Tag Archives: John S. Conway

Review of Hartmut Ludwig, An der Seite der Entrechteten und Schwachen: Zur Geschichte des “Büro Pfarrer Grüber” (1938 bis 1940) und der Ev. Hilfsstelle für ehemals Rasseverfolgte nach 1945

Leave a reply

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 2 (June 2013)

Review of Hartmut Ludwig, An der Seite der Entrechteten und Schwachen: Zur Geschichte des “Büro Pfarrer Grüber” (1938 bis 1940) und der Ev. Hilfsstelle für ehemals Rasseverfolgte nach 1945 (Berlin: Logos Verlag, 2009), Pp. 195, ISBN 978-3832521264.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Ludwig-AnderSeiteThe record of the German Evangelical Churches, including the Confessing Church of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in failing to mobilize opposition to the Nazis’ violent attacks on the Jews is a shameful one. It has been excellently researched in the recent book by Robert Ericksen, Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany. In the post-1945 period, when the horrifying facts of the Holocaust were revealed, the Church was overwhelmed with a deep feeling of guilty shame. The subject was to be avoided. It took many years before the details emerged of one of the more significant, if belated, efforts in the Protestant ranks, namely the establishment in 1938 of an office to assist the persecuted Protestant victims of Nazi oppression. Hartmut Ludwig’s contribution in retelling the story of the “Büro Grüber” is therefore much to be welcomed.

By 1938 the escalation of Nazi violence had alarmed many individual churchmen, including Bishop George Bell in England, who was deeply concerned for those Protestant pastors of Jewish extraction, who were now threatened with eviction or discrimination. Bell sent his sister-in-law, Laura Livingstone, to work with the Quakers in Berlin and to provide, at a minimum, advice about resettlement and emigration. But the German church authorities, including those of the Confessing Church, were still too eager not to offend their political masters, and refused any engagement on this issue. Not until the summer of 1938 was Pastor Heinrich Grüber designated as contact person for a nation-wide network to offer guidance and assistance to Protestant church members of Jewish descent. Grüber was in charge of a parish in eastern Berlin, where he had been much engaged in social work. Since he could not expect any approval from the church bureaucracy, he decided to set up his own independent office. He called for help from a group of lay persons of both sexes from the local parishes, almost all of whom were themselves drawn from the target group of Protestants of Jewish origin.

The onslaughts of the notorious “Crystal Night” pogrom in early November impelled Grüber to take immediate and unauthorized steps to provide assistance to those victims who needed to emigrate from Germany as soon as possible. Many of the Christians of Jewish descent had expected that since they were not part of the Jewish community and, in many cases, had not been for many years, they would be exempt. “Crystal Night” destroyed this illusion. Grüber’s office now found itself overwhelmed with applicants. Grüber himself travelled to England in December to see what opportunities existed for Christians of Jewish origin to emigrate there. In the following months, until the outbreak of war in September 1939, his office expedited as many cases as they could, although the exact numbers are unclear. He also recruited over thirty assistants to help with the complicated paper work required to overcome the bureaucratic obstacles preventing the emigrants from leaving Germany.

Despite their plans to expel the Jews as quickly as possible, the Nazi authorities’ hostility to anyone who sympathised with the plight of Jews only increased. The escalation of military operations from 1939 to 1941 made emigration opportunities ever more difficult. Grüber’s educational and social work had to be stopped. In late 1940 the first deportations of Jews from Germany were begun to Poland and also to southern France. Grüber was alarmed but powerless to prevent these vindictive measures. In December 1940 the Gestapo peremptorily ordered his office to be closed, while he himself was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen. The office files were confiscated and later destroyed. In September 1941 all Jews were ordered to wear the Yellow Star, and in October the Gestapo prohibited any further Jewish emigration from Germany. Instead they were to be deported to unknown destinations in the east. Fourteen of Grüber’s co-workers were among those deported and subsequently murdered in one concentration camp or another. The author gives each of them a short biographical tribute on the basis of carefully-reconstituted evidence.

Fortunately, Pastor Grüber himself survived, and already in June 1945 was back in Berlin determined to continue to care for the very few remaining Jewish Protestants, some of whom had been in hiding, and others married to non-Jews in the so-called “privileged marital status”. All of them needed help to rebuild their shattered lives. And many had to contend with the wounding disparagements of neighbours who still maintained the prejudices of the previous regime. The new Protestant church authorities refused to acknowledge any special responsibility towards those who had been so let down by their predecessors. The task of combating anti-Semitism remained.

In the post-war years Grüber achieved renown as the Provost of Berlin, and for nine years the chief negotiator for the Protestant Church with the Communist government in East Berlin. But he also saw to it that his relief agency for assistance to the formerly racially persecuted continued to operate, even after Berlin was politically divided. The agency still exists, helping with restitution cases, supporting old age homes, and fighting racial prejudices. It is a continuing obligation in Grüber’s memory.

Harmut Ludwig began his researches on this topic twenty-five years ago, while he was a graduate student at the Humboldt University in East Berlin. After the fall of Communism, he was able to gather new sources on both sides of the former Berlin Wall, as well as to interview survivors, their relatives, or the relatives of victims. The record of the dangers and, often, calamitous disasters which befell these victims of Nazi ruthlessness is now more or less complete. But so too is the evidence of the dedication and compassion shown by Grüber and his assistants, who constantly strove to follow their role model of the Good Samaritan, and thereby to atone, if only in part, for the scandalous dereliction of the wider Church.

Share

Book Note: Annemarie S. Kidder, ed., Ultimate Price. Testimonies of Christians Who Resisted the Third Reich

1 Reply

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 2 (June 2013)

Book Note: Annemarie S. Kidder, ed., Ultimate Price. Testimonies of Christians Who Resisted the Third Reich (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), 177 Pp., ISBN 9781570759550.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

kidder-ultimateThis short selection of texts written by seven notable Germans who resisted the Nazi onslaught against their Christian faith will be a helpful introduction for beginners in this field. While the testimonies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer have been known in English translation for many years, it is good to have these brief and excellently translated extracts from the writings of lesser known figures, such as Sophie Scholl, the Munich student executed for her protests against Nazi totalitarianism, or of Jochen Klepper, the well-known novelist, who committed suicide with his Jewish wife in 1942. On the Catholic side, the Jesuit Father Alfred Delp was also executed for his involvement with the July 1944 plot to overthrow Hitler. His prison letters are, like Bonhoeffer’s, an inspiring witness to his enduring faith. Less known to English-speaking readers will be the testimony of Franz Jägerstätter, the Austrian farmer, executed for his refusal to serve in Hitler’s army, or the courageous stand of the Berlin Cathedral Provost, Bernhard Lichtenberg, who prayed publicly for the persecuted Jews and for the prisoners in concentration camps, for which he was arrested and sent to prison. The only survivor, the Jesuit Father Rupert Mayer, was already arrested in 1937 for his provocative sermons critical of the regime. His refusal to be silenced led to his being imprisoned again in 1938, and then to being placed under house arrest in a distant monastery in 1940. The common theme of all these witnesses was their determination to protest against the injustices of the Nazi regime, even though their motives for doing so varied widely. They were all well aware of their isolation in adopting such views, but were resolved to defend the integrity of their Christian beliefs. Their readiness to challenge the majority’s obeisance, gullibility or fearfulness is what makes these testimonies so compelling. This little book will undoubtedly help to uphold their memory among a wider public, in the hope that their sacrifices will resonate far beyond their own times or their original homeland.

Share

Editorial: Pope Benedict XVI: The Humble servant of the Lord, or God’s Policeman?

2 Replies

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 19, Number 1 (March 2013)

Editorial: Pope Benedict XVI: The Humble servant of the Lord, or God’s Policeman?

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The sudden and totally unexpected announcement on Monday 10 February that Pope Benedict XVI was intending to retire caught everyone by surprise. It has caused a flurry of speculation ever since. But this breach with the past, as the first Pope to resign the Chair of St Peter for six hundred years, prompts us to examine the career of this pontiff over the past eight years, and to assess his place in the wider history of the Papacy.

Joseph Ratzinger was born in 1927 in a staunchly Catholic family in a small town in rural Bavaria. This was a part of Germany which had endured much persecution during the period of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, when Catholic life had been safeguarded and fostered by a very active flourishing of pilgrimages, worship at shrines, way-side crucifixes and votif-churches. These had formed a valued defence against the onslaughts of anti-Catholic forces, and were to prove to be of value again when the same persecution was resumed under the Nazis. The Ratzinger family took a reserved attitude towards Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, which later became more hostile when radical Nazis began to encroach on Catholic life and impose restrictions on Catholic organizations. For instance, in 1939, all Catholic youth organizations were banned and all young Germans were obliged to join the Hitler Youth movement, though it seems that Josef managed to evade attending many of the sessions. However, in 1943, when he was still only 15, he was conscripted to serve in the Airforce Auxiliary, which involved guard duty around endangered factories near Munich. In the following year he was obliged to join the Reich Labour Force, but in a non-combatant role.

Shortly after his eighteenth birthday in April 1945, the Third Reich was overthrown, and he became a prisoner held by the American occupation troops for some three months. It was then that he, like many other Germans, first learnt of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the concentration camps. This led to a lifelong sense of shame at what misdeeds had been carried out in Germany’s name. From then on, he recognized the need for repentance and atonement, particularly for the sufferings of the victims of the Holocaust.

In January 1946 he and his older brother George were allowed to begin their training for the priesthood in the diocesan seminary near Munich. But a year later he was promoted to the Faculty of Theology at Munich University, still being rebuilt after the war. In 1951 both brothers were ordained, and Josef served a short time as a curate in a down-town parish in Munich city. But in 1952 he was recalled to the seminary and asked to teach dogmatic and fundamental theology, which remained his interest thereafter. In 1959 he was promoted to the Faculty of Theology at Bonn University in the heart of the Catholic Rhineland, and subsequently became Dean of the Faculty at Munster in north Germany. In 1966 he was invited, at the suggestion of his colleague Hans Kung, to move to the venerable university of Tubingen, but then three years later preferred to return to Regensburg in his native Bavaria.

It was during this period that he was summonned to be an advisor to Cardinal Frings of Cologne at the Second Vatican Council, and subsequently a member of the International Theological Commission. At first he shared much of the excitement at the new ideas which the Council produced, but subsequently became alarmed by what he believed were the prevalence of humanistic notions, which obscured the orthodox traditions of the Catholic faith. Thus he welcomed the reform of the Catholic liturgy including the introduction of the vernacular for the Mass, but deplored what seemed to him to be the loss of the sense of transcendence.

In May 1977 he was appointed Archbishop of Munich, and a month later was made a Cardinal. He was obviously regarded as a steady hand, who would keep in check some of the more turbulent hotheads even among the clergy, while opening up new avenues for spiritual formation which had been abandoned during the Council’s repercussions. A year later he was summoned to Rome twice to take part in the Conclaves which elected both John Paul I and John Paul 11. The latter Pope soon found that Ratzinger would make an excellent working partner, and in 1981 called him back to Rome to become the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This is one of the more important of the Vatican’s positions, since it entails making sure that bishops and priests are upholding the Church’s traditions in their sermons and writings. The office is committed to maintaining the orthodoxy of Catholic traditions, and ensuring that the Church in all parts of the world is keeping in step with each other and with the Pope as its spiritual head in Rome. Formerly this office was called the Holy Inquisition, and had an evil reputation. But in the past century its function is limited “to promote sound doctrine, to correct errors, and to guide back to the right path those who are in error.” The office has no physical or disciplinary powers, no police force, and needless to say no jails. All it can do is to appeal to the bishops to call any alleged offender to heel. Ultimately, it has no weapons besides argument and appeals to the faith.

Necessarily, such an office, and such a function, however gently exercised is bound to seem repressive. Ratzinger’s authority appeared to be too conservative to the more liberal or radical thinkers in the Catholic ranks. Hence he gained the description of being God’s policeman. His first controversy came with the liberation theologian from Brazil Leonardo Boff, who ardently championed the so-called Liberation Theology, which made extensive use of Marxist theory. He was called to Rome and urged to keep silent – a reproach which many of his followers resented. So too some of the more controversial issues affecting the church, such as celibacy of priests, the ordination of women, abortion, papal dogma and homosexuality, soon enough came to rest on Ratzinger’s desk. Frequently the critics believed that their views would have prevailed if only God’s policeman had not suppressed them. But he made clear that Church doctrine was not something which could be altered to suit any one’s special interests or wishes. The Church did not and does not exist as a kind of self-service supermarket for the purpose of self-realization. Ratzinger’s task was to ensure that this truth was upheld.

In some ways, he was a perfect foil to Pope John Paul II, whose charismatic personality, especially in the early years of his reign, proved most appealing.The Pope from Poland had an uncomplicated human directness, openness and warmth, which made him immediately likeable. By contrast, Ratzinger was far more reserved, studious, careful in his speech, and not at all gregarious. The media played up this difference, depicting John Paul in the star role, while his right-hand man could be depicted as a cold, repressive and conservative German. The fact is, however, that for twenty-three years the two worked in close harmony. On several occasions, as he grew older, Ratzinger begged John Paul to allow him to retire. He hoped to be able to return to Bavaria, and to share his house there with his brother who had been the conductor of the famous Cathedral Choir in Regensburg. But John Paul would not permit this, so he was obliged to soldier on. If, one the one hand, this lengthy period of office enhanced his authority, it also gave rise to increased criticism from those who believed the Church was caught up into an inflexible, or outdated, pattern of operation. Particularly in Germany, the media and much of the avant-garde intelligentsia regarded the Church as having failed to seize the opportunities for complete reform after the Second Vatican Council, or were increasingly hostile to any form of transcendent belief. Even some German Catholics were notoriously critical of the Pope and opposed to Rome. These were burdens which Ratzinger had to bear.

In April 2005 Pope John Paul II died. By this time Ratzinger had become Dean of the Cardinals, and hence was responsible for both the funeral and for the organization of the subsequent conclave to elect a successor. In his funeral sermon he gave his listeners a sharp warning against relativism and ideological fads, when nothing was recognized as having ultimate value, and the only final standard was the individual and his wishes. A faith that follows the movements of fashion and of the latest novelties, he observed, is not a constructive attitude. Instead a mature faith is one that is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ.

On 19 April, on the third ballot in the Conclave, Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope, and took the name Benedict XV1. The choice was momentous in several ways. Firstly, he was only the second non-Italian after 500 years to hold this office. Secondly, the choice of a German Pope after an even longer period marked a significant change and rehabilitation in Germany’s international status. No longer would the awful shadow of Hitler’s misdeeds be attributable to the whole nation. Thirdly, he had only three days before celebrated his 78th birthday. There could be no danger that his reign would last as long as John Paul II’s. He was not going to rival John Paul’s journeys around the world, visiting 129 countries and making 2500 speeches. His would be a more low-key modest reign, similar to his personal disposition. Where John Paul had sought to bring the Church to the world in large-scale personal appearances, Benedict would concentrate on the message, on the need to return to the essential revitalization of what is intrinsic to the Church’s commission, to the way Christ intended the Church to be.

Of course Benedict was well enough aware that he would be obliged to deal with a whole range of problems left over from the previous reign. John Paul’s well-publicized appeals against exploitation, oppression and poverty had brought headlines, but little obedience from even the faithful. And, on a number of important questions regarding the future of the world, the Catholic Church seemed to have missed the boat. Particularly on such issues as abortion, the rights of women in the Church, or the prohibition of contraception and euthanasia, the Church’s stance was horribly compromised by the seemingly unstoppable scandals of clerical sexual aberrations in different parts of the Catholic world, including Canada. People’s confidence in the institutional Church was waning year after year, when such matters seemed to be pushed under the rug. Even more damaging was the unverified rumour that Benedict and his advisors downplayed these scandals by implying that they were being drummed up by sensational journalists or greedy lawyers.

On the other hand, Benedict took office with certain clear advantages. His unusually long term of service at the highest rank of the Vatican bureaucracy meant that he was thoroughly familiar with the problems to be faced. He was better known to the five thousand bishops of the world church than any of his predecessors, and they in turn understood his theological authority and the directions he would give them in church politics. He had had years of pondering the great issues of faith and reason, or the ethical limits of modern science. His calm, persistent and logical way of working meant that he had thought out the implications of decisions in advance. He knew what was required, and if necessary could launch the kind of steps to deal with situations. Above all, he knew what it meant to be a Pope and what is expected of him. Thus although many observers wrote him off as another elderly interim Pope, Benedict XVI was ready to take up the reins of office, and give effect to his long-held convictions.

Benedict’s elevation to the Papal throne necessarily meant that he left the prefecture of the Doctrine of the Faith. The result was an almost visible lightening of his personality. Instead of the harsh disciplinarian, he now appeared as a more gentle and approachable leader. And it was notable that the criticisms of the media became more tolerant. Whereas for years the prevalent ideology had poured scorn on everything to do with Christian belief, Benedict’s thoughtful pronouncements of the subject of faith and reason recreated a new dialogue between culture and religion, which has helped many to recognize the validity of his arguments. His papacy has shown that his challenge has been understood, and he has succeeded in upholding an alternative model of Christian existence which rejects the individualism and relativism so widespread in late 20th century cultures. In this role, Benedict became a voice of conscience, summoning the faithful to be obedient to their traditions and loyal to their ideals. The predictions of some hostile critics that this aged, scholarly, conservative, uncharismatic Bavarian would only hasten the dechristianization of Europe have been confounded. Moreover, thanks to his highly efficient use of his time, he has been able to turn back to his first love – biblical studies. His recently published three volumes on Jesus are a valuable summary of other men’s researches, but capped with the authority of someone who had reflected on these issues for many decades.

Speculating about the Conclave and the choice to be made by the 117 Cardinals entitled to vote would be risky. But, just because Benedict’s resignation was so unexpected, even by his closest colleagues in the Vatican, so there was none of the usual speculation about the succession, as happened last time during the long-drawn-out decline of Pope John Paul II. Just for that reason, virtually nothing is known about the most likely candidates, whose biographies will now have to be rapidly researched. More significantly, the choice will surely rest on other factors, even if the traditional Catholic belief is that the Holy Spirit will make the decision. For one thing, will there be pressure to revert to an Italian Pope? Or alternatively has the time come for a non-European candidate to be selected? Equally important is the question of qualifications. Many Popes have served in the Vatican bureaucracy, known as the Curia, often with distinction in high office, though few have been so enduring as Benedict with his nearly 24 years at the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The alternative would be to select a man who had held pastoral office as Archbishop or Cardinal in some distant See. In fact, we can discern a pattern here. Over the past fifty years, Pius XII was a Curial diplomat, but John XXIII a well-beloved pastor. Paul VI had also served in the Vatican’s State Department, but neither John Paul I nor II had any such experience. Following Benedict’s tight control from the centre, perhaps the time has come to choose an outsider, with a different perspective, even from a different continent.

When the Conclave is summoned, the cardinals will have to hurry to Rome , presumably this time by air, along with their attendants, and will be suitably housed for the duration. All will agree that it would be unseemly for the Conclave to be still continuing by the time Holy Week begins, i.e. on March 24th, so that the newly-elected Pope can preside over the Church’s most solemn and significant rituals culminating with Good Friday’s Three Hour penitential Mass, and the triumphant Resurrection service on Easter morning. The Cardinals’ deliberations will therefore have not to be too long drawn out. But the preliminary meetings with their colleagues over dinners, the late-hour chats, the consultations in the various national colleges or with friends in high offices, are all part of the process to determine who is the most suitable choice. Many of the Cardinals will arrive with their own strong ideas about the future of the church, but will have to adjust these in order to reach a consensus on a single candidate. The secrecy with which the whole procedure is surrounded means that we may never know the exact reasons why the next Pope is chosen. And we would do well to be sceptical about the large number of Pope-watchers who are even now flocking to Rome to offer the public throughout the world their unrivalled but uniformed guesses.

Pope Benedict’s legacy will certainly be disputed in the years ahead. His critics, especially in the United States, will lay stress on the shortcomings of his failure to deal more trenchantly with the sex scandals affecting priests and bishops, or the seeming insensitivity towards their victims. Other critics, more aptly, point to Benedict’s rigid stance against all proposals for change as refusing to recognize the need for internal reform in order to pave the way for true renewal. As Cardinal Avery Dulles pointed out, such an attitude turns the church into an obstacle rather than an inspiration to faith. Benedict’s admirers, on the other hand, will point to his years of devoted service in an office which he held with great dignity, insight and perseverance. His example of a teaching papacy, and his legacy of theological writings, will be long remembered. His eight years as Supreme Pontiff were short and lacking in any historic turning points. But he can surely be given credit for the manner in which he broke the tradition of centuries and decided to retire. It will be a pity if Benedict’s pontificate becomes best remembered for his manner of leaving it. Yet, we have no reason to suspect that this Pope emeritus in his retirement will seek to exercise power or influence from behind the scenes. Instead we can wish him a peaceful and fruitful period when he may be able to enrich us with further insights into the rich heritage of Christian thought, of which he was for so many years the guardian and expositor.

 

 

 

Share

Review of Andrew Chandler, ed., The Church and Humanity: The Life and Work of George Bell, 1883-1958

Leave a reply

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 18, Number 4 (December 2012)

Review of Andrew Chandler, ed., The Church and Humanity: The Life and Work of George Bell, 1883-1958. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2012), Pp. xvi + 227, ISBN 978-14094-25564.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

George Bell, Bishop of Chichester on England’s south coast from 1929 to 1958, has long enjoyed recognition as one of the outstanding figures in the Church of England during the first half of the last century. He championed consistently and relentlessly two major aspects of church life, namely the cause of church unity and the search for international peace and justice. Bell’s achievement was to advocate these ideals with effectiveness and tenacity even against the vocal opposition of many of his episcopal colleagues, his laity, and the wider conservative public. The result was that in many cases he appeared a lonely contender for failed causes. But this corresponded with his style of leadership. He was not a team player, had no oratorical gifts, and was an ineffective chairman of committees. His strength was seen best in one-to-one conversations, and his persuasiveness in such encounters was enhanced by his genuine interest and humanity, as is well recorded in his extensive correspondence, fortunately now preserved in Lambeth Palace library. Above all, he set the sights for Christian witness at the highest level, and tirelessly sought to challenge any lesser, more parochial views for both the church and the nation.

It is for these qualities that Bell will be remembered. To help this task, a memorial conference was held in 2008, on the fiftieth anniversary of his death. The result is this collection of essays in his honour, elegantly edited and introduced by Andrew, Chandler, the Director of the George Bell Institute in Chichester. Among the distinguished contributors is the present Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, whose penetrating tribute closes the volume. Also included are essays about various aspects of Bell’s ministry.
Gerhard Besier of Dresden gives us an informative piece about Bell’s efforts to promote the cause of church unity on the international level, in collaboration with Visser ‘t Hooft, the first General Secretary of the World Council of Churches. In the inter-war years, this mainly Protestant ecumenical movement owed much to Bell’s careful but enthusiastic involvement, which pulled together the separate strands of Life and Work, along with Faith and Order. When the World Council was finally established in 1948, it was fitting that Bell should be Chairman of its Executive and later one of its Presidents.

These rise of Nazism to power in Germany and the attempts by one section of the German Protestant churches to oppose its ideological goals aroused Bell’s close interest, and his efforts to support the Confessing Church’s resistance to Nazism are touched on in several of these essays . Chandler himself contributes a chapter entitled “The Patronage of Resistance,” outlining Bell’s unwavering encouragement of “the other Germany” by drawing a clear distinction between the Nazi regime and the German people. To many people in Britain, especially during war-time, this seemed a perverse or at least naive view. Bell persevered, however, and was determined to create conditions after the war in which this “better” Germany could rise again. After his well-known meeting with Bonhoeffer in Sweden in 1942, Bell sought to get the British government’s approval of some gesture of assistance to the German Resistance. This only earned him the scorn of the politicians who saw him as a “turbulent priest,” out of touch with mainstream British opinion.

Even more controversial were Bell’s outspoken protests in the House of Lords against the Royal Air Force’s bombing of German cities and civilians. As some have supposed, this principled stance against his own government’s policies led to his being passed over when the Archbishopric of Canterbury fell vacant in 1944. Less well known, but equally a part of Bell’s humanitarian concerns, were his efforts on behalf of the German refugees in war-time Britain, as described by Charmian Brinson. In 1940 the British government ordered whole-scale internment of such refugees, even though many of them were Jews expelled by the Nazis who had sought refuge across the Channel. Nonetheless, many of them were deported to Canada and Australia on the flimsiest of pretexts. Bell spent much time in attempts to mitigate their position through his dedicated engagement, especially for the group of 37 “non-aryan” pastors from Germany whom he had personally sponsored to come to England in 1938-9. This was a noble if unpopular task, but Bell did not flinch from doing what he believed was his duty.

After Nazism was overthrown, Bell turned his energies to the reconstruction, reconciliation and hoped-for re-Christianization of Europe. Predictably, as Philip Coupland describes, he showed empathy for the German people, and resolved to do what he could to assist the churches there in rebuilding their devastated church life. He strenuously avoided any talk of collective guilt and was openly critical of aspects of the war crimes trials and the ‘de-nazification’ process. But in the view of Tom Lawson, in the only essay in the book critical of Bell’s tactics, this was a moral blunder, since Bell became associated with the perpetrators of the most reprehensible crimes, for whom he pleaded leniency, allegedly in the interests of healing the war’s wounds.

Certainly Bell was fully persuaded that Christian values would be vital in fashioning the new Europe. Hence he was all the more alarmed by the growing threat of Soviet Bolshevism. His remedy was for a federal United States of Europe, but the onset of the Cold War doomed such a prospect. The political division of Germany between the victors was a bitter blow. So too was the British Government’s reluctance to seek a closer unity even in western Europe. On the other hand, as Dianne Kirby makes clear in her contribution on George Bell and the Cold War, Bell was a welcome ally for the British Foreign Office’s propaganda campaigns. He exercised a moral influence through many circles of the establishment and kept at bay those who still believed in the good-heartedness of the Soviet Union. Seeking to combat Communism by the teaching of a better religion and a truer philosophy, Bell alerted people to the Communist threat and reinforced with religious arguments the level of popular anti-Communism. At the same time, though, Bell was appalled by the development of nuclear weapons, the use of which he considered incompatible with Christian international morality . The inherent contradictions in such views remained unresolved. So too the Cold War split rather than united Europe’s churches. Bell’s pastoral and political legacy is therefore a mixed one. Yet he remained a striking voice calling on the Church to rise above temporary loyalties or immediate interests, and instead to place the needs of suffering humanity in the forefront of Christian responsibility and obligation.

Share

Review of Norbert Friedrich, Uwe Kaminsky, and Roland Löffler, eds., The Social Dimension of Christian Missions in the Middle East. Historical studies of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Leave a reply

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 18, Number 4 (December 2012)

Review of Norbert Friedrich, Uwe Kaminsky, and Roland Löffler, eds., The Social Dimension of Christian Missions in the Middle East.  Historical studies of the 19th and 20th Centuries (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010), 252 Pp., ISBN 9783515096560.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The Middle East was the birthplace of three of the world’s great religions. The aura of their sacred traditions is lovingly maintained in holy sites throughout the region, which have been for centuries the sources of pilgrimages, but also of conflicts between the rival faiths. In the nineteenth century, the region became the object of ambitious attraction for numerous western European powers, for political, economic and military as well as religious reasons. One result as the establishment of new Christian missions, both Catholic and Protestant, home-based in England, Scotland, Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain and even the United States. Each sought to transplant their own concept of Christian mission to the local inhabitants, as well as catering for the ever-increasing number of tourist/pilgrims who expected to find support for their own pious endeavours in their own language. These large-scale enterprises are the subject of this valuable collection of essays, written by an international and ecumenical cast of contributors. Originating from an international conference in Germany, and largely devoted to German missions, these papers have been excellently translated into English.

Roland Loeffler’s introductory essay makes the point that the remarkable proliferation in the region of European missionary projects in the nineteenth century led to a crisis both on the ground and at home. Their original aim was to convert the Jews who lived there, especially in Palestine. They were almost all unsuccessful. But the fervent expectations of their home boards and the need to keep alive the interest of their supporters propelled them into areas of social work, such as schools and hospitals, whose results would be more promising. Thus the Syrian Orphanage was originally founded by Swabian Pietists, and the Jerusalem Verein by Prussian Calvinists. The Anglican bishop, Gobat, founded his school in Jerusalem for Arab children after his attempts to convert Jews had failed. The reports sent home about such activities stirred up the revival of biblical piety, and later on encouraged the growth of Holy Land tours. But the original ambitions for conversions were largely abandoned.

Recent scholarship agrees that it is crucial to take the missionary presence into account when analyzing the political developments and imperial dynamics of the nineteenth century Middle East. Several articles describe the often conflicting views of the missionaries and their rival forms of geopiety. But the relative lack of success in gaining converts is reflected in the comparative scarcity of accounts by the recipients rather than by the missionaries themselves. This is in contrast to the numerous studies in other mission fields. Despite their disappointing record of conversions, most missionaries in the Middle East still regarded their social work as part of the progressive and emancipatory impact of colonial rule and Christian influence thereon. But in the twentieth century, this was to be challenged and eventually overthrown by two factors: the local populations’ demands for freedom from imperial control, and, in Palestine, by the much more forceful introduction of Zionism. In his article, for instance, Michael Marten describes the experiences of the Scottish Missionary Hospital in Tiberias, which was fated to be replaced by the Israeli health service after 1948. But such displacements also marked the end of the specific expectations of those Christians who had hoped that the restoration of the Jews to their original homeland would be a precursor for their conversion to Christ, which in turn would itself be a precursor for Christ’s eschatological return to earth.

In the post-colonial era of the later twentieth century, when white missionaries from Europe and North America were no longer desired, both the missionary societies and missionary history had to undergo challenging, even painful, readjustments. The result was a rapid diminution of ordained ministers being sent abroad and the dissolution of many of the colleges which had trained missionaries for service overseas. They were often replaced by secular aid workers, such as teachers or doctors, in the same social institutions, whose buildings stood, and still stand, all over the Middle East. But it was impressed on such recruits that they had to avoid the kind of paternalistic superiority feelings so often expressed by their missionary predecessors.

Particularly in the case of one sending country, Germany, and one recipient area, Palestine, these changes were very far-reaching, as described in several articles in this collection. On the one hand, many Germans after 1945 were obliged to come to terms with their nations horrendous crimes against the Jewish people, and shortly thereafter with the establishment of the State of Israel. These developments gave rise to highly ambivalent reactions. One group of Protestants, well aware of German guilt, saw the need for repentance towards the Jews and the renunciation of all ideas of conversion or missions. Some regarded the return of Jews to their ancient homeland as fulfillment of biblical promises which Christians should welcome. In 1980, for example, a statement made by the Rhineland Synod of the German Evangelical Church declared that the establishment of the State of Israel was a sign of God’s faithfulness towards his people, and called for a new beginning in Christian-Jewish relations with a commitment to reconciliation and healing. Another practical result was the establishment, under this groups auspices, of the Aktion Suehnezeichen, a kind of German Peace Corps, to undertake reconstruction work in Israel for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

Other Protestants however took a more traditional line, seeing the establishment of the new state as adding an unwelcome political complication to Christian-Jewish relations, or as a threat to their carefully-created communities in the Middle East. Certainly many of those engaged in medical or social work institutions now found themselves made redundant or limited solely to their Arab supporters. Such developments in turn led some of the younger church members to adopt a strong preference for the Palestinians displaced or evicted by Israeli policies. The resulting clash between the pro-Jewish, or philo-semitic older generation whose memories of the Holocaust were still very relevant, and the younger opponents of what they perceive as Zionist oppression and aggrandizement, is still unresolved.

Very similar ambivalent considerations are to be found in Catholic ranks. The striking changes in Catholic doctrine adopted at the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s called for the abandonment of hostility towards the Jews who were now to be regarded as the Christians elder brothers in faith. These views were strongly supported over the following fifty years by such Popes as John Paul II, and had a notable effect on Catholic missionary institutions in the Middle East. For example, the highly-regarded Sisters of Zion, which had been founded a hundred years earlier by French priests for the conversion of the Jews in Jerusalem, now made a radical renunciation of any such intentions, much to the confusion of their mainly Arab congregations. It is only regrettable that none of the essays in this book touches on these later developments in Catholic missions.

We can be grateful to the contributors for their varied insights into the history of Christian missions in the Middle East. They will undoubtedly help us to understand the links between past and present, to see the theological impetus which undergirded these missions’ endeavours, and to envisage the potential future that might have been and may yet be.

Share

Review of Andrew White, The Vicar of Baghdad: Fighting for Peace in the Middle East

Leave a reply

Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 18, Number 4 (December 2012)

Review of Andrew White, The Vicar of Baghdad: Fighting for Peace in the Middle East (Oxford and Grand Rapids, MI:  Monarch Books, 2009) 191 Pp., ISBN: 9781854248763.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Andrew White is an Anglican priest who was posted in 2005 to St George’s Parish in Baghdad, which must be physically the most dangerous, and possibly spiritually the most challenging of all Anglican parishes anywhere. This short and vivid autobiographical account of his ministry there is a witness to a costly Christian discipleship of notable significance, and throws light on a unique segment of contemporary church history.

White is clearly a man of extraordinary energy and perseverance, having a capacity for friendship with a remarkable range of Middle East religious leaders, who have assisted him in his self-appointed task of implementing a new climate for peace and reconciliation in this very troubled region. His interest in the Middle East began when he was still an ordinand at Ridley College, Cambridge, a conservative evangelical college. But he was encouraged to spend part of his final year of training in Jerusalem, studying both at the Hebrew University and at a yeshiva. At the same time he got to know several Islamic leaders in the city. While still a curate or junior vicar in south London, he managed to pay numerous visits back to the Holy Land, and even to report his findings to Pope John Paul II. In 1998 he was appointed Director of the International Centre for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral, and became involved in such episodes as the 39-day siege of the Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem in 2002. The intensive negotiations between the insurgents who had seized the church, the Christian authorities and the Israeli security forces, taught him many lessons about high-level diplomacy in extreme situations and the church’s role in finding solutions. In 2005 he was posted to Baghdad. His church building, as the only Anglican parish in Iraq, had been built in the 1920s when the British Empire still ruled. But under Saddam Hussein it had been shut down. Anglicans were a vanishing breed. But White has successfully rebuilt a congregation of local people with evangelical-style services in Arabic and even Aramaic, though he requires the services of a translator for his sermons.

White’s principal task, as his subtitle indicates, is to try and promote peace and reconciliation in the region, for which he obviously has a considerable flair. The politicians, generals and diplomats who have ruled Iraq since Saddam’s overthrow have tended to discount or underestimate the importance of religion, but White firmly believes in its centrality, if any discussions with the main actors of Iraqi society are to be successful. In his view, an understanding of, and approach to, the leading figures in the religious sphere, including the militant Muslims, is a vital first step. These are the men who promote conflict in the belief that they are defending their holy traditions and culture. But White seeks to recruit the support of other religious leaders who recognize the need for a more peaceful future. He has therefore energetically sought to enlist the help of both Shia and Sunni clerics to support his Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East. He believes that religious extremists can only be approached by those who address them in religious language, so he has worked tirelessly to maintain communication between the various factions in the religious establishment both in Iraq and outside in order to promote dialogue and find consensus. But he has no illusions that progress towards a peaceful resolution will be agonizingly slow in an area continually fuelled by religious antagonisms, and may even be overtaken by the forces of violence, as is obvious in Syria today. This is a highly dangerous ministry. White has to have a permanent bodyguard in a city where all foreigners are at risk. Front-line peacemaking can be immensely stressful. At one point in 2007 he was obliged to flee the country, but later was able to return to take up his mission again. Several of his colleagues have been captured and held to ransom. Some have never been seen again. So this account can only be an interim report on a brave attempt to overcome the mutual incomprehension between the Islamic world and the West, which White sees as one of humanity’s biggest problems today.

Share

Journal Issue: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte

Leave a reply

Contemporary Church History Quarterly 

Volume 18, Number 4 (December 2012)

Journal Issue: Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, Volume 25, no. 1 (2012) “Expellees and the Church–A New Debate?”

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The latest issue of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte/Contemporary Church History, Volume 25, number 1, 2012, in which all the articles except one are in German, is entitled “Expellees and the Church – a new Debate?” In fact, the material covered deals only with one area, the territory of the re-constituted post-war Poland, and only one short time period, namely 1945-1949. At the Yalta Conference, Stalin insisted that the frontiers of Poland, both east and west, should be redrawn a hundred miles or more to the west. This settlement gave to Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine large areas formerly Polish, while in the west the border was fixed at the Oder-Neisse rivers, so that in turn most of Silesia and Pomerania became part of the new Poland. The inhabitants were not consulted. In the east, many Polish residents faced compulsory Russification, or feared living under continuing Stalinist dictatorship, so were expelled more or less involuntarily to central or western Poland.  In the west, the German residents, approximately two million in all, were expelled, and sent westwards to German-held territory, then still under Allied military occupation. They were to be joined by another approximately two million Sudentenlanders from the Czech Republic, which was a deliberate if harsh move to prevent the possibility of a repetition of the 1938 disruptions. In all these cases, the victims sought the help of the churches, particularly the Catholic Church, to relieve their sufferings, or if possible to reverse the political decisions imposed on them. How the churches, both Polish and German, responded to these appeals is the subject of the two major contributions to this issue, one by Piotr Madajczyk on the Polish Catholic Church and the expellees from eastern Poland, and the other by Robert Zurek on the German Catholic bishops’ declarations about the compulsory expulsions of the Germans and the fateful changes in the German-Polish frontier.

The only contribution in English is by Ainslie Hepburn, of Brighton, Sussex, who provides a heart-warming description of the work for peace and reconciliation of a German-Jewish refugee, Herbert Sulzbach. He had fled to England in the 1930s but was later employed as an Interpreter Officer at a PoW camp in north England after 1945, where senior German officers were given a re-education course before they could be repatriated. His services would seem to have been wholly beneficial and much appreciated. But the argument would have been strengthened if the author had made some comparisons to similar re-education efforts, as, for instance, those at Norton Camp in Nottinghamshire, about which Jurgen Moltmann wrote so positively in his autobiography, A Broad Place.

 

Share

Review of Florian Schmitz and Christiane Tietz, eds., Dietrich Bonhoeffers Christentum

Leave a reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 3, September 2012

Review of Florian Schmitz and Christiane Tietz, eds., Dietrich Bonhoeffers Christentum. Festschrift für Christian Gremmels (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlag, 2011), 432 Pp. ISBN 978-3-579-07142-8.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Dietrich Bonhoeffer must surely be the most discussed and written about theologian in recent German history. His life and thought have brought him a large international following. His praises have been sung continuously in the nearly seventy years since he was murdered. One of the latest contributions is this bilingual collection of essays, written as a tribute to the retiring head of the German section of the International Bonhoeffer Society, Christian Gremmels. He was also one of the main editors of the German edition of the now completed seventeen volumes of Bonhoeffer’s works.

Despite the huge amount of both theological and historical discussions of Bonhoeffer’s influence and legacy, there are still some vital questions unanswered. For example, we are still not clear about the exact evolution of his theology from the kind of pious communitarianism as commended in “Discipleship” to the enigmatic “religionless Chrisstianity” of his last prison letters. So too we need to know more about the progress of his political ideas from his early pacifism to his joining the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler by force, and if necessary assassination.

The first half of this book comprises theological essays in both English and German, which shed more light on the above questions. Keith Clements begins with an examination of Bonhoeffer’s sermons preached during his stay on England from 1933 to 1935. He is followed by Bishop Wolfgang Huber’s valuable discussion of “religionless Christianity”. He suggests that it is inadequate to accept one of the more common interpretations of Bonhoeffer’s intentions. In Huber’s view, he did not mean merely the stripping away of the centuries of accretions in both dogma and ritual in order to obtain a purified form of Christianity without “religious” trappings. Rather what Bonhoeffer advocated was the more radical view that, since the world had now come of age, it no longer needed religion of any kind as a means of either interpretation or support. How to declare the love of Christ for such an autonomous humanity is the question Bonhoeffer poses. Huber claims that Bonhoeffer was incorrect in suggesting that “religion” had come to its end point. There is still much evidence of its continuation and validity, even when some forms of Christian witness misuse it for their mistaken sectarian points of view.

On the political side, the Australian scholar, John Moses, pertinently asks the question: “Bonhoeffer was a Revolutionary, but was he a Democrat?” Many commentators have supposed that, since Bonhoeffer so resolutely opposed tyranny, he must have been a democrat at heart. But Moses suggests that, in fact, he shared many of the reservations of his educated bourgeois class against popular sovereignty, which could so easily lead to the kind of demagoguery that Hitler had exploited. But in the opinion of those survivors associated with Bonhoeffer in drawing up plans for a post-war Europe, Bonhoeffer would have had little difficulty in endorsing the kind of political evolution in West Germany after 1949.

More problematic is Bonhoeffer’s role in the attempt to gain support for the resistance conspiracy through his contacts with the churches’ ecumenical movement, most notably through his well-known meeting with Bishop George Bell of Chichester, England in Sweden in 1942. On that occasion he asked Bell—as a member of the House of Lords—to obtain from the British Government some sort of statement supporting the conspiracy in return for a rapid end to the hostilities on the western front. When this project came to nothing, it led some of the resisters to believe that their subsequent failure could be attributed—at least in part—to the Allies’ cold-shouldering of their valiant attempt to overthrow Hitler.

What has never been made clear—and Moses leaves the matter unresolved—is why Bonhoeffer and his friends should have so fully miscalculated the likely response from London, or why he thought Bell had sufficient political influence to succeed in such a task. From today’s vantage point, what stands out is Bonhoeffer’s political naivety. Perhaps it was a matter of the conspirators having so few trustworthy contacts abroad. But the episode surely confirms our impression that any acute political awareness was sadly lacking in the ranks of the Confessing Church.

The latter part of the book contains short personal contributions by a number of Bonhoeffer’s disciples testifying to his continuing inspiration and influence, and ends with an epilogue written by Ruth Alice von Bismarck, the sister of Maria von Wedemeyer, who is now in her nineties. It makes for a heartwarming conclusion.

Share

Review of Uwe Puschner and Clemens Vollnhals, eds., Die völkisch-religiöse Bewegung im Nationalsozialismus. Ein Beziehungs- und Konfliktgeschichte

Leave a reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 3, September 2012

Review of Uwe Puschner and Clemens Vollnhals, eds., Die völkisch-religiöse Bewegung im Nationalsozialismus. Ein Beziehungs- und Konfliktgeschichte. Studien des Hannah Arendt Instituts für Totalitarismusforschung, 47 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 592 Pp. ISBN 978-3-525-36956-8.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

This collection of essays, skilfully edited by two experienced historians of Germany’s early twentieth century, plunges us at once into the turgid controversies as to whether National Socialism was a “political religion” or a “surrogate or substitute faith”, and invites us to examine the role played by a whole bunch of so-called ethno-religious associations, in order to investigate the extent to which they may have contributed to or detracted from the Nazis’ successful exercise of power from 1933 onwards.

This massive volume is divided into three sections: the völkisch-pagan movements, völkisch Christianity, and the relationship between National Socialism and these völkisch factions. All are thoroughly dissected by the contributors, not one of whom, however, would appear to have any sympathy with the people about whom he or she is writing. Many of the contributors recapitulate what they have already written at greater length, or summarize the numerous studies of earlier years. The objective of the editors would therefore seem to be not to break new ground with fresh insights but to remind us of the marginal influence of such völkisch-religious adherents and the situations of conflict into which they were drawn.

The contributors certainly do well in reminding us of the enormous variety and the frenetic activity of these groups. More particularly, they successfully evoke the kind of climate in which any number of cranks, crackpots, charlatans or opportunists appeared to flourish in the 1920s and 1930s. As Klaus Vondung points out, these groups saw themselves as the heralds of the future. They sought to elevate the cause of Germany, its race and its blood to be a focus of loyalty for the whole nation. The Nazi Party very successfully mobilized such sentiments through its efficient rallies and parades. One common thread was the idea of national rebirth or redemption, which most of these groups fostered, and which easily enough led to support of Nazism and its charismatic leader. But as several contributors rightly point out, the pervasive characteristics of these movements were all negative—anti-liberalism, anti-Semitism, anti-democratic hatreds, fanatical nationalist beliefs in the worship of Germany or the Germanic God or ethno-centrism of the worst order. Typical of those in this category was Professor Ernst Bergmann, who already in 1923 was sending urgent messages to Hitler not to water down his anti-Semitic crusade. “What is needed is the complete extermination of Jewry in Germany by fire and sword. If you, my honoured Führer, make even the slightest concession on this matter, you will have lost my allegiance.”

Manfred Gailus leads off the section on völkisch Christianity. Its principal adherents were the so-called “German Christians” whose excessive distortions of the Gospel were so ably outlined for us by Doris Bergen nearly twenty years ago. Gailus’ analysis reinforces the view that these men’s motivation was opportunistic and superficial. Many of them preached nothing more than thinly-disguised apologias for their political ambitions, clothed in the garments of Christian righteousness, or faithfulness to the German spirit. Their arsenal of nationalist heresies was all too obviously drawn from Nazi sources. Their disdain for theology or abstract theorizing was matched with fervent expressions of loyalty to the Führer with Nazi flags swirling in or above their churches. But, as Gailus notes, they never achieved the support from the Nazi hierarchy they so enthusiastically longed for, and their internal squabbles soon led to their irrelevance and eventual disappearance.

Susannah Heschel does a suitable demolition job on the notorious Institute established in Eisenach to research and remove the Jewish influence from German church life, about which she has written before, and which she places in the context of racism and Christianity. So too, Lucia Scherzberg is suitably critical of those deluded Catholics, including some prominent priests and professors, who, like their Protestant counterparts, sought to amalgamate their Catholic faith with their pro-Nazi loyalty to the Third Reich, including its virulent anti-Semitism. Their totally nebulous ideas about uniting all Germans in a German national church soon enough ran into destructive criticisms and accusations of fostering a syncretistic cult. But, in fact, these Catholic spokesmen were never disciplined—even after 1945.

Martin Leutzsch provides an interesting pathological diagnosis of the career of the Aryan Jesus between 1918 and 1945. Hitler himself in 1922 called Jesus “our great Aryan leader.” Other Nazis, such as Rosenberg and Goebbels, were quick to take up this idea. Jesus as a Nordic hero was already being voiced in the nineteenth century, but the cult gained impetus through the rapid spread of anti-Semitism in and after the first world war. Its proponents had however to contend with their counterparts in other völkisch movements who wanted to eradicate the idea of Christianity altogether and substitute a purely Germanic deity. But they had the support of no less a figure than Hanns Kerrl, from 1935 Minister of Church Affairs, in whose opinion: “ it is intolerable that German children should be taught that Jesus was a Jew. . . This is an attempt to make the Party ridiculous. True Christianity is represented in the Party and the German people are being called to this true Christianity by the Party and especially by the Führer.” In the end, the issue was too contentious, so orders were given that further discussions were to be suppressed.

Similar prohibitions on almost all these variant sects and cults were implemented in stages by the Gestapo, on Heydrich’s orders. They were suspected of threatening the Nazi Party’s totalitarian controls. A good example can be seen in the case of the Anthroposophists, whose ambivalent position in the Nazi period is here excellently described by Peter Staudenmaier. He shows that many of this sect engaged themselves eagerly in the Nazi ranks, and were then bitterly disappointed to find that the SD dismissed their support by labelling them as “purely individualistic, and their teachings incompatible with the National Socialist ideas about Race”. Similarly, in the case of Freemasonry, as Marcus Meyer explains, the Nazi hostility to a group suspected of secrecy and conspiratorial rituals was long-standing, despite the evidence that many Masons were prominent supporters of the Nazi Party. In fact, as these essays show very well, the thoroughness with which these groups were watched by the Gestapo and the ruthlessness with which they were eventually stamped out was a measure of the Nazis’ determination not to tolerate the existence of any organization which might lay claims to loyalties other than their own.

The third section of this volume covers the attitudes towards Christianity and the churches held by the Nazi leadership.. As is well known, there were numerous and conflicting views held by the Nazi hierarchy which were never resolved. Ernst Piper gives a useful summary of Alfred Rosenberg’s anti-Christian polemics, and the plans he elaborated to institute a Germanic religion of the future. Heinrich Himmler, on the other hand, had his eyes firmly on the glories of the Germanic heathen past. Wolfgang Dierker ably summarizes the findings of his recent book on the policies of the SS and its Security Service, which was responsible for most of the predatory persecution of the churches. He again makes clear that the plans of such leaders as Bormann, Heydrich, Himmler and Goebbels called for the elimination of the Christian religion which would have no place in a future Nazi state. This would have been the end-product of a fateful combination of ideological fanaticism and the exercise of an all-encompassing totalitarian power.

With the Nazi defeat such nefarious schemes came to nothing. So too did the activities of the numerous völkisch-religious cults whose wayward perversity is amply documented in this volume. We can therefore be grateful to the contributors for what can be seen as a post-mortem evaluation of this regrettable chapter of recent German history.

Share

Review of Hanna-Maija Ketola, Relations between the Church of England and the Russian Orthodox Church during the Second World War, 1941-1945

Leave a reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 3, September 2012

Review of Hanna-Maija Ketola, Relations between the Church of England and the Russian Orthodox Church during the Second World War, 1941-1945 (Helsinki: University of Helsinki Faculty of Theology PhD thesis, 2012), 231 Pp.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

It was a striking paradox that the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 led to a major change in the fortunes of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Communist dictator, Stalin, after twenty years of hostility and persecution of the church, suddenly recognized his need for popular support from church members. So he changed his policy and allowed the Russian Orthodox Church unprecedented new possibilities. Amongst the changes was the permission to enter into relations with churches abroad. One of the first with whom contact was made was the Church of England. Dr. Ketola’s valuable account of how these relations developed is drawn largely from British sources, since the Russian documents are not (yet) available. She describes the opportunities and complexities which this unprecedented encounter gave rise to, and outlines the intricate balancing act which faced the British church leaders. Political pressures to support Britain’s new-found ally competed with deep-set suspicion of Soviet Communism and all its ways. There had been virtually no contact since the Bolshevik Revolution, though considerable sympathy had been extended to the clergy and laity who had fled abroad. The Communists’ murder of the Czar and his family had appalled everyone from the royal family down to the common man. Could this crime, and the subsequent oppression of the churches now be overlooked for reasons of political expediency? The only prominent Anglican supporter of the Soviet regime was Hewlett Johnson, the Dean of Canterbury, but he was a known maverick and enjoyed no support.

In the following month, the dilemma for the Church of England’s leaders only intensified. On the one hand, they were criticized for giving moral support to a regime which still maintained anti-religious propaganda in its official ideology; on the other they were criticized for not expressing more sympathy with the Russian people in their struggle. The main difficulty lay in the fact that no one in England had accurate knowledge about church life in Russia. Wishful thinking that the Soviet anti-church policy could change was not enough. And the British Government was concerned lest admiration for the Russian people’s resistance could turn into admiration for Communism.

In 1942 the situation became more problematic when the Metropolitan Nicolai of Kiev approached the British Embassy suggesting an official exchange of visits between the churches, and bringing a gift of a newly-published and handsome book “The Truth about Religion in Russia.” This was followed by an offer to translate the book into English, and a request for a foreword by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple. The book stressed the Orthodox members’ devotion to their country and gave details of the devastation wrought by the German invaders. Shortly thereafter, 700 copies were delivered to Lambeth Palace. This resulted in a flurry of exchanges between the British Foreign Office, the Ministry of Information and various Church of England officials. But Temple declined to write anything since he could not paass over the earlier persecution of the church, nor the conduct of the Soviet occupiers in the Baltic countries. “I should either offend the Soviet authorities by what I put in, or the Continental Churches by what I left out.” It all pointed to the regrettable absence of first-hand information about the true state of the Russian Orthodox Church.

So at the end of 1942 the Church of England leaders came to the conclusion that the invitation to send a church delegation to the Soviet Union was an opportunity not to be missed. It would be politically interesting but very delicate. However much the church connection was stressed, the political overtones were inescapable. On the other hand, there had been no contact for twenty-five years. It was time to begin again. The British churchmen wanted to be the first to visit, and in return agreed to make a joint declaration against fascism. But how far was the Russian Orthodox Church eager to promote Christian brotherhood, or just to escape from the solitary confinement of so many years?

The Anglicans then chose their second highest cleric, the Archbishop of York, Cyril Garbett, to lead a small delegation. His instructions were very narrowly drawn. He should avoid any open political pronouncements. No substantial discussion of dogmatic or liturgical questions was envisaged. It was simply to be a goodwill visit without commitments. But, in order to avoid any criticism from their own members, the visit should be kept secret until the Archbishop arrived in Moscow. War-time security prompted the same caution. So in fact it was not until mid-September 1943 that Garbett and two younger clerics flew out via Gibraltar, Cairo, Tehran and Stalingrad. They arrived a few days after Stalin had unilaterally made a significant concession to the Orthodox Church by allowing the revival of the Patriarchate and the election of a new Holy Synod. This seemed a good augury for the future of the Church in Russia, and Garbett’s visit as the first foreign dignitary was most welcome. In return the British churchman gained first-hand impressions of the Russian church leaders, even though the language barrier prevented any heart-to-heart exchanges. But they gathered as much information as they could, and reciprocated with news about the Church of England. They attended several lengthy church services and were impressed bgy the piety of the worshippers. More significant issues were however skirted. Ecumenical friendship prevailed. And the delegation met briefly with the Soviet Foreign Minister, Molotov, which indicated the support given by the Soviet Government to the visit.

On his return, Garbett stressed that he had found that worship in the churches was fully allowed, and that the Russian people were now giving wholehearted support to the war effort. His impressions had been positive, and he looked forward to a return visit by the Russians to Britain. This would help to break the isolation of the Russian Church, and would enhance the prospects of future peace. But Garbett was realistic enough to acknowledge that the positive achievements of his visit were rather limited. The religious situation in Russia had improved but the state was still ”non-religious” and very many churches were still closed or secularized.

In early 1944 the idea of a return visit was taken up. But the death of Patriarch Sergii in March, the Normandy invasion in June and the sudden death of Archbishop Temple in October caused a postponement Not until June 1945 did the Russian delegation eventually arrive in Britain. By that time the European war had ended. After the defeat of Germany and the overthrow of Nazism, the need for Anglo-Soviet co-operation was no longer a top priority. At the same time, the climate of relations between the Soviet Union and its allies had grown noticeably cooler. In church circles, increasing concern, even alarm, was felt about the Soviet re-imposition of control over the Baltic countries and Poland, and to a lesser extent over Finland. The Russians had shown no willingness to join in the task of European reconstruction to which the Church of England was heavily committed. The warmth of sympathy expressed by the hosts could not obscure the fact that no substantial dogmatic or political issues were touched on. So the return visit proved to be even less of
a success that Garbett’s two years before.

Dr Ketola’s careful appraisal of the extensive documentation on this matter shows how assiduously the British officials, both governmental and ecclesiastical, took up the complex issues involved. She does not however attempt to give an overall assessment of the events she so capably describes. In fact, the verdict must be a negative one. The outbursts of sympathy for the Russian people were short-lived; the optimistic hopes that the Russian Church would gain more scope for its activities and that the Soviet state would allow more freedom for religion, were soon enough disappointed. It was to be many more years before relations between the Church of England and the Russian Orthodox Church could improve. But we can be grateful that Dr Ketola has shed such a clear light on this short and transient period of apparent reconciliation and inter-church harmony.

Share

Review of Avraham Burg, The Holocaust Is Over. We Must Rise From Its Ashes

1 Reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 2, June 2012

Review of Avraham Burg, The Holocaust Is Over. We Must Rise From Its Ashes. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 253 pp.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Twenty years ago Avraham Burg was elected to Israel’s national parliament, the Knesset, and later became its speaker. He also took a leading position with the World Zionist Federation. His father was a long-time cabinet minister under Menachem Begin. So he belonged to the Israeli establishment. But more latterly, he has renounced his political career, being convinced that Israel’s leaders have been following a dangerous and self-defeating course. Israel has for too long been captivated by the memory of the Holocaust and should now adopt a new and more liberal political stance. This book, with the provocative title The Holocaust Is Over. We Must Rise From Its Ashes. is his contribution towards this change of heart he now desires.

In Burg’s view, since more than seventy years have now passed since the catastrophic crimes of the Holocaust, Israel must now move on. He believes that the legacy of the Holocaust has been misinterpreted and manipulated. The officially-sponsored commemoration ceremonies and rituals have only served to allow Israelis to cling to the tragedies of the past, and so block the path to a more positive future. He deplores, for instance, the fact that present-day school children are escorted to Poland to visit the death camps, and are taught to believe that they are all Shoah survivors. The Holocaust, he asserts, has produced in Israel a climate of defensive aggressiveness. Israel has adopted the legacy of insecurity characteristic of trauma victims. The result is a hard-faced belligerence, not only against the Palestinians inside its borders, but against all outsiders. Israel today is a nuclear power, armed to the teeth, and has the backing of the world’s greatest power. Yet it believes it necessary to maintain a climate of hostility and isolation, upholding a militaristic society backed by all the latest weapons of mass destruction.

Israel, Burg believes, has developed muscle, not soul. Yet it remains haunted by the Shoah, which has become a stumbling block to any more positive steps for the future. As a result, Israel has followed a policy of repression of minorities at home, and of enmity towards such states as Syria, Libya and particularly at present Iran. When criticized by foreign observers, the Israeli leaders make use of the Holocaust as justification. Anyone who attacks them is seen as either an antisemite or as someone who can only imagine Jews as powerless victims. Netanyahu is only following the footsteps of many of his predecessors in demonizing Israel’s enemies, and making plentiful use of comparisons with Nazism. Begin, for example, was ready enough to compare Arafat with Hitler, and to justify Israel’s violent attack on Lebanon because “the alternative would be Treblinka, and we have decided there will be no more Treblinkas.”

Burg’s remedy is to move on, leave Auschwitz behind and learn to trust the world and humanity again. Israelis should take a wider view and universalize not nationalize the Holocaust. They should oppose human suffering in general rather than cling on to the one instance which most affected their predecessors seventy years ago. Instead of reproducing the mentality of an old, small East European Jewish town, forever persecuted, Israel should adopt the trail-blazing alternative forged by the early Zionists when they first arrived in the Middle East, redeeming the land through their hard labour and innovative social organisms.

Of course this criticism and these suggestions, coming from a prominent Israeli politician and opinion maker, aroused fierce anger in Israel’s leading circles. He challenged the core of the national identity as developed over the past sixty years. Burg was dismissed as a romantic idealist, whose utopian solutions for world peace are wildly unrealistic. Yet Burg’s optimistic hope is that Israel could become what its founders wanted – preaching and practising peace in a war-torn and strife-filled Middle East. This in his view could be the true legacy of the Holocaust.

In the wider perspective, Burg is surely right. Sooner or later the events of seventy years ago will begin to fade away. However much the memorialisation of the Holocaust is cultivated and expensively propagated amongst the Jewish population in Israel and abroad, there will come a time when the younger generation will look to other models for political guidance. The shock of the death camps, the gas chambers, the ghettos or the rampant brutality of Nazi thugs will all come to be seen as history, regrettable but over.

This translation into English from the original Hebrew is clearly aimed at the younger generation of American Jews, whom Burg believes will be the ones to give a new kind of leadership to the beleaguered Jewish community of today. American Jews are called, he claims, to take up the great spirit of universalism, once expressed by their nineteenth-century leader, Rabbi Julian Morgenstern. This would be a far more positive contribution than the continual emphasis on Holocaust disasters, so graphically rehearsed in American-made films. Modern Israel’s identity, Burg holds, should be established on foundations of optimism, faith in humans and full trust in the family of nations. The era of fearful Judaism and paranoid Zionism is over. The faith of the Jewish people in the world and in humanity must be rehabilitated. But whether this passionate plea can outweigh the present Holocaust-dominated climate of fear and repression remains to be seen.

Share

Review of Bryn Geffert, Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans: Diplomacy, Theology, and the Politics of Interwar Ecumenism

Leave a reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 2, June 2012

Review of Bryn Geffert, Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans: Diplomacy, Theology, and the Politics of Interwar Ecumenism (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), 501 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-02975-3.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Sixty years ago, when I was a student at Cambridge, I attended meetings of the exotically named Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius. This organization, founded in the 1920s, was established to promote better relations between Anglicans and the Orthodox Churches of Eastern Europe. We were given a chance to meet heavily-bearded Russian clerics (in exile) or gaudily dressed Greek bishops. There was much talk about the desirability of church reunion. This was meat and drink for us members of the Student Christian Movement whose discipleship was largely based on promoting Christian unity through such bodies as the World Council of Churches. And the foreign visitors, despite their limited English, seemed glad to meet young, eager, but ecumenically naive students at Britain’s top university. But despite the high-flown rhetoric and the elaborate rituals, not much was achieved. Bryn Geffert’s excellently researched and invigoratingly written survey of these relations during the twentieth century explains why. Or rather, why not.

After the disasters of the First World War, the leadership of the Anglican Church recognized the need for spiritual rebirth. They were well aware of the damage done to Christian credibility because of the churches’ divisions. The Anglo-Catholic wing tried hard to patch over the long-standing quarrels with Rome but met only stinging rebuffs. So the Orthodox Churches looked to be more promising. In 1925 the sixteen hundredth anniversary of the Nicene Creed afforded the occasion to invite a high-ranking delegation of Orthodox clergy to come to England, where they were rapturously received. They were taken to Windsor Castle and Lambeth Palace. They met the Lord Mayor of London, and were feted at garden parties. The absence of theological discussions – and thus of theological disagreements – gave free rein to optimism about church reunion. They very much hoped that their example would draw other branches of the Christian world into the bosom of ecumenical unity. There was a great deal of wishful thinking.

For their part the Orthodox Churches, both in the Russian and Greek branches, desperately needed assistance. The 1917 Revolution had devastated the Russian Orthodox Church. Its patriarch was a prisoner of the Communists. Thousands of its priests, nuns and monks had been murdered. Its property had been confiscated. And its very survival, apart from the few clergy who had managed to escape, seemed problematical. Many of these now homeless exiles looked to the British government for both political and social relief. In Constantinople, the new Turkish government was waging a war against its Greek citizens, and expelling them en masse. Only the intervention of the British government saved the Ecumenical Patriarchate from being expelled too. Feuds amongst the Orthodox in the Middle East only added to their distress. All were in great need. Reunion, or at least closer relations with sympathetic Christian communities, offered some rays of hope.

The English response was warm-hearted and generous. The horrors of the Soviet repression evoked much sympathy. The new Patriarch in Constantinople, Meletios, seemed to be more open to Western ideas for reform. And in Jerusalem, the Orthodox Patriarch openly appealed to the newly-established British Mandate in Palestine to help him overcome his financial difficulties now that the flood of Russian pilgrims was no longer coming. Funds were raised through the Clergy and Church Aid Fund to assist the exiled communities and to sponsor a theological college in Paris. Cooperation with the YMCA and the World Student Christian Federation, which helped to promote many of the exiles’ publications, showed their strong commitment to ecumenism.

But despite all this, large segments of the Church of England remained ignorant and apathetic towards Orthodox theology or any talk of reunion. Protestant Anglicans, especially the more mission-oriented Evangelicals, were openly hostile. And when discussions turned to more substantial theological issues, the gap between the rhetoric and the reality was soon clear enough. The Orthodox leaders were themselves divided on the doctrinal questions. They had had four centuries to ask whether the Church of England was a true church, or a heretical body. Were Anglican orders valid or not? The conservatives on the whole thought the latter. They saw Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral as strongholds of modernism and westernization, both of which were perceived as a threat to Orthodox integrity. Furthermore there were bitter disputes and heated rivalries for supremacy among the different Orthodox groups, which prevented any united, let alone ecumenical, approach.

On the other side, relations were not improved by the split in the Church of England over a new Prayer Book, which in fact was turned down by a vote in Parliament in 1927. Its defeat disillusioned many Orthodox friends and raised once again doubts about Anglican heterodoxy. Thereafter relations drifted. It became clear that agreement on such broad questions as the nature of the Church or a common confession of faith was a pipe dream. Compromise solutions seemed vague and ambivalent, and were rejected by both sides. Church reunion was no nearer. Geffert’s masterly dissection of these matters deserves close attention, showing all too clearly the thorn-filled path towards Christian unity.

For many years this unhappy situation has remained unchanged. The Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius still exists and is even said to have a branch in the Fraser Valley in Western Canada. But polite interest in the affairs of their respective churches does not amount to any serious commitment to ecumenical unity. Geffert’s conclusion is rather damning. The schisms which plague Anglicanism have only widened theological misunderstandings, and in the revived Russia, Orthodoxy’s hostility to ecumenism is more evident than ever. As Geffert concluded, “What is abundantly clear is this: so long as neither confession can get its house in order, any dream of inter-confessional unity stands no chance at all.”

Share

Review of Friedrich Winter, Friedrich Schauer 1891-1958. Seelsorger – Bekenner – Christ im Widerstand

Leave a reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2012

Review of Friedrich Winter, Friedrich Schauer 1891-1958. Seelsorger – Bekenner – Christ im Widerstand (Berlin: Wichern Verlag, 2011), 215 Pp., ISBN 978-3-85981-326-8.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Friedrich Schauer was one of the cohort of German Evangelical pastors caught up in the religious, political and military disasters which engulfed Germany in the first half of the twentieth century. This short sympathetic account, written by a former church leader in Berlin, successfully describes the conflicts of loyalties in which these pastors were embroiled, and which in many cases strikingly affected their careers. Schauer was not a leading figure, but, for that reason, his biography can be seen as typical of many of his colleagues.

He had just completed his training when the First World War broke out. Within weeks, he was badly wounded in battle and lost the sight of his left eye. Nevertheless he was able after the war to take up parish work, first in East Prussia and then in Pomerania. Due to his conservative background and his military training, he early on opposed the more radical wing of the so-called “German Christians” who called for the adoption of Nazi ideas and practices in the church. Consequently he was a strong supporter of doctrinal orthodoxy, as expressed in the famous Barmen Declaration of 1934. But later he was disillusioned by the rigid dogmatism of those who followed Niemoeller and Bonhoeffer and refused any obedience to the established church authorities. Schauer wanted to maintain a more moderate position, rejecting extremism on either side. He became involved with the Brotherhood of Michael, a group of clergy who laid emphasis on a more liturgical church life, but avoided political engagement. One of the leading figures in this movement was Theodor Steltzer, who had been Schauer’s commanding officer in the First World War, and was to become the same in the Second.

In 1939 Schauer was again called up as a transportation officer, and served under Steltzer first in France and then for more than four years in Norway. Here he was able to establish friendly relations with some Norwegian clerics and sought to mitigate the effects of the German occupation. At this point Steltzer became increasingly critical of the Nazi leadership, and indeed became associated with the Kreisau Circle led by Graf Helmuth von Moltke. But it is not clear to what extent Schauer shared these opinions.

Following the failure of the July 20, 1944 plot, Steltzer was arrested and arraigned for high treason. (Fortunately, he survived.) Schauer, still in Oslo, must have taken all steps to destroy any evidence of his real sympathies. Only one paper survives in which he outlined his views on the future of Europe and the role of the church, along the conservative even authoritarian lines adopted by the Brotherhood of Michael. Such a stance was enough for him to be ordered dismissed from military service. But at the beginning of April 1945, instead of returning to Germany in disgrace, he fled to Sweden and sought asylum there. Luckily his friends in ecumenical circles supported him there for eighteen months until he was finally allowed to rejoin his family in West Germany.

Schauer’s post-war career was unpropitious. It seems his theological and political views found little favour in the reconstituted German Evangelical Church. Ill-health, caused by his war wounds and compounded by the loss of two of his sons on the Eastern Front in 1943, obliged him to take early retirement. He died shortly afterwards. This informative memoir is therefore rather a tragic story, but reflects the fateful experiences and the ambivalent stances of so many of these now forgotten pastors.

Share

Book Note: A. D. McVay and L. Y. Luciuk, eds., The Holy See and the Holodomor. Documents from the Vatican Secret Archives on the Great Famine of 1932-33 in Soviet Ukraine

Leave a reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2012

Book Note: A. D. McVay and L. Y. Luciuk, eds., The Holy See and the Holodomor. Documents from the Vatican Secret Archives on the Great Famine of 1932-33 in Soviet Ukraine (Toronto: University of Toronto and Kashtan Press, 2011), 99 Pp., ISBN 978-1-896354-37-8.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

In 1933-1934 the Soviet government embarked on a ruthless programme of collectivization of the Ukrainian peasantry, confiscation of much of their harvests to feed urban workers, and sales of grain abroad to gain hard currency with which to pay for the ambitious industrialization projects. The result was widespread famine and starvation amongst the Ukrainian villagers. Several million victims died—at a conservative estimate—in what is now commonly known as the Holodomor. There were even reports of cannibalism. Despite Soviet denials and censorship, news of the increasing rural destitution and hunger leaked out. Appeals for help were sent to various western agencies, including the Vatican. The Pontifical Commission Pro Russia, under its president Bishop d’Herbigny, obtained permission from the Pope Pius XI to use the Vatican’s newspapers to publish the appalling sufferings of the Ukrainians. But d’Herbigny’s subsequent campaign to have the Vatican sponsor a famine relief mission was never approved. The Secretariat of State, under Cardinal Pacelli—the later Pope Pius XII—turned down the suggestion on prudential grounds. The Vatican had no official contacts with the Soviet regime. Since the latter refused to acknowledge the disaster, any attempt to intervene with a relief mission would only be rebuffed and might have punitive consequences for the few Catholics in the area. Discretion was called for, all the more since the Vatican had no means of ensuring that any relief it might offer would in fact reach the famine’s victims. In addition, caution dictated that the Vatican would be wiser not to take any lead, though limited financial assistance could be offered through indirect channels.

The background for this abortive effort is given in the sixty brief documents from the Vatican’s files printed here, excellently translated into English, and by the valuable introduction and afterword provided by the Ukrainian Canadian editors. In their view, the Vatican’s stance was strongly influenced by the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany in early 1933, whose anti-Soviet propaganda took every advantage of the famine to condemn Stalin and the Communist policies of repression. But Pacelli’s priorities at that moment were to secure the Nazi government’s agreement to a Reich Concordat, finally concluded in July 1933. Any steps which appeared to be assisting the Soviet Union or its peoples might therefore have fateful consequences. This stance naturally disappointed all those who expected the Vatican to live up to its moral professions to help humanity in crisis. The resulting paralysis and lack of action set a precedent for the even more agonizing dilemmas which the Vatican had to face in the course of the Second World War a few years later. It was an unenviable position, easily criticized in retrospect, but far less easily managed at the time.

Share

Journal Issue Note: Crisis and Credibility in the Jewish-Christian World: Remembering Franklin Littel. The Fortieth Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches. Special issue of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies 46, no. 4 (Fall 2011)

Leave a reply

ACCH Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 1, March 2012

Journal Issue Note: Crisis and Credibility in the Jewish-Christian World: Remembering Franklin Littel. The Fortieth Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches. Special issue of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies 46, no. 4 (Fall 2011).

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The newest issue of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies is devoted to a single theme: “Crisis and Credibility in the Jewish-Christian World” and is a much deserved tribute to the late Professor Franklin H. Littell (1917-2009). Littel spent his whole career as an academic and a Methodist preacher in overcoming the obstacles and prejudices connected with Christian relations to Judaism. From the time he first went to Germany in 1939, Littell became concerned with the tragedy which befell the Jewish people and the failure of the churches to take a stand against it. This issue of the journal includes numerous articles presented at the 40th Annual Scholars Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches, held in 2010. This annual event was started by Littell and Hubert Locke in 1970 as a means of bringing together Jewish and Christian scholars from North America, with occasional guests from Europe. Over the years, these conferences have been enormously productive in overcoming the barriers to inter-religious dialogue, and have particularly contributed to the joint study of the significance of the Holocaust. It was Littell’s conviction that the Holocaust was a Christian tragedy too, and that the theological implications for Christian churches needed to be explored in depth. He would surely have been very pleased with the articles in this commemorative issue, since they amply fulfill his high hopes. Yet Littell was always aware that more remained to be done. The first group of essays in this journal issue is therefore rightly entitled “The Unfinished Agenda” and looks to the tasks ahead.

Particularly interesting are such contributions as those by our co-editors, Kyle Jantzen (co-written with Jonathan Durance) and Suzanne Brown-Fleming, analyzing Christian responses to the initial stages of the Holocaust after the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938. Equally interesting are the papers describing Littell’s valiant efforts in the aftermath to erect warning signals which would alert men and women of good will to the danger of potential genocidal situations. The final section includes personal reminiscences by Littell’s friends, joining in a heartfelt tribute to a Christian leader whose call for respect and understanding of Judaism will undoubtedly be remembered in both church and academy in the years ahead.

Share