abandonment of Christian moral principles. The West German government expressed its “deepest regret” for such attacks on Pius XII, since he “had on various occasions protested racial persecution by the Third Reich and had thus saved as many Jews as possible from the hands of their persecutors.”

Pope Paul VI summoned a group of scholars who produced a collection of more than seven thousand documents which is a model of its kind. The work remains essential reading today for anyone studying Vatican policy during the Second World War. However, scholarly works find little interest in comparison with ever new slanders. In 1999 John Cornwell used falsified citations to convict Pius XII of anti-Semitism. In 2002 the American historian Suzanne Zucotti made use of one of Hochhuth’s fictionalized scenes in a scholarly book. In 2003 Daniel J. Goldhagen, then a faculty member at Harvard, disseminated further historical falsehoods through the book market. These authors made no secret of their hope that their “revelations” would block the beatification of Pius XII. It has still not been possible to conduct a serious scholarly discussion of these matters “sine ira et studio.” Debate remains on the level of politics.
On January 25th, 2007, Mihai Pacepa, a former double agent for the Romanian secret service and the American CIA, who for several months had been reporting about his activities in the National Review, disclosed that immediately after Pius XII’s death the Soviet KGB had launched an extensive campaign of defamation against the Pope, in order to undermine his moral authority. Pacepa wrote that he was put in charge of this effort, and that he had sent Romanian agents to the Vatican disguised as priests. They gained access to the archives and copied documents which, carefully falsified, were made available to Hochhuth, who was then conducting research in Rome.

The widespread infiltration of West German journalists and the distribution of forged documents by the KGB and the security police of East Germany, was known long before the fall of the Berlin wall. Pacepa’s report is wholly credible. It fits like a missing piece in the puzzle of communist propaganda and disinformation aimed at discrediting the Catholic Church and its Pontiff. That Paceba is unable, after forty years, to remember just which Vatican archive was the source for the falsified documents does nothing to destroy his credibility.

For more than forty years the Pope’s “silence” has supplied headlines for the media. The same media however have never questioned Hochhuth’s silence, even though he still refuses to identify his Vatican contacts. While Hochhuth is clearly concerned for his own good name, and that of his Roman informants, he has never hesitated to defame others. But his readers should know that his readiness to tamper with historical veracity is by now well established. They can’t claim that they haven’t been warned against such a long-term manipulator of the facts. Scholars know well that the only answer to bad history is better history. But it certainly seems that Rolf Hochhuth has had a long innings with his inferior product.

Michael Feldkamp, Berlin.

b) Nadine Ritzer, Alles nur Theater? Zur rezeption von Rolf Hochhuths “Der Stellvertreter” in der Schweiz, 1963/1964 (Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2006).

The German playwright, Rolf Hochhuth, is back in the news. After the Miniserpräsident of Baden-Württemberg, Günther Oettinger, gave a eulogy for his predecessor, Hans Filbinger, earlier this month, Hochhuth attacked both Oettinger and the deceased Filbinger, calling Filbinger a “sadistic Nazi,” who had carried out death sentences after the formal cessation of hostilities in 1945. In 2006, the conservative American journal, The National Review, printed an article by the Rumanian defector, Ion Mihai Pacepa, alleging that the work that launched Hochhuth’s career, The Deputy, was the product of a KGB disinformation campaign that had also succeeded in smuggling hundreds of documents out of the Vatican archive and library. While the reality in both cases is most likely much less dramatic (the accounts of both Hochhuth and Pacepa contain significant inaccuracies and are likely to be largely untrue), they underscore the pivotal role that Hochhuth played in cementing German discourses on “overcoming the past,” or Vergangenheitsbewältigung, to use the German term.

In this highly polarized and ideological context, the wonderfully sober and balanced first book by the young Swiss historian, Nadine Ritzer, comes as a welcome relief. This readable account is refreshingly free of polemic. Focusing on the reception of Hochhuth’s play, The Deputy, in Switzerland in 1963 and 1964, this book casts Hochhuth neither as a heroic crusader seeking to expose the truth about the Catholic past nor as a craven villain beholden to ideological interests. Instead, her book represents one of the first recent significant efforts to historicize the entire Hochhuth controversy. In his play, Hochhuth alleged that Pope Pius XII maintained an icy silence in the wake of the Holocaust. Ritzer places the charged discussions surrounding this work and these claims within the larger contexts of the discussions regarding Christian anti-Judaism, the confrontation of Catholics with the recent past during the years of National Socialist hegemony in Europe and finally, the coming to terms with a darker chapter in Swiss history, the turning away of more than 4000 Jewish refugees between 1942 and 1943 under the pretext that “the boat is full.”

To many North American readers unfamiliar with the history behind Hochhuth’s production, it might seem something of a stretch to devote an entire book to the reception of Hochhuth’s play in Switzerland, a nation that has often lived in the shadow of its larger German speaking neighbor to the north. After all, there are sundry books and articles devoted to the controversies that Hochhuth’s play engendered in Germany, many penned in the immediate wake of these controversies between 1963 and 1965. Ritzer is, of course, Swiss, her book the result of her Magisterarbeit written at the bilingual university in Fribourg. Her archival materials newspaper articles, the records from the relevant theater companies and not least the papers of Hochhuth himself all stem from her home country.

But as Ritzer shows, there are compelling historical reasons to look at the response to The Deputy in Switzerland as a critical and until now, long overlooked and overdue chapter in a much larger saga. Following its initial run in Berlin beginning in February 1963, The Deputy was next produced on the stage in Basel long before performances in Paris, London and New York or even in other German cities. It was also produced in the smaller locales of Zofringen, Olten and Aarau. The militancy of the protests before and during some of the productions in Basel rivaled and even dwarfed those of Berlin. Young Catholics set off stink bombs during the productions and picketed the theater waving inflammatory signs. One Italian group even threatened the bomb the theater, the synagogue and Free Masons’ Center, claiming that all three groups stood behind the production in a perfidious conspiracy. As Hochhuth was to comment in February, 1964: “I experienced the largest and also the most angry demonstrations against the Deputy in Basel, but at the same time such kindness, so much heartfelt sympathy as at no other location.” Finally, Hochhuth relocated to Switzerland, where he still resides, to coincide with the production of The Deputy, a move which triggered intense debates about his residency permit.

Ritzer convincingly shows how the often bitter Catholic reaction to The Deputy reopened, at least temporarily, longstanding fissures in Swiss society. This play by a German Protestant reawakened Catholic anxieties regarding the Kulturkampf, which was waged not only in Germany but also in Switzerland, in which the Catholic minority in the second half of the 19th century had been subjected to repressive and illiberal measures by the liberal Protestant majority. The Deputy reactivated the Catholic milieu. Catholic leaders took pains to appear as a united, monolithic front, even if Catholic public opinion was not completely in accord on how to respond to this apparent danger to confessional peace in Switzerland. But at the same time, she makes clear that this call to arms was little more than a convenient device with which to rally the faithful, since the specter of a renewedKulturkampf bore little resemblance to the realities of Swiss society in the 1960s, an era in which the religious subcultures were eroding.

Perhaps most interesting for American readers is the skillful manner in which she weaves the reception of The Deputy into the discussions about the complicity of the Swiss government in the genocide. Hochhuth’s work moved the focus of the public away from the perpetrators to those of the bystanders, and it was only logical that in Switzerland, not only Pius XII but the Swiss nation would come under critical scrutiny. The Swiss government refused to rehabilitate Paul Grüninger, the Swiss policeman from St. Gallen who had procured papers for more than 1000 Jews to entire Switzerland, a step which triggered critical debate once Grüninger was honored abroad for his efforts. The official rehabilitation took place only in 1995, 23 years after his death.

Early in her work, Ritzer provides a brief sketch of earlier attempts to examine the Catholic past under National Socialist rule. She correctly points to the pivotal role played by individuals such as Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde and others in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This is a subject worthy of monographs in their own right and to date, at least three historians, including this reviewer, are preparing significant scholarly treatments of the examination of the Catholic past in the Federal Republic. But Hochhuth was the culmination of the process, the individual who left his indelible thumbprint on the discussions for the next forty years. In this respect, Ritzer’s adept historicization of Hochhuth’s work serves as a pioneer work for others charting these turbulent waters.

Mark Edward Ruff, Saint Louis University

4 a) One of our members, Marc Raphael, of the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, draws attention to a new book he has edited: The Representation of the Holocaust in Literature and Film. This is a second volume, and is published by the Department of Religion, College of William and Mary. See http://www.wm.edu/religion/publications.php

b) The perceptive article “What happened to Christian Canada?” by Mark Noll, which appeared in Church History last June (see note in December issue of this Newsletter) has now been republished as a separate pamphlet by Regent College Publishing. This insightful essay makes timely observations about the shifts in church support in Canada, and would be most valuable as a study guide for church discussion groups everywhere. The ISBN is 1-57383-495-X, see www.regentbookstore.com, 5800 University Boulevard, Vancouver B.C. V6T 2E4 Canada

With all best wishes for the summer holidays
John Conway jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Contents:

1) Book reviews

a) Linker, The Theocons: Secular America under siege
b) ed. M. Gailus and W. Krogel, German Protestants and Nationalism 1930-2000.

2) Journal articles:

a) Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, Volume 19, no.2, 2006
b) Steigmann-Gall’s response in the Journal of Contemporary History

1a) Damon Linker, The Theocons: Secular America under Siege, New York: Doubleday, 2006. 272 pp. $26.00.

We are deluged with books on the religious right. A few of them are serious studies but most are journalistic polemics, and they acknowledge that President George W. Bush has consciously blurred the line between religion and politics. He courts the support of the “Christian” right for his policies, proudly affirms its “social issues,” channels government funds to its charities through his “faith-based initiative,” and has drawn heavily on its personalities and academic institutions to staff his administration. The election of 2004 seemed to cement this process. Conservative Republicans gained firm control of the Congress and Mr. Bush was busily packing the Supreme Court and Federal judiciary with like-minded jurists. The U.S. seemed inexorably headed toward becoming a one-party state.

Many feared that the conservative resurgence with its close ties to the religious right would result in a theocratic system. Damon Linker’s insightful study of the sources of the Bush administration’s religious advocacy helps us to understand what had happened. Most importantly, he shifts the focus from the televangelists, megachurch preachers, and religion-political pressure groups. Although the Protestant “evangelicals” played an important role in the rise of theological politics, its overtly religious policies and rhetoric actually were inspired by an ideology derived from Roman Catholicism. It provided Bush and the Republicans with a nondenominational language and morality that had a wide appeal and did much to unify the conservative movement. They also recognized the ideology’s potential to permeate American political culture and eventually bring an end to the separation of church and state as we have known it.

In other words, a comprehensive religious ideology drives the Bush administration, one that Linker labels “theoconservatism.” It maintains that a secular society is both undesirable and unsustainable, since the US for most of its history was a thoroughly Christian nation. It was founded on absolute moral principles that made no sense outside of a religious context. However, liberal elites in the nation’s educational system and media were responsible for the secular drift of American culture since the 1960s, as they consciously foisted their corrupt views on the nation. The practical results of this “secularization” are a sex-saturated popular culture, the collapse of important social institutions such as traditional marriage, a separation of law from religiously-based moral principles, and the rise of a “culture of death” (abortion and euthanasia). The only solution is to bring America “back” into line with the moral strictures of biblical religion, and this can be achieved through the political process, by the election of “Christian” politicians who will advance religion in public life, by conservative judicial appointments, constitutional amendments, and popular referenda like anti-gay marriage initiatives.

Linker traces how 1960s radicals like Richard John Neuhaus and Michael Novak moved to the right in the 1970s and early 1980s. Novak theologically grounded democratic capitalism in a synthesis of conservative Catholic religiosity, liberal democratic politics, and free markets. Neuhaus adopted a revolutionary populism that called for the overthrow of the nation’s liberal secularist elite in the name of the traditionalist Judeo-Christian piety supposedly affirmed by ordinary Americans. This would be achieved by “reclothing” the “naked public square” with a reinvigoration of religiosity, one that adopted the “public language of moral purpose.”

With the publication of The Naked Public Square in 1984 and its enthusiastic reception both in the evangelical and Roman Catholic community (in the interest of full disclosure I should state that I was one of the few Christian scholars at the time who called attention to its specious argumentation in a review published in the New Oxford Review), Neuhaus had equipped the newly politicized Protestant evangelicals (i.e., the new Christian right) with arguments and rhetoric that enabled them to contend more effectively for political power. In the next decade the theoconservatives engaged in a stealth campaign to build the institutions and form the alliances that would provide them with the means to capture cultural and political power and ultimately propel their ideas into the White House. They founded magazines, institutes, and think tanks as well as secured reliable funding for their work, allied their movement with powerful conservative forces within the Catholic church, and engineered a potent theological and ideological alliance between these conservative Catholics and Protestant evangelicals. To put their ideas into action they followed the example of their ideological cousins, the neoconservatives, and piggy-backed on the neocon network.

A critical event was the founding of the journal First Things in 1990 (Linker was its editor from May 2001 to February 2005 and thus brings an insider’s perspective to the discussion. He would now appear to be distancing himself from his former colleagues). Also significant was attracting Catholic neocon George Weigel to the cause and Neuhaus’ own conversion from Lutheranism to Catholicism and reordination as a priest in 1991. They made excellent use of Pope John Paul II’s opposition to abortion to attract both evangelicals and Catholics, and through careful diplomacy carried on by both Neuhaus and evangelical luminaries Charles Colson and Carl Henry, a manifesto entitled “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: A Christian Mission for the Third Millennium” was issued in 1994. It set out an ambitious political agenda using concepts, terms, arguments, and rhetoric derived from the writings of Neuhaus, Weigel, Novak, and the current pope.

The ECT joined together the intellectual heft of Catholicism with the zealous religiosity of the evangelicals, overcame much of the mutual suspicion and animosity of the two communities, and empowered the ideological agenda of the theocons. Catholics and evangelicals became allies and friends in an “ecumenism of the trenches” (Colson) in the culture war against moral anarchy. Their vision of a political future in which the most orthodox and traditionalist Christians would set the public tone and policy agenda was to find fulfillment in the election of George W. Bush.

Then follows a long and fascinating account of the rise of the theocons to political prominence and their enormous influence within the Bush administration. For one thing, they were staunch supporters of the “war on terror” and George Weigel in particular marshaled arguments from the “just war” tradition to give Bush the moral and theological encouragement to launch the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Interestingly, theological ethicist Stanley Hauerwas spectacularly dissented from the war policy and resigned from the First Things masthead (not mentioned in the book), but his was the lone voice of reason within the theocon community. Related to this (also not mentioned) is the statement issued by 60 prominent neocon and theocon intellectuals in February 2002, “What We’re Fighting For: A Letter from America,” that enthusiastically defended the war on terror and the response in May signed by 103 German academics, “A World of Justice and Peace Would Be Different,” that pulled no punches in rebutting it. It is strangely reminiscent of the German and British academics and theologians who hurled statements at each other in 1914 justifying their countries’ action in World War I. How little our modern-day conservatives have learned from history.

Linker has much more to say about the theocons’ activities that space limitations preclude discussing, but fortunately they were not able to achieve their entire agenda. Bush’s fumbling administration and the Democratic electoral resurgence in 2006 have put major roadblocks in the way. He also suggests ways to combat the movement. He exposes its numerous historical fantasies, shows how its rationalistic moral absolutism is incapable of being the unifying ideology for a liberal democratic nation, and explains how theoconservative public religion damages the American nation and its place in the world. Moreover, it is harmful to the church as well, as its moral ambition gets corrupted by political ambition and the political authorities will manipulate Christians to gain their support

He concludes with a statement that every reader should take to heart: “The privatization of piety creates social space for every American to worship God as he or she wishes, without state interference. In return for this freedom, believers are expected only to give up the ambition to political rule in the name of their faith.” It is what he labels the liberal bargain that secures social peace and freedom for all Americans.

Richard V. Pierard, Hendersonville, North Carolina

1b) Manfred Gailus and Wolfgang Krogel (ed.), Von der babylonischen Gefangenschaft der Kirche im Nationalen: Regionalstudien zu Protestantismus, Nationalsozialismus und Nachkriegsgeschichte 1930 bis 2000. Berlin: Wichern Verlag, 2006. Pp. 550.

Behind the long German title of Gailus’ and Krogel’s edited volume hides a fact-filled, detailed study of regional German church history from the beginning of the Nazi era until the end of the twentieth century. (Both men are historians: Manfred Gailus at Berlin’s Technische University, and Wolfgang Krogel at the archive of the Provincial Church of Berlin-Brandenburg.) The 19 substantive contributions, framed by an excellent Introduction and Epilogue by Manfred Gailus (who seems to be the intellectual driving force behind this volume), all fall into the particular field of “Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte.” A literal translation would render this phrase as “contemporary church history,” but that would misname its specific character: It refers to the study of the impact of Nazism on the German (Protestant) churches, including the postwar history of church and theology.

What distinguishes Von der babylonischen Gefangenschaft from earlier studies is its focus on the history of different regions, or better, on the specific contexts of the various Protestant Provincial Churches (Landeskirchen). It offers the reader an in-depth view of the complex interactions between divergent groups and individuals within each “Landeskirche” and the way in which these groups vied for power and influence during the Nazi dictatorship and the postwar years. This volume moves away from the earlier grand designs that tried to present the entire “Kirchenkampf” (Church Struggle) across the national spectrum (e.g. Meier and Scholder). What is emphasizes instead is the importance of finely-tuned local and regional histories.

It needs to be stated that in the last few decades German scholars have produced a plethora of local and site-specific church studies. Yet, most have remained unnoticed because they are buried in small regional publications, booklets, or newsletters of archives, churches and professional organizations. Von der babylonischen Gefangenschaft makes their accumulated findings available to an interested public. The material is worked into narrative overviews for each Provincial Church, deepened by new and original research, and generously footnoted for the experts. For this accomplishment alone, the present volume is worth having in one’s library.

The long German title which, at a first glance, rather looks forbidding indicates a refreshing departure from more conventional “Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte.” The main title, “Of the Babylonian Captivity of the Church in Nationalism,” suggests a close link between German nationalism and Protestant mentality. Substantiating this thesis is part of a larger project Manfred Gailus has been pursuing (see, for example, his Protestantismus und Nationalsozialismus [Köln 2001] and his co-edited volume with Hartmut Lehmann, Nationalprotestantische Mentalitäten [Göttingen 2005]). As a modern historian (rather than church historian), Gailus argues that a fuller picture on the role of the Protestant churches can only be gained by understanding and incorporating the influence of larger social forces–the “Protestant social milieu,” as he calls it. Given the general mentality of national Protestants in the early parts of the twentieth century – monarchic, conservative, state-loyal and obedient–it is no small wonder that parishioners and their spiritual leaders were ill-prepared to resist the ideology of National Socialism and were, instead, swept up by the (messianic) promises of national renewal.

Gailus’ suggested approach requires moving away from depicting the “Kirchenkampf” solely in terms of an internal church struggle, in which members aligned with the Confessing Church fought against the German Christians and against the intrusions of the Nazi-State. The volume’s subtitle also reflects these changes. Its seemingly inconspicuous listing of the three terms, “Protestantism, National Socialism and Postwar History,” points to two insights: First, we need to focus on continuity (not discontinuity) between the war and postwar years and not interpret the year 1945 as a clear break with the past; second, no study today should disregard the history of the field of “Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte” itself. The various waves of “coming to terms with the past” and memory politics (which Norbert Frei has so aptly called “Vergangenheitspolitik“) within the Protestant churches and theology after 1945 are as important to study as the years between 1933 and 1945. In other words, when scholars pour over archival materials, memoirs, and secondary work, they need to be aware of how“Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte” has presented its “case” in previous decades. Gailus argues that one has to “historicize” the research itself. Eye-witnesses and scholars of earlier generations have certainly advanced our knowledge of the German Church Struggle, but today one has to be aware that their work itself was an expression of the social conditions and theological paradigms of their time and that, not too seldom, they were guided by personal interests. The field itself, hence, needs critical introspection.

Von der babylonischen Gefangenschaft is a far cry from earlier works on the Church Struggle, especially if one travels as far back as to the 1950s, when people like Wilhelm Niemöller portrayed the Nazi era in the stark terms of a righteous Confessing Church on the one hand and, on the other, a corrupted and fallen church. Niemöller, as Norbert Friedrich points out in his chapter on the church of Westfalia, was not only a motor behind the early “Kirchenkampfforschung,” but also a “decisive interpreter of his own family history,” especially with regard to interpreting favorably the role of his brother Martin in the Confessing Church (p. 273f). Other publications on the “Kirchenkampf” were guided by hagiographic interests (lifting the few righteous resisters on pedestals at the expense of a more accurate description of the silence of the majority) or were apologetic in character, especially among those men who had been complicit with the Nazi regime. Gailus summarizes well the new departure he envisions: “Das Plädoyer für mehr Historisierung der Kirchenkampfforschung meint vor diesen Hintergründen, die um 1933 akut werdende schwere Identitätskrise des Protestantismus in längere Zeiträume einzubetten . . . . Die politische Zäsur von 1945 markiert in dieser Langzeitperspektive keinen wirklich scharfen Bruch mit der herkömmlichen national-protestantischen Mentalität” (p. 17). His plea for the broadening and historicization of the research on the German Church Struggle is put to test in the volume’s nineteen individual studies on the Provincial Churches.

Appropriate for a volume that emphasizes regional studies, the contributions are arranged according to regions: the North (with churches like Schleswig Holstein, Hamburg and Hanover), Prussia (Berlin, Saxony, Westfalia, Rhineland), the Center (Thuringia) and the South and Southwest (Hessen-Nassau, Bavaria, Württemberg). Originally intended to include more “Landeskirchen,” the editors regret that neither the churches in the Eastern provinces (Ostpreussen [East Prussia], Silesia and Pomerania) nor some heavily Nazified churches like Braunschweig and Mecklenburg could be covered. This indeed might be regrettable. However, given the size of the current volume (over 500 pages), striving for completeness may have simply overwhelmed the reader. As it stands, wanting to read all entries (as this reviewer did!) is already a daunting task. Clearly, this book is not meant for a general audience, not even for a lay audience with a general interest in the German church struggle, since it is too detailed, too rich in information and too complex in presentation. But one may want to purchase it simply for its value as a reference work for select churches–and that, too, would be money well spent.

Von der babylonischen Gefangenschaft is an invaluable book for anyone interested in getting a more precise and accurate picture of how messianic expectations and national renewal variously tempted, blinded and convinced so many Christians in the 1930s. The various chapters trace individual people as well as church networks and associations (from the “Bruderräte” to Nazi-sympathetic “Glaubensbewegungen“) through the years of the Nazi regime. It shows how Christians became compromised and complicit and how, after the war, they tried to exculpate, excuse or explain themselves. Along the way, the reader will also meet individual church leaders, synods, parishioners and theologians who resisted the Nazis from the very beginning. Others had a change of heart and mind at critical turning points of the Nazi dictatorship (for example, after the public performances of the Deutsche Christen, which turned off many churchgoers, or after the introduction of the Aryan Paragraph). Yet others remained loyal to aspects of Nazism until the end of the war, when German war fortunes had indisputably turned sour.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of these regional studies is the contributors’ unflinching look at what I would call the “gray zone” of human behavior: Christians made all kinds of compromises with the regime, steering a middle course that did not commit them too strongly either way. They became guilty more through passive silence than active participation (though plenty had actively participated as well, as these studies demonstrate). To the “gray zone” belong the uncountable and small day-to-day moral failures and betrayals: a head turned when neighbors disappeared; a public sermon not delivered when it would have been necessary to speak out; compassion not extended to those deemed ãotherä and “enemy” by the regime. In the churches, too many parishes, synods, bishops and theologians were caught up in their self-referential, unproductive, internal fights–their Babylonian captivity! And when the war ended, Christian communities concerned themselves with the task of self-purification. Gaining permission from the Allies to purge themselves, their denazification efforts quickly pushed aside questions of guilt and complicity.

The individual contributors to this volume refrain from making explicit moral judgments and from entering theological and ethical discussions. This is due to their shared training and interest as historians, whether they are employed at universities, in archives or parishes, or as church administrators. Depending on one’s perspective, one may welcome such restraint or find it unsatisfactory. However, despite the professional distance that the contributors maintain, the presentation of the material itself raises a number of moral dilemmas. Why were the Nazis greeted with such high expectations by so many Protestant Christians? Why did so much of the church discussions during the 1930s focus on preserving of one’s own rights and autonomy, while one’s fellow citizens disappeared? Why such a myopic, largely self-interested view? Why did the churches after the war not speak out more strongly for justice (that would have put perpetrators on trial) rather than trying to whitewash the culpability of individual members and the collective church body? What happened to antisemites in the church after 1945? These are relevant questions a perpetrator society needs to ask itself, especially as it considers the collapse of those cultural and religious institutions that, ideally and in principle, should have upheld standards of morality in times of crisis.

That religious institutions often do not move beyond the interests of their own in-group (at the neglect of the socially excluded) no longer surprises today. But it would have been good to occasionally address these issues head-on and to explore the contemporary relevance of the particularities of regional studies. Individual chapters come close to such a discussion only when they address particularly virulent antisemitic church leaders or the postwar German church debates on the Schuldfrage, the question of guilt (e.g. Björn Mensing for the Bavarian church, Gerhard Lindemann for Hanover, and Rainer Hering for Hamburg).

The nature of this edited volume makes it impossible to summarize, let alone critically assess each contribution. But it is important to commend the editors for pulling together chapters that are consistently of high scholarly quality. Equally important is the fact that none of the chapters centers on the grand moments of the “Kirchenkampf,” on the well-known confessional debates (like Barmen), or on the hagiographic portraiture of such towering figures like Wurm and Meiser, Dibelius and Niemoeller. Thus, this volume thankfully avoids repetition of information available elsewhere. What the various contributions share in common, instead, is their focus on the many small groups of ministers and parishioners that formed in alliance with or in opposition to National Socialism; they focus on the biographies of lesser known figures in the Provincial Churches as well as on the debates among laity and clergy that form the backbone of parishes and church life. The big themes and recognizable figures do not, of course, disappear from view, but they function in these texts as markers and background to the new materials introduced here.

For example, the reader will learn about the church of Lübeck (which, in 1976, was merged with two other small churches into the “Nordelbische Landeskirche”) and its “Hauptpastoren” Helmuth Johnson (NS-compromised), Axel Werner Kühl (chair of the “Jungdeutsche Orden”) and Wilhelm Jannasch, an outspoken critic of the NS-regime. The chapter on Berlin, for example, does not focus, say, on Dibelius, but presents Karl Themel, a pastor who had embraced nationalist notions of race research. Joachim Hossenfelder, the Reichsleiter of the “Deutsche Christen,” is put into the context of the small Eutiner Landeskirche, which, in 1954, reemployed him despite his blemished past. With respect to the Hamburg Lutheran church, we hear, for instance, about pastor Wilhelmi, who, by 1960, had finished a critical book on the church’s past, and how then- bishop Karl Witte prevented its publication because it shed unfavorable light on Franz Tügel. Tügel, bishop of Hamburg during the Nazi regime, had displayed open sympathies for the NSDAP and the German Christians. Wilhelmi died before his work was posthumously published in 1968. Or–to mention one last example–attention is not paid to Martin Niemöller, but to the biography of his lesser known brother, Wilhelm. We hear about Wilhelm’s odd protest against the decision to cancel his NSDAP membership in 1933; in 1934, when the decision was rescinded, he rejoined the Nazi party, and from 1939 to 1945 he served as a soldier on the Eastern Front.

Gailus offers suggestions on how to think about the larger issues and themes that emerge within this kind of specialized research. Envisioning a new direction for the study of the contemporary history of German Protestantism, he lists four ideas: ãhistoricizationä as a way of investigating the field of “Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte” itself and of re-conceptualizing historical periods; ãcontextualizationä as a means of embedding official church proclamations and theological/confessional statements into their larger social milieu; ãregionalizationä as a way of taking into account geographical and local differences in order to better understand attitudes and behaviors; and finally, “interdisciplinarity” as a multi-faceted approach to drawing a comprehensive picture. The few examples Gailus employs to illustrate these categories show him to be open to such new perspectives as gender studies, discursive analysis and auto/biographical research.

Gailus’ vision, however, is not fully realized in this edited volume since these categories are employed unevenly by the individual contributors. With respect to “regionalization,” there is remarkable consistency among the chapters, and this is the true strength of this volume. But in terms of “historicization” and “contextualization,” most contributors pursue a rather conventional approach: They provide historical frameworks to the particulars of their research and survey briefly the relevant literature. Only a few authors address the kind of broader methodological issues relating yo ãhistoricizationä (e.g. Thomas Großbölting, Peter Noss and Norbert Friedrich) and “contextualization” (e.g. Thomas Seidel and Markus Heim) that Gailus has in mind. When it comes to reaching out to “interdisciplinarity,” there is a striking lacuna. Although sociological data are sometimes incorporated, other approaches, like gender analysis, appear only in Rainer Hering’s piece on the church in Hamburg and briefly in Thomas Seidel’s contribution to Thuringia.

Given the chronic underrepresentation of women in this field, and given the domination by men in the German (regional) churches, the absence of critical reflections on male discourse, male biographies, masculinity and the disappearance of women is regrettable.
It is fair to say that the framework of Von der babylonischen Gefangenschaft points to a new and welcome direction for re-conceptualizing contemporary German church history, but that the individual contributors do not yet fully realize the promise of such a refreshing approach. Still, the volume is a significant contribution to the field.

Björn Krondorfer, St Mary’s College of Maryland

2) Journal articles:

a) The most recent issue of the most notable journal in our field of Contemporary Church History, Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, in Göttingen, breaks new ground in seeking to be as bilingual as possible. The latest issue, Volume 19, no. 2, is devoted to “New American Perspectives on the History of the Churches in Germany at the End of the 19th and in the 20th Century”, and contains six articles in English by younger American scholars, several of whom are already subscribers to this Newsletter. It is therefore good to see these contributions, which demonstrate that interest and research into contemporary German church history continues to flourish in North America. It will also be a signal to our colleagues in Germany not to allow themselves to believe that only German scholars can approach this subject. Hopefully it will encourage them to welcome the help they can get from the different perspectives from across the Atlantic. As the journal’s editor, Professor Gerhard Besier, now based in Dresden, rightly remarks: “It is particularly interesting to see the plurality of methodological approaches, such as found in gender studies, the history of ideas, as well as the more traditional political or church political studies”.

Martin Menke of Rivier College, Nashua, New Hampshire contributes a study of German Catholic identities during the Weimar Republic, when they shared the Protestant view that each nation has a special place in God’s plan of salvation. The secular chauvinistic nationalism of the war period was rejected, but rather a stress was laid on the German Catholics’ cultural mission linked to the mediaeval past, instead of the discredited Prussianism of the Wilhelmine Empire. In this sense, Menke suggests, German Catholics, like their brethren in France’s Third Republic, became the defenders of historic values and Christian traditions. This provided the impetus for the European union movement after the second world war.

Beth Griech-Pollele’s book on Cardinal Galen appeared in 2002. She now adds to this account with a short study of Galen’s kind of nationalism, with its strong hostility to any left wing views. In this belief, Galen had some sympathy for National Socialism’s decisive battle against communism, and also against excessive Jewish influences on society. He went on believing that Nazism could be ãrescuedä to be a Christian bastion against such subversive forces. He did not protest the Nazis’ persecution of the Jews, and was led, as she has already shown, to protest the so-called “Euthanasia” programme, principally because it affected good Catholics. But once the Nazis were overthrown, Galen could urge the reconstruction of Germany – and Europe- on Christian Democratic lines, even while silent about the Nazis’ crimes.

Maria Mitchell examines the political activities of German Catholics in the Rhineland after 1945, and shows how the basis was laid for a partnership with Protestants to form the new Christian Democratic Party. Both Catholics and Protestants had to deal with their discredited past during the inter-war years, as well as confront the danger presented by Soviet Communism.

Susanne Brown-Fleming has recently produced The Holocaust and Catholic Conscience which is a study of the American-German Cardinal Aloysius Muench, who was apppointed to be the Vatican representative in Germany after 1945, and later became Nuncio. She now extends her survey to cover more about his support for the convicted Nazi war criminals in the 1950s. His opinion was that these men were the victims of a deliberate campaign of revenge launched by Americans of Jewish origins – an opinion shared by too many Germans. She does not however assess how significant Muench’s views were in influencing policy. American leniency was politically advisable even without the counsel of this turbulent priest.

Lisa Zwicker of Indiana University gives us a short account of the Catholic students in fraternities in the pre-1914 German universities, and their clash of loyalties between their religious beliefs and their ardent nationalism. Like many other students, they were drawn to take up duelling or other supposed masculine sports, which were frowned on by the church. But too many of them perished in the trenches anyway.

JonDavid Wyneken of Concordia University, Portland gives us an excellent account of the nationalistic stances of Bishop Theophil Wurm, the Protestant leader of Württemberg, who like Galen in Münster, also resented the Allied military occupation, and sought to alleviate the sufferings of his German followers, and thereby to avoid confronting their often Nazi pasts. It is small wonder that Wurm should have turned to such movements as Moral Rearmament, which urged an anti-Communist pan-European reconstruction, and reconciliation at the expense of justice for the victims.

Amongst the German-language papers is one by Matthias Kroeger on Bonhoeffer’s continuing and prophetic influence, which he believes goes beyond his witness as a martyr of the German resistance. His call for Christians to become mature and autonomous, and his criticism of ecclesiastical claims to authority, continues to have wider relevance. So too his plea for new vocabularies to proclaim the Christian faith continues to be of value. This was a fitting tribute on the occasion of Bonhoeffer’s 100th anniversary in February of last year.

b) As forecast in our February issue, Richard Steigmann-Gall has now written a full response to the critics of his book The Holy Reich in the April issue of the Journal of Contemporary History, (published in England) in which he comments on the weaknesses of these critics’ approach, and also addresses the larger issue of political religion theory. Those interested should follow up this debate in full This journal is readily available on line. Steigmann-Gall’s address is rsteigma@kent.edu

With every best wish to you all
John S.Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Please note that your comments on the contents of these Newsletters are always welcome. But please also note that you should NOT press the reply button, unless you want your views to be shared by all 500 subscribers. Instead, please send them to me at my own address = jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Contents:

1) Book reviews:

a) Bishop George Bell. A portrait in letters
b) Protestants in East Germany
c) Munro, Hitler’s Bavarian Antagonist
d) Theologie und Vergangenheitsbewältigung

2) Book chapter: Mensing, A Lutheran pastor’s resistance
3) Archive Note: The Vatican archives
4) Journal article, Coppa, Papal biographies

1) Book reviews:

a) Peter Raina, Bishop George Bell. The greatest Churchman. A portrait in Letters, London: Churches together in Britain and Ireland 2006, 377 pp. ISBN 085169 332 6

It is now generally acknowledged that Bishop George Bell of Chichester was one of the foremost protagonists of the Church of England in the first half of the last century. His leadership in the Ecumenical Movement, resulting in the establishment of the World Council of Churches, his championing of the anti-Nazi forces in the German Evangelical Church, his sympathetic assistance to refugees, interned aliens and pacifists, his resolute calls for moderation in war aims or the practice of aerial bombing, were all notable achievements. They led to the recognition that here was a churchman who rightly insisted that the policies of governments should be brought to the bar of moral conscience, and that the Church should take a leading role in raising public and political ethical issues.

Unfortunately Bell died shortly after leaving office in 1958, and so never wrote his autobiography. But he left behind a meticulously arranged archive. consisting of the thousands of letters he wrote or received during his long life of ministry in the church. His authorized biographer, Canon Ronald Jasper, used many of these letters but rarely quoted them in full. His well-received account appeared in 1967, but has never been republished. Forty years later, Peter Raina, who is obviously a great admirer of Bell’s character and witness, has now compiled a further selection of Bell’s letters, both in print and facsimile, which provide a closer picture of the bishop’s activities, all the more since we are given the full texts to read. Necessarily his choice has to be limited. Principally he covers Bell’s involvement with the German Evangelical Church after the rise of Hitler, his contacts with German representatives during the war, and his struggle with the British government over war aims and the proposed treatment of Germany after victory was achieved.

In these endeavours, Bell’s main contacts were with a Swiss church leader, Alfons Koechlin, and with two Germans, Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law, Gerhard Leibholz, a lawyer, who was forced into exile and came to England with Bell’s help in 1938. These three men’s letters provide Bell with information and advice about the German church, and about the political scene, which was of the utmost value to Bell in the formation of his own views, and in the preparation of his numerous and outspoken speeches and public utterances.

Peter Raina does not tell us that many of the letters he quotes have already been published before. In fact, the very extensive correspondence between Bell and Koechlin for the period 1933-1954 was first published in German by a Swiss publisher in 1969, while his exchanges with Leibholz – although all written in English – are to be found, translated into German, in the book An der Schwelle zum gespaltenen Europa. Der Briefwechsel zwischen George Bell und Gerhard Leibholz (1939-1951), which appeared in Berlin in 1974. Bonhoeffer’s letters to the bishop and his replies are included in full in Bonhoeffer’s collected works, of which the relevant volume in English translation will appear shortly.

Raina’s selection of Bell’s letters is accompanied by an excellent commentary, filling in the history principally of the German Church Struggle. Bell’s concern was aroused early on by the machination of the so-called “German Christian” party seeking to impose its pro-Nazi views on the whole church, and by the suppression of alternative opinions. Already in June 1933 Bell was writing to the Times to express his concern and alarm – the first of many such missives. Since Bell also held the chairmanship of the Universal Christian Council for Life and Work, he felt an obligation to his international partners to alert them to the dangers of these German developments. Bonhoeffer was at this point a close and valued advisor. Both he and Koechlin gave Bell suggestions as to how he could use his position to good effect. By discreet interventions with the political authorities, Bell was able to achieve some modification of the repressive actions taken against the dissenting pastors in the German Evangelical Church.

The outbreak of hostilities in 1939 of course greatly distressed Bell. His hopes that Germany’s nationalist passions, as aroused by Adolf Hitler, would not lead to another disastrous war, were now proved illusory. But he became equally concerned lest the same passions might lead in Britain to a climate of hatred of everything German. His letters reflect his valiant campaign to draw a distinction between the Nazi regime and the German people. He went on believing that the “good Germans” were only being intimidated by their evil Nazi masters. He was therefore enormously encouraged by his final meeting with Bonhoeffer in Sweden in May 1942. when he was give the details about the German resistance movement, and about the proposal to overthrow Hitler and his entourage. He hoped that he could get the British government to issue a statement of war aims which would encourage these resistance plotters. But Churchill and Eden refused. And the subsequent failure of the 20 July 1944 conspiracy, and the execution of so many of those taking part, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was a profound grief.

The facsimile reproduction of letters to and from Bell gives this volume an attractive immediacy. Raina’s selection and interpretation is sound, though not novel. But at a time when other issues threaten to supersede the events of two generations ago, it is certainly most helpful to have this compilation to show us how Bishop Bell played a significant, responsible and highly valued part in the public life of the Church of England during his long career.

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b) Protestants in East Germany (This review appeared first in The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol 58 no.1, 2007)

Christliche Frauen in der DDR. Alltagsdokumente einer Diktatur in Interviews. By Sonja Ackermann. Pp. 376. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2005. ?19.80. 3 374 02325 8.

Gratwanderungen einer Freikirche im totalitären Regime. Die Gemeinschaft der Siebenten-Tags-Adventisten in der DDR von 1945 bis 1990. By Manfred Böttcher. (Friedensauer Schriftenreihe Reihe B Gesellschaftswissenschaften, Band 9). Pp. 220. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2006. £25.50. 3 631 54797 8; 0947 2339.

Der Protestantismus im Osten Deutschlands (1945-1999). By Rudolf Mau. (Kirchengeschichte in Einzeldarstellungen IV/3). Pp. 248 incl. 2 maps. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2005. ?28. 3 374 02319 3.

The three books reviewed here all deal with the experience of Christians in eastern German dictatorship from 1945 to the implosion of the German Democratic Republic in 1990. The book by Sonja Ackermann may well appeal to adherents of oral history. It is a study based upon 97 interviews carried out with Christian women between 1999 and 2001. Excerpts from these interviews (taken from four typescript volumes being held by the Archiv der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte in Bonn) are presented systematically, not chronologically. There are virtually no dates, place names or personal names in the text. The focus appears to be on life in the early phase of the GDR and, in particular, on the Christian experience in schools and the Communist youth organisations. There are sections dealing with workplace experiences, parental perspectives, elections and conscientious objectors. In each chapter a number of quotes are presented, then paraphrased and commented upon. For slow learners the main points are summarised again at the end of each chapter. A good many quotes are repeated verbatim elsewhere in the text (though not necessarily with the same punctuation). As a result this reviewer found the book a rather tedious read. The book purports to be a ‘history of resistance’ to a dictatorial system of government, yet the author’s definition of ‘resistance’ is rather weak. Many of the interviewees record how their complaints and petitions to the authorities actually led to the rescinding of allegedly anti-Christian decisions – for example, excellent pupils being told they would not be able to take their Abitur. In a surprising number of cases parental protests seem to have brought about changes. As a result the anecdotes provide some interesting glimpses at the unofficial side of life in the GDR and, if anything, cast doubt on the ‘totalitarian’ nature of East German socialism. For every girl who was kept back from joining the Young Pioneers or from taking part in the youth dedication rite, there were ninety-nine children whose future studies and careers were not jeopardised by such ‘resistance’ to state policy. Indeed, from the evidence Ankermann presents, it is clear that not a few church-going teachers and headmasters were zealous collaborators of the regime. There remains the question of the historical value of the anonymous and subjective recollection of events that took place thirty, forty or even fifty years prior to an interview. It was not Ankermann’s goal to verify any of the accounts she analyses.

Equally subjective in the treatment of events if Manfred Böttcher’s study of the balancing acts forced upon one section of the Christian population: Seventh Day Adventists. His book is not really a scholarly history, but rather a personal account of life as a free churchman seeking to come to terms with government by atheists. Bttcher, president of the Seventh Day Adventist community in the GDR from 1969 until 1982 and then director of its seminary in Friedensau, has written a poorly structured book. At least he warns the reader in his introduction that repetition could not be avoided. A chronological table provides some clarity about historical developments. Whereas Ackermann provides very little background information on the GDR for the reader, Böttcher errs in providing too much. Where detail would have been welcome (on Adventist theology, the history of Adventism in Germany, particularly with regard to Church-State issues) Böttcher either fails to deliver or relegates material to a footnote. It is unfortunate that only a handful of archival sources have been exploited by the author. The tone is often apologetic and at times devotional, even propagandistic. Böttcher is bold enough to proclaim that the Adventist free church had never been guilty (as had, say, the mainstream Protestant and Catholic churches) of accommodating itself too easily to, let alone currying favour with the regime. Yet he has to admit that the East German security services managed to infiltrate their ranks. Böttcher makes it clear that, as a matter of principle, Adventists did not consider resistance or even criticism of government policy to be amongst their God-given tasks.

This was not the position taken by the institutional embodiments of mainstream Protestantism in the GDR. For those without the energy to plough through the three volumes penned by Gerhard Besier on Der SED-Staat und die Kirche there is now an excellent alternative. Rudolf Mau, professor emeritus at the Humboldt University in Berlin, has produced an eminently readable survey of Church-State relations during the post-war period. The emphasis throughout is on the church institutions and, in particular, the leadership elites. Neither evangelical sub-groups nor inter-denominational organisations are Mau’s concern. Free Churches are only mentioned in passing (those interested in that subject can consult the volume written by Karl Heinz Voigt in the same series). Within these confines Mau analyses the forty-year struggle for allegiance, from the government-supported campaigns in the 1950s to propagate “scientific atheism” to the “Protestant revolution” of 1989, when churchmen became honest brokers between a regime in decline and a population increasingly impatient with the absence of basic freedoms and rights. The role into which East German Protestantism was manoeuvred in the 1980s certainly made the institutions temporarily more relevant and attractive to various groups with a political agenda, but it was soon recognised that the witness of the churches had been seriously compromised by collaboration with the East German intelligence services. The majority of the population in the east of Germany had long had no ecclesiastical affiliation or even interest in religious matters. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the institutions analysed by Mau failed to generate the necessary spiritual power to alter that state of affairs.

Nicholas Railton, University of Ulster

c) Gregory Munro, Hitler’s Bavarian Antagonist. Georg Moenius and the Allgemeine Rundschau of Munich, 1929-1933. Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press 2006. ISBN -13: 978-0-7734-5735-5. 510 pp.

The historiography of the German resistance movement against Nazism over the past sixty years has been mired in complexity and controversy. The failure of its efforts to prevent the Nazi wars of aggression or to impede the subsequent mass murders of millions of their fellow citizens, makes for sombre reassessments. Religious factors, whether individually or institutionally, are highly ambiguous. The record of the churches’ complicity or even collaboration is undeniable. Only a handful of German churchmen and women declared their unequivocal opposition to the unbridled nationalism and racism of the Nazi regime, and many of them paid a heavy penalty for doing so. They were often vilified during their lifetimes, and forgotten afterwards.

Among them must be numbered Georg Moenius, a priest of the Bamberg diocese and editor of the outspokenly critical weekly newspaper, the Allgemeine Rundschau, for the brief period of 1929 to 1933. Gregory Munro’s careful study of this largely unknown anti-Nazi combatant is therefore a welcome addition to our knowledge, all the more since most histories of the resistance movement only begin in 1933. But the point is very well taken that the previous decade of the 1920s was the more pivotal. Had adequate barriers against Nazi extremism been erected at the time, the results might well have been very different. So this analysis of the public attitudes, particularly amongst Catholics, in these crucial years is significant in showing how easily Germans were seduced by Nazi propaganda, and how the counter-efforts proved ineffective. Munro shows how Moenius undertook a veritable crusade, using his newspaper as a vehicle to attack the noxious heresies and virulent racist policies of the Nazis. It was a vain if valiant endeavour. Only a few weeks after the Nazi take-over of power Moenius was forced into precipitate flight from Munich and had to spend long years in exile. It is small wonder that until now his achievements have been overlooked.

Moenius was born in 1890 and was in training for the priesthood throughout the traumatic years of the Great War 1914-1918. But even if he did not share the fate of so many of his contemporaries, he was clearly affected by the traumatic climate which forced reconsideraion of so many established verities and institutions. According to Munro, Moenius had an extremely petulant and headstrong character, though endowed with fervent idealism. This factor was undoubtedly encouraged by his friendship with Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster, a leading champion of Christian ethics in the political sphere, who taught at Munich during Moenius’ university years. F.W.Foerster was to have a significant impact on Moenius’ career, and like him was also forced into exile.

With this temperament, and at such a revolutionary time, it is not surprising that Moenius’ period of service as a junior cleric in rural parishes was of short duration. He soon enough expressed his dissatisfation with the politically reactionary and even obscurantist views of his superiors, and sought new paths of service in the literary field.

Moenius’ opportunity came in 1929 when he acquired the part-ownership of the reputable Catholic weekly in Munich, and at once set out to make it a vital contributor to the lively debates over Germany’s present and future policies. Together with a group of Catholic intellectuals and journalists, and much influenced by Foerster’s ideas on federalism and pacifism, the Allgemeine Rundschau became a hard-hitting combative newspaper, whose editor was ready to charge into the fray of debate and resolutely defended his ideals.
In essence, almost all of Germany’s intellectuals in the 1920s were engaged in a similar search. The previous political structures and habits of mind had been discredited by the loss of the war. In the years of disillusionment and frustration after 1918, new images, new ideologies, new patterns of political behaviour struggled to gain widespread support. Weekly newspapers of the Allgemeine Rundschau’s sort were one of the chief vehicles for this undertaking, as they were in other countries. Moenius’ originality lay in his determination to rethink the whole basis of received German national opinion.

In particular, Moenius led the way in seeking to combat the popular interpretation of German history, for at least the past one hundred years. He sought to show that the unification of Germany, under the Prussian Hohenzollern dynasty, as led by Bismarck and justified by Protestant theologians and historians, had been a ghastly error. Indeed the imposition of a Prussian hegemony over all of Germany, and its encouragement of the vices of authoritarianism and military aggression, were directly responsible, so Moenius claimed, for the disasters of the Great War. Furthermore, the Protestant character of this rule had changed the place and cultural power of Catholicism. Catholics had been reduced to second-class citizens, attacked in the Kulturkampf as Reichsfeinde, and their
ideas for Germany’s future disregarded and despised. Now was the time to challenge the whole idea of the historical mission of Lutheranism, as intertwined with the destiny of Germany. In its place Moenius sought to set up a new idea of the Reich, asserting the need for a peacefully-oriented Germanic nation with a genuine federal constitution. This would assist in the rejuvenation of Europe under the core of its intrinsic culture – an attachment to the Universal Church, to the Roman legacy of the Papacy. and to other nations under the imprint of the somewhat hazy idea of Romanitas. It was a religious and romantic dynamic which offered new life for both Germany and Catholicism.

The Allgemeine Rundschau’s indefatigable and uncompromising feud against the Borussian view of German history soon spread to other aspects of the practical politics of the day. Its fervent support of Catholic ideals left no room for co-operating with Protestant elements, who, in turn, with a few exceptions, were captivated by their desire to synthesize with popular nationalism as a means of restoring German Protestantism’s shattered credibility Indeed the more German Protestants became a conduit for radical conservatism and všlkisch ideologies, the more bitterly they were attacked by Moenius and his associates.

The unique religious and cultural mission of western Christianity in its Catholic form, which had reached its maturity in the High Middle Ages, was a constant theme of the Allgemeine Rundschau. Such a force could offer a vital spiritual foundation for Germany’s much needed reconstruction. The somewhat mystical overtones and admiration for bygone examples was reinforced by a belief that such an ideal needed to be defended against the forces of militaristic aggression and extremism, which Moenius and his associates saw as being derived over the centuries from the wastelands of northern Europe.

Central among such forces was National Socialism. Moenius rightly regarded Nazism as the deadly enemy of Roman Catholicism, but paradoxically argued that Hitler, despite his Austrian origins, had sold out to Prussia and its military tradition. In Moenius’ view, Hitler’s categories of racist and všlkisch thought followed in the line Luther-Fichte-Hegel-Bismarck. “He had to have a Protestant with an anti-Roman passion like Rosenberg as his court philosopher”. Nazism was an instrument of vengeful Prussianism against the more civilized tradition of Catholic Bavaria.

But the mood of the late 1920s, and the Nazis’ electoral victory of 1930, particularly in Munich, made Moenius’ struggle more problematic. The articles in the Allgemeine Rundschau became more strident as the crisis worsened. Moenius sought to warn his fellow Catholics not to be tempted by these exponents of contemporary militarism and racism, with their pursuit of a German supremacy through Lebensraum. The Allgemeine Rundschau launched an unremitting critique of both the Nazi Party and its ideology. Rosenberg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century was denounced as a pagan attack on Catholicism. Catholics should not be fooled by the Nazi Party’s claim to be supporting “positive Christianity”. Germans should recognize that Nazism was driven by an anti-Roman, anti-liberal, anti-Judaic and anti-Christian ethos, incorporating the principal destructive strands of a creed based on Blood and Soil. The dangers of any accommodation with such radical extremism were regularly stressed in the weekly’s pages.

Such attempts aroused much hostility. But so did the journal’s advocacy of a universal peace, based on the renunciation of national power politics. In particular, the campaign led by Moenius and Foerster to have Germans acknowledge their guilt in causing the Great War, and their condemnation of the German invasion of Belgium, were resented by many conservatives. They thereby lost much support from the ranks of German Catholicism. Such a head-on attack on the view that Germany had been dragged into the war by her enemies’ nefarious tactics, and that the invasion of Belgium was a strategic necessity, was a risky undertaking. Moenius probably did not want to acknowledge that such views had become almost universal among all sections of conservative opinion, or the extent to which this was a necessary alibi for their subsequent participation in the bloodletting of the war. Indeed, in many cases, this was the only consolation adopted for the terrible losses suffered. To challenge this widespread feeling of self-justification could open up drastic wounds and memories which Germans had spent ten years or more in trying to suppress. But it was part of Moenius and Foerster’s ideology that only such repentance could clear the air in Germany’s relations with other nations. Without such a stance the poison of international rivalries would be continued and remain unresolved. But this counsel seemed to be wildly unrealistic, and only fell on deaf ears amongst the majority of Germans, including Catholics. (Munro could have made the point that the same phenomenon re-occurred after the second war, when German conservatives were equally reluctant to heed those prophetic voices calling for national repentance and self-scourging.)

Moves were then made to curb Moenius’ influence, through both political and ecclesiastical channels. The weekly’s controversial stances were becoming problematical at a time of recurrent political crises. The Nazis’ success in projecting an image of political stability and the promise of restoring Germany’s economic and national greatness, outweighed the resolute warnings the Allgemeine Rundschau provided. Too many people who should have known better took no steps to prevent the installation of an avowedly dictatorial regime.

The Nazi seizure of power in January 1933 led soon enough to the suppression of all critical journalism. In March Moenius fled from Munich in disguise and was eventually deprived of his German citizenship, and suffered the confiscation of his property. He was not to return from exile until 1948, but was unable to resume his career in either the church or in journalism. The Allgemeine Rundschau struggled along for a few more months, during which a Reich Concordat was concluded between the Vatican and the new Nazi government. Once it was ratified, there was no further need for discretion, and the Allgemeine Rundschau was forced to cease publication. Moenius’ direst predictions now became true, but the leaders of German Catholicism indulged in much wishful thinking and failed to heed his warnings.

Munro’s service is to place this combative priest and his controversial journal in their wider setting by outlining the intellectual milieu of the time, and by describing the debates over Germany’s identity, its political structures and the war guilt question, which so much engaged the public attention of the day. Moenius’ career can only be judged a failure. But Munro rightly points out that the ideas he propagated, especially the need to overcome and abandon the national obsession with Machtpolitik, were to find a much more receptive climate after Germany’s second defeat. The debt of post-1945 West German Catholicism to Moenius and his associates is rarely mentioned, but Munro successfully makes the case that it should now be fittingly acknowledged.

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d) As a counterpart to the book reviewed here in the March issue, Mit Blick auf die Täter,
we draw attention to a similar compilation of essays dealing mainly with the Catholic church’s response to the issue of coming to terms with the Nazi past: Theologie und Vergangenheitsbewältigung, (Paderborn: Schöningh 2005) edited by Lucia Scherzberg, includes several valuable contributions analysing the Catholic theologians’ reactions to Nazism, both during the Nazi years and afterwards. Antonia Leugers is highly critical of the German Catholic bishops of the time, while Keith Spicer recounts the sad story of a fanatical pro-Nazi priest and his fervent admiration of the Führer. Lucia Schezberg herself gives a first-rate description of the pro-Nazi stances adopted by leading Catholic theologians, which certainly cannot be excused by the claim that they were intimidated by Gestapo pressures. Rather these men claimed to be leading the church in affirming the new dispensation brought on by Hitler, and as such saw themselves as the leading edge of reform. Hitler’s own alleged “theology” is analysed by Rainer Bucher, pointing out that his adoption of a religious vocabulary was not just a matter of political opportunism. Rather Hitler’s views of “Providence” were a genuine part of his belief system, which also extended to the idea that he had a divine call to fulfill his mission to rejuvenate Germany by eliminating the Jews and thereby to cure the world of its defects, With the help of this idea of God, Hitler could find a universal legitimation for his aggressive racial policies. His deification of the German Volk as having the supreme value over all aspects of life, and demanding a total faith from each individual, were constituent components of this “theology”. Rainer Kampling follows with an examination of Catholic attitudes after 1945 towards Judaism, as found in the speeches of Romano Guardini, the highly influential theologian of the 1950s. Here much was said about Guilt and Responsibility, but little about just who were the guilty or responsible actors. To be sure, this lack of concretization ran parallel in other academic disciplines, but this hardly excuses the shortcomings of these theologians. Norbert Reck, who also contributed to Krondorfer’s book reviewed in our March issue, is perhaps overly judgmental about the proponents of post-Holocaust theology in Germany, Moltmann, Sölle and Metz. Whatever their personal shortcomings, they did at least play a significant role in gaining acceptance for the ideas propounded at the Second Vatican Council, and in ensuring that the evil shadows of Nazi racism were banished from the German churches. On the other hand these essays raise interesting questions about Nazism as a modernizing force, and the readiness of some theologians to believe this was a more attractive option than dying in the last ditch of conservative and seemingly outdated positions.

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2) Indvidual articles in collected essays can easily get lost, especially if the tome is weighty. But, for our readers, here is one that should be noted:

Bjorn Mensing, “Nicht nur ein priesterliches, sondern auch ein prophetisches Amt”. Von der fränkischen Kanzel ins KZ Dachau. Das “vergessene” Zeugnis von Pfarrer Wolfgang Niederstrasser. in Frömmigkeit – Theologie- Frömmigkeitstheologie. Contributions to European Church History, ed. G.Litz et al., Leiden and Boston: Brill 2005, pp. 763 – 779.

This is a short but well-deserved tribute to a young country Evangelical pastor whose ethical and theological rectitude led him to adopt a highly critical attitude towards Nazi church policy. After various stiff warnings, he took refuge by joining the army in occupied Norway, but was pursued there by the wheels of Nazi “justice”. Early in 1945 he was transferred to the Gestapo’s hands, and as late as 12 April 1945 was sent to Dachau. There he was ordered to join a forced march away from the approaching Allied forces. Luckily he survived and returned to his former parish. Here was a staunchly uncompromising supporter of the Confessing Church. But there is no mention of any sympathetic word or action on behalf of the Jews.

3) Archive note: Further opening of the Vatican archives.

Pope Benedict XVI has authorized the further opening of the Vatican archives, principally the Vatican Secret archives and the archives of the Second Section of the Secretariat of State, for the pontificate of Pope Pius XI (1922-1939). . This complements the previous opening of the papers relating to Germany for the same period. Material contained in these archives should shed new light on such topics as the Catholic Church’s relations to Fascism, Nazism, Communism, the Civil War in Spain and the persecution of the church in Mexico.

4 ) Journal articles:
Frank J,Coppa, The Contemporary Papacy from Paul VI to Benedict XVI. A bibliographical essay. in Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 92 no 4, October 2006 pp 597 – 608. This is an excellently comprehensive and valuable guide to the numerous biographies of the three popes covered.

With every good wish,
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

An Easter greeting to you all

Whether we be young or old,
Our destiny our being’s heart and home
Is with infinitude, and only there;
With hope it is, hope that can never die
Effort, and expectation, and desire,
And something evermore about to be

From The Prelude William Wordsworth

Contents:

1) Book reviews :

a) James Parkes: “Recasting Christian-Jewish relations”
b) ed. T. Kushner and N.Valman, Philosemitism, Antisemitism and the Jews

1a) (This review first appeared in the American Jewish Congress Monthly, Vol 73, no 5 (September-October 2006) pp 12-18. I believe it appropriate for the Easter season)

Campaigning against antisemitism. By Colin Richmond. London/ Portland: Valentine Mitchell, 2005. 312 pages. $ ??
He also spoke as a Jew. The Life of the Reverend James Parkes. By Haim Chertok. London/Portland: Valentine Mitchell, 2006. 516 pages. $ ?? End of an Exile. Israel, the Jews and the Gentile World. By James Parkes. 3rd edition. Marblehead, Mass: Micah Publications Inc., 2005. 341 pages. $ ??

The most significant revision in Christian theology during the twentieth century in both the Roman Catholic and Protestant communities was undoubtedly the forging of a new relationship with Judaism. After so many centuries when the dominant Christian tradition was one of denigration, the teaching of contempt and frequently of persecution, this alteration has involved not only the abandonment of entrenched dogmatic beliefs but also the growth of a new and still-building relationship. The classic Christian belief was that Jews were no longer the Chosen People of God because they had crucified their Messiah, that they deserved banishment into a wandering exile endured since the first century AD, and that their spiritual destiny was to be superseded by Christianity. The obstinate refusal of Jews to accept this fate only reinforced the kind of intolerant prejudice amongst Christians, which so easily turned to hostility and violence. Even in more recent centuries, the part played by theologically-based concepts in generating the evil disease of secular antisemitism cannot be denied.

The principal cause for the alteration in Christian attitudes was undoubtedly the horror and the shame felt by many Christians at the mass murder of so many Jewish lives by the Nazis during the Second World War. The impact of the Holocaust, though not immediately appreciated in many Christian circles, was however only a negative shock which forced a reconsideration of earlier preconceptions. Equally important was the more positive contribution made by a few notable individuals in preparing the way for a fresh and creative alternative on which to base a revived dialogue between Church and Synagogue. Such a person was James Parkes, a Church of England clergyman, who was the author of a large number of books on this topic in the middle years of the last century, and is now the subject of two biographies, which have just appeared within months of each other, both from the same publisher.

It is often the fate of pioneers that their fame, and the struggles they went through to fight the good fight, are forgotten once the cause they espoused has become victorious, or at least widely accepted as “normal”. By the end of his life, in 1981, Parkes was acutely conscious that he was becoming a forgotten figure, even while his ideas for a new and creative stance towards Judaism and Israel were being more widely understood, often without credit to their author. So it is timely that his contributions should be refreshingly acknowledged by two biographers, one British, and one Israeli-American, both of whom successfully restore this valiant, if sometimes flawed, character to life, and soberly evaluate his remarkable intellectual achievements. At the same time, these large-scale studies make clear that Parkes’ career should not be treated hagiographically. He had too many faults, not least the high esteem he held of his own abilities, and his scorn for others whose ideas he held to be patently in error. Both authors give a rounded portrait, emphasizing the path Parkes followed for fifty years in reformulating the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, and in unfailingly commending this new vision to all who would listen.

Parkes was unique in being one of the earliest writers to challenge head-on the historical record of Christian injustice towards Jewry, and moreover to show an unwavering determination to make the Christian churches repent for such centuries of misunderstanding and hatred. Both biographers rightly stress Parkes’ moral impetus. He sought to make the Christian world atone, in order to make the world safe for Jews to live in. His attacks on theological obscurantism, as also on racial prejudice, were part of his moral vision to remedy the dehumanizing impact of such deplorable influences whenever or wherever they occurred. At the same time he combined this campaign against the evils of antisemitism with a highly evocative belief in the goodness of humanity, the centrality of (eventual) progress and the need to revise all religious insights accordingly. His strong support for rationalism led him to affirm his conviction that, if men could see the unreasonableness of their preconceptions, however long-held, they would prefer to adopt a more enlightened view. He proudly called himself a rationalist. But at the same time he had a lively sense of humour which saved him from too much smugness about the rightness, or righteousness, of his opinions.

In his seventies, Parkes wrote an autobiography, Voyage of Discoveries, which both the present biographers find problematic. Richmond describes it as disastrous, Chertok as unreliable. But both are inevitably beholden to it for many reference points. Richmond seeks to deflate the self-satisfaction displayed in this volume, and repeatedly affirms his inability to share Parkes’ confidence in the rational progress of human society. Chertok subjects the memoir to a far-reaching process of deconstruction in order to excavate the subtext. In particular he focuses on those portions of Parkes’ life about which Parkes is silent, such as his unhappy and lonely boyhood, or his lacklustre performance in the trenches during the First World War. This leads Chertok to engage in some unseemly, even prurient, speculations for which he has no evidence. But the objective for both authors is clear: they seek to establish a critical distance from their subject, even while expressing admiration for his intellectual brilliance, his writing talents and his significant achievements in championing the fight against antisemitism.

Parkes was born in 1896 and hence was old enough to join his older siblings in thee First World War- both of whom lost their lives in the conflict. He survived, and in his memoirs claims that when he returned “it was with a fairly clear idea that I wanted to be ordained”. He then belonged to the generation of young men, whose very survival made them precious, and who were expected to fulfill the promise of all those who had been slain. Particularly those who proceeded to complete their studies at the most prestigious universities of Oxford and Cambridge were often admired for their heroism as “the golden generation”. But at the same time they were burdened by the expectations laid on them by their elders, who now believed that their own failings – especially their failure to prevent the descent into war – would now be remedied by the idealism of these battle-scarred veterans. Certainly in Parkes’ case, the combination of idealism, intellectual talent and a commitment to devote oneself to the service of others, was responsible for his decision to seek ordination in the Church of England. Undoubtedly too, his war-time experiences propelled him to recognize the need to rethink and revitalize the role of the Church in the post-war world. His theological studies led him to adopt the views propounded by Oxford’s Modernist movement, which was the cutting edge of liberal Protestantism of the day. Modernism challenged orthodoxy’s traditional doctrines by subjecting them to the light of reason and research, and promising a spiritual renewal based on social relevance. For Parkes this creed was to become formative and was the basis of much of his later thinking. It led him to reject much of the Christian tradition, including such venerable beliefs as the Virgin birth, while struggling to reinterpret the doctrine of the Trinity, and stressing the significance of a religion of righteousness and justice.

It was this readiness to adopt a critical approach to traditional Christianity and to challenge the received wisdom of the Church which prepared the way for his ground-breaking revision of Christian attitudes towards Judaism.

At Oxford, Parkes was easily attracted by the programmes of the Student Christian Movement., which was then at its apogee. The SCM had left behind its earlier pietistic evangelicalism and now advocated the full flush of the social gospel. It embraced other churches with ecumenical enthusiasm, was ready to question all inherited traditions and authorities, and was eager to enlist the idealism of the young to reform the world on Christian humanist lines. Parkes so closely exemplified this spirit that it was small wonder that he was recruited, immediately after graduation, by the SCM’s national officers to join their team in London, mainly to organize conferences and discussion groups to promote these goals amongst the students of British universities.

At the same time, Parkes found time at Oxford to become a leading light in the University’s League of Nations Union. Here too the idealism of the young was mobilized to work for a world in which war would be impossible. In fact, as one wit said, “the League of Nations enjoyed the support of all organized religions; for those who had no religion, it formed a very adequate substitute”. This gave Parkes an international dimension to his thinking, and led him in 1924 to accept readily enough the SCM’s offer to second him to their parent organization based in Geneva. Here Parkes took up the work of organizing student conferences for the whole of Europe, and even wrote a manual on how this should be done.

It was in this work that he first became aware of what was then called “the Jewish question”. His encounters with Jewish students taught him about the scandalous discrimination and harassment practised against Jews in many universities and about the widespread virulence of antisemitism even amongst Christian communities in many parts of Europe. This provided Parkes with the impetus to seek out the roots of such prejudice. To his dismay, he soon realized the fact that much of this entrenched hostility stemmed from centuries of anti-judaic teaching by the Church, particularly from the polemics of the Church fathers. It was largely his awareness of the vulnerability of Jews throughout the centuries which propelled him, not only into a philosemitic stance, but also to devote his intellectual talents to challenge these pernicious teachings head-on.

This was to prove no easy task. For one thing, he had first to prove his credentials amongst those he wanted to help. The long history of Christian prejudice had made most Jews wary. They were often suspicious that these supposedly friendly Christians had missionary motives and were still basically intent on “rescuing” Jews from their “fate”. So Parkes set out to write a short book The Jew and his Neighbour: a study in the causes of antisemitism, which was subsequently published in 1930 by the SCM Press in London. He sought to outline the consequences of Christian treatment or mistreatment of the Jewish people, and to argue that true Christianity was incompatible with this kind of dark and malignant evil He could not accept that antisemitism was intrinsic to Christian belief, but called for Christian atonement for the past sins against the Jews. This was to be the first of the majority of Parkes’ writings acknowledging Christian guilt for centuries of misrepresentation and intolerance, and pleading for a new awareness of what Judaism really stood for.

It is striking that Parkes’ commitment to recast Christian-Jewish relations took place in the 1920s, i.e. even before the menace of Nazi antisemitism became so powerful after 1933, and long before the Holocaust. His campaign was in fact prophetic, but it was accompanied by the firm belief that the Church could and must adopt a new relationship in order to root out the evil of antisemitism not only within its own ranks but in the wider secular society as well.

Parkes’ second book The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue, for which he gained an Oxford PhD in 1934, was a masterly and scholarly account of the origins of antisemitism from the earliest days of the Christian community through the Dark Ages up to the mediaeval period. Both biographers rightly see this pioneer work of re-evaluation as having great merit. Here, for the first time, a clergyman of the Church of England questioned the commonly-held assumption that Judaism had come to the end of its course, and should now be replaced by the more up-to-date and progressive force of Christianity. The most prominent British historian of the day, Arnold Toynbee, had recently lent his prestige to this view, by pronouncing existing Judaism to be no more than a fossilized religion. So Parkes had to contend with influential currents of thought.
It made for a long haul.

By 1935, when the violence of Nazi antisemitism was already sending shock waves across Europe, Parkes decided he must devote himself full-time to combating this evil. But, despite his academic qualifications, he had no university position, and his subject was still regarded with suspicion in such circles. So too, he had no position in the Church, and was extremely reluctant to be tied down by accepting a parish with its attendant duties. Instead he sought independence and the freedom to express his controversial views as he saw best.

In this predicament he turned to a wealthy Jewish business man, Israel Sieff, who had earlier helped with some of his student projects. Both biographers are rather coy about Sieff’s motivations. He certainly was encouraging and recognized that any commitment would have to be of considerable duration. But the actual sums granted were not large. Parkes’ other income from his writing or lecturing was minuscule. So in fact he was obliged to live for years on a very Spartan scale. His only luxury was to purchase books on Judaica, for which he got special grants. But in order to house his collection and to have room to work, Parkes bought a dilapidated manor house in the rural village of Barley, not far from Cambridge and an easy train ride to London. This became his base for nearly thirty years, from which he sallied forth to give lectures, attend conferences and to participate in meetings relevant to his studies.

Parkes saw himself as a historian. His books from this period were thoroughly researched and have indeed stood the test of time. But they also had to have relevance to the more immediate political currents of his day. The rise of Nazism proved to Parkes the necessity of mobilizing opposition to its totalitarian ambitions. He increasingly saw himself called to lead the campaign against these wider secular forms of antisemitism, as Richmond rightly acknowledges. The increasingly disastrous news about Jewish sufferings in Germany, and after 1939 throughout Europe, caused him terrible anguish, but only reinforced his belief that not enough was being done by Germany’s opponents to rescue and relieve these “poor dear Jews”. In fact, in retrospect, he could only deplore the failure of imagination and the indifference of the Christian world. Had the Christian churches possessed sufficient spiritual strength to mobilize opposition to Hitler, he believed, this might well have led to a myriad of martyrs but would surely have prevented the mass murder of six million Jews and probably twice that number of other victims of Nazism.

By the end of the 1930s, his former Jewish friends from student days in central Europe found themselves in dire peril. Some managed to escape to England and were sympathetically received in Barley. Others came to make use of his library resources, so the house was continually filled with refugees and students. Only his skillful cultivation of a vegetable garden provided food for all these guests. Increasingly Parkes lived for his work and produced some notable volumes with a strong historical base.

But, as Richmond points out, the impact of his writings was not large. Parkes’ name was not known: He lacked the influence he might have gained as a professor or a bishop. But he refused all such attempts to find him a suitable platform, even, under the post-1945 Labour Government, the offer of a seat in the House of Lords. Such a pedestal in such a historically outdated anomaly would have been remarkable, but in any case Parkes refused, saying that traveling to London would preclude his concentration on his work in the (near) solitude of Barley.

At the same time his horizons widened. Although still concerned to call the Christian community to repentance for its history of intolerance, he now took up the more immediate cause of campaigning on behalf of his “poor dear Jews” in a practical way. He became a leading member of the Christian Zionist cause, which advocated the return of Jews to Palestine as the most positive means of providing a refuge for the persecuted European communities. His biographers seem not to know that Christian Zionism has a respectable history of its own. In England it was particularly strong in the nineteenth century. Parkes brought its theology up-to-date, adding to its existing humanitarian tradition. He was strongly supported by other theologians, notably Reinhold Niebuhr in America, and in the 1930s and 1940s he wrote a series of significant works espousing this cause, and subsequently arguing the case for the newly-established State of Israel.

One of thes,e End of an Exile. Israel, the Jews and the Gentile world, appeared first in 1954 and has recently been reprinted, presumably because it most capably makes the case for, and explains the meaning of a Jewish state. Several more recent essays written by Parkes’ disciples have been added to this new edition in order to bring its message up-to-date. It bears all the marks of Parkes’ indefatigable scholarship but also of his ardent advocacy. As a historian and a theologian, he mobilized his material to give background and depth to the contemporary scene. The early chapters recapitulate some of his previous writings on the history of the Jews, but he stresses the necessity of linking both religion and politics with their historical background. Thus he disputes the view that the new State of Israel is a modern secular invention. Rather he seeks to claim that this is in accordance with the true and ancient tradition of being Jewish. To be sure, his view that twentieth century Zionism was largely the result of the mistreatment of Jews in eastern Europe has been questioned. But his insights into the formative Jewish influences defining the newly-created state are excellently presented. Above all, Parkes rightly asserted the inherent relationship in Judaism between land, people and religion, which now for the first time in centuries could find free expression. He sought to convince his Christian readers that they must understand Judaism on its own terms, not merely through the lenses of Christian apologetic. The same message was conveyed in the chapter on Jerusalem, where he sought to demolish the beloved sentimentalities of so much Christian rhetoric and instead insisted on the harsh factuality of the city’s Jewishness, even if, at the time he was writing, it was politically divided.

This book was all part of his campaign to oblige the Christian churches to recognize that the creation of the State of Israel was more than just a political adjustment of boundaries in the Middle East. In fact, Parkes, asserted, this event had tremendous theological significance, and should be regarded as a historical sign of God’s continuing faithfulness to his people. The republication of this book, fifty years after it was written, is presumably due to the sad fact that some Christian communities are still reluctant to accept Parkes’ arguments, even today.

Critics of Parkes’ numerous writings often claimed that, despite his assurances to the contrary, the fine line between objective history and unilateral partisanship frequently got blurred.. Others, who knew about the source of his funding, accused him of having sold out his intellect to the Jews. Others again wondered why, since he was so obviously partial to Judaism and its representatives, he did not himself convert. But, as Chertok rightly points out, this misses the whole point. Parkes never wavered in his allegiance to Jesus Christ. But since his mission was to bring the Church to admit its culpability and to reach a better and healthier appreciation of Judaism, this could only be done from within the Christian community. Only a practising Christian could advocate the necessary work of atonement. His credibility would have been lost by conversion.

In his later writings, Parkes’ firm conviction grew that both Jews and Christians need each other. Each should recognize that neither yet possesses the final totality of truth. Both should follow the common task of pursuing a “theology of equality” in creative tension and dialogue. He argued that Judaism, Christianity and Humanism were three “channels” through which the experience of God was being revealed to humankind. Their differences of emphasis should be seen as mutually enriching rather than as exclusive of each other. There should be no denial of the peculiar nature of each religious contribution to humankind, or any suggestion that one “channel” was more significant than another. All were equally divine, as revelations of God’s revelation. Christians should abandon their view that Judaism was a dead or incomplete religion. Judaism is part of God’s overall plan for creation, and needs to survive intact as a valid demonstration of God’s power. This pluralism of view reflected very well Parkes’ early training in the modernist rationalist school, but inevitably upset those Christians whose Christology led them to make exclusive claims or whose missionary zeal still saw the Jews only as potential converts.

In the 1950s Parkes became increasingly concerned about his legacy. His splendid library was unique and growing daily. What he wanted was a custom-made building and if possible an established Institute where scholars could be welcomed. Both preferably in Barley. But his benefactor, Israel Sieff, prevaricated. Neither biographer explains why. In the end, the library was sold to a small new university on England’s south coast, at Southampton, which faithfully kept its promise to preserve and maintain it intact. It took another forty years before a separate Parkes Institute could be founded. But today both flourish, and provided the raw materials for these comprehensive biographies.

Seemingly neither Richmond and Chertok were brought up within the ambiance of the Church of England, nor are they familiar with the idiosyncrasies of that institution, which shows on occasion. More seriously, this background is really necessary in evaluating Parkes’ enduring influence. In his final years Parkes was increasingly aware that he was becoming a forgotten man. The explanation is two-fold, neither of which is fully taken up by his biographers. On the one hand, Parkes was a “loner”. He had never sought to fit into the Anglican establishment, was often scornful of its bishops and its outdated ceremonies, and was outspokenly critical of its missionary endeavours towards Jews. In fact, his early commitment to a highly unorthodox and seemingly reductionist theology had already made him an isolated figure. His writings demonstrated his sympathy with the intellectual western members of the Reformed Jewish community, who praised him loudly for his sympathy and understanding. His ability to talk as a Jew did not however lead to popularity in the wider Christian ranks. The Church of England never saw any need to lead in the reformation or reformulation of Christian attitudes towards Judaism. Only one, now retired, bishop, Harries of Oxford, carried forward Parkes’ work for the next generation.

More significantly, however, Christian attitudes did change, but primarily due to German Protestant and Roman Catholic initiatives. The striking alterations of Catholic doctrine promulgated during the Second Vatican Council under John XXII and Paul VI, and carried forward by subsequent popes, were exactly in line with Parkes’ repudiation of theological antisemitism. But his influence on the Catholic scholars can only be attributed as indirect. Equally important, but again indirectly, were his writings on Israel for the wider Protestant community, especially in Germany. In 1948, the establishment of the State of Israel caused a major theological shock to reverberate throughout Christendom. The reassertion of Jewish nationhood put paid to the supersessionst theories of Jewish perpetual banishment or of Judaism’s imminent demise. But the equal shock and shame among Christians in Germany, as they began to come to terms with their failure to prevent the Holocaust, were even more effective in sponsoring a new and much more creative relationship with Judaism. But few German Protestants had heard of, or read, Parkes.

In more recent years, the kind of dialogue based on a theology of equality, for which Parkes argued, has been carried forward – unequally – around the world. In Europe, Jews remain a minority and somewhat unready to engage in dialogue. In Israel, the Christian community has been reduced almost to vanishing point. Only in the United States where the communities can and do meet on equal terms have Parkes’ ideas found a ready reception, as can be seen both in the Jewish scholars’ statement Dabru Emet of September 2000 and the later Christian statement A Sacred Obligation of September 2002, the majority of both groups being resident in the United States.

On the wider scene, it may be confidently asserted that Parkes’ campaign against theological antisemitism is close to victory. It is now inconceivable that the Vatican authorities would reverse the teachings of Nostra Aetate, issued in 1965. And similarly, the bold declaration of solidarity with Judaism, with its explicit renunciation of proselytism, issued by the German Evangelical Church’s Rhineland Synod in 1980, has come to be widely accepted and adopted in Lutheran communities. The classical Christian pejorative definitions of Judaism and the Jewish people are no longer heard from Sunday pulpits. To that extent, Parkes’ campaign has been vindicated far more quickly than he expected.

When Parkes first turned to Israel Sieff for financial help, his host asked how long the work would take. He gave as his honest answer: “Three hundred years”. In fact, great strides have been made in the past seventy years since the appearance of The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue. Much is due to Parkes’ pioneering research and provocative thought. He regarded his life’s work as “reversing the stream that has flowed in the wrong direction for 1900 years”. His true, if often unacknowledged, legacy is that this revolution is now taking place. We are therefore indebted to his biographers for their lucid description and analysis of James Parkes’ significant contribution in this epoch-changing process.
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1b) Tony Kushner and Nadia Valman, eds., Philosemitism, antisemitism and the Jews. Perspectives from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, Aldershot, Hants, U.K.:Ashgate 2004. 272 pp. ISBN 0 7546 3678 X

This collection of essays arose out of a conference held at the University of Southampton to mark the centenary of James Parkes’ birth, but has been worth waiting for. Gavin Langmuir leads the cohort of distinguished British and American scholars in tracing out many of the early features of both philosemitism and antisemitism. The work thus provides an excellent introduction to the career of James Parkes, as well as providing new insights into aspects of Christian-Jewish relations from the Middle Ages to the present. Several hitherto perspectives, such as those of the seventeenth century Quakers in England, or the limits of enlightenment sympathy for Judaism as seen in the writings of Lessing and Goethe, make this a helpful if widely-diversified collection of essays. Readers should take note and file the contents away in the appropriate computerized index, so that the individual contributions do not get lost to sight. In the final essay by Prof. Tony Kushner, he points out that Parkes’ influence was in part limited because it was not until the late 1950s that the enormity of destruction inflicted upon the Jewish people came to be recognized, and the word Holocaust began to be used. In the immediate post-1945 climate of opinion, in Britain, not many people were concerned about these terrible events. The survivors were few and marginalized. Other Jews avoided the subject as a result of their own insecurity. The British war memory was being highly and successfully cultivated, but the British government’s failure to rescue Jews did not feature in these accounts. And the antipathy towards the new Zionist state of Israel after the turbulent experiences of the British Mandate in Palestine, all affected how Parkes’ magnificent campaigns were received. But Kushner rightly gives him the credit for his work in combatting all forms of prejudice, and the book as a whole seeks to carry on his courageous witness as the most resolute philosemite of his generation.
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Correction: By error in the last issue, p. 3, Prof. Dr Georg Denzler was referred to as a layman. He has actually been a priest of the Bamberg diocese since 1955.

With best wishes
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Contents:

1) Book reviews

a) Krondorfer et al., German theologians’ autobiographies.
b) Carter, Martyrdom in Melanesia

2) Archival information: The Meissen Library, Durham

3) Journal articles:

a) Gailus, An ardent Nazi’s career – Pastor M Ziegler
b) Linday, Bonhoeffer, Yad Vashem and and the Church

4) Reader’s response to R.Steigman-Gall’s The Holy Reich

1a) Björn Krondorfer, Katharina von Kellenbach, Norbert Reck, Mit Blick auf die Täter. Fragen an die deutsche Theologie nach 1945. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus 2006 ISBN- 13: 978-3-579-052274 317 pp.

Björn Krondorfer and Katharina von Kellenbach, who teach at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, have done much to promote the cause of Christian-Jewish reconciliation in the German context. For Germans, far more than in other countries, the prerequisite for such a task is the willingness to engage in Vergangenheitsbewältigung – in this case with the long history of German intolerance, prejudice and persecution of the Jewish people, which culminated in the Holocaust. As is well known, such attempts to come to terms with the Nazi past after 1945 were only reluctantly and fitfully undertaken, and are indeed not yet complete. What role did the churches play? What theologies were preached and practised? In Krondorfer’s view, the eminent scholars and preachers of the Evangelische Kirche failed in their duty to set an example of public repentance and contrition, or to lead their audiences towards a new theological understanding of Judaism and its relationship to Christianity. His questions about German post-1945 theology are, in fact, much more directed to the theologians themselves and their own personal failure to adopt any public stance out of which a new beginning could be undertaken.

Krondorfer backs up his challenging contentions by examining the autobiographies written by German theologians since 1945. approximately 35 in all, in order to see how they undertook their own coming to terms with the past. His findings are astonishing – and deeply disappointing. He shows that, with only a few exceptions, this entire group of theologians wrote their autobiographies with apologetic purposes. They demonstrate how decisively their minds and careers were fashioned by the dominant nationalist and racialist ideologies of early 20th century Germany. Equally disappointing was their failure, even after the crimes of the Holocaust were well known, to engage in any confession of Christian complicity, or of repentance or reparation towards any of the victims of German aggression, especially the Jews. Instead the key notes of these writers are self-justification and self-exculpation. To be sure, after 1945, Martin Niemoeller publicly, in numerous sermons and speeches, acknowledged his own and Germany’s guilt. His call for repentance was, however, strongly opposed and bitterly resented. And even he, in later years, took a very generous attitude towards the earlier misdemeanours of many of his compromised clerical colleagues in the church of Hessen-Nassau. Not until we come to the youngest post-war generation do we find a different tone.

Krondorfer divides his theologian-authors into different cohorts, according to their ages. He persuasively argues that these men (almost all were men) gained in their youth a set of political ideas which influenced their subsequent lives. He begins with the oldest and distinguished bishop, Theophil Wurm, born in 1868, whose memoirs were written when he was over eighty, but which still reflected the values he had learnt under the Kaiser’s rule. Wurm and his generation (and his sector of German Christianity) suffered the terrible shock of the German defeat of 1918. As conservatives, their world fell apart. They soon came to blame, not their misguided rulers, but the victorious Allies. The Treaty of Versailles very quickly became the symbol of how Germany was being oppressed, and they themselves victimized. The tone of self-pity, or preoccupation with their own fortunes, runs throughout. The rise of Hitler could then be explained as the result of Allied vindictiveness, and his struggle to regain Germany’s place in the world, justified. Germany’s defeat in the second war could also be seen as a recurrence of German victimization. Wurm was one of those who loudly protested Allied occupation policies after 1945, and could believe these moves were prompted by a deliberate attempt to starve the German race out of existence. He led the vocal chorus of self-pitying lamentation about the hardships suffered by Germans. Not a word about the far greater sufferings imposed by Germans on the many other peoples of Europe, let alone on the Jews.

For a slightly younger cohort, Krondorfer subjects the autobiographies of Walter Künneth and Helmut Thielicke, neither of whom could be accused of pro-Nazi attitudes, to an insightful but biting analysis. Here too he finds that the desire to escape from any acknowledgment of guilt leads to an evasiveness, when the actual fate of the Jews is hardly mentioned at all. Neither of these men showed a willingness to speak out about German guilt or to say words of sympathy for the Germans’ victims. Instead their concern is all for the suffering Germans, for whom they show a commendable pastoral care, but whose crimes they seek to downplay or relativize. So too their emphasis is on the fate of the bombed-out or the expellees from the east, not on the concentration camp inmates so brutally mistreated or willfully murdered. In the end, Krondorfer affirms, it is the tone of self-exculpatory rectitude which is so irritating. He closes his essay with a expression of indignation and exasperation: “The language used in these theologians’ autobiographies lacks experimental liveliness; the contents show only too clearly an unwillingness to reveal the whole personality. What is missing is any sign that these authors felt anguish or that they experienced moments of agitation, chaos, fragmentation, questioning, searching, exposure, nakedness, incompleteness, blundering, face-to-face honesty, intimacy, or vulnerability. When we of later generations read these polished and orderly self-justifications, we can only wish that, in our post-Auschwitz world, some theologian at some point would be ready to stutter or stammer a genuine apology and a meaningful confession of guilt.”

Norbert Reck takes the same approach in his evaluation of the autobiographies of Catholic theologians. The older cohort, such as Rahner, Fries, Schmaus and Guardini, ascribes the political and social evils of their day to the general abandonment of the church and its teachings, which had set in a hundred years or more ago and now found its climax in Hitler’s rule. This convenient way of blaming Nazism and its attendant crimes on much wider or even universal phenomena amounts to a skillful evasion. Their remedy consisted of a call to return to the faith, and to rebuild the church’s dogmatic base. Needless to say there was no readiness to deal with the tradition of Catholic antisemitism, or to examine the church’s own complicity in Nazi crimes. The same can be seen in the memoirs of Joseph Ratzinger, the present Pope Benedict XVI. He depicts his early years as living in an enclosed Catholic milieu which sought to isolate itself, as far as possible, from any involvement with the Nazi regime. When obliged to participate, e.g. in the Hitler Youth or the Volkssturm, this was a forced obedience not a willing compliance. Only younger theologians such as Johann Baptist Metz began to recognize the need for a theological revision towards Judaism “after Auschwitz”, based on an honest admission of the church’s failures. But he only went so far, and it was left up to a layman, Georg Denzler, to undertake a more systematic and hard-hitting critique.

Katharine von Kellenbach has used the records of prison chaplains to study how the question of guilt was handled amongst the convicted Nazi war criminals. With one exception, these men refused to acknowledge any such contrition. To the end they maintained that they had only obeyed orders, had done their duty and served their country loyally. Any wider sense of moral or political obligation was completely absent. Instead they saw themselves as the victims of a vindictive foreign justice. How to bring these men to a different state of mind, or how to convey a Christian message of forgiveness, without encouraging these criminals’ sense of self-pity, was a demanding and difficult assignment for these chaplains.

For the forgiveness of sins, neither the Catholic nor the Protestant tradition requires a direct connection to, or reparation for, the victim. By contrast, the Jewish liturgical practice foresees deliberate actions of reconciliation between offender and victim, especially in the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But any such action is disputed by those in the Protestant tradition who believe that confession can only be made to God, and only God can forgive. Because God’s grace is so abundant, the sinner will not suffer the rejection he might well receive if he approached his victim. But, as Bonhoeffer recognized, such private confession can easily give way to self-deception, self-pity and evasion.

Genuine repentance also requires visible action. In the case of the former Nazis, or of the German churches, such Sühnezeichen have been few and belated. There is still evidence of nationalist resentment against any real solidarity with the Nazis’ victims, especially Jews, Poles and Russians. By contrast, the German churches readily enough supported large-scale measures to reintegrate Nazi criminals into post-war society, and by such “normalization” to help cover over their pasts. Christian theology, such as the parable of the Prodigal Son, has often been misused to give former Nazis the benefit of every doubt. Christian loving-kindness was contrasted to the Old Testament, i.e. Jewish, demands for punitive judgments. Reconciliation can this become cheapened, if there is no real sign of repentance by the sinner, or if only the victims are expected to forgive and forget.

As Katharina von Kellenbach shows, these questions and controversies continue to resound through all German attempts to construct a new era in Christian-Jewish dialogue. All three authors, in fact, are saddened by the evidence of continuing prejudice against the victims of society, and are evidently concerned that the present-day resourcefulness of German theology may not suffice to prevent a repetition of the excesses of the previous century.

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1b) Richard A.Carter, In search of the Lost. The death and life of seven peacemakers of the Melanesian Brotherhood, Norwich, Canterbury Press 2006, 242 pp.

Richard Carter is a young priest from England who went out in 1990 to the Solomon Islands in the south-west Pacific Ocean, and subsequently served as Chaplain to the Melanesian Brotherhood, based on the island of Guadacanal. This Brotherhood is a vibrant community of eager and dedicated young men who are committed to short-term monastic vows, and undertake evangelistic and service tasks for the hundreds of rural, often isolated, villages where most of the people live. Carter’s evocative description of their witness is drawn from his diaries and letters, and provides a vivid picture of how this vigorous, though little-known, branch of the Anglican Communion has sought to present the challenge of Christian discipleship in difficult and often tragic circumstances.

Carter’s period of service coincided with a rapid escalation of communal violence in the Solomon Islands, particularly on Guadacanal, where both the capital, Honiara, and the headquarters of the Brotherhood, at Tabalia, are situated. This ethnic conflict and near civil war led to outbursts of wanton destruction of property which ruined the nation’s infrastructure, and resulted in a marked economic decline. The whole public sector closed down because there was no money to pay any salaries. Much overseas aid was withheld, and no secure climate for future investment could be cultivated. Gangs of unemployed and discontented youth were recruited and armed with weapons to carry out communal reprisals, and there were reports of atrocities committed on both sides. The police and government authorities were suspected of corruption and partisanship.

The Christian communities sought to counter this situation by a resolute commitment to peace and reconciliation. At the suggestion of the government, the Melanesian Brothers joined a disarmament campaign by offering to collect and destroy any guns they could persuade the villagers to hand over. Several thousand guns were in fact collected by the Brothers and dumped into the sea. They recognized that, to succeed, they needed to preserve the strictest impartiality and not to be seen as deriving favours from one faction or the other. But it was not enough. Too often, each side suspected that giving up their weapons would jeopardize their safety. The Brothers were accused of political naiveté. They were warned that they were being involved in situations of double-dealing and deceit. It was clear that the chief casualty of the conflict was the trust and respect which had formerly united the whole island society. Instead fear and suspicion were rampant. The ethnic antagonism was brutal and destructive, and its effects were noticeable on all sides. Despite the courage and bravery with which the Christian groups faced the tension, they were obliged to witness terror at first hand. They still live with painful memories of unforgettably evil events. It called for all the resources, biblical and spiritual, at their command to offset these sickening horrors.

One of the ways in which the Brothers sought to combat the loss of identity and alienation, and to prevent the disintegration of the village societies, was to stage a series of pilgrimages with religious dramas. These plays, drawn from the Gospel stories, were translated into the vernacular Solomon Island dialects, and performed by a large cast drawn from the Brothers and Novices. Richard Carter himself arranged and directed these performances in terms relevant to Melanesia. They all contained elements essential to powerful drama: simplicity, conflict, a sense of danger and a trenchant presentation of Christian teachings. They proved to be immensely popular, but their message of peace and reconciliation was too often outweighed by the atmosphere of tension and communal strife.

One of the most stubborn and defiant insurgents had his well-fortified encampment on the remote Weather, or western, coast of the island. In March 2003 one of the Brothers attempted to reach him with a message of peace, but was taken captive. On Easter Sunday, news arrived in Tabalia that he had been tortured and murdered. Six more Brothers who went to rescue his body were in turn captured as so-called “prisoners of war”. In the Brothers’ headquarters, an agonizing period of waiting for their release followed. The risk of sending any more men out to the danger zone appeared to be too great. They could only pray.

For two months there was an ominous silence. The warlord’s forces gathered momentum. The police and military authorities lacked the resources to overcome the rebellion or rescue the hostages. Villages where the Brothers had recently performed their plays were sacked and burnt to the ground. Several innocent villagers were deliberately tortured and put to death. Back in Tabalia, the Brothers’ paranoia grew by the day. It was a relentless spiral. Inevitably the fear grew that a tragedy had occurred which was too great for them to bear.

At the beginning of August, these fears were officially confirmed. The six young Brothers who went out in faith in search of their brother had all been murdered in cold blood three months earlier. The shock united the whole community in a bond of traumatized sadness. They sat up through the night recalling stories of these slain Brothers and trying to come to terms with the enormity of their loss. Messages of support and condolence poured in from around the world. Slowly, over the next few days and weeks, the realization grew that the martyrdom of these seven Brothers would be a signal to the world that Christian courage and sacrifice were not in vain, and that their deaths were in fact life-giving to the wider church. In death, the seven Brothers, as Carter says, “are a constant, aching reminder of the integrity, values and love which alone can bring hope to the world”.

In October and November 2003, the remains of the seven men were brought to the Brothers’ mother house in Tabalia, and buried in the special burial ground there. Nine months later, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, himself came to pay his respects. He asked to be admitted as a Companion of the Melanesian Brotherhood, and then planted a kaui tree amongst the colourful groves of bougainvillea and frangipani which surround the Brothers’ final resting place. The plaque commemorating his visit bears the inscription that their faith should be the seed that yields a harvest of peace.

It is readily apparent that the purpose of this book is not only to make the story of these heroic Brothers’ sacrifice known to the wider world, but also to enable Richard Carter to come to terms with his own anguished grief at the loss of his well-beloved companions. It was also apparent that, to achieve these aims, his period of service in Melanesia should come to an end. He left the Solomon Islands in 2005 to return to his original family in Britain, and, with their help, to write what Archbishop Williams commends as “a most truly evangelical book”. Not only does its inspiring message effectively present the vision of the Brotherhood, but it also provides a valuable record of this troubled period of the history of the Anglican Church in Melanesia.

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2) The Meissen Library, Durham Cathedral, UK

(I include the foillowing article written by the Appeal Secretary since several of our colleagues may wish to take advantage of this newly-available resource.)

The Meissen Library at Durham Cathedral is the largest gathered collection in Britain of books in German on the history snd theology of the German Protestant Church, containing publicaions from the later 18th century to the present day (some 13,000 volumes). It is, however, remarkable for the breadth of its holdings across a wide range of theological disciplines, including material rarely available outside Germany. For example, it contains works in ecumenical theology, reflecting the increasing engagement of the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland with other branches of the Christian Churh including the Orthodox in Europe. Such engagement was inevitable from the 18th century onwards after the major partitions of Poland, but the collection also reflects the world-wide representation of Christian mission through the agencies of those traditions now part of the EKiD. Strengths of the collection include material on the period of the “German Christian” movement, the Church in Eastern Europe after World War Two, Christian contributions to politics and society during the 19th and 20th centuries, especially material of preaching and an extensive collection of sermons. There is a section concerned with Jewish-Christian relationships both in the past and in the present-day world, and Christian understanding of Islam has a useful section. The collection is already available to readers and researchers. For access, please contact Mrs Sylvia Graham, The Cathedral Library, The College, Durham DHI 3EH, UK, or by phone at 0191 386 2489, or by e-mail meissen.library@durham.ac.uk For accommodation in Durham in a nearby College, please contact A. L.Loades@durham.ac.uk

The Library (from the former seminary at Imbshausen, together with major gifts of books by some distinguished donors) was given to the Church of England by the EKiD under the terms of the 1991 Meissen Declaration between the EKiD and the Church of England. On behalf of the Church of England, the then Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral agreed to house the Library as a distinct collection, but the Chapter made it clear that it did not have the funds other than for the provision of suitable accommodation for the books. Since 1997 when the library was established in the undercroft of the Cathedral deanery, a band of volunteers has worked consistently hard to shelve the books, eliminate duplicates (the sale of which has enabled us to establish a new books fund) and catalogue and enter the books on the Meissen Library’s own website. We aim to make this resource widely available, by employing a professional cataloguer to put the contents onto the on-line catalogue of Durham University, since this is by far the most effective way of increasing national and international knowledge of the collection. We would then be able to re-direct the efforts of our volunteers to sustaining opening hours and supervision of readers.

The Meissen Library Appeal

As indicated above, we want to employ a professional cataloguer, possibly part-time over a period of three years, or for a lesser period full-time, to get the catalogue on to the on-line OPAC catalogue of Durham University. The sum of GBP 80,000 should cover the cost of employment/insurance etc. The employer would be Durham Cathedral. The person appointed would be responsible to the Canon Librarian, The Revd Canon Professor David Brown FBA, Van Mildert Professor of Divinity, and to the Management Committee for the Meissen Library chaired by The Revd Alan Chesters.

The secretary of the Appeal is Professor Ann Loades CBE, Meissen Library Appeal, Durham Cathedral Library, The College, Durham DH1 3EH, U.K. Donations may be made directly to her, made payable to the Durham Cathedral Donations Meissen Library. Donors who pay UK tax may also have their donations enhanced by completing a Gift Aid form, available form All Loades as above.

3) Journal articles: a) Manfred Gailus, “Von ‘gottgläubiger’ Kirchenkämpfer Rosenbergs zum ‘christgläubigen’ Pfarrer Niemöllers. Matthes Zieglers wunderbare Wandlungen im 20 Jahrhundert,” in Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft. Vol. 54, no. 11, November 2006, p. 937-973.

Manfred Gailus, who teaches at Berlin’s Technical University, has undertaken a masterly piece of detective work to uncover the career of Matthes Ziegler, a former ardent Nazi who ended up by being a ranking Pastor in the Church of Hessen-Nassau, where he was appointed through the auspices of the anti-Nazi hero, Martin Niemöller. Like so many other young men of his kind, Matthes Ziegler was caught up by the frenetic mood which greeted Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. Having been born in a rural parsonage, he was intending to study theology at Greifswald, but instead switched his favours to the new political wave of enthusiasm, and was given a job by Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi Party’s chief ideologue and editor of its main newspaper. As editor of the Party’s internal monthly, the NS Monatshefte, Ziegler became an experienced journalist. But his aspirations did not stop there. When war broke out he switched his allegiance to Himmler and Bormann, and was given further propaganda assignments, such as preparing material to be used against the Catholic Church, once the “Endlösung” of the Roman pest could be launched. In 1945, as an SS officer he was automatically arrested and spent three years in detention until 1948.

But somehow or other he gained an interview with Martin Niemšller who then held the office of Church President = Bishop in Hessen-Nassau. Thanks to Niemöller, Ziegler was given permission to join the next ordination course, and subsequently was appointed to various parishes in Hessen-Nassau. He served there until retirement in 1976, all the while suppressing any embarrassing information about his past. But, in retirement, he wrote a self-serving autobiography, which was never published, but which came into Gailus’ hands and thus precipitated this investigation.

Gailus can offer no explanation for Niemöller’s surprisingly sympathetic handling of this rather unpleasant character, whose dictatorial manner and extreme right-wing opinions were still unchanged in his later years. But Gailus has pieced together all the surviving evidence from Nazi sources, and presents a devastating picture of an ambitious careerist who sought to exploit the political system for his own advantage. His memoirs in fact fully displayed the contradiction between his desire to play down his disreputable past while simultaneously boasting of his association with the Nazi “Bonzen”, Rosenberg, Darré, Heydrich, Himmler and various Gauleiter. Ziegler’s claim that he knew nothing about the crimes these men committed is hardly credible. But for years all this was hushed up. We can be grateful to Manfred Gailus for this skilful exposure.

b) Mark Lindsay, “The Righteous among the Nations”. Bonhoeffer, Yad Vashem and the Church in Toronto Journal of Theology, Vol. 22, no 1, Spring 2006, p. 23-38

For more than twenty years now, contention has reverberated over the decision of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem to deny the status of a ãrighteous Gentileä to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In the eyes of those in charge, he falls outside the scope of the definitions they established to be considered as a rescuer of Jews, while acknowledging his services in resisting the Nazi regime.

Mark Lindsay of Melbourne, Australia, examines more closely the criteria of “righteousness” in the light of Bonhoeffer’s reflections on the Beatitudes and in his later writings. According to the Yad Vashem officials, righteousnes is to be attributed to ethical acts in the face of direct danger. Religious faith is not a prerequisite. The title of righteous Gentile is awarded to individuals who rescued Jews from Nazism’s genocidal machinery, even if, in other situations, their moral probity was spotty. Oscar Schindler, for example, was a swindler and an adulterer. And evidence suggests that many rescuers were not righteous in the usual moral sense. So Yad Vashem’s definition of who receives the title is an ambivalent one.

Lindsay seeks to show that orthodox Protestantism shows a similar ambiguity. The specific ethical conduct demanded of the Christian is often undefined, and many moral situations arise where no pattern of righteousness is predictable. For Bonhoeffer, unlike most of his colleagues in the university or church, his sharply increased political awareness in the early 1930s led him to see that the real danger of Nazism demanded a raft of corporate actions in the name of justice, truth and humanity. These were not restricted solely to rescuing Jews, but could and should, result from the Christian’s faith journey, sharing in the sufferings of Christ. Such righteousness would likely lead to danger and be at great personal cost. It could, and in his case did, require perseveance to the point of martyrdom. So Bonhoeffer surely deserves the title of a Righteous Christian.

4) Reader’s response:

I would like to comment on the journal article “Was Nazism an ersatz political religion, or were Christianity and Nazism incompatible?” (February Newsletter, p. 6-7)

I welcome correction, but I get the distinct impression that most discussions of this sort have assumed that the German Lutherans and Catholics were Christians, therefore their activities show the degree of cooperation and agreement between Christianity and National Socialism. It seems to me that far too little has been said about the question of whether or not many of the German Christians were Christians in name only, not seriously dedicated to following the teachings of Christ, and in fact disobedient to the teachings of Christ, and not really Christians at all.

For example, your article said “Göring was married in church, Wilhelm Frick retained a strong commitment to Protestantism, and Hanns Kerrl, the Minister for Church Affairs, could quote the Bible by heart and was convinced that the churches and the Nazi Party were inseparable because both opposed Judaism.” Such things seem like strong arguments, but, when it comes to Goering, nowhere do Christ or the apostles say anything about church weddings. If a vicious, evil, and brutal man who clearly has not the slightest interest in the Sermon on the Mount is married in a church, this shows some kind of relationship between Naziism and the German Church – that said church might have little or nothing to do with Christ and the apostles is all too often ignored. Frick retained a strong commitment to Protestantism: did he believe that salvation was by faith alone, and that this included repentance of sin, and following the way of Christ? How many people are aware that 20th century German “Protestantism’ was vastly different from traditonal biblical protestantism, and had in fact abandoned many historic doctrines? Hanns Kerrl could quote the bible by heart – did he believe that Jesus was born of a virgin and died on the cross for the sins of the world, that he rose from the dead, that he would return as God to judge the world?

Many German Christians were far removed from the teachings of Christ and the apostles, and their support for Hitler proves only their own spiritual blindness and disobedience to Christ, not a connection between Nazism and Christianity.

Also, I have been skimming Mein Kampf recently and have made note of a number of passages where Hitler expresses deep and overt hostility toward Christianity. It seems these passages are often overlooked – if I am wrong, will be glad to know of it. I will give you a few references – forgive me if this is old hat to you.

Book 2 chapt.5: Christianity’s intolerance is fundamentally Jewish, and “positively embodies the Jewish nature.” This is the very point H.S. Chamberlain made (I have the reference in Salalah). In this passage Hitler refers to Christian intolerance with “loathing” and discusses how this philosophy filled with intolerance (Christianity) can be broken. He speaks of the spiritual terror and coercion introduced by Christianity and says it can only be broken by coercion and by terror.

Bk. 2 chapt. 2: the churches are not concerned with racial purity; sending missionaries to Africa turns healthy but primitive Africans into a “rotten brood of bastards”; that instead of missionary activity, the churches should be preaching eugenics and racial hygiene

Bk. 1 chapt. 3: both denominations are wrong on the Jewish question and hence are suitable “neither to the requirements of the nation nor to the real needs of religion.” Protestantism is hostile to antisemitism.

These are open and overt attacks on the churches, which Hitler later moderated or avoided for political reasons. No doubt he could easily explain them away as rhetorical excesses or just politics if later confronted with them.

You referred in your book to the blindness of German Christians – to what extent is that attributable to the fact that many of them had long since abandoned biblical Christianity?

Joe Keysor

With best wishes to you all for a blessed Lent
John Conway

I am pleased to send you this month two complementary reviews dealing with the attitudes of institutional Christianity, in this case the Church of Rome and the Church of England, towards Judaism and the Jewish people, especially during the traumatic years of the Second World War. I believe the comparisons are instructive. Any comments you may have will be passed on to the authors, if you so desire. Please contact me at jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Contents:

1. Book reviews

a) Brechenmacher, The Vatican and the Jews
b) Lawson The Church of England and the Holocaust

2. Journal articles:

a) Was Nazism an ersatz political religion, or were Christianity and Nazism incompatible?
b) Moses, Bonhoeffer and War theology.
c) Rein, Orthodox Church in Byelorussia

3. Book notes:

a) Cambridge History of Christianity
b) Nottmeier, Adolf von Harnack

1a) Thomas Brechenmacher, Der Vatikan und die Juden, Munich: Verlag C.H.Beck, 2005. 326 pp. ISBN 3-406-52903-8

Thomas Brechenmacher’s account of the history of the relationship between the Roman Catholic authorities and the Jews puts into a longer perspective the controversies about Catholic attitudes in the recent past, as well as the more optimistic prospects for the future. Like Gerhard Besier in his book on the Vatican and the Third Reich (reviewed here in December 2005), Brechenmacher has taken advantage of the recent opening of the Vatican archives for the pontificate of Pope Pius XI, i.e. up to 1939. But he first goes back far into the past to point out the centuries-old ambivalence which has marked Catholic attitudes towards Judaism, since at least 600 A.D. The consolidation of the Papacy’s political and territorial power in Italy led to the codification of the church’s stance on the Jews. They were to be subject to a dual Papal protection, the one sheltering them from outbursts of Christian fanaticism, the other protecting Christians from the dangers of possible conversion. Individual popes placed their emphasis on one or other aspect, which meant in fact that the Jews were long kept in humiliating subjection, but were never expelled from the Papal lands. These policies were justified by an elaborate theology based on the Pauline epistles, seeing the Jews as the witness-people to God’s magnanimous creation, modified only by practical needs in local circumstances.

The Vatican is the world’s oldest continuous ruling entity. Its teaching authority has remained unchanged for centuries. The weight of tradition and the unwillingness to admit past mistakes has rigidified doctrinal positions. So the ambivalent policies towards Judaism remained for long unchanged and unchallenged. Not until the end of the Vatican’s temporal power in 1870 was there any sign of new thinking. But even here the fervour of theological antipathy was only replaced by a widespread feeling of disdain for this minority group, still largely confined to a ghetto-like existence. The process of Jewish emancipation, as the product of French radicalism, was predictably resisted by the Catholic authorities, but its success at least in western Europe brought about improved conditions. But the liberals’ hopes for assimilation were to prove no more successful than the Catholic hopes for conversion. Popular prejudice still remained, as could be seen in the repeated accusations by Catholic zealots that Jews were guilty of ritual murder of Christian children. The last such trial of Jews suspected of this crime took place as late as the early 20th century.

Despite repeated Papal admonitions that the Jews were to be protected as witnesses to God’s love, traditional Catholic antijudaism still flourished. To be sure, in the 19th century, a more tolerant attitude of laissez-faire prevailed. Pressure on the Jews to convert was more or less abandoned, except in the scandalous case in the 1850s when the boy Edgardo Mortara, baptized by his nurse as an infant, was removed from his intimidated parents and forcibly taken to Rome to be brought up as a Catholic. Pius IX’s obstinacy in this case cost him the support of liberals world-wide. The subsequent downfall of the Vatican’s territorial powers in 1870 was hence not regretted.

For the next ninety years, however, Catholic theological positions towards the Jews remained unchanged, even while the former Roman ghetto was demolished and Jews entered the new Italian kingdom to be citizens with equal rights. But the ending of the previous balancing act of church protection left the Vatican unprepared to counter the new and much more dangerous force of secular antisemitism. Brechenmacher rightly sees that the church’s antijudaism had nothing in common with this virulent racist ideology of the late 19th and 20th centuries. But equally, the long tradition of Catholic discrimination against the Jews prevented any more positive steps to counter this new antisemitism. Too often Catholics gave credence to the secular conspiracy theories about Jews, as could be seen in the notorious Dreyfus affairs of the 1890s. Too often the Vatican abstained from adopting any pro-Jewish position, or for example supporting the Zionist ideas for moving the Jews back to Palestine.

After 1918, with the overthrow of the monarchies, and the rise of popular dictatorships in Italy, Germany and Russia, the Vatican’s chief preoccupation was to obtain legal guarantees of protection for the Catholic populations. Inevitably this gave these regimes some international recognition, though the attempt failed in the case of the Soviet Union. In the case of both Italy and Germany, the Vatican’s strategy was successful in obtaining a Concordat which seemingly gave assurances for the future. The Vatican’s hope that this arrangement would prevent or at least mitigate the growth of more radical ideologies and policies was soon proved illusory. The Nazis’ antisemitic outbursts in particular, and subsequent military aggressions, led to considerable heart-searching. Pope Pius XII’s resolute search for ways to preserve peace before September 1939 was a failure. After war broke out, he continued to believe that the Papacy could play a mediating role. This compelled an avoidance of any open criticism or condemnation of the warring parties, lest the Vatican’s impartiality be compromised. Any such Papal declarations might possibly prompt either side to take drastic reprisals against those being victimized and hence make matters worse. The Vatican consequently adopted a policy of almost total silence about the Nazi attacks on the Jews, which was subsequently much misunderstood or interpreted as due to engrained antisemitism.

Brechenmacher has no difficulty in refuting this latter calumny by citing the numerous Vatican documents attesting to the concern expressed about the Nazi policies of racial hatred and discrimination. After Hitler’s rise to power, the Vatican was urged to speak out against the persecution of the Jews, and responded in general terms through such documents as the Papal Encyclical of 1937, Mit brennender Sorge. Practically, the Vatican encouraged the efforts by the Catholic authorities in Germany for the emigration of Jews, though mainly this assisted only Catholic Jews.

As the Nazis’ true hostility towards the Church became clearer, so the Vatican’s antipathy towards Nazism and all its works increased. The papal authorities were thus, with some discomfort, on the same side as the ill-fated Jews. But there is no evidence that the Vatican was prepared to launch any large-scale offensive against the Nazi state, lest this endanger the 1933 Concordat itself. And it is equally obvious that, like every other leading political authority in Europe, the Vatican could not envisage the possibility of the kind of radicalized ideological campaign which led to the Nazis’ mass murder of six million Jews. After 1939, there was a natural reluctance to believe the rumours of violent persecutions and executions, which were often regarded as exaggerated war-time atrocity propaganda. The Vatican had no ability to ascertain the true facts about unverifiable crimes in unreachable parts of the continent. Furthermore the Vatican was totally unprepared for practical steps to assist the victims. Its officials were to be flooded with appeals, but could do little but issue calls to its supporters in other parts of the world. The responses were almost always disappointing.

More significantly the ferocity of the Nazi attacks against the Jews was seen as part of the wider moral disaster caused by the war. The singularity of the Holocaust remained unrecognized. Still less was the mass destruction of European Jewry seen as a cause for Catholic reflection, let alone repentance. Not for many more years did the church leaders begin to realize that the Jewish tragedy affected them too and demanded a revision of their traditional ambivalent attitudes.

Brechenmacher rightly regrets that the Vatican’s central documents from 1939 onwards remain closed to researchers. But enough has already appeared, and sufficient analysis has already taken place, that he believes a full opening of the archives will reveal little new. At the same time, he deplores the fact that the Vatican’s policies and personalities have been attacked for various self-interested reasons, which have little to do with the actual historical record. He therefore regrets that, for example, the pejorative view of Pope Pius XII, first propagated by the Swiss playwright Rolf Hochhuth in the 1960s, still continues to have widespread influence in the public mind.

In assessing Pius XII’s war-time role, Brechenmacher is critical of the Pope’s highly contrived and convoluted speech-making, which successfully avoided calling a spade a spade. But he draws attention to the considerable impact of Papal interventions on behalf of the Nazis’ victims in such countries as Hungary, Roumania and Turkey. He avoids any discussion of the controversial issue of what successes, or alternately disasters, other policies taken by the Papal authorities might have had. Overall his verdict is much the same as that propounded forty years ago by the Jesuit editors of the Vatican’s Actes et documents for the war years: it is true that not enough was done; it is not true that nothing was done.

For the period after 1945, Brechenmacher is obliged, due to the lack of adequate documentation, to abandon his historian’s approach, and instead adopts a more journalistic and impressionistic stance. His account of Pope Paul VI’s visit to the Holy Land in 1964 is well done. He sees this as an important stepping-stone in the improvement of Catholic-Jewish relations. At the same time, his analysis of the pre-history of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration about Judaism, Nostra Aetate,
includes conjectures which will require later verification. For this reason, he leaves unexplored the exact reasons why Popes John XXIII and Paul VI should have so readily abandoned the traditional policies of the Vatican towards the Jews. It is clear however that he warmly greets the new stance so forcibly advocated by Pope John Paul II, which for the first time expresses a wholly positive and creative tone for the relationship between the Church and the Jewish people. He finds it ironic that this striking change should have been prompted by the crimes of the Nazis. But the real reason, Brechenmacher believes, was due to the disappearance of the Vatican’s temporal power and hence the appropriateness of the long-held protective stance towards Judaism. Even though overtones of this traditional attitude lingered on, the shocks of the mid-20th century swept it all away. It was the merit of Pope John XXIII that he recognized the time had come for an entirely new beginning, to give official approval to the condemnation of antisemitism, and to pave the way for new approaches between the elder and younger brothers in faith. In Brechenmacher’s view, despite all the theological and political problems that still remain, the present readiness to deal with the troubled history of this relationship shows that the future can be regarded with optimism.
The book comes with helpful footnotes, a full bibliography and an index.

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1b) Tom Lawson, The Church of England and the Holocaust. Christianity, Memory and Nazism. (Studies in Modern British Religious History, Volume 13) Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: The Boydell Press. 2006. 207 Pp.. ISBN 1 84383 219 4

For the first fifteen years after the end of the Second World War, the Nazi persecution and mass murder of the Jews of Europe was rarely the subject of public debate or historical analysis. Only after the Eichmann trial did the term ãholocaustä gain widespread acceptance. Even then this tragedy was largely considered as a matter for the Jewish people alone. Not until after an increasing volume of criticism arose in the 1960s and 1970s did the Christian churches begin to acknowledge that their role as bystanders needed to be re-examined. In more recent years, a large number of books, usually written with a moralistic tone, have focused attention on the specific role of individual churches and church authorities. Tom Lawson’s examination of the Church of England’s attitudes is an expansion of an earlier article in Twentieth Century British History, Volume 14, no. 2, (2003) and an addition both to the history and the historiography of Holocaust studies.

Lawson rightly challenges the view that the avoidance of any discussion in the immediate post-war years of the Nazis’ persecution of the Jews was the result of the preoccupation with Cold War crises and polemics. Instead he suggests that we need to understand the responses of the Church of England, throughout the whole period from 1933 onwards, from within its own earlier mentalities and preconceptions. He shows clearly that, in the 1930s, the Anglican perception of Nazism as an evil ideology, and the support given to the persecuted German churches, were primary factors in interpreting the fate of the Jews. It was perhaps understandable that churchmen should come to regard Nazi totalitarianism as an anti-Christian relic of Teutonic barbarism. Such views were useful after 1939 to strengthen the moral justification for war. Secular British propaganda did the same. But leading members of the Church of England, especially Bishop George Bell of Chichester, made a distinction. They did not condemn all Germans as warmongers or racial murderers, but sought to preserve the image of the German churches, especially the Protestants, as being the victims of Nazi anti-Christian violence and oppression.

Bishop Bell led the way in claiming that there were other Germans who were resisting Nazi totalitarian ambitions, and onwhom the task of rebuilding Germany would fall once Nazism was overthrown. The persecution of the Jews was thus first seen as part of the Nazis’ demonic destructiveness. There was every sympathy for these victims of the Nazi system, especially after Kristallnacht. And whereas the British government played down the Jewish persecution out of fear that they would be obliged to do something to assist them, such as opening Palestine as a haven of refuge, the Church of England led a vigorous and continuous campaign, especially in 1942 and 1943, against its own government’s narrow-mindedness.
But Lawson’s point is well taken. The Church of England was persuaded of Nazism’s evil character because Hitler had first persecuted the churches. When the most prominent Protestant pastor, Martin Niemöller, was imprisoned in 1937, he was seen by all the British churches as the symbol of Nazi oppression, and was prayed for and remembered in Anglican and other parishes across the land. The Church of England’s leaders, especially Archbishop William Temple, backed by Bell, were convinced that their vocal and repeated protests against the Nazi excesses, and their support for the Confessing Church’s stand against totalitarian control, were their contribution to rescuing Christian civilization from disaster. They were encouraged when they found at least one German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, agreeing with them.

From their perspective, the fate of the Jews was not sui generis, but only a culmination of Nazi iniquity. The Church of England had a moral duty to support all these victims and did so to the best of its ability. Before 1939 the Church had led the way in seeking support for refugees from Nazi tyranny. After the outbreak of war, the focus became more on the need to provide asylum in Britain or its empire for those few who could escape, despite the severe restrictions placed on all aliens. But by 1942 the Church’s remarkable flood of indictments and protests got nowhere, and only revealed its impotence in the face of the British government’s obduracy. Even in 1945, the revelations of the horrors of the concentration camps only reinforced this interpretation of Nazi barbarity, but did not lead to a realization that the genocide of the Jews had been something special. Instead the church leaders were determined to lead a crusade to re-Christianize Europe and thus purge their civilization of Nazism’s demonic forces. This campaign, however, had no place for Jews, except as potential converts.
The overthrow of Nazi totalitarianism aroused optimistic hopes, not only in the Church of England, but also in other churches, for a renewal of Christian civilization. The longed-for peace, disarmament, and prosperity would surely follow. But very soon the dark clouds of a new totalitarian and anti-Christian threat. coming from the Soviet Union, became apparent. The Churches were once again called to mobilize themselves for an armed defence of their heritage. And in such circumstances, the need was obvious to enlist in this new cause those Germans, especially in the Wehrmacht, who were presumed to have been anti-Nazi all along. So a continuity between the interpretations of the 1930s and those of the 1950s could easily be established and maintained. Nazi tyranny was seen as a temporary sickness which had afflicted only a section of the German population. But this understanding of Nazism gave no priority to its antisemitic imperative, and certainly would not have agreed that all Germans were “antisemitic eliminationists”. The end of the war in 1945 and the onset of the Cold War’s antagonisms only confirmed this view, and led to the downplaying of Jewish suffering and its full implications.

Lawson corrects those interpretations which minimize the importance of church opinion, or suggest that a pessimistic and self-doubting community existed in those years. To the contrary, he praises the confidence of the Church of England leaders, but does suggest that their concern for German Protestantism as a bastion of anti-Nazi resistance left no room for a closer regard for Jewish concerns. And Bishop Bell, like his colleagues throughout the Anglican hierarchy, was far removed from even considering the consequences of Christian antisemitism itself, or the extent to which the majority of German churchmen had willingly enough supported it. Such a self-critical examination, though promoted at the time by a maverick Church of England clergyman, James Parkes, got nowhere. Parkes’ pleas for a recasting of Christian-Jewish relations had to wait for another forty years.

Lawson’s point of view is, of course, drawn from the perspective of the twenty-first century. Like others, he engages in wishful thinking in writing history as it should have happened. Hence his verdict that Bishop Bell was myopic about the Jewish fate is itself a distortion. He appears to be promoting a more pluralistic viewpoint than was prevailing in the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps he would have been wiser to have avoided such post-hoc moralisms. Instead he might well have shown how similar the

Anglican attitudes on the Jewish question were to those of the British Catholics, or indeed to the very similar views held by Pope Pius XII. He nowhere discusses the attitudes of the British Jewish community. Nor does he make any mention of the extent to which Anglican attitudes towards the Holocaust were affected by what was happening in Palestine/Israel. This could perhaps be the subject of a sequel, and thus make use of his commendable skill at research and analysis.

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2) Journal articles. a) “Was Nazism an ersatz political religion, or were Christianity and Nazism incompatible?”

These questions have recently received revived attention through back-to-back appearances in two prestigious journals, The Journal of Modern History and The Journal of Contemporary History. In the former’s Volume 78, no. 3, September 2006, Neil Gregor, of the University of Southampton, devotes the first ten pages of a large survey of “Politics, Culture, Political Culture: recent work on the Third Reich and its Aftermath” to a discussion of the opposing views on this topic. He starts with what he calls the traditional view from the 1960s that the Church Struggle had been between a tyrannical dictatorship and the martyr-like defenders of the true faith, as exemplified in John Conway’s study of The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-1945. By contrast, more recent literature has shown a more nuanced relationship. On the one side, we now recognize that many churchmen, both Catholic and Protestant, readily enough supported the regime’s political goals, including its antisemitic policies. On the other side, many leading Nazis continued to regard themselves as ãpositiveä Christians, without necessarily subscribing to any denominational loyalties or doctrines. Gšring was married in church, Wilhelm Frick retained a strong commitment to Protestantism, and Hanns Kerrl, the Minister for Church Affairs, could quote the Bible by heart and was convinced that the churches and the Nazi Party were inseparable because both opposed Judasim.

These latter sentiments led Richard Steigmann-Gall, in his book The Holy Reich, to challenge the traditional view. Neil Gregor clearly has some sympathy for this assessment, and agrees with the contention that National Socialism overlapped with much in the Protestant tradition, and drew support from many engaged churchmen who continued to believe they could be good Christians and good Nazis at the same time. Gregor does acknowledge, as have other critics, that Steigmann-Gall’s conclusions are largely drawn from Nazism’s early years, and rightly points out that Steigmann-Gall accepts at face value any Nazi positive references to Christianity, however vaguely defined. Yet he also applauds Steigmann-Gall’s view that certain elements of Protestant nationalist theology and social activism fed into some strands of Nazi ideology and propaganda. This may indeed cause us to question the outright depiction of the Nazi regime as a fundamentally godless, atheistic phenomenon. Rather it prompts us to look more closely at the complex intersections, elisions and clashes of religious and secular forces in this critical period of German history.

The editors of The Journal of Contemporary History decided to devote the entire issue of Volume 42, no. 1, January 2007, to an even broader valuation of these questions. In his introduction, Professor Richard Evans of Cambridge asserts that “the relationship of German National Socialism to religion in general, and Christianity in particular, has recently moved to the forefront of historical enquiry”. He too suggests that the traditional view needs revision. Younger scholars have been far more critical of the churches and their readiness to collaborate with Nazi agencies than was the case earlier. It is now generally acknowledged that there was a wide variety of attitudes towards the regime rather than any united spirit of resistance.

The contributors to this issue include both supporters and critics of Steigmann-Gall’s theses, as outlined above, and he himself will be responding in the next issue in April. The majority of the five essays here printed, however, are sceptical of his conclusions, believing that he has failed to present a convincing case. Manfred Gailus of Berlin’s Technical University suggests that Steigmann-Gall has been captivated by a strange obsession to depict National Socialism as emphatically as Christian as possible. This seduces the author into systematic blind spots about Nazism as a whole. He.underestimated, for example, the influence of Goebbels even in, or especially in, the early years. Irving Hexham of the University of Calgary backs this up by examining both Goebbels’ early novel Michael, which strikingly adopted the German neo-pagan thought of the day, and the work of Alfred Rosenberg, whose anti-Christian tirades were more significant that Steigmann-Gall allows. Doris Bergen, author of a noted work on the so-called “German Christians”, the small minority of Protestants who enthusiastically endorsed Hitler’s rule, suggests that Steigmann-Gall has made a significant contribution by focussing on those Nazis who claimed to be Christians, but chides him for ignoring the attitudes of the Catholic Church. Above all, Steigman-Gall fails to carry his researches into the later Nazi years. After 1937, he admits, the regime took an anti-church turn, even though he sought to downplay the influence of the notorious anti-clerical, Martin Bormann. But he signally fails to take note of the striking findings of Wolfgang Dierker, whose study Himmlers Glaubenskrieger (Paderborn: Schöningh 2003) documented the systematic and deliberately anti-Christian policies of the SD and SS under Himmler’s control. There can be no doubt that, had the war ended otherwise, these men would have dominated Nazi strategies for the future of Christianity in the (un)Holy Reich. Theirs was a political religion of a very different sort.

b) John A. Moses, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s repudiation of Geman War theology” in Journal of Religious History, Volume 30, no. 3, October 2006, p.354ff

Bonhoeffer’s theological evolution still evokes debate and discussion. Was he ever a convinced pacifist, who later abandoned such views in order to paricipate in the plot to overthrow Hitler by violence? Was he ever a true nationalist, like so many of his contemporaries? How did he regard the nation state, and its historic destiny? Moses seeks to show that in his book Ethics Bonhoeffer examined in a truly radical fashion the whole doctrine of state power and the glorification of sacred violence which the Lutheran church had for so long upheld. Karl Barth of course led the way in pilloring the German theologians for imagining they could enlist God on their side. But Bonhoeffer goes further in uncompromisingly demanding that Christians love their enemies without any reservations. He sought to convince his fellow churchmen that war was the product of a fallen creation and could never be theologically endorsed. In the end his own sense of what was a responsible action for a Christian led him to support the assassination attempt to get rid of a tyrant, but it also included an acceptance of guilt for such an action. Had he lived Bonhoeffer would doubtless have devised a new form of Christian political obedience. But Moses shows how his thought was developing in those final critical years before his execution by the Nazis as a traitor to his nation but to later eyes as a Christian martyr for his faith.

c) Leonid Rein, “The Orthodox Church in Byelorussia under Nazi occupation (1941-1944)” in East European Quarterly, 29 no. 1, Spring 2005

White Russia, or Byelorus, as it is now called, suffered enormous and devastating slaughter and destruction during the last century, particularly during the period of the German-Soviet war when many of its inhabitants were ruthelessly murdered, its economy exploited, and its resources plundered by both sides. This article seeks to clarify how the existing Orthodox Church members and institutions survived these onslaughts. Little has been written on this subject before, and most of it was either condemnatory or apologetic. In such circumstances Rein has a hard task in assessing the policies of these persecuted Christians. In fact he shows that the misfortunes of the Orthodox followers began even before the war when Byelorussia was territorially split between Poland and the Soviet Union, both of which attempted to erase any independence, or to integrate the population under either Catholic or Russian Orthodox auspices respectively.

After the Geman invasion of 1941, some Orthodox members hoped to find relief from their Communist oppressors. They were soon disillusioned. The Nazi occupiers had no interest in recreating the Orthodox or any other church structures, unless completely subordinated to their control. The bishops and priests who sought to provide pastoral care for their followers were soon embroiled in the internecine political disputes. The local clergy had a highly ambiguous position trying to make the best of their enforced co-operation with the Germans in order to prevent worse disasters. Like some of the Judenräte they hoped they could somehow sate the Nazi Moloch. The German policy was also ambiguous, at least when compared to the Soviets’ outright hostility. When in 1944 the Red Army reconquered the whole territory, the Orthodox Church paid a terrrible price for its alleged collaboration with the fascist enemy.

Rein’s analysis of the surviving German documentation and the post-war secondary sources (but not in Russian) gives a balanced and insightful account of this murky and largely obscure chapter of church history.

3) Book notes:
a) The Cambridge History of Christianity: World Christianities c.1914 – c.2000, ed. Hugh McLeod. Cambridge 2006 ISBN 13 978-0-521-81500-0

This encyclopedic 700 page survey written, in the main, by British theologians and academics, will be a valuable reference work for all interested in 20th century developments in the Christian churches. The tone is eirenic and scholarly, with recognition of the pluralistic charcter of the Christian presence in this troubled and often traumatic century. As McLeod states in his Introduction, in this century “Christianity became a worldwide religion, yet at the same time it suffered a series of major crises in what had been for centuries its heartland”. This volume treats only western Christianity and is principally concerned with the political and social life of the churches, while theological developments are treated only when really relevant to the life of the institutions. The major themes covered are the challenges faced by the European churches; the diminishing importance of denominational boundaries, the role of war for the churches, and the contrasting theme of the churches’ support for emancipatory movements worldwide. This is a rich and rewarding read, which can be commended to all.

b) Christian Nottmeier, Adolf von Harnack und die deutsche Politik 1890-1930, Tübingen Mohr Siebeck 2004. Rather belatedly we draw attention to this first-rate political biography of Germany’s leading Protestant theologian in the early years of the last century. Nottmeier, who teaches in Berlin, has taken full advatage of the extensive Harnack Nachlass to give us a first-rate analysis of how this representative figure established his reputation not only as a historian of Christian dogma, but also politically as a major force in Protestant circles. His close acquaintance with the Kaiser was held to be a major advantage in his career, but Harnack was not uncritrical of his sovereign’s faults. And following Germany’s defeat in 1918, he threw his weight on to the side of the new Republic. Such a switch was regarded by many of his conservative supporters as a betrayal, and his public reputation suffered along with the new Republic itself. But equally fateful was the decline in subscription to his liberal theological views in the 1920s. Harnack was too closely associated both with the liberal optimism of the pre-1914 Protestant milieu, and also with the patriotism of the war. The younger generation, such as Bonhoeffer, regarded the old master as passe and outdated. His reliance on the progressive effects of good history was spurned in favour of much more radical theologies, such as those of Karl Barth. Not until the 1990s were attempts made to rehabilitate Harnack in his own setting, and not in the light of the earlier disastrous campaigns for German supremacy. Nottmeier’s scholarly account is full of good interpretations, which will undoubtedly help to bring about a more balanced view of this great scholar.

c) Historisches Jahrbuch, Vol. 126 2006, Verlag Karl Alber Freiburg/Munich

The latest volume in this series includes a number of interesting articles on German and European Catholicism, written from a discursive but basically conservative point of view. Joachim Schmiedl examines the impact of secularization especially on the various Catholic organizations and religious orders. Stefan Gerber looks at the constitutional debates over the position of the Catholic Church in the Weimar Republic, and the refusal of the socialists to accept the Vatican’s much-urged proposals for a new Concordat.

Walther Ziegler defends the policies of the Catholic bishops under the Nazi regime, seeking to meliorate the wishful thinking of some later writers, and pointing out that political revolution or even resistance was never the bishops’ top priority. So too Joseph Pilvousek describes the same dilemma which faced the bishops during the Communist rule in East Germany, which they met mainly by complete abstinence from political engagement. Benjamin Ziemann analyses the use of public opinuon polls by the Catholic authorites in the Bonn Republic after 1968, which were not exactly encouraging as the mileux tried to come to terms with the post-Vatican 2 situation. All good “state-of-the-art” articles.

With best wishes
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

A very warm welcome to you all as we begin a new year. I trust that you were all able to have a blessed and restful vacation, and will now be returning to your labours with renewed zest. As far as I can look ahead, it would seem that there are numerous new books appearing in our field of interest, and I hope to be able to continue to bring you some evaluations of their contents and interpretations in the months ahead. Your comments are always welcome, but please remember NOT to press the reply button unless you want your remarks to be shared by all 500 subscribers. Please use my personal e-mail address = jconway@interchange.ubc.ca .

Contents:

1) Book Reviews

a) ed. Berkman, Contemplating Edith Stein
b) Heinecke, Konfession und Politiik in der DDR

2) Conference Report, German Studies Association, October 2006

3) Book notes:

a) Barth: Dolchstosslegenden
b) Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair
c) Als Jesus arisch wurde

List of books reviewed in Vol. XII – 2006

1a) Joyce Avrech Berkman, ed. Contemplating Edith Stein Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. xiii + 354 pp. Illustrations, list of contributors, index. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-268-02188; $35.00 (paper), ISBN 0-268-02189-9.
(This review appeared first on H-German on November 10, 2006)

The unnecessary and regrettable controversy surrounding the 1942 murder in Auschwitz of the German nun Edith Stein, also known as Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, and her subsequent canonization by Pope John Paul II, has diverted attention away from the actual personality and achievements of this remarkable woman during her short lifetime. The objective of the collected essays in this volume, edited by Joyce Berkman, is to provide a fuller account of Stein’s life and writings, both before and after she joined the Carmelite order in 1933. The contributors, the majority of whom are female scholars, come from Italy, Germany, Canada and the United States. All the essays are in English and where appropriate, they have been skillfully translated.

The book is divided into three sections. The first describes Stein’s personality, experience, self-awareness and self-representation as she moved through the various chapters of her life, while the second pays tribute to her pioneering position as a modern Catholic feminist. In the third section the authors outline the essence of her philosophical contributions and discuss her originality in the rather opaque and inaccessible field of phenomenology. The editor and her chief partners describe themselves as fervent feminists and they seek to move away from the overly hagiographical treatment Stein has recently received. Consequently emphasis falls on her secular writings and career. Each essay is accompanied by relevant scholarly notes.As Berkman notes, we know little about Stein’s interior life. Attempts to compile a linear, pious biography as appropriate for a Catholic saint ignore the well-known ambivalence and particularities in her career. As a Jew, a woman and a highly talented intellectual, she was a triple outsider. She experienced various identity transitions, sought to integrate herself in different but essentially antithetical communities and suffered painful rejections from many sides. Trying to depict her life in unbiased but sympathetic terms has not been easy for scholars.

Though raised in an observant Jewish Orthodox family, Stein early on felt alienated, as a woman intellectual, from the paternalistic, male-dominated hierarchies of contemporary Judaism. Instead she embraced the high culture of the German Bildungsbürgertum. Her university education at the universities in Breslau and Göttingen led her to believe in a lofty rationalism, humanism and moral idealism. Such optimism faced severe challenges through the events of the 1914-18 war, and equally through her failure to secure academic recognition as a philosopher. In 1921 she converted to Catholicism, having discovered an affinity to the life of Saint Teresa of Avila. Berkman does not really explain why, but Stein remained loyal to phenomenology and sought to combine it with her Catholic convictions. In the 1920s she taught at a Catholic girls’ school and became a popular lecturer on women and their education. But her hopes of becoming either a professor of philosophy or a professed Carmelite nun both eluded her.

With the rise of the National Socialists to power, the path to a university career was blocked for Stein. But in August 1933 she was accepted into the Cologne Carmel, though this step virtually cut her off from her immediate family in Breslau, who could only regard this flight as a betrayal. Her convent writings found no publisher because of Nazi opposition. She herself managed to flee to a Dutch nunnery in late 1938, but was caught there by the German occupation. In 1942 the Gestapo ordered the arrest of all Catholic Jews, and Stein and her sister Rosa were transported to Auschwitz and murdered there on April 4 of the same year.

The Vatican’s desire to include Stein among those selected for canonization aroused understandable resentment in the Jewish community, even though John Paul II was careful to claim that she died both as a Catholic daughter of Israel and as a martyr of the Church. This dispute did little to throw light on her lasting achievements or characteristics. Dana Greene in her essay suggests that a secular approach is more rewarding for such interpretations. She rejects the approach of Stein’s hagiographers, who see her life through a lens of redemptive suffering, as a meaningful example to the faithful. Greene believes Stein’s career should be studied developmentally rather than teleologically, and included in the wider context of early-twentieth-century German history. It is her life-long search for meaning that should attract biographers, showing how she overcame the contradictions and tensions caused by her varied and rival relationships. The most notable image of Stein, embodying just these factors, is the sight of her dressed in the black habit of a Carmelite nun, with the yellow Star of David sewn on her sleeve.

In 1987 John Paul II beatified Stein in front of seventy thousand Germans in Cologne. In 1942, when a freight train carried her to her death in a gas chamber, no one helped or cried out to stop the horror. This divergence is the core of the dispute over her legacy. But, as Patricia Hampl points out, this controversy has little to do with Stein herself, or her own personal and spiritual pilgrimage. She never explained the reasons for her conversion to Catholicism or her acceptance of a destiny of the contemplative life in a closed convent. Speculations must remain unresolved. The evidence shows that she found fulfillment in her chosen profession and that her choice did not imply a rejection of her Jewish heritage. On the other hand, her mind was too acute to adopt any kind of sentimental or simplistic syncretism of her Jewish and Christian identities. So it would be too hasty to suggest that her decision was a reaction to the barriers that in the 1920s still prevented young self-confident German girls or Jews from achieving their personal goals. At the same time, however, her discovery of faith in the life of Teresa of Avila undoubtedly followed from the painful and ambivalent crises that she experienced during and after the First World War.

Stein’s conversion to Catholicism and Carmelite renunciation of the world presented obvious problems to those contributors who sought to pay tribute to her as a modern German feminist. Her life as role model is so out of tune with present-day feminist opinion that it is small wonder that this aspect of her career has been downplayed. But, even in her very traditional understanding of women’s essential character, her attempts to empower women deserve acknowledgment, especially as a protest against the male-dominated totalitarian regime imposed after 1933.Similarly, her views on women’s education are singularly out of fashion today, particularly her stress on the necessity of teachers acting as moral models, transmitting to their pupils an openness and sense of trust, which should then be reciprocated. Few today would share her view that teaching is a “sacred calling” and that its practitioners should seek to foster the student’s harmonious growth and character. In essence she derived her ideas on the importance of educating the moral personality of each individual from the liberal idealism of the Humboldt brothers in the early nineteenth century. But again, she was fated to see such ideas ruthlessly quashed in the new Nazi Germany.

The third section of the book discusses Stein’s contributions to the philosophical debates of her time. Her studies in this field were almost entirely derived from the ideas of her Doktorvater Edmund Husserl. Even though she was soon to part company with Husserl, largely because he could not regard her as an equal and placed obstacles in the way of her obtaining an academic position, nevertheless her range of thought remained strongly Husserlian in scope. But the passage of time has not been kind to his speculative theories on the philosophical grounding of psychology or the human sciences. The chapters discussing Stein’s philosophy are therefore more of an exercise in pathology. Their authors fail to prove that her thought has any present-day relevance.

In Contemplating Edith Stein, the editors deliberately chose not to examine her religious writings, presumably to avoid any suspicion of abetting hagiography. But this decision produces a somewhat one-sided picture; Sarah Borden does contribute, however, a useful survey of literature in English on Stein that includes her spiritual writings and lists the books covering her canonization and her importance for Jewish-Christian relations. She also provides a detailed and serviceable bibliography.

Overall, the aim of this work is to depict Stein neither as a saint nor as an emblem of ideological controversy, but rather as an individual whose struggle to insist on her own humanity was to be so tragically cut short by the Nazi terroristic regime.

JSC

1b) Herbert Heinecke. Konfession und Politik in der DDR: Das Wechselverhältnis von Kirche und Staat im Vergleich zwischen evangelischer und katholischer Kirche. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002. 508 pp. Bibliography. EUR 38.00 (paper), ISBN 3-373-01960-9.

This review was first printed in H-German on November 7, 2006, and is here reprinted by kind permission of the author:
Catholics and Protestants in the GDR: Comparison and Synthesis

Since the collapse of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1989-90 a veritable explosion of studies has occurred treating the churches, and especially the Protestant churches, in East German society.[1] Given the role played in this collapse by “social ethical groups” operating under the umbrella of the Protestant churches, this development is hardly surprising. Indeed, some have gone so far as to dub the events of 1989 a “Protestant Revolution.”[2] This book, Herbert Heinecke’s 2001 doctoral dissertation in Staatswissenschaft at the University of Magdeburg, is less interested in adding to this copious literature than in synthesizing the findings of other scholars in order to draw comparisons between the Catholic and Protestant churches.

As Heinecke admits in his foreword, this study is not historical enough to satisfy historians, theological enough to satisfy theologians, nor sociological enough to satisfy scholars in the sociology of religion fully (p. 5). Instead, in a series of thematically organized chapters, Heinecke draws extensively on existing literature in these fields to describe the church policies of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) and the functioning of both churches in the GDR. As a matrix for comparison, he examines developments within each church in each of the following areas: history and tradition, church membership, organizational structure, self-understanding and social activity. He also looks at the limited cooperation between the two churches, which culminated in the late 1980s in rare joint ventures.

In these sections, and most clearly in his comparative chapter at the end, Heinecke, argues that the Protestant churches changed and adapted far more than their Catholic counterpart over the course of the GDR’s history. While both churches adopted initially confrontational postures toward the establishment of SED rule, differences in their own histories and traditions, social positions and self-understandings led them to respond very differently to changing circumstances in the GDR. These differences became especially clear after the mid-to-late-1950s, when the relaxation of state anti-church activities made room for more nuanced church-state relations. They culminated in the late 1980s in the central role played by the Protestant churches in the emergence of East German civil society at a time when the Catholic church was still only beginning to come to terms with its place in the GDR.

The East German Catholic church, acutely aware of its status as a double minority, in relation to both Protestantism and the official atheism of the SED, responded by circling the wagons, withdrawing into itself and avoiding active engagement with surrounding society. Heinecke offers several reasons for these developments. Ideological opposition to communism was much stronger in the Catholic church than in the Protestant churches following World War II. As a historical minority in Germany since the Imperial era, Catholics were more easily drawn to passive models of the church in society, explaining their social role by way of such metaphors as “hibernation” or sharing an apartment house with hostile strangers (pp. 222-226). Most important, according to Heinecke, was the destruction of Catholic associational life by the National Socialists. Unable to rebuild their vibrant prewar lay movement in the postwar GDR, East German Catholics adopted a thoroughly hierarchical and institutional perspective. These tendencies were reinforced during the nearly twenty-year tenure (1961-79) of Alfred Bengsch as Bishop of Berlin. As the leader of Catholics in the GDR, Bengsch sought accommodation with the GDR state through a model of complete abstinence from politics. Only in the 1980s were East German Catholics afforded the freedom to explore other ways of relating to society.

By contrast, East German Protestants, encompassing more than 80 percent of the GDR’s citizens in 1950 and nearly 40 percent in 1987, expected to play a leading social and political role (pp. 275-276). While the internal diversity of the East German Protestant churches made them vulnerable to the wedge-politics of the SED, this quality also fostered greater dynamism. No single Protestant model of church-state relations emerged, leaving room for multiple models to develop. Most Protestant activity avoided the extremes of total opposition, modeled by Otto Dibelius (Bishop of Berlin from 1948 to 1967) and complete accommodation, modeled by Moritz Mitzenheim (Bishop of Thuringia from 1945 to 1970). Instead, Protestants constantly sought out new forms of political and social engagement. Since the Protestant churches in East and West Germany were formally united in the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) until 1969, Protestant activities until that time were dominated by the desire to affirm German unity. With the establishment of a separate East German church in 1969, the Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen (BEK), this focus began to change. Thereafter, East German Protestants began to seek out new models for their activity in the GDR. These models, such as “A Church for Others” and “A Church within Socialism,” represented attempts at partial accommodation with the SED, but they also represented a continuing claim to social relevance. This accommodation led, by the 1980s, to circumstances in which “social ethical groups” interested in peace, the environment and human rights could operate relatively unmolested under the aegis of the Protestant churches. These groups were to play an instrumental role in the ultimate collapse of SED rule.

Although it is not based on original archival research, the volume presents an effective synthesis of existing literature on the churches in the GDR. This presentation is especially helpful since this body of literature has grown so large in recent years. The book’s comparative structure and thematic organization also make it useful as a reference for those seeking information on specific aspects of church life in the GDR, such as membership patterns, organizational structure and the like. The book’s thematic structure and lack of a clear narrative, however, constitute barriers to its overall readability. While Heinecke’s conclusions regarding the differences in Catholic and Protestant developments seem sound, they do not necessarily break much new ground. Instead, this book is most useful as a summary of the current state of research.

Notes

[1]. To mention just a few titles: Robert F. Goeckel, The Lutheran Church and the East German State: Political Conflict and Change under Ulbricht and Honecker (Ithaca: Cornell, 1990); Gerhard Besier, Der SED-Staat und die Kirche. Der Weg in die Anpassung (Munich: Bertelsmann, 1993); Gerhard Besier, Der SED-Staat und die Kirche. Hohenflug und Absturz (Frankfurt/Main: Propyläen, 1995); Detlef Pollack,Kirche in der Organisationsgesellschaft. Zum Wandel der gesellschaftlichen Lage der evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1994); Bernd Schaefer, Staat und katholische Kirche in der DDR(Cologne: Böhlau, 1998); Ute Haese, Katholische Kirche in der DDR. Geschichte einer politischen Abstinenz (Dusseldorf: Patmos, 1998); and Stephanie Gerlach, Staat und Kirche in der DDR. War die DDR ein totalitäres System? (Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 1999).

[2]. See Gerhard Rein, ed., Die Protestantische Revolution, 1987-1990. Ein deutsches Lesebuch (Berlin: Wichern, 1990) and Erhardt Neubert, “Eine protestantische Revolution,” Deutschland Archiv 23 (1990): pp. 704-713; for a critical evaluation of this term, see Trutz Rendtorff, ed., Protestantische Revolution? Kirche und Theologie in der DDR: Ekklesiologische Voraussetzungen, politischer Kontext, theologische und historische Kriterien (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993).

Benjamin Pearson, Department of History,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

2) GSA Panel 177: Christianity, World War II, and the Cold War Moderator: Maria D Mitchell Franklin & Marshall College

Commentator: Victoria Barnett US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Papers: Theologiepolitik, “Kirchenkampf” und Auseinandersetzung mit dem NS-Regime: Die evangelische Landeskirche Badens, 1933-1945. Rolf-Ulrich Kunze Karlsruhe University

“Forced Labor within the Protestant Church and Her Welfare Institutions.” Jochen-Christoph Kaiser Philipps-Univ. of Marburg

“Rosenkranz und Russenvisionen: Visions of Mary in Early Cold War Germany.” Monique Scheer University of Tübingen

Opening a panel that illustrated the depth of the social and political penetration of Christianity in 20th century Germany, Rolf-Ulrich Kunze began by describing a major new collaborative research initiative in the Badische Landeskirche. Kunze began and ended his presentation with the story of pastor Paul Röger, a member of both the Confessing Church and the NSDAP, so as to illustrate the limitations of conventional categories of resistance and conformity for describing Christian clerical responses to the Nazi state. Citing the need for further and more differentiated tools of analysis to get a more precise picture of the social, cultural, and religious picture of the time, Kunze explained how the participants in his research project (from the Universities of Marburg and Karlsruhe) had broken it down into four distinct sub-projects: 1) a structural analysis of Protestant clergy of Baden, mining biographical material for information on the political, ecclesiastical, and social backgrounds of pastors; 2) an examination of the various Protestant associations active in Baden during the Third Reich; 3) an analysis of the ideas and activities of neo-pietistic church groups in Baden; and 4) an examination of the Baden Protestant Bishop and upper church leadership. As Kunze put it, “The main aim of these sub-projects will be to find a new and precise location of Baden in the wider context of contemporary Church history as well as in the social and cultural history of Germany.”

Having outlined this ambitious research project, Kunze went on to describe some of its early findings. He described the remarkably high membership of Baden pastors in the Confessing Church, and explained how this was the result of the strength of the Kirchlich-Positive Vereinigung, a conservative church party whose members joined the Confessing Church en masse in May 1934. Second, Kunze noted the very low levels of membership of Baden pastors in the German Christian Movement. Finally, he explained how the result of all this was to influence Baden Bishop Kühlewein to abandon his early pro-Nazi church policy and separate his regional church from the Reichskirche in November 1934 (making Baden the fourth “intact church”). Kunze used these observations and the example of Pastor Paul Röger to reaffirm Joachim Mehlhausen’s observation that the term“Kirchenkampf” should really be limited to a description of internal Protestant debates and battles in 1933 and 1934, after which the course of events up to 1945 ought to be understood as a separate chapter of the church-state relationship in modern Germany.

Jochen-Christoph Kaiser then followed with a paper on fored labour in the Protestant churches of Germany during the Second World War. Kaiser described how, in the course of the debates leading to the establishment of the ãRemembrance, Responsibility and Futureä fund to compensate forced labourers, the Protestant and Catholic Churches were themselves placed under the spotlight, and the discovery made that the churches themselves had exploited forced labour during the Third Reich. The result was not only that the churches participated in the fund (or found other ways to compensate victims), but also that a new effort was launched to investigate the manner and extent to which church institutions exploited slave labour. Kaiser, part of a research group at the Philipps-University of Marburg Faculty of Theology, outlined the current state of that research, and its initial results. Roughly speaking, Kaiser estimated that between twelve and fifteen thousand foreign forced labourers worked for Catholic and Protestant Churches in Germany. Most of these found themselves occupied in technical jobs in church administration or (more commonly) in cemeteries, farms, workshops, welfare-home kitchens, and even the households of pastors. Kaiser also pointed out the difficulty facing researchers of forced labour do to several structural problems, namely the absence of central offices, official ecclesiastical guidelines, or church tax or related records concerning forced labourers.

Beyond the statistical realities of forced labour in German churches, however, Kaiser raised the larger question of the moral responsibility of the churches. What does moral responsibility look like for the current generation of church leaders, given that the crimes in question were committed by their predecessors in office? What does moral responsibility mean when Christians committed crimes not as individuals but as part of a society engaged in criminal exploitation? In the end, Kaiser argued that the churches have to be measured according to their own high ethical standards, meaning that there remain many research questions yet to be addressed concerning not only forced labour in the churches, but also the broader subject of the churches as participants in the Second World War.

Monique Scheer’s paper on visions of Mary in Cold War Germany raised a different set of questions, and dealt with a different era, than the first two papers. Scheer sought to understand the high frequency of Marian apparition events in Germany after 1945 by taking into account the specific role that Mary plays in times of war. Reports of Marian apparitions, she argued, attract high numbers of followers in times of perceived crisis, when the situation conforms to a known pattern that would make an appearance by the Virgin Mary a logical consequence and thus more plausible and emotionally resonant. Building on knowledge of Marian apparitions in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, German participants in apparition cults envisioned a powerful Virgin Mary who would protect them from the threat of war (making the Cold War analogous to medieval and early modern religious wars).

Flowing from the commentary of Victoria Barnett, the lively discussion that followed drove home the importance of understanding the churches not only as victims or even bystanders in the Third Reich, but also as perpetrators enmeshed in the society and structures of Nazi Germany. Two concrete implications of this would be the redefinition of the term “Kirchenkampf” and a more nuanced understanding of the churches’ role in the Nazi era.

Kyle Jantzen, Alliance University College, Calgary

3) Book notes:

a) Boris Barth, Dolchstosslegenden und politische Desintegration. Das Trauma der deutschen Niederlage im Ersten Weltkrieg 1914-1933. (Schriften des Bundesarchivs 61) Dusseldorf: Droste Verlag 2003

In view of the continuing readiness of the German conservative elite to attribute the rise of Nazism to the Alliesâ vindictive policies attached to the Treaty of Versailles, it is good to have a fully researched study of the attitudes among leading Germans of their reactions to the First World War and its aftermath. Boris Barthâs work is published in the authoritative series put out by the German National Archives. He has the merit of a thorough knowledge of his sources. Two chapters are of particular interest to our readership, “Die nationalprotestantische Sinngebung des Krieges,” p. 150 – 171, and “Die Politik der protestantische Kirche im Zeichen der Niederlage,” p. 340 – 359. His conclusion is definitive: not only did the Church leaders abandon their Christian dogmas in favour of a nationalistic creed which by 1918 verged on a nihilistic or apocalyptic self-destruction, but in the aftermath were among those principally responsible for spreading the exculpatory view that Germany had been stabbed in the back, or later viciously mistreated by the Allies’ deliberate policy of humiliation and robbery in the 1919 treaty. The Protestant clergy were leaders in the programme to defame the Weimar republic. and provided theological justifications for their continued support of nationalist and racist policies, which were ready-made to be swept up into National Socialism.

b) The history of the churches in the Ukraine during the Second World War is both convoluted and disastrous – theology mixed with murder. So it is advantageous that Karel Berkoff devotes a chapter in his rich survey ofLife and Death in Ukraine under Nazi rule, Harvest of Despair, Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press 2004 to the topic of Religion and Popular Piety (p. 232 – 252). He has used a large number of local sources, as well as the only two German accounts by Benz and Heyer, to show how the internal rivalries among the church bodies, and the increasingly repressive policiy of the Germans, made a mockery of the desire of many Ukrainins to have their folk religion restored after the years of Bolshevik rule. The optimism which greeted the arrival of German troops was upheld when grants were made for the restoration of churches. But soon enough the occupation turned sour. Only the seemingly unpolitical and harmless Baptists were able to flourish. But Berkhoff finds records of a widespread desire for popular participation, often to be frustrated for political reasons. And when the Communists returned in 1944, the resulting persecutions were to make the situation even worse.

c) Als Jesus ãarischä wurde is the printed book which arose out of an exhibition put on by the Protestant Church of North Elbia, i.e. Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein in 2001. It provides evidence of the highly divided attitudes held by Protestants during the Nazi years, from those who sought to prove that Jesus could not have been of Jewish ancestry to those whose revulsion against such heresies led them to open revolt. The documentation is mainly from sources in the local church, but is supplemented by noteworthy examples from elsewhere. Very useful biographies are given of a few of the main actors, and the illustrations included are most valuable. The text of various lectures given in association with the exhibition are here reprinted, such as Hansjorg Buss’ fine article on “Entjudung der Kirche” which one now reads with hair-raising exasperation. Particularly shocking is his recounting how successfully those theology professors most involved in the Eisenach Institute dedicated to the eradication of Jewish influence from the church continued to teach in various seminaries and universities for years after the end of the Nazi regime, apparently undisturbed by their past opinions.
Als Jesus arisch wurde. Kirche, Christen Juden in Nordelbien 1933-1945. Die Ausstellung in Kiel. edited by A. Gšgres, S.Linck, and J.Liss-Walther. Bremen: Edition Temmen 2003 ISBN 3-86108-539-9.

List of books reviewed in 2006

Albert, M., Die Benediktinerabtei Maria Laach im Dritten Reich June
Bischoff, G. ed Religion in Austria September
Blmann, W. Dietrich Bonhoeffer und Jochen Klepper im Gespräch February
Boys, M. ed Seeing Judaism anew July/Aug.
Bremer T. ed. Religion und Nation in der Ukraine January
Burkhard, D. Heresie und Mythus March
Clements, K. Bonhoeffer and Britain October
Cox, J. Imperial fault lines. Christianity and Colonial power in India April
De Gruchy, J., Daring, trusting spirit. Eberhard Bethge February
Gailus, M ed Nationalprotestantische Mentalitäten in Deutschland May
Gallo, M. Pius XII, The Holocaust and the Revisionists March
Garbe, I. Theologie zwischen den Weltkriegen April
Good, C. The steamer parish January
Hall, D. Bound and free. A theologian’s journey February
Hauschild, W-D. Konfliktgemeinschaft Kirche January
Haynes, S. The Bonhoeffer Legacy September
Howes, J. Japan’s modern prophet September
Inter-arma Caritas Vatican service for prisoners of war, 1939-1945 March
Kaufmann, S. Consuming Visions. Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine November
Kindopp, J. ed God and Caesar in China May
Laqueur, W. The changing faces of Antisemitism July/Aug.
Monteath, P. Australia’s Lutheran Churches and refugees from Hitler’s
Germany February
Nurser, J. For all Peoples and all nations December
Poewe, K New Religions and the Nazis April
Pollard, J. Money and the rise of the modern papacy April
Plokhy S. and Sysyn, F. Religion and Nation in modern Ukraine January
Pringle, H. The Master Plan. Himmler’s scholars and the Holocaust June
Rittner, C. ed Genocide in Rwanda. Complicity of the churches? May
Roberts, D. Bonhoeffer and M.King. Speaking the truth to power February
Roth, J.K. Ethics during and after the Holocaust October
Sanchez, J. Pope Gabriel December
Schleicher K-T and Walle, H. Aus Feldbriefen junger Christen 1939-1945 November
Schutz, O. Begegnung von Kirche und Welt May
Theriault, B. “Conservative Revolutionaries: Protestant and Catholic Churches in Germany after radical political change in the 1990s November:
Thomas, M. Communing with the enemy. Britain and the German Democratic Republic December
Trippen, N. Josef, Kardinal Frings, Vol. II November
Williams, Archbishop R. Why study the Past? September
Zeitgeschichtliche Katholizismusforschung March

With every best wish
John Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

Contents:

1) Appeal on behalf of threatened Centre for the Study of Christianity in the non-western world, Edinburgh, Scotland.

2) Book Reviews

a) Nurser, For all Peoples and all Nations. The ecumenical church and human rights
b) Sanchez, Pope Gabriel
c) Thomas, Communing with the enemy. Britain and the GDR

3) Journal articles

a) Noll, What happened to Christian Canada?
b) Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany.
c) Ziemann, Psychological counseling in West German Catholic Church

1) Dr Michael Marten, of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, sends the following notice:

Dear colleagues,

Many of you may have used the facilities at the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World at Edinburgh University. In the course of my research I personally have made extensive use of the Prof. Andrew F Walls library, archives, and staff based at the Centre, and it is a truly remarkable and unique resource for the study of global Christianity in the past, as well as in the present and the future.

However, the Centre is now under serious threat of imminent dismemberment or even closure by the University. Apparently, this is because the University has decided it no longer wishes to pay the rent for the premises the Centre occupies. The building is owned by the Free Church of Scotland, and the rent has risen according to the terms of the original rental agreement the University made with the Free Church when the buildings were first leased from them a number of years ago.

Apparently the University has not even approached the Free Church in recent times to ask if the rental agreement might be renegotiated or reconsidered, which would appear to indicate a lack of will on the part of the University to maintain the Centre at all.

Members of this list will appreciate more than most how tragic the breakup or loss of the Centre would be. I would therefore urge you to write to the University about this. It seems to me that the Head of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences might be an appropriate person to turn to – this is Professor Vicki Bruce. Her address is: College of Humanities & Social Science, The University of Edinburgh, 55-56 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JU, U.K. Email: Head.CHSS@ed.ac.uk
In addition, if you know other scholars who would be concerned at this, I would urge you to forward this email to them as soon as possible. As the story on the Ekklesia site indicates, the situation is very urgent, with the Centre unlikely to exist in its present form after Christmas if the University has its way.

With best wishes,
Michael Marten

2a) John S. Nurser, For all Peoples and all Nations. The Ecumenical Church and Human Rights. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press 2005 200 Pp. ISBN 1-58901-039-6 cloth; 158901-059-0 paper

The twentieth century will undoubtedly go down in history as having seen unprecedented levels of warfare, violence and revolution world-wide, much of it prompted by national state governments. The cost in terms of human lives and suffering is incalculable. But so prevalent were the cults of militarism, racism and national expansion that any alternative values were spurned and regarded as irrelevant fantasies. Pacifism attracted the allegiance of a tiny minority; Christian pacifists were even fewer. Their advocacy of the eirenic virtues of peace, justice and international reconciliation was for the main part dismissed as utopian. Only on two occasions, in the immediate aftermath of the two world wars, and out of feelings of revulsion against the excesses just experienced, did such ideals come to have support from the movers and shakers of public opinion. In 1919 this resulted in the formation of the League of Nations. But, as its short and sad history proved, the League was unable to reverse the self-seeking and self-glorifying ambitions of individual nations. It did, to be sure, have a limited success in promoting the rights of individual citizens, especially in minority situations.

In 1945 the world community – or rather the leading circles among the victors in western Europe and North America – resolved to do better. They resurrected the international institution in the form of the United Nations Organization, to be given extra enforcement powers, but as history has shown with only partial success. At the same time, these powers were to pay far more attention than before to what was perceived as a vital issue – how to protect the individual from the totalitarian ambitions of maleficent rulers. In short, this led to a sustained campaign for the codification and propagation on a world-wide scale of human rights, which undertaking was a complete novelty on the scale envisaged and eventually realized.

The story of how this campaign developed in the immediate post-1945 years, and the contributions made to its successful conclusion by representatives of the ecumenical Christian community is the subject of John Nurser’s illuminating and well-researched study. His heroes are the far-sighted leaders of a small team associated with the World Council of Churches, itself still only in the process of formation. This body only formally came into being in August 1948. But already its officials had been at work together for several years seeking to promote the reconstruction of a world torn apart by the violence of Nazism and Japanese militarism. It was particularly in the United States and its nearest allies that the initiative was taken to rebuild a better international society than before. The churches, through their international representatives, sought to carry out their mission to bind up the wounds of war and to set a light before men in the name of the Christian values of peace, justice and freedom.

Thoughtful churchmen had already, during the turbulent inter-war years, considered how best the churches could influence the construction of an international order which could be effective enough to maintain stability and peace. But equally, during this period, the realization had grown that individual churchmen or women, and even individual church denominations, could only have some impact if they set aside their historic rivalries and acted together across countries and continents, in some coherent body capable of advancing a common platform in the name of Christian witness.

The difficult and even disastrous developments of the 1930s made the need for such ecumenical collaboration even more urgent. The evident success of the sinister and destructive forces of Nazism, Fascism and Communism presented an unparalleled challenge to the Christian community. When war again engulfed Europe in 1939, it was a notable advance that the church leaders on this occasion showed that they had learnt their lessons from 1914. They refused to give theological justification to national war efforts, or to endorse the view that God was on their side. Instead they strove to maintain whatever links were possible across the battle lines, and to put their faith in the possibility of a reconstructed international world order after hostilities had ceased.

The centre for such hopes for Protestants lay in the as yet incomplete edifice of the World Council of Churches. Under the leadership of its General Secretary, Visser ‘t Hooft, a Dutch Calvinist, these church representatives concentrated the resources they had on thoughtful preparations for a post-war world, not merely for the predictable short-term and humanitarian relief efforts to assist the war’s victims, but more significantly in planning for the creation of a manageable world order based on a commonly-agreed world ethos. In the circumstances of the early war years, this was a heroic gamble of faith.

One prerequisite for the success of such an endeavour was the abandonment of certain deeply entrenched Protestant beliefs. Politics was all too often regarded as a worldly affair, which could easily lead men into sin, and should therefore be shunned. But events had shown that all that was needed for evil to triumph was for good men to do nothing. Instead, these ecumenical pioneers argued, the missionary zeal of their churches should be devoted, in this pluralistic world, to securing an essential component of stability, namely man’s freedom. Political structures need to be built up strong enough to resist the pressures of intolerant governments and social forces. The achievement of such an international order, and the recognition of its universal validity, could be seen as a true form of Christian evangelism.

The principal architect of such a revisionist concept of Christian witness was the British missionary bureaucrat, Joseph Oldham. But it was the Americans within the ecumenical movement who took the lead in calling for a Christian influence in the post-war settlement in international affairs. To begin with, the impetus came from the missionary societies who believed that the end of the war in 1945 provided new opportunities for Christian mission, based on a new assertion of religious liberty on both the personal and communal levels But under the influence of such men as John Foster Dulles, their horizons widened. Religious liberty for Christian missions, they came to see, was not enough. What was required was, not merely religious liberty for all, but individual liberty for all through the safeguarding of human rights in general. A parallel development can be seen in Catholicism, where Jacques Maritain argued in favour of human rights for all, derived from a sense of the dignity of any human being created in the image of God. Such were the views energetically advanced by representatives of the ecumenical churches during the planning stages of the newly-created United Nations at its founding conference in San Francisco and beyond. It was to be a vital contribution.

Nurser devotes a whole chapter to the career of the American Lutheran scholar and strategist, Fred Nolde, dean of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, who was to be a strong and effective champion of these ideas for the churches’ role in the new international order. Nolde was of course only the tip of a pyramid of other churchmen, especially in the United States, where the Federal Council of Churches had established, as early as 1940, a Commission to study the basis of a Just and Durable Peace. This Commission’s work was notable in its ability to recruit men and women of distinction and expertise. At the same time, it departed from the earlier attempts of such church bodies, which had been superficial in their diagnoses and proposed remedies for international war and violence. In 1942 Nolde joined this Commission and began to establish a wide-ranging and thoughtful programme of speaking engagements to promote the churches’ views for post-war reconstruction. So too the Peace Aims group in the United States set to work with professional skill, rather than amateur enthusiasm. John Foster Dulles provided very able leadership and made use of his close connections with the American political hierarchy in Washington and New York. By his side, Nolde became the very competent and effective administrator and spokesman for this cause. By 1944, with American confidence that the war would shortly be won, the churches’ leadership in thinking through the issues for a post-war settlement proved to be of considerable value and importance.

Nurser believes rightly that, in subsequent years, the existence and effectiveness of the churches’ contributions have been largely forgotten, or even suppressed in the histories of the United Nations by those who wish to present the organization as a purely non-religious development, owing its inspiration to the secular tradition of the French Revolution. Hence Nolde’s sensitive and creative part has been virtually ignored, even by church historians. But Nurser seeks to show that, on the contrary, the significance of such churchmen as Nolde, Dulles and the President of Princeton University, John Mackay, was acknowledged at the time by all those involved in the delicate and often difficult period of ingestion for the new world order.

In the wider sense, it was undoubtedly the American Presbyterians and Methodists who were the powerhouse of this project for arousing public support for this new vision of American involvement in international affairs . Many of them had strong connections to the YMCA and YWCA, with their long traditions of public involvement and service. They were, to be sure, a small elite coterie, but Nurser shows how their common backgrounds provided for highly effective team work. Their links to the established political figures in the United States, and their years of experience in mobilizing support for worthy causes were great advantages. Translating ethical ideals into day-to-day programmes which served just causes was part of their vibrant tradition. The goal of a new world order and a new peace, promoted with justice, drew wide support, particularly in North America which had not suffered the same kind of disastrous losses and disillusionment as had Europe. Hope was still pervasive. Largely at the prompting of such confident churchmen, in 1946 the incipient World Council of Churches decided to establish a permanent Commission of the Churches on International Affairs. Fred Nolde was appointed its director, and remained at the helm for more than two decades.

At San Francisco the Federal Council of Churches and its mission societies equipped themselves – in an unprecedented way – to give strong support to the United States government’s determination to participate fully in a new international organization, and to reinforce those in a wavering State Department pressing for the inclusion in its structures of a human rights agency. The non-governmental representatives (including from religious groups) who had been invited to attend – in itself an innovation that has been carried into the life of the United Nations with remarkable consequences – mounted a remarkably effective campaign. It struck observers that the concerns of Jews were matched by those of the Protestants and by Catholic religious orders. As Nurser notes, they had unprecedented access to the State Department’s spokesmen. He describes the stages of their successful lobbying to have the new U.N. Charter include provisions on human rights, and in particular its mandatory commitment to a Commission on Human Rights. And he outlines the subsequent stages taken to bring about the institutional reality of this Commission, and the efforts made to define its terms and functions. As Director of the World Council’s Commission on International Affairs, Nolde spent much of his time representing the Protestant world-level organizations to the newly functioning United Nations family of agencies in New York, particularly concentrating on the Commission on Human Rights. So Nurser is surely right in claiming that Nolde and his associates should be regarded as significant godparents to this infant structure. His crowning achievement was the final adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights on December 10th 1948. It was generally recognized that its Article 18 on religious freedom, taken in its context of freedoms of association, expression and information, had largely been his work.

Nurser also points out that this international and ecumenical cooperation became constitutive for the World Council of Churches itself from its official inauguration in 1948. As its General Secretary until 1965, Visser Ît Hooft recognized the importance of the churches’ exercising influence in such international bodies as the United Nations, as well as in public affairs more generally. But as Nurser rather gently laments, his successors were not able to maintain his standard of involvement. But for two decades, the C.C.I.A., under Nolde’s leadership, made strikingly effective contributions for all peoples and all nations. The vision of the World Council’s sponsors that the churches could become meaningful partners in the creation of a new world order based on the ideals of international peace, justice and human rights, was here vindicated and turned to reality.

Nurser’s tribute is all the more welcome as this whole episode has been largely eclipsed, not only in secular histories, but even within the churches themselves. To be sure, the high hopes placed in those years on the success of the United Nations as the arbiter and peacemaker of international conflicts have largely ebbed away. So have the hopes of seeing world Protestantism playing a significant role on the international stage. Only Pope John Paul II achieved the kind of leadership position to which the C.C.I.A. once aspired. Nevertheless the fact is that in the years 1945 to 1948 the international community was able to find a sufficient unity to proclaim the validity of universal human rights, and to take practical measures to turn such a goal into reality. It is only too likely that a few months or years later, such a consensus could not have been achieved. So the churches’ ecumenical contributions to this project, and their pressure for its immediate realization, were significant steps. Nolde’s skill in fashioning a common mind and purpose for the Protestant community on the subject of their international responsibilities has now received its appropriate acknowledgment. Even if the goal of a world ethos and the full protection of human rights is still far from completion for all peoples and all nations, we should nevertheless honour those pioneers who laid the indispensable foundations. We can therefore be grateful to John Nurser for his insightful reappraisal of the history of this process.

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2b) José M.Sanchez. Pope Gabriel. A counterfactual History. New York: iUniverse, Inc. 2006. 115 Pp. IDSBN-13: 978-0-40180-2

We have never before reviewed a spoof. But José Sanchez’ counterfactual account of a fictitious Pope is so delightful, so well-informed and so convincingly told that we are glad to share this comment with you. He invents the story of a Spanish cardinal surprisingly elected in 1939 to succeed Pope Pius XI, but whose short reign took a very different turn from that of the historical figure of Pope Pius XII. Sanchez speculates as to what might have happened had the dictators been defied, the horrors of war denounced, and the victims of persecution and violence supported. His protagonist, Pope Gabriel, demonstrates a strength of will, an absence of caution, and a sympathy for suffering individuals, which were to be his credentials in enhancing the moral credibility of the Papacy. Sanchez skillfully blends in details from the actual historical circumstances, including quotations from the abundant documentation, and portrays the characters and dialogue as consistently as possible with their real personalities. He thereby constructs an appealing counterfactual case which ends in a vividly tragic climax. It is a book which would make the perfect Christmas gift for all those who have ‘pontificated’ about the Vatican’s policies during the Second World War. As the author notes, this is an entertainment, not to be taken too seriously. But it certainly captivates the imagination.

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2c) Merrilyn Thomas, Communing with the Enemy. Covert operations, Christianity and Cold War politics in Britain and the GDR. Oxford/New York/Frankfurt: Peter Lang. 2005. 293 pp. US-ISBN 0-8204-7177-1.

This is a book about secrets – especially about the secret activities of British and German Christians in the German Democratic Republic in the 1960s. During this period of the Cold War, a distinguished English clergyman, Bill Williams, Provost of Coventry Cathedral, took a party of young students to help rebuild a church hospital in the city of Dresden, which had been so ruthlessly devastated in the fateful RAF raid of February 1945. Outwardly, this was to be an act of reconciliation, to prove that creative enterprises can heal the wounds of the past, and to show that the Christian religion can bridge the divisions of nationality, race and politics. But this was in fact no ordinary example of the kind of Christian do-goodism which was common enough in that era. According to Merrilyn Thomas, who was one of the students involved, this whole endeavour was part of a much more subtle, secret and far-reaching game of political and psychological warfare on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

To reveal the truth behind the scenes, Thomas has done extensive research in Berlin into the newly-available archives of the former East Germany, including the papers of the notorious Stasi in the Ministry of State Security. She arrived at some striking conclusions. But she has to admit that, just because many of these covert operations were discreetly hidden, she has to make some unverifiable assumptions, all the more since the British authorities refused to allow her any access to their files for this period.

In the post-1945 period, relations between the West and the Soviet Union’s satellites, such as Communist-controlled East Germany, deteriorated rapidly. Militarily NATO erected an impenetrable barrier against aggression, while diplomatically the West refused to acknowledge the separate existence of the German Democratic Republic. On the other side, the East German authorities adopted policies of deep suspicion and vehement propaganda against the ãrevanchist fascists in West Germany and its alliesä. They refused to allow their citizens to travel freely to the West. This process only grew more obvious after the Berlin Wall was built in August 1961.

How then did it happen that this small group of British church people, mostly idealistic students, was allowed to spend several weeks in the spring of 1965 in Dresden, unopposed, even welcomed? Thomas suggests that the answer is to be found the convoluted state of relations between the East German authorities and their churches, particularly the largest group of Protestants. In the first years after the Communist take-over, a full-scale repression of the churches took place. Marxist theory had no place for Christianity in the new socialist paradise. But after several years, the governing authorities began to realize that such repression was only causing the church members to dig in and to cement their non-cooperation. A new tactic was called for. Without renouncing Marxist theory, a novel strategy combining surveillance and seduction was implemented, as Thomas infers, at the orders of the Communist dictator, Ulbricht. For this purpose, the now fully-fledged Stasi was to deploy its armies of informers, while efforts were to be made to facilitate a new Christian-Marxist dialogue.

The objective, Thomas suggests, was to create the image of a more friendly government, while isolating the church’s hard-liners, such as the Bishop of Saxony, Gottfried Noth. Such a stance would reinforce the regime’s propaganda that it stood for international peace in contrast to the militant revanchism of the NATO powers. Since the few church members who had already joined this bandwagon were known as careerists or opportunists, the possibility of getting help from sympathetic foreigners was too good to be missed. Moreover, if treated nicely, such western visitors would help to advance the cause of gaining diplomatic recognition for the GDR from their home governments. The whole operation was to be secretly controlled by the Stasi. A whole chapter is devoted to the main Stasi official, Hans-Joachim Seidowsky, whose ambiguous activities are explored on the basis of the surviving Stasi records.

Why did the British government play along with such a scheme? Thomas points out that, officially, they never did. Publicly, outright hostility to the GDR regime was the order of the day, lest Britain’s friends in West Germany should be alarmed. But unofficially, and behind the scenes, the British were willing to facilitate measures which they believed would serve to infiltrate the East German regime and eventually prepare the ground for a change, or even overthrow, of the dictatorship. Furthermore, these Foreign Office officials had been alarmed by the recurrent crises in central Europe. Instability could easily flare up into a major conflagration. Any steps which could discourage open opposition to these regimes, such as from the churches, could help to reduce any such outbursts. So co-existence with a communist state, at least temporarily, could be seen as being in Britain’s interest. Thomas suggests that much of the impetus for this kind of psychological warfare came from the fertile brain of Richard Crossman, a former member of British intelligence, and subsequently a leading Labour cabinet minister, who had long argued in favour of extending diplomatic recognition to the GDR.

How much were the participants themselves aware of these behind-the-scenes machinations? Not much, apparently. Provost Bill Williams had been warned of the unpredictability and delays in dealing with the East German authorities. But he had his own worries. He needed to raise the funds to cover his team’s expenses. He got no help from the Coventry City Council whose left-wing members were busy arranging trips for themselves at public expense to visit their comrades in East Berlin. They were openly opposed to any activity undertaken by organized religion. The relationship between Coventry City Council and Coventry Cathedral was one of mutual suspicion. Williams was also in competition with the middle-class members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation who had uncritically swallowed the East German propaganda line that they were the true champions of peace, and whose organizers Williams dismissed as “naive” and “brainless parsons”. He was determined not to be associated with any sort of “fellow travellers”, or to allow Coventry Cathedral’s reputation to be high-jacked for any other cause than his belief in overcoming the past through gestures of reparation.

Besides, Williams spoke little German, and hence was probably unaware of the range of covert activities developing on the German side. Even his colleague, Canon Paul Oestreicher, who did speak German, having been born there, and who had frequently visited East Germany, strenuously denied that he had ever worked for any intelligence agency. But as he conceded to Ms Thomas: “I can deny it as much as I like and no-one is going to believe me”. Her conclusion is that the British clergymen almost certainly did not know the extent to which they were being manipulated by the intelligence services. But they did know they were serving a political purpose aimed at the suppression of dissident voices within the GDR.

In the end, after long delays and difficulties, the Coventry visit did take place. Thomas does not go into detail about the results, but suggests that in both Britain and the GDR the impact was only marginal. Her interest is really to study the project as an example of the Cold War’s stratagems. But any exact description or evaluation was clearly beyond her reach. The Cold War thrived on misinformation and misinterpretation. Many events are still surrounded by the fog of secrecy. The historian’s task is daunting, even after the collapse of the whole Communist empire and enterprise. The survivors are naturally reticent. So while Merrilyn Thomas has been able to piece together the basic outlines of this story, in which prominent Christians in both Britain and Germany played a striking if minor role, she runs the danger of exaggerating the conspiratorial atmosphere. There were, after all, other churchmen, not mentioned at all in this account, whose efforts were directed to keeping open the lines of friendship and collaboration between the churches without any political purposes, let alone to plot against the regime. Their witness can be said to have been part of the campaign to try to maintain alternatives to the rigid and dogmatic Communist ideology which, twenty-five years later, was to succeed in bringing about the regime’s final overthrow.

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3) Journal articles:

a) Mark Noll, What happened to Christian Canada? in Church History, Vol. 71, no. 2 June 2006, p. 245ff.

Noll’s sympathetic account of the religious changes in Canada over the past fifty years seeks to explain why this nation, which was once so heavily indoctrinated with Christian values and vocabulary, has most recently become even more secularized than its southern neighbour, the USA. He finds no one single causal factor, but attributes the growth of secular nationalism and education as leading Canadians out of the previous colonial tutelage, also in religious matters. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom has undoubtedly been a major influence encouraging multiculturalism, enforcing religious tolerance and ensuring public religious neutrality. Public space has thus become de-christianized. But private spaces still retain a healthy vigor in many encouraging ways.

b) Religion, State and Society, Vol. 34, no.2, June 2006

This entire issue is devoted to the history of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany since 1933. Comparisons are made between their treatment under the Nazi and the Communist dictatorships, both of which were brutal and repellent. The experiences of this small minority sect are evaluated as paradigms of religious liberty (or its absence) under these respective political regimes. Although the major outlines of the German Jehovah’s Witnesses’ history is already known, these five essays make this information readily available to the English-speaking audience. Useful bibliographical references are included. Newly-researched evidence from the Stasi files is revealing about how the Ministry of State Security refined to perfection its system of surveillance and subversion.

One ground for the hostility displayed by the German Democratic Republic’s authorities was the fact that the Witnesses’ headquarters were in the United States, “the main enemy of socialist reconstruction and world peace”. But, interestingly, the same did not apply to the Mormons (See Newsletter, August 1998, item 4). The final essay brings personal recollections by children of Jehovah’s Witnesses under both dictatorships, which offsets the previous essays’ overemphasis on the state and police documentation. But the whole tone repeats the standard interpretation of Jehovah’s Witnesses as victims of unwarranted state repression and as heroic upholders of their religious beliefs.

c) Benjamin Ziemann, The Gospel of Psychology. Therapeutic concepts and the scientification of pastoral care in the West German Catholic Church, 1950-1980 in Central European History, Vol. 39 no. 1, March 2006, pp. 79 ff.

Ziemann’s perceptive and innovative article seeks to describe the interplay between psychology and religion in the Catholic Church of West Germany in the post-Second World War period. To begin with, the Catholic authorities had a built-in suspicion of psychoanalysis because of its association with the anti-religious ãatheistä Sigmund Freud and his advocacy of highly unsuitable models of individual freedom. By contrast, Carl Jung, whose writings stressed the psychological importance of faith and religion, received more attention. By the 1950s there were Catholics who sought to widen their practices of therapeutic counselling, and recognized that psychology might well open up new horizons. If pastoral care was to be effective and to enrich the consciences of the faithful, some understanding of personality in a psychological framework might well be useful. Group therapy and group dynamics became more popular in the late 1960s, going along with the increased emphasis on the importance of the laity after the Second Vatican Council., and the impact of what has come to be called the “68-generation” with its anti-authoritarian tones. Much of this activity was based on American models,whose anthropology was of a “positive” rational kind, and hence aroused opposition from more orthodox theologians. The author calls for more empirical study of the effects of such psychological counselling in the wider life of the church.

As we come to the close of Volume XII of this Newsletter, I would like to take this opportuity to thank those colleagues who have contributed reviews to this Newsletter during the past twelve months. I am most grateful for your help. It only remains for me to wish all of you a very happy and blessed Christmas season. I trust you will all be able to have suitable festivities, and look forward to being in touch with you again in the New Year

As we enter the watchful season of Advent, may we be full of hope for the remembrance of the coming of our Lord in the war-torn and impoverished Palestine of His day. We shall all pray that His message of peace and reconciliation may be heard throughout His world in the days and years ahead.

With all best wishes,
John S.Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

This month’s offerings concentrate on new books dealing with the Catholic Church and its responses to the crises of the twentieth century and beyond.

Contents:

1) Correction: I regret that there was an unintended error in the website cited for Christian Zionism in the October issue. I am told that it would be best if you were to go to the following URL:http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/ and around the middle of the page, in the right-hand box titled “Christian-Jewish Relations”, click on “Christian Zionism”.

2) Book reviews:

a) Schleicher and Walle, Feldpostbriefen 1939-1945
b) Trippen, Josef Kardinal Frings Vol. II
c) Theriault, Conservative Revolutionaries
d) Kaufmann, Consuming Visions. Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine

3) Book notes: Vatican-Israel Accords

2a) Karl-Theodor Schleicher and Heinrich Walle, eds., Aus Feldpostbriefen junger Christen 1939-1945: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Katholischen-Jugend im Felde, Munich: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005. 413 Pp. ISBN 3-315-08759-1. (This review was first printed in H-German on Wednesday, July 16th 2006, and is here reproduced by kind permission of the author.)

This book is a collection of letters from the front sent by specifically Catholic soldiers who belonged to Catholic youth groups that were persecuted by the Nazi regime since 1936 and prohibited since 1938. The editors regard the letters as a witness to the rejection of what Catholics called the Trinitarian Dogma of the Nazi regime, namely: the National Socialist Party, the Third Reich, and the German Volk. The soldiers of these letters apparently understood well the basic teaching of the Catholic resistance fighter Alfred Delp. He argued that a soldier do his duty to the fatherland which was a matter of natural inclination, but question (even resist as Delp did) demands for loyalty to the current state leadership which was a matter of historical fortuity. Implied was that while these Catholic soldiers could be patriotic, they could not identify with the criminal goals of the regime.

The research for this book was done in several archives, the findings were then discussed with various witnesses of the time and a manuscript was proposed. This manuscript was then further reviewed by ten leaders of the youth group association, witnesses, and experts. These in turn agreed that a book on this topic required an essay that discussed the development and situation of the Catholic Youth in the Third Reich. For this task, the editor Karl-Theodor Schleicher won the cooperation of the military historian Dr. Heinrich Walle who, as a student, was also a member of the Catholic Youth Group of Cologne (Bund Neudeutschland-Köln) to which the soldiers who wrote these letters from the front belonged.

Although a military commander and historian, Walle also studied Catholic theology. His explanatory introduction of the Nazi times, the Catholic situation within it, the Catholic Youth groups and their ideals, the content and quality of the letters, what could be said and what not, is exemplary. While the letters are subjective documents, they are fascinating because of their nearness to the actual experiences of an ever hardening war. Most of these soldiers who found themselves in the continual presence of death tried to reach one goal: to be ready for – the last. One wrote, “finally I reached the place where I could say: Lord, your will alone!” And he continued: “I believe in a kind of collective guilt of the Volk. And thus, by God, it is better that one upright man die than that dozens be massacred” (p.19).

Front letters were censored. Any hint of doubt of the final victory (Endsieg), or of the senselessness of war, or any critique of the NS-regime and its representatives was considered under military law to be an act of eroding the power of defence and was punishable by death. The law was known to both writers and recipients of these letters.

Nevertheless, Walle argues that these letters give an insider view of the German military. And while scholars have reached a consensus that, from the beginning, the German military was drawn into the National Socialist enslavement and elimination program, Walle argues that such a picture represents an external perspective. Since only a small sample, a mere splinter, of the thirty to forty million front letters has been analyzed, Walle argues that quantitative conclusions about the moral position of “the” German soldier of World War II is hardly possible. It would be a post-factum confirmation of Nazi-propaganda, if one were to lump together all these men as champions of National Socialism. Many a soldier at the front found himself in the tragic condition, furthermore, of having to realize that the goal of the enemy was in no sense of the imagination the liberation of Germany from National Socialism, but rather the total destruction of the fatherland. The conduct of war today, as we witness it daily through the media, would lead one to affirm Walle’s insider assessment of the war then.

The new German scholarship, whether this book, or Georg Denzler’s Widerstand ist nicht das richtige Wort (Resistance is not the right word, 2003), or Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Gerhard Paul’s edited volumeKarrieren der Gewalt (Careers of Violence, 2004) or Stefan Schmitz’s edited volume of the soldier Willy Peter Reese’s Mir selber seltsam fremd (A Stranger to Myself, 2005) or my own book, New Religions and the Nazis (2006); all these books and many others are outstanding for one characteristic: by carefully differentiating who committed what deeds, they are giving new insights into the horrors of that regime, its war, and the Holocaust.

Finally, with one exception, the choice of material is excellent. Particularly useful is the inclusion in the Appendix of a confidential letter dated 28 October 1936 from the Reich’s Youth Leadership. It makes for harrowing reading when it is understood how systematic and calculated the persecution of Catholic youths was. It shows what I found to be a general tendency in Nazi persecution, namely, learning to use the enemy’s own methods and form against them. In this case, using Catholic religious forms and rites to indoctrinate the masses with National Socialist ideas.

The choice of material that I found surprising is the archbishop of Freiburg, Dr. Conrad Grüber’s pastoral letter of 8 May 1945. From this letter it is clear that he understood the National Socialist worldview all too well: its rejection of Christianity as Jewish-religion, the Regime’s use of the Concordat as political seduction, its notion that the Volk was the measure of all things which had the consequence of destroying all normative ethics. Unfortunately, for a number of years Grüber was enthusiastic about the Nazi regime.

Karla Poewe, University of Calgary

2b) Norbert Trippen, Josef, Kardinal Frings (1887-1978), Vol. II, Sein Wirken für die Weltkirche und seine letzten Bischofsjahre. (Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Zeitgeschichte, Series B: Forschungen, Vol 104) Paderborn: Schöningh, 2005.

This second half of a two-volume biography of the later Josef Cardinal Frings is, like the first, clearly a labour of love. The author, Prelate Norbert Trippen, is professor church history at Bonn University and a member of Cologne’s cathedral chapter. The emphasis of this volume, which covers the years from the early 1950s until the Cologne Archbishop’s death in 1978, is on two areas of the work of Cardinal Frings, first as the initiator of German Catholic development and programmes, and second as a leading figure at the Second Vatican Council, where he led the efforts of the German-speaking bishops. The first half of this volume is devoted to Fring’s gradual development of a large-scale foreign aid programme sponsored by the Catholic Church in post-war western Germany and funded by impressive annual drives during Advent and Lent. Initial contacts led to a close partnership with the archdiocese of Tokyo, which included considerable financial support for the Jesuit-sponsored Sophia University – donations from Cologne made it possible to open a law school at the university – and for the construction of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Tokyo. Later in the 1950s, following these first experiences, Frings coaxed his fellow bishops into creating Misereor, a programme to combat hunger and disease in the developing world, comparable to Catholic Relief Services in the U.S. Even before governments established departments for foreign assistance and economic cooperation, Frings was convinced by his vicar-general, Joseph Teusch, to insist that Misereor innovate by encouraging self-help, rather than simply offer traditional works of charity. How unusual this was, Trippen illustrates by the fact that Frings requested papal permission to begin this work abroad, not only because of its new approach to aid, but also because of concerns that perhaps diocesan and national churches should not engage in activities traditionally carried out or at least coordinated by the Holy Father.

Once the successes of Misereor became apparent, in part a consequence of Germany’s economic recovery, the Pontifical Commission for Latin America inquired whether or not the German episcopate might see fit to take on particular responsibility for supporting the Church in Latin America. Again Frings played an important role in overcoming resistance to such endeavours. Thus, in the early sixties, the German bishops established Adveniat as a special collection period for Latin America during Advent, while Misereor with its broader focus took on the form of a Lenten sacrifice.

Trippen devotes even more detail to the contributions Frings made to the Second Vatican Council. According to Trippen, one should count Frings among those who embraced John XXIII’s call for an aggiornamento and who led the bishops in breaking the resistance of those gathered around Cardinal Ottaviani who wished to obstruct the councilâs development towards an understanding of the Church both self-confident and willing to serve, rather than triumphalist and authoritarian. Interestingly, this volume is dedicated to Fring’s advisors at the Council, foremost among them Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, then professor of theology at Bonn University. This volume, published in 2005, was completed before Benedict XVI assumed his office. It throws interesting light on the directions of the young Professor Ratzinger, which clearly encouraged Frings to pursue a thoughtfully modernizing line. For those familiar with the development of Benedict XVI’s thought, however, there is little new or surprising here.

In discussing the role of Frings at the council, Trippen provides an almost day-by-day account of events, both in the plenary sessions and in the various other meetings surrounding the council. Trippen shows that Frings overcame his increasing age and blindness to carry on. In an attempt to demonstrate the importance of Frings at the council, Trippen leads the reader through the lengthy deliberative processes that produced Lumen Gentium, Gaudium Spes and other equally important documents. Here is seems the author could have selected more carefully the most relevant passages and focused more precisely on the changes to the documents that can be attributed to interventions by Frings. For those familiar with the scholarship on the council, there will be little new here; for those who seek better to understand Frings, many questions are left unanswered.

During the later stages of the council, Frings increasingly relied on Cardinal Doepfner, Archbishop of Munich and Freising. Thus it seemed natural that Doepfner would become the first chairman of the newly formed German bishopsâ conference, which replaced the centuries-old Fulda and Bavarian bishops’ conferences. Frings himself opposed the establishment of an institutionalized structure at the national level for fear that it would infringe on the necessary autonomy and on the responsibilities of individual bishops.

While Trippen provides man interesting details about the internal politics of the German hierarchy relating to charitable works and about the council, at times one misses both a broader context and especially some critical analysis. To read this volume, even more than the first half of the biography, Frings could do no wrong.

In contrast to the first volume, which addressed a broad spectrum of issues Frings faced as priest and archbishop, this volume largely ignores his primary role as Archbishop of Cologne, i.e.. as leader of his flock. Nothing is said, for example, about the integration of refugees and expellees from the East, about the arrival of guest workers in the late fifties and early sixties to work in the large factories of Cologne, or about any of the challenges German Catholics faced in the light of the economic miracle, rearmament, and Germany’s return to relative stability. In this regard, this is a frustrating work.

Still, Trippen has provided a useful account of Frings as leader of the Church in Germany, and its contribution both to the aggioramento of the wider Church and to the return of Germany as a constructive actor on the global stage.
Martin Menke, Rivier College

2c) Barbara Theriault. “Conservative Revolutionaries”: Protestant and Catholic Churches in Germany After Radical Political Change in the 1990s. New York: Berghahn Books, 2004. vii + 188 pp. Appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 1-57181-667-4. (This review first appeared on H-German on July 18, 2006, and is reprinted by kind permission of the author)

Good Bye, Luther!

The drama of German reunification played out primarily on the main stages of politics and the economy. The bankruptcy of the East German model in these areas resulted in little opposition to the competing FRG model. By comparison, social institutions were a mere sideshow. Yet society and culture–less malleable to the pressures of the SED state–have by the same token been more resistant to merger on West German terms. Barbara Theriault analyzes the impact of reunification on two key social institutions, the Protestant and Catholic churches, looking particularly at three areas–chaplaincy in the military, religious instruction in the schools and social welfare institutions–in which the churches’ interface with state and society created potential for political conflict. In each of these policy areas, the West German model of a highly visible, legally privileged social role for churches (Volkskirche) contrasted with the GDR model of churches largely disenfranchised in terms of social functions. Theriault’s study is based largely on interviews and secondary source material. It is the only monograph in English to deal in depth with the consequences of German reunification for churches’ role in society.

Employing a sociological framework, the author’s main purpose is to explore the “politics of institutionalization, or the discourse and deliberation attendant to the resolution of these important policy issues. Theriault analyzes metaphors used by church groups as they sought either to legitimize the “institutional transfer” of the western model to the East or alternatively reject/alter this transfer. Protestants largely used the metaphor of “church within socialism,” developed under Bishop Albrecht Schonherr following the accommodation with the regime during the 1970s (pp. 29-36); Catholics adhered to a strategy of “political abstinence” identified with Cardinal Alfred Bengsch (pp. 21-29). Although 1989 is usually viewed as the triumph of the Catholic metaphor over the Protestant one, there was in fact no “Stunde Null” after 1990. Thus, along with pragmatic considerations, these metaphors continued to hold sway. Theriault argues that these contrasting metaphors are to be explained neither by confession (Protestant vs. Catholic) nor by majority/minority status, but rather by the influence of key church leaders.

Based on these two metaphors, the author discerns two groups that remained relatively consistent in their views: those advocating adoption of the West German model (whom Theriault labels “reformers”) and those rejecting this model and arguing for the retention of positive features of the GDR model (Theriault designates members of this group “conservative revolutionaries”). The fronts in this debate do not align neatly along East-West lines, although more conservative revolutionaries are to be found in the East.

In a most interesting aspect of the work, the author employs Albert Hirschman’s typology of argumentation to organize the threads into a coherent whole and demonstrate a tactical consistency in the positions.[1] For example, the “reformers” argue (pp. 74-76) that the state-sanctioned social role of churches in the military, education and social welfare will provide opportunities for mission in the dechristianized setting of the GDR; failure to take advantage of such opportunities will leave Protestants vulnerable to resurgent Catholic influence (“imminent danger thesis”). For their part, the “conservative revolutionaries” argue (pp. 71-73) that the West German model will endanger the proven, parish-based models of the East (“jeopardy argument”), will cost the churches hard-won credibility and leave them dependent on the state (“perversity argument”). They are bound in any case to fail in the context of a secularized society (“futility argument”).

Theriault shows that the resolution of these issues was characterized by more compromise and incrementalism than is generally assumed. To be sure, the western model regarding social welfare reigned supreme, largely for financial reasons. The churches deferred final resolution of the military chaplaincy issue until 2003, permitting a dual system in the interim. As a harbinger of broader challenges to the West German model from growing religious diversity in Germany, the issue of religious instruction in the schools produced the greatest political conflict: the proposal by the SPD government in Brandenburg to replace religious instruction with a secular course on ethics and religion was fought unsuccessfully by both churches in the courts.

Several omissions flaw this otherwise comprehensive and authoritative treatment. First, confessional differences _within_ the Protestant camp should be highlighted more. The more socially and politically active Union churches (Berlin, Church Province of Saxony) are well-represented among the “conservative revolutionaries,” but voices of the more politically deferential Lutheran Churches (Saxony, Thuringia, Mecklenburg) seem missing in this narrative. Closer to the SPD even before 1989, the Union churches were naturally more critical of the FRG model in many respects. Second, more treatment is needed of the ambivalent role of Manfred Stolpe–chief lawyer of the GDR churches yet later (as Ministerpräsident of Brandenburg) head of the state that rejected the western model of religious instruction. Finally, Thierault leaves unaddressed the major issue of church finance. The resolution of this issue foreshadowed the extension of the West German model more generally. Having lost their official status in the 1950s, many Protestant “conservative revolutionaries” came to see the normative value of a church supported by “voluntary” contributions rather than a church tax collected by the state. Early in 1990, however, the West German churches made it clear that continuation of their substantial subsidies to the weaker eastern churches depended on restoration of the church tax system in the former GDR. This step, in turn, prejudiced the outcome on the issues Theriault treats.

Thierault’s terminology may leave the reader (and the subjects themselves) somewhat confused. Extension of the West German Volkskirche model is labeled as “reform”; retention of the status quo, minority-church model of the GDR is propounded by “conservative revolutionaries.” Illustrative of ensuing verbal contortions is the statement found on p. 77: “Reformers … supported the West German status quo, thus becoming reactionaries themselves.” Perhaps “restorationist” and “voluntarist,” respectively, would have proven more apt characterizations, without doing injustice to the motives of the two groups.

In my view, however, the divide between these groups should not be overstated. Despite losing the privileges associated with the West German model and flirting with the notion of “free churches” in their dialogues with various American churches, GDR churches never relinquished their claim to speak for society as a whole, nor did they jettison the trappings of the Volkskirche. By the same token, West German churches had long been aware of the societal forces challenging religious Modelldeutschland. Theriault’s conclusion that “defenders of the East German status quo were also successful in institutionalizing some principles” (p. 141) thus comports well with the notion of greater continuity in social-cultural life than in the political-economic sphere.

Note

[1]. Albert O. Hirschman, The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1991)

Robert F.Goeckel, SUNY, Geneseo, New York

2d) Suzanne K.Kaufmann, Consuming Visions. Mass Culture and the Lourdes shrine. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. 2005 255 Pp. ISBN 0-8014-4248-6.

In early 1858 , Bernadette Soubirous, a peasant girl from the remote hamlet of Lourdes in the foothills of the French Pyrenees saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Within months, thousands flocked to meet the visionary or visit the site. Within ten years Lourdes had become an officially endorsed place of pilgrimage, and by the end of the century was receiving close to half a million guests a year. The anticlerical officials of the Third Republic were scandalized by what seemed to them to be an outburst of rural political reaction. Liberals and Protestants were appalled by what they saw as a revival of mediaeval superstition. Others were dismayed by the swift growth of commercial enterprises around the shrine, greedily selling religious trinkets, postcards and votive pictures, and seemingly despoiling the sacredness of Bernadetteâs vision.

Suzanne Kaufmann, however, is intrigued by this contrast and seeks to analyze the success with which these modern commercial aspects were so speedily blended into the ancient forms of piety. She is interested in how popular religiosity was promoted by the spirit of modern commercialism, which she sees as a necessary component to the development of such shrines. Lourdes is only the most obvious example, having so rapidly become the best-known and most successful of all Catholic pilgrimage sites in contemporary Europe. She analyses how the use of modern technologies served to promote religious devotion and to direct it into newer channels for mass consumption.

This whole process was always controversial. Intellectuals continually poured scorn on popular piety, while snobbish Catholics deplored the massification and trivialization of their beloved heritage. Anticlericals, especially in the medical profession, attacked Lourdesâ reputation for therapeutic cures, and sought to disparage the whole enterprise as an outdated relic of bygone fanaticism. But Kaufmann makes a convincing case that the skillful use of modern commercial practices, particularly the building of railways, new advertising techniques and the mass production of religious devotional goods, enabled a much larger proportion of the population, especially rural women, to share in an unparalleled religious experience of great value to them. At a time of considerable church instability, pilgrimages to such places as Lourdes revived French Catholic worship and satisfied real spiritual needs.

There was also a political dimension. After the Third Republic adopted an explicitly anticlerical stance, the popularity of Lourdes became for Catholics an important means of stressing the fact that religion mattered. Even hardened atheists could not deny that the whole economy of the Pyrenees region benefited greatly from Lourdes. Kaufman shows that its boosters took many lessons in self-advertisement from secular metropolitan models. Lourdes catered for mass tourism, but did so cheaply and efficiently. Its hotels, shops, diversions, tours and other attractions successfully combined a religious tone with a progressively modern emphasis. Even the poor farmer’s wife, who could only afford a couple of postcards, or the smallest replica of the grotto’s statues, could gain a feeling of belonging to a wider spiritual fraternity. There were, of course, complaints about the exploitation of naive pilgrims and the cultivation of superstitious worship of relics. Nevertheless on the whole the defects were outshone by the impressive dignity and ceremonial pageantry of the shrine’s guardians. In catering for ever-growing numbers, however, the simplicity and traditional aura of yesteryear was lost. Bernadette herself came to be transformed in to a sanctified commercial image. Had she been able to return twenty years later, she would not have recognized the place.

The shrine’s Catholic authorities were obliged to spend considerable time in thwarting unscrupulous merchants and manufacturers, but this led them to reflect on the proper balance between a capitalist market economy and Christian ethical behaviour. Accusations of clerical simony or purveying of false relics were of course nothing new. But the virulence of the debates in the late nineteenth century was in fact all part of the attempt to define the character of post-imperial France. Even the most outspoken anticlericals, such as Emile Zola, could not deny the extraordinary fervour displayed by the pilgrims who visited Lourdes every day. This blocked attempts to push religion back into a private realm, irrelevant to the main stream of national life.

In part to counter such criticisms, the authorities at Lourdes came to place ever greater emphasis on the shrineâs function as a place of healing. Its core meaning became to tend the sick and to pray for miracles of recovery. Kaufmann argues that this development also owed much to the impact of a commercializing and modernizing world. Even though the association between holy shrines and healing cures had a long history, the focus in Lourdes was not on the past but on catering for the emergence of a mass audience and clientele. Popular faith in the efficacy of Lourdes cures grew rapidly, but necessitated some regulatory controls. Physical up-to-date facilities for drinking or bathing in the sacred waters had to be built on a sufficient scale, and records had to be meticulously kept to substantiate the claims of miraculous healing. Expert doctors were employed to certify that the cures were both spontaneous and long-lasting. The imposing authority of the medical professionals now came to be as important as that of the priests. These cures were no longer seen as proof of Bernadette’s visions, but rather were advanced as part of the much wider goal of regaining the soul of France.

Mobilizing the cured, and bringing them back to Lourdes to participate in large-scale celebrations, proved to be highly popular. In 1908, for the fiftieth anniversary, over a million people came to Lourdes. Women, particularly, who had been miraculously cured of their ailments, were now feted by a marveling public It was a pre-view of the later film-star adoration, but was equally transient, a very real example of modern mass culture.

Kaufmann’s final chapter looks at the ways in which Lourdes’ claims were treated in the popular press of the later nineteenth century. Its very modern phenomenon of publishing sensational stories for the sake of selling newspapers frequently took advantage of the Lourdes patients and their cures, which only inflamed the political tensions between anticlericals and devout Catholics. It did little to bolster Lourdes’ credibility.

Yet Lourdes survived even the venomous attacks during the process of the disestablishment of the Catholic Church in 1905. Popular support actually grew, despite being denied any official recognition by the French state. Catholic devotion, then as now, continued to uphold the shrine and its mission of healing and pilgrimage. Paradoxically, as Kaufmann points out, the very success of modern publicity for a mass market produced the best-known advertisement for religious devotion in the 1943 Hollywood film The Song of Bernadette. Lourdes still has to deal with this ambivalent legacy. JSC

3) Book notes: The Vatican-Israel Accords: Political, Legal and Theological Contexts. edited by Marshall J.Breger. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 2004 Pp. xvii,392. $55.00. The following review first appeared in The Catholic Historical Review 92:2 (2006),and is reprinted by kind permission of the author.

Marshall Breger is professor of law at Columbus School of Law, The Catholic University of America. This excellent collection of essays will be a “must read” for anyone interested in the Midle East, international politics and law, or Catholic-Jewish relations. It examines the historic 1993 accords between the Holy See and the State of Israel from a variety of scholarly points of view. The authors include participants in the negotiations which led to the agreement, making it the definitive interpretation of the accords and their historical and religious implications.

Lorenzo Cremonesi outlines the stages of diplomatic negotiations that led to the accord. David-Maria A. Jaeger, O.F.M., a drafter of the text, and Leonard Hammer analyze how it changed the legal relationship of the Catholic Church and Israel. Silvio Ferrari places this accord in the context of other conventions between Church and States since the Second Vatican Council in general, while Rafael Palomino compares it specifically with the Church-State agreement in Spain.

Roland Minnerath discusses how the Catholic Church understands Concordats “from a Doctrinal and Pragmatic Perspective”. David Rosen comments on the relations between the Vatican and Israel since the signing of the accord. Moshe Hirsch analyzes the issue of proselytism under the accord and international law. Geoffrey Watson discusses its implications for a range of issues associated with pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

Giorgio Fillbeck and Ruth Lapidoth explain the understandings of freedom of religion in Catholic teaching and under Israeli law, respectively. Silvio Ferrari analyzes the Vatican’s policies and practices with regard to the Middle East during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. Drew Christiansen presents the situation of the Palestinian Christians. Jack Bemporad overviews Catholic-Jewish relations since the Holocaust.

Appendices provide the texts of the agreement itself, along with its implementing “Legal Personality Agreement” and the “Basic Agreement” between the Holy See and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Richard Mathes provides personal recollections of the informal discussions that took place between representatives of the Church and the State of Israel at the Pontifical Institute of Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center.

Eugene Fisher, Washington, D.C., USA

With best wishes
John S.Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

I take the opportunity this month to send you a statement issued on August 22nd by four church leaders in the Middle East, the Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism.

Without necessarily endorsing the opinions expressed, I think it is an important document for Church historians and members of our Association to be aware of.

Please note that your comments on the contents of these Newsletters are always welcome. But please also note that you should NOT press the reply button, unless you want your views to be shared by all 500 subscribers. Instead, please send them to me at my own address = jconway@interchange.ubc.ca

Contents:

1) The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism

2) Book reviews

a) Clements, Bonhoeffer and Britain
b) Roth, Ethics during and after the Holocaust

1) Comment by the Editor:

The current crisis in the Middle East has clearly done grievous harm to the efforts to promote dialogue and understanding between Jews, Christians and Muslims. But it has also heightened tensions within the Christian community. One small segment, namely the supporters of Christian Zionism, which is largely supported by conservative churches in the United States, has unequivocally declared its wholehearted support for the military policies of the government of Israel, and has drawn parallels between Israel’s opponents in the Hezbollah movement and the Nazis. On the other side, the leaders of four main-stream churches in the Middle East, the Roman Catholic, the Syrian orthodox, the Anglican/Episcopal and the Lutheran churches, issued on August 22nd a Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism . This document explicitly denounced the false teachings’ of Christian Zionist doctrines, which they claim facilitate racial exclusivity and perpetual war . Instead these church leaders call for support from Christian churches on every continent to seek a peaceful settlement based on love, justice and reconciliation.

Many of you, I know, have a continuing interest in Christian-Jewish relations in general, and specifically in the role of the Christian churches in the state of Israel. Others, I feel, may regret the inflammatory language but agree with these church leaders in deploring the exploitation of theological concepts concerning an eventual Armageddon for more immediate political purposes. So, in view of the significance of this statement, and for the sake of historical accuracy, I send you the complete text, which can also be found, together with rejoinders from several organizations through the following link:

http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/topics.christian_Zionism.htm (This website is the best source for up-to-date staatements by various churches on the Middle East in general and Christian-Jewish relations in particular).

Statement by the Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches In Jerusalem

“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

Christian Zionism is a modern theological and political movement that embraces the most extreme ideological positions of Zionism, thereby becoming detrimental to a just peace within Palestine and Israel. The Christian Zionist programme provides a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism and militarism. In its extreme form, it places an emphasis on apocalyptic events leading to the end of history rather than living Christ’s love and justice today.

We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.

We further reject the contemporary alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine. This inevitably leads to unending cycles of violence that undermine the security of all peoples of the Middle East and the rest of the world.

We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that facilitate and support these policies as they advance racial exclusivity and perpetual war rather than the gospel of universal love, redemption and reconciliation taught by Jesus Christ. Rather than condemn the world to the doom of Armageddon we call upon everyone to liberate themselves from the ideologies of militarism and occupation. Instead, let them pursue the healing of the nations!

We call upon Christians in Churches on every continent to pray for the Palestinian and Israeli people, both of whom are suffering as victims of occupation and militarism. These discriminative actions are turning Palestine into impoverished ghettos surrounded by exclusive Israeli settlements. The establishment of the illegal settlements and the construction of the Separation Wall on confiscated Palestinian land undermines the viability of a Palestinian state as well as peace and security in the entire region.

We call upon all Churches that remain silent, to break their silence and speak for reconciliation with justice in the Holy Land.

Therefore, we commit ourselves to the following principles as an alternative way:

We affirm that all people are created in the image of God. In turn they are called to honor the dignity of every human being and to respect their inalienable rights.

We affirm that Israelis and Palestinians are capable of living together within peace, justice and security.

We affirm that Palestinians are one people, both Muslim and Christian. We reject all attempts to subvert and fragment their unity.

We call upon all people to reject the narrow world view of Christian Zionism and other ideologies that privilege one people at the expense of others.

We are committed to non-violent resistance as the most effective means to end the illegal occupation in order to attain a just and lasting peace.

With urgency we warn that Christian Zionism and its alliances are justifying colonization, apartheid and empire-building.

God demands that justice be done. No enduring peace, security or reconciliation is possible without the foundation of justice. The demands of justice will not disappear. The struggle for justice must be pursued diligently and persistently but non-violently.

“What does the Lord require of you, to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

This is where we take our stand. We stand for justice. We can do no other. Justice alone guarantees a peace that will lead to reconciliation with a life of security and prosperity for all the peoples of our Land. By standing on the side of justice, we open ourselves to the work of peace – and working for peace makes us children of God.

“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Cor 5:19)

His Beatitude Patriarch Michel Sabbah
Latin Patriarchate, Jerusalem

Archbishop Swerios Malki Mourad,
Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate, Jerusalem

Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal,
Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East

Bishop Munib Younan,
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land

August 22, 2006

2a) Keith Clements, Bonhoeffer and Britain. London: Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, 2006 154 Pp. ISBN 0 85169 307 5

One of the interesting, but little-known chapters of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life was the eighteen months he spent in Britain from October 1933 to March 1935 as pastor to two small German Lutheran parishes in south London. He had come to escape the increasingly tense situation within the German Evangelical Church, following the take-over of power in the church hierarchies by pro-Nazi elements in the summer of 1933. This was to be only a temporary posting, before he was called back to direct a seminary for the newly-founded Confessing Church. But his experience in Britain and the contacts he made there were highly formative, and added greatly to his ecumenical experience and vision. We are therefore grateful to Keith Clements, recently retired as General Secretary of the Conference of European Churches, for retracing Bonhoeffer’s footsteps, his friendships and his reflections about Britain in this brief but vivid depiction of the young German pastor’s impressions, and the legacy he left behind. Particularly valuable are the numerous photographs of places associated with Bonhoeffer’s stay during this period.

In fact, Bonhoeffer had already paid a few days’ visit to Britain in 1931, as a German delegate to a meeting of the rather august World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches. This ecumenical body was strongly, if rather sentimentally, interested in the cause of peace, but Bonhoeffer found it singularly lacking in any coherent theology. But it was there that he first met Bishop George Bell, already one of the leading figures of the world church scene. Despite his reservations, Bonhoeffer accepted the invitation to act as Youth Secretary for the World Alliance in central Europe. He had to organize seminars and conferences, which necessarily brought him in touch with the international ecumenical church leaders.

So, on his arrival in Britain in October 1933 he was already known and welcomed. Bishop Bell’s diocese was in Chichester, near Brighton, on England’s south coast, and only a short ride from London. He very quickly invited this young German pastor to come down to Chichester, who was so unique amongst his countrymen for his sympathy with the cause of peace. Indeed Bell encouraged him in his ambition to go out to India to visit Gandhi – a project which never came off. But Bell’s interest in Dietrich was also prompted by the fact that here was a first-hand source of inside information about what was happening in the German Evangelical Church, where developments were already causing alarm and dismay among the ecumenical church leaders, especially Bell. In particular, the Nazi antisemitic campaign and the dismissal of Jews from Germany’s civil service was taken as a direct blow against the international community. In the German Evangelical Church itself, the proposal to implement the so-called Aryan clause, and thus to eject all those of Jewish origin from the German church, led Bell to mobilize support in Britain against such a step. The Archbishop of Canterbury was persuaded to intervene with the German Ambassador in protest. All this meant that Bonhoeffer’s advice to the British ecclesiastics was highly important.

Bonhoeffer found that his English-based German colleagues in charge of other expatriate parishes shared his views about the scandalous behaviour of the so-called German Christians, whose pro-Nazi fervour was so misleading their congregations. The National Synod in Wittenberg in September 1933, where Hitler’s appointee had been made Reich Bishop, and the subsequent November meeting in Berlin, where a leading German Christian had called for Îliberation’ from the Old Testament, and for a purely racial German Christianity, were bad enough. The Reformation faith was being eviscerated. German paganism was flaring up.

These developments caused widespread alarm and disgust in British circles. And luckily for Bonhoeffer he found that his principal lay supporters, such as Baron Bruno Schršder, were equally rock-solid in resisting these Nazi attempts to overthrow their Lutheran heritage. With their support Bonhoeffer was able to draft a statement to be sent to the Reich church government warning that, if this tendency continued, the close ties between the British-based parishes and the mother church in Germany would be broken. This in turn led to his being summoned back to Berlin to receive a reprimand from the newly-appointed head of the Evangelical Church foreign office, Theodore Heckel. Bonhoeffer, backed by Schršder, refused to toe the line. And subsequently the German parishes in Britain solemnly resolved that they consider themselves belonging intrinsically to the Confessing Church and as such refused to acknowledge the authority of Heckel or his superiors in the German Christian hierarchy.

Throughout 1934, the British church leaders’ disillusionment with Hitler’s ‘new’ Germany grew apace. Hence they found the stalwart resistance of the Confessing Church, as expressed in the Barmen Declaration of May 1934, to express what they hoped would prevail. Bonhoeffer helped to draft a protest to be issued by Bell in June 1934 in the name of the Universal Christian Council of Life and Work protesting the imposition on the German church of state-sponsored coercion and racial categories incompatible with Christian principles.
The high point of this collaboration came at the next international ecumenical meeting of August 1934, held on the island of Fanš in Denmark. Here, under Bell’s chairmanship, Bonhoeffer gave an emotionally-charged address calling on the whole church community to commit itself to peace. It was a totally un-German pronouncement quite out of tune with the climate that prevailed in Bonhoeffer’s homeland. We would not be far wrong to see something of the English influence in Bonhoeffer’s words.

Given the multiplicity of Bonhoeffer’s commitments to the international ecumenical community s well as in Germany, how did he find time to look after his two congregations? Keith Clements rightly poses this question, but finds that the surviving evidence shows that Bonhoeffer was conscientious in his duties to his parishioners. In return, several of them were able to recall many years later the respect and admiration they felt for his pastoral care.

Bonhoeffer did find time, however, to widen his acquaintance with the Church of England outside London. In particular, he got Bishop Bell’s help in facilitating visits to several Anglican theological training colleges, which impressed him greatly, especially the Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield, near Leeds. Here he found that the priorities in training for ordinands were quite different from Germany. At Mirfield, the prime emphasis was on the times of corporate prayer. This was the inspiring cement which bound the community’s life together. The discipline of prayer, and reciting of the Psalms, was the basis of their discipleship. This experience touched Bonhoeffer deeply, and was reflected in the kind of daily disciplines he sought to inculcate when he was given the task of establishing a similar seminary for the Confessing Church in Finkenwalde.

Bonhoeffer’s career, after he was called back to Germany in early 1935, became more and more engrossed with mobilizing the opposition to Nazi tyranny. However, unlike his colleague and close friend, Franz Hildebrandt, who was obliged to flee to England on account of his partial Jewish origins, or Dietrich’s sister and brother-in-law similarly situated, Bonhoeffer never thought of himself as called to live in exile. Even when he was given the chance in 1939 to remain in the United States, he rejected this opportunity. As he wrote to Reinhold Niebuhr, he would lose the right to participate in the life of the German church after the war if he did not share the sufferings of his people during it. This should not be seen as an expression of German national solidarity. To the contrary, Bonhoeffer was the only pastor known to be praying for Germany’s defeat. But it was his contacts with the outside world, particularly in Britain, which sustained his confidence that Nazi totalitarianism would be overthrown. And the alternative future for which the German resisters were planning owed much to the ideals laid out by the English churchmen like William Temple, Joe Oldham and George Bell, all of whom Bonhoeffer esteemed highly.

After the outbreak of war in 1939, Bonhoeffer never again visited Britain. But he cherished all the more such indirect contacts as were possible. As he was drawn more and more into the conspiracy against Hitler, the planners recognized his usefulness as a channel of communication to the other side. Hence they arranged for him to be employed as an agent of the military Abwehr and given the task of assessing foreign church opinion. In reality Bonhoeffer used the opportunities to leave Germany for neutral countries, such as Switzerland and Sweden, to renew his contacts with his British friends and to send messages to his sister in Oxford. The most notable occasion was his last visit to Sweden in May 1942 when he once again met up with Bishop Bell. His object was to convince the bishop, and through him the British government, that the German resistance movement was a serious reality, and that it intended to destroy the Nazi regime and reverse its murderous policies. He also revealed to Bell the names of the chief figures involved.

Clements does not make clear – as Bonhoeffer’s previous biographers did not make clear – what exactly was said at this meeting. Did Bonhoeffer really think that a bishop – even one as experienced as Bell – could have such a significant impact on the British government’s policies as to persuade it to seek a negotiated peace? Or did he give Bell the impression that the resistance movement had a wide measure of popular support in Germany, which in fact it never achieved? Did Bell not warn the conspirators that open support from Britain was highly unlikely, or did his wishful thinking outweigh his political judgment? Or was he overly impressed by Bonhoeffer’s open acknowledgment of Germany’s need for a penitential peace to atone for her aggressions and war crimes?

Certainly Clements is quite right in his view that this meeting reinforced Bonhoeffer’s sense of solidarity with the international Christian community, whose British members he knew best. But shortly afterwards Bonhoeffer was arrested and all possible contacts ceased. Nevertheless, even in the grim desolate circumstances of the Gestapo’s prisons, Bonhoeffer continued to uphold his belief in a better world and a better church to come, as outlined by his British counterparts. And, as Clements notes, it was exactly this spirit which upheld Bonhoeffer to the end. On the day before he was taken off to Flossenburg concentration camp in April 1945, Bonhoeffer’s last recorded words were spoken – in English – to a fellow prisoner, Captain Payne Best. He asked Best to pass a message, if possible, to Bishop George Bell. Tell him that with him I believe in the reality of our Christian brotherhood that rises above all national conflicts and interests and that our victory is certain .
The next morning, at dawn, he was executed.

It was a notable act of courage that in July 1945, at a time when the British press was burning with indignation about the atrocities committed in German concentration camps, and inflaming public opinion against everything German, Bishop Bell undertook to organize a memorial service in the heart of London for the one good German he knew, who had paid the ultimate price. The service was broadcast and was the means by which Bonhoeffer’s parents first learnt of his death. Clements gives extracts from Bell’s moving tribute to his martyred friend.
He also has a final chapter on Bonhoeffer’s legacy in Britain, which points out how his writings were to become an important challenge and inspiration in the ecumenical post-war world, especially his prophetic call to the universal church to resist tyranny and oppression. It is therefore most fitting that Bonhoeffer was chosen to be one of the ten twentieth-century martyrs whose witness on behalf of the world-wide Christian community led to their statues being placed in 1998 on the portico of Westminster Abbey, the very citadel of British Christianity. It symbolizes the bond, in both life and death, linking Bonhoeffer and Britain. JSC

2b) John K. Roth, Ethics During and After the Holocaust: In the Shadow of Birkenau New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 225 pages, ISBN: 1403933774

John Roth is not a contemporary church historian or even a historian for that matter, but rather a self-described Christian philosopher “tripped up by Holocaust history” (ix). The founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College, where he is a member of the philosophy and religious studies department, recalls being haunted by reading Elie Wiesel’s Night thirty-five years ago. The scenes of Wiesel’s horrific journey to Auschwitz-Birkenau where the Nazis murdered his mother, father, and little sister made an indelible impression on Roth. Wiesel’s description of Madam Schächter’s torturous screams in the cattle car transporting European Jews to their deaths, her visions of the fire and flames that awaited her and her young son, and Wiesel’s images of his first night in the camp have tripped up many young scholars. Some of them, primarily aspiring historians, would turn to Holocaust studies for answers but, as Roth laments, few philosophers heeded the call.

Historical inquiry alone, Roth maintains, does not do justice to the multifaceted nature of the Holocaust. What he feels is necessary is an interdisciplinary approach that includes philosophical inquiry, especially when the focus is on ethics. In addition to their study of churches as historical institutions, church historians should be particularly open to Roth’s view given their interest in the theological and ethical dimensions of church history.

Reflecting on ethics during and the after the Holocaust is nothing new for Roth. He has written, co-authored, and co-edited dozens of books, many of which address the Holocaust and the post-Holocaust world from an ethical perspective. Central to his scholarship is taking to heart Elie Wiesel’s assertion that “The Holocaust demands interrogation and calls everything into question.” Believing that the Holocaust could not have happened without the collapse and collaboration of ethical traditions, particularly Christian ethics, Roth writes, “It is precisely because of my Christian identity that I have immersed myself in the study of the Holocaust, for I believe that my identity (as indeed anyone’s identity as a Christian) is linked to that catastrophe” (46).

The Holocaust has revealed that ethical traditions are fragile and easily manipulated into serving evil. For this reason Roth addresses first what happened to ethics during the Holocaust and then considers how to make post-Holocaust ethics more credible and sustainable. Sensitive, balanced, and profound, the insights in this volume are that of a seasoned scholar, one who recognizes that he does not have all the answers but that he is contributing to an immensely important project – the restoration and reconstruction of ethics in the shadow of Birkenau.
Some mention should be made of Roth’s methodology. He is truly a historian’s philosopher in that he refrains from overly abstract discussions of ethics by concentrating on the experiences of real individuals. He proceeds from these experiences, often depicted in survivor memoirs, to their impact on ethics and finally to harnessing these memories “to reconsider and retrieve ethics, to recover and renew its vitality in the ruins of a post-Holocaust world” (xi). In addition to analyzing the ethical dimensions of accounts by survivors Roth also reflects on the work of a diverse group of scholars, writers, and filmmakers who have addressed similar issues including Primo Levi, Jean Amery, Sarah Kofman, Daniel Goldhagen, Claudia Koonz, Peter Haas, Mel Gibson, Pierre Sauvage, William Styron, and Raul Hilberg. Roth’s reflections are aimed at gathering insights into why moral standards and ethical traditions were so easily subverted during the Holocaust and how to ensure that in the future ethics is not only sturdier but that people, especially scholars, are prepared to identify and challenge those who would try to manipulate or undermine ethics. The Holocaust creates “a duty,” Roth insists, “to speak, an obligation to make ethics stronger and less subject to overriding, dysfunctionality, or subversion, an insistence not only to drive home the difference between right and wrong but also to influence action accordingly” (94).

Roth’s conviction that particular experiences, details, and facts contain moral insights and can serve as a new foundation for ethics is apparent throughout his book. In one example we are introduced to Sarah Kofman, a French philosopher, whose father, the rabbi Berek Kofman, was buried alive by the Nazis for trying to observe the Sabbath in one of the death camps. She struggles to speak and write about this unspeakable act but when she finally does she uses the experience as a source of ethical insight. In Smothered Words (1998) Kofman remarks that in Nazi Germany “community” — in the inclusive sense of humanity — was forbidden. The lack of an inclusive community of which her father could be a member left him and all Jews isolated, threatened, and ultimately easily disposed of. Kofman concludes that it is crucial in the post-Holocaust world to support “the community (of those) without community” and to build a new humanism that has at its core a commitment to defend human rights. Roth emphasizes the importance of listening to the experiences of victims such as Kofman because “knowledge roots itself in human experience” (184). It might also be added that it is the victims — more than the perpetrators or bystanders — who will refuse to return to the status quo before the Holocaust, to the old humanism, which failed so miserably.

It is therefore not surprising that Roth is critical of Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the crucifixion of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ because the film fails to question the traditional Christian depiction of this event in the wake of the Holocaust. “The problem is that Gibson’s film,” Roth states, “has much more in common with pre-Holocaust Christian animosity toward Jews than it does with post-Holocaust reconciliation between Christianity and Judaism” (49). Roth’s critique goes even further. He maintains that portrayals of the crucifixion in a post-Holocaust world must be linked to the Holocaust because if Jesus had not been crucified then the Holocaust would not have taken place. He reproaches Gibson for failing to acknowledge that “No crucifixion of Jesus = No Holocaust” (45).Whether a depiction of the crucifixion that did not blame Jews would be a sufficient link to the Holocaust for Roth is not clear. What is clear is that Roth believes that to produce a film or write a book after 1945 that addresses Christianity, particularly the crucifixion, as if nothing has changed since the Holocaust is not just unacceptable, it undermines the pursuit of a post-Holocaust ethics.

Considering Roth’s problems with the Gibson film and his demand for a radical rethinking of how Christians depict the Passion, one might expect cautious praise for Daniel Goldhagen’s A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair (2002). While recognizing the book’s historical inaccuracies, Roth writes approvingly that the author “may be helping to create a new Christianity” (106). Goldhagen’s demand that Catholic Church carry out fundamental reform (“conciliatory language, good will, apologies, even the most heart felt expressions of sorrow, regret, and contrition are not enough”) is not radically different from the vision of a reformed Christianity shared by Roth and many other Christian scholars (see review of Seeing Judaism Anew: Christianity’s Sacred Obligation in previous Newsletter). Although Roth (and a growing number of Catholics) would agree with Goldhagen that real reform requires forthright recognition by Catholic leaders of the Church’s institutional antisemitism, he neither explicitly supports nor condemns Goldhagen’s call for the Church to abandon papal infallibility and dissolve the Vatican. Nevertheless, Goldhagen’s general message should be embraced, says Roth, and that doing so would advance the construction of a post-Holocaust Christian ethics.

Roth’s book is packed with insights he draws from the experiences of victims, from the research of other scholars, and from the interpretations put forth by artists and writers. His own skills as a philosopher are put to use in unique and innovative ways as he analyzes works from outside his field with admirable adroitness.

On a personal level, Roth acknowledges that the recent birth of a granddaughter has conferred on him a new sense of responsibility for the world in which she will live. His thoughts are worth quoting at length because they provides the best summary of his intentions in the book–intentions which he fulfills with grace, astuteness and wisdom.

“As Keeley’s grandfather, I want more than ever for her post-Holocaust world to be one in which human rights abuses, genocide among them, are minimized if not eliminated. I want more than ever – for her, for all the children and grandchildren – a world that embodies higher ethical standards and conduct than ours exhibits in the early twenty-first century. Having become a grandfather, my time to work for those goals grows shorter, and therefore the work seems increasingly urgent, more intensely required because it will remains so far from being done when my death comes. A book about ethics during and after the Holocaust is, at best, a modest contribution in response to that urgency. . . . I offer it as a present to her world, as well as to her, hoping that it may help to encourage justice, healing, and compassion” (xiii).

Matthew Hockenos, Skidmore College, Saratoga, N.Y., USA

With best wishes,
John S.Conway
jconway@interchange.ubc.ca