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Review of Keith W. Clements, J.H. Oldham and George Bell: Ecumenical Pioneers

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 4 (Winter 2024)

Review of Keith W. Clements, J.H. Oldham and George Bell: Ecumenical Pioneers (Fortress Press, 2022), pp. xv + 235. ISBN: 9781506470009.

By Andrew Chandler, University of Chichester

The distinguished British ecumenist Keith Clements has made a vital contribution to the history of the twentieth-century ecumenical movement across many years. In particular, his fundamental study of J.H. Oldham (Faith on the Frontier: A Life of J.H. Oldham, T & T Clark, 1999) offered the first substantial examination of a missionary, organiser and Christian internationalist who has recently come to claim growing attention, from not only scholars of ecumenism but also historians of intellectual history. Meanwhile, Clements’ loyalty to the parallel figure of Bishop George Bell has been quite as vigorous. In short, this concise introductory book presents a valuable meeting between three figures, the author and his subjects, and the relationship certainly proves to be a fruitful one.

Christian internationalism has yet to find a secure place in the various histories of twentieth-century churches. Very largely this is due to a persistent emphasis on national categories and narratives, but denominational perspectives have also fashioned a great deal of what we expect to find in the foreground. All too often, Bell and Oldham may be observed, usually dutifully and briefly, hovering in the background of anything other than ecumenical surveys. In the final volume of the recent Oxford History of Anglicanism (OUP, 2019), Bell flits about here and there, but there is no very confident sense of where to put him for very long. Meanwhile, Oldham, the United Free Church layman, has almost vanished from ecclesiastical memory altogether. This is an authentic tragedy because it indicates how horizons have contracted across the western Protestant churches in the half-century since their deaths.

Clements begins with a photograph of the Fanø conference in Denmark in 1934, Bell perched on the front row with his wife, Henrietta, and Oldham at the very back, by an open door (as though, Clements remarks nicely, he has just turned up at the last minute from a committee meeting). Here, they are only two small figures in a very large ensemble indeed. Yet few church leaders laboured so vigorously and perseveringly to place Christian life and work in the heart of the great contexts of their age. Through their myriad activities, we find Christian ideas and arguments alive and at large in the world at war and at peace, exploring the new possibilities of international organization, democratic development, social progress and international law.  Clements devotes a large part of his book to extracts from their writings, showing how ecumenical priorities blended with the questions that were thrown up by a disordered world. Oldham makes his appearance as a ‘wily prophet’, making his way artfully through great affairs and controversies not just by offering views of his own but also by orchestrating those of others within his various creations, from the symphonic 1910 Edinburgh conference and the great 1937 Oxford Conference on Church, Community and State to the wartime discussions of the Moot, a chamber ensemble which drew together figures like Karl Mannheim, Michael Polanyi and T.S. Eliot. While Oldham had to invent a role for himself based on rather little beyond an acknowledged place in missionary societies and the ecumenical circles, Bishop Bell had a public position which gave him a firm authority in the counsels of national life. If Bell lacked some of Oldham’s creative freedom, Clements shows that his presence was by no means less striking, productive or significant. They came across each other, and worked together, often enough. After all, they were influential citizens in the same world. Yet, disappointingly, there does not appear to be a profound friendship. There exists no very great volume of correspondence between them. One is left to wonder if most of the relationship lived in conversation.

In his conclusion, Keith Clements wonders whether all this toil and vision produced a long-term legacy – and finds that it does. Oldham came to embody the possibilities of Christian adventure (a word he liked to use) while Bell represented the costly realities of Christian sacrifice. Although both could be said to be very much men of their time, the goals for which they strived remained perfectly recognisable to their ecumenical successors, even if they fashioned them in different ways in later days. Plainly, the world of the early twenty-first century presents a very great deal that would have appalled both men. Their words resonate still – and now, perhaps, we may be less inclined to take them for granted than once we might have, not so long ago. If for no other reason, we might pick up a book like this to recall the warm visions that still endure, restlessly, beneath the cold surface of a neglected history.

 

 

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Review of Keith Clements, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ecumenical Quest

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 21, Number 3 (September 2015)

Review of Keith Clements, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ecumenical Quest (Geneva: World Council of Churches Publications, 2015), 326 Pp. ISBN 978-2-8254-1656-3.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

Keith Clements is a British theological scholar who served for many years as General Secretary of the Conference of European Churches, thus becoming well aware of the churches’ modern ecumenical dimensions. He has previously written a number of shorter works about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but in this more substantial study concentrates on Bonhoeffer’s connections to and involvement with the ecumenical church bodies of the 1930s. Drawing largely on the Collected Works, now fortunately all translated into English, Clements seeks to show that this was the most continuous thread of his life and activity, but one which has been rather neglected in earlier biographies which have concentrated on Bonhoeffer’s theology or his role in the German Church Struggle.

Clements-DietrichIn fact, Bonhoeffer’s participation in ecumenical affairs started immediately after his return in September 1931 from his visit to the United States. He was sent as a German youth delegate to a meeting in Cambridge of the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches. This body had originally been established in 1914, but had to suspend its activities during the war, and had only been resuscitated in 1920. Its support came from influential lay and clerical leaders, particularly in the democratic countries of Western Europe and North America. They recognized the need for programs of reconciliation and peace activities in order to bind up the wounds caused by the destructive violence of the recent war. It was here that Bonhoeffer met with such leading figures as the Anglican Bishop George Bell of Chichester, with whom he was to collaborate for the next decade.In fact, Bonhoeffer made such an impact that he was forthwith appointed as an Honorary Youth Secretary and given responsibility for the World Alliance’s youth work in central Europe. This was a challenge he could hardly refuse, and one to which he brought his newly-minted skills in theological advocacy and his energetic support of the World Alliance’s aims.

As Clements makes clear, however, Bonhoeffer soon saw that the whole ecumenical endeavour was sadly lacking an adequate theology. Passing high-minded resolutions at conferences or engaging in moralistic wishful thinking about the need for peace was not enough. With all the brashness of a twenty-eight-year-old—Clements calls it boldness—Bonhoeffer set out to remedy this deficiency. At the World Alliance’s next major conference held in Denmark in 1934, he advanced the argument that what was needed was for a great ecumenical council of churches to be convened which would commit all its members to non-violence and abjure all forms of militarism. The cause of peace demanded a universal approach and was not a matter just for individuals, or even for local or national churches. In the absence of any such body, the World Alliance meeting should dare to act as that council.

It was therefore especially necessary to attack those theological ideas about “the orders of creation” which German theologians were using to justify their nationalistic sentiments. Against this, Bonhoeffer argued for an order of preservation which would obey God’s commandment to witness to truth and justice, and prepare the way for the reception of the gospel of Christ. But in fact the ecumenical community was not yet ready for this precocious and prophetic vision of Christian witness. And Bonhoeffer himself became fully occupied with the onset of the Church Struggle within Germany, following Hitler’s take-over of power in 1933. He was now taken up with combatting the eager support given to the Nazi Party, particularly by his contemporaries amongst the younger pastors who so eagerly began to spread Nazi militaristic, nationalistic and antisemitic ideas in the fallacious belief that this would bring ordinary people back to the church.

Bonhoeffer’s move to England in October 1933 brought him into more frequent contact with Bishop Bell, who indeed came to rely on Bonhoeffer’s valuable guidance about the hectic developments in the German Evangelical Church. On the other hand, Bonhoeffer was unsuccessful in persuading any of these ecumenical bodies to sever their connections with the now nazified official church structures, and to regard the Confessing Church as the only true vehicle for Christian witness in Germany. The tensions this dispute caused led to the result that no one from the German Evangelical Church was allowed to attend the significant ecumenical conferences which took place in Britain in 1937, or to participate in the discussions in 1938 which resulted in the founding of the World Council of Churches.

By this time, however, Bonhoeffer had returned to Germany to lead the Confessing Church’s seminary at Finkenwalde in the remotest part of east Pomerania. This necessarily cut down on his opportunities to be in contact with his ecumenical partners. But, as Clements points out, Bonhoeffer was insistent that “The German Church Struggle is the second great stage in the history of the ecumenical movement and will be decisive for its future. It is not an ideal which has been set up but a commandment and a promise—it is not high-handed implementation of one’s own goals that is required but obedience. The question has been posed.” But in this idealistic vision Bonhoeffer was to be disappointed.

Clements does not elucidate how far this set-back induced Bonhoeffer to be drawn increasingly into the ranks of those who now sought to oppose Nazism and Hitler by some form of resistance or revolt. But as the war clouds increasingly gathered in the late 1930s, and as the Nazi ambitions became ever clearer, the hopes of the peace party were doomed to disillusionment and frustration. To be sure, it was largely due to his ecumenical friends in the United States, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Lehmann and Henry Leiper, that Bonhoeffer was offered an escape route from the risk of being conscripted for military service by accepting offers from New York to return to the United States in the summer of 1939. Yet, shortly after his arrival, Bonhoeffer realized he had made a mistake. As he explained in the well-known letter to Niebuhr, it was not the call of family, or of his church, but of his nation which led to his decision to return to Germany:

I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people…. Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization.

Clements rightly comments that in speaking of “Christian civilization” Bonhoeffer recognized the threat posed by the Nazis not just to Germany but to the wider Christian community. He saw himself engaged in the struggle for the widest goals of Christian witness which now required him to go back and face this ”terrible alternative”. It was all part of the costly discipleship to which he was committed.

After the outbreak of war, and his recruitment as an agent of the Military Intelligence Service, Bonhoeffer found that the hostilities virtually paralyzed the activities of the ecumenical movement and forced its supporters to find new ways of upholding their sense of community and mutuality. Clements argues that in these circumstances Bonhoeffer’s commitment to ecumenism became still more pronounced even though carried out in a conspiratorial manner. Thanks to his connections he was able to travel abroad, twice to Switzerland, where he contacted both Karl Barth and Visser’t Hooft, now the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches (in process of formation), and told them about the discussions for post-war renewal going on in the resistance circles in Germany

Bonhoeffer’s most significant journey came in April 1942 to Sigtuna, Sweden, where he met once again with Bishop Bell. Bonhoeffer’s objective was to persuade Bell to urge the British Government to make a public declaration of support for the German Resistance in the hope that any such declaration would provide evidence that, when Germany was defeated, she would not have to suffer an even more vindictive settlement than in 1919. To this end, Bonhoeffer revealed to Bell the names of the leading members of the anti-Hitler conspiracy, and eagerly looked forward to his nation’s eventual defeat, since Germany deserved punishment and ought to express repentance for the crimes committed in the nation’s name. But, in fact, when Bell fulfilled his mission on his return to London, the result was a disappointing rejection. Clements clearly admires Bonhoeffer’s dangerous venture as an example of ecumenism in practice. But other historians are more skeptical, pointing out that this plan was more the product of these churchmen’s wishful thinking than any realistic awareness of the international political scene, or the realities of choices facing the British authorities at the time.

In April 1943 Bonhoeffer was arrested and taken to Tegel prison on the outskirts of Berlin. He was never to regain his freedom. But from the letters, essays and poems smuggled out by a friendly warder, we have the evidence that his dedication to the ecumenical cause remained as before. As Clements shows, he used the opportunity to explore the dimensions of Christian discipleship in the service of the world when the church takes upon itself the needs of the world before God. We have one final glimpse of his ecumenical commitment from the day before he was murdered in April 1945. Together with a group of other notable prisoners, including a British P.O.W., Captain Payne Best, whom Bonhoeffer had discovered was acquainted with Bishop Bell, they were spending the night in a Bavarian schoolhouse. It was the Sunday after Easter, and Bonhoeffer was persuaded to hold a short service for them all. He had hardly finished when two SS policemen entered, and called out “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, come with us”. He had just time to give a message for Best to pass on to Bishop Bell. “Tell him, Bonhoeffer said, that this is the end but for me the beginning of life. With him I believe in the principle of the Universal Christian brotherhood which rises above all national interests, and that our victory is certain”. Then he was led away, taken back to Flossenbürg concentration camp, placed in front of a summary court martial, condemned to die, and on the following morning, 9 April, executed in the prison yard.

Clements’ final chapter describes the post-war reception of Bonhoeffer’s fame and ideas, beginning with the heartfelt tribute paid by Bishop Bell at a memorial service held in a large London church in July 1945, which was broadcast by the BBC’s German service and heard by members of Bonhoeffer’s family. It was the first intimation they had that he was no longer alive. It was the beginning of the process which Victoria Barnett has rightly called “the making of an ecumenical saint”, and culminated in the placing of Bonhoeffer’s statue on the front portal of Westminster Abbey in London, together with other Christian martyrs of the twentieth century. He was seen as a suffering Christian witness and defender of the faith. The emphasis was on his unconquerable piety and his unyielding trust in God.

But in fact, there were also contrasting reactions which Clements does not mention. In post-war Germany, not a few of the more conservative members of the Evangelical Church, including those in the ranks of the Confessing Church, took a much more hostile view of Bonhoeffer’s past. To many of these men, Bonhoeffer was not a Christian martyr but a national traitor. It was inconceivable to them that a pastor should have been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the head of state, should have openly refused to pray for Germany’s military victories, or should have welcomed the prospect of his nation’s downfall and defeat. It took some twenty years before Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer’s closest friend and biographer, was able to overcome these prejudices. Another and more favourable reception came in the 1950s in Britain and North America with the English translation of Letters and Papers from Prison and the revelations about Bonhoeffer’s political activism and participation in the anti-Nazi struggle. At the same time, these letters aroused a tremendous excitement, especially in the younger generation, because of the stimulating critique of existing church doctrines and the enigmatic assertions about the “world come of age”, the call for a “religion-less Christianity”, or the necessity of being “the church for others”. These were the themes which gave, and still give, Bonhoeffer an enormous appeal as a major source of inspiration and guidance.

Fortunately, in so praising Bonhoeffer’s legacy, Clements has avoided the distortions and omissions which have marked the recent American biographies by Metaxas and Marsh. Instead he points to Bonhoeffer’s posthumous appeal and influence, which have established his reputation far beyond his native German Lutheran home. Indeed, Clements can claim that in view of Bonhoeffer’s response to Nazism and the Holocaust, he has also become a significant figure for Christian-Jewish dialogue. In so doing, Bonhoeffer belongs internationally and irrevocably to the ecumenical scene. His witness to this cause remains his most lasting memorial and is one which still commands respect. We can therefore be grateful to Keith Clements for so fully and convincingly outlining Bonhoeffer’s contributions to the ecumenical world view to which he was so seriously committed and in which he believed so passionately.

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Review of Clifford Green and Guy Carter, eds., Interpreting Bonhoeffer

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Contemporary Church History Quarterly

Volume 20, Number 1 (March 2014)

Review of Clifford Green and Guy Carter, eds., Interpreting Bonhoeffer, Historical Perspectives/Emerging Issues (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013),  Pp. xvi + 258,  ISBN 978-4514-6541-9.

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

The time has come, the editors said, for a synopsis of Bonhoeffer’s theology and witness. So Clifford Green and Guy Carter invited an international gathering of theologians, translators and historians for a conference at the Union Theological Seminary in New York in November 2011. The papers from that meeting have now been published in this book. But since they were presumably prepared in advance, it is not clear how much resulted from this meeting. The reader is left to make his or her own synopsis.

greencarter-interpretingbonhoefferThe tone is of course laudatory, rather than critical. But at least these papers help to set the boundaries within which Bonhoeffer scholarship can flourish today, and thus exclude some of the more exaggerated theories. For example, in recent years, Bonhoeffer has been characterized as a revolutionary, an assassin and an American Evangelical. None of these authors was invited. On the other hand, it is also clear that the theologians and the historians are not always talking on the same wave-length. The latter’s approach is empirical, concrete and historical, whereas the former seem often to engage in highly theoretical, even metaphysical interpretations, which rarely touch down on the solid earth of Nazi Germany. So this book should help to encourage some cross-fertilization in the debates about Bonhoeffer’s legacy.

Victoria Barnett leads off for the historians, along with three other members of our CCHQ team. She has been the general editor of the English translations of the sixteen volumes of Bonhoeffer’s papers, but still feels that this is only a work-in-progress. And just because the epoch in which he lived is gone, so the challenge is to try and understand the church and faith which shaped him and his students. In the thousands of pages which survived–his biographer Bethge collected everything–it is easy to get lost in the forest and not to see the trees. His life and work remain fragmentary and unfinished. And, as he himself admitted, he was never completely clear about his motives. Barnett rightly states that, contrary to his later fame, Bonhoeffer was a marginal figure in the German Church and the Resistance Movement. For the most part, as he himself admitted, he was amongst those who were “silent witnesses to evil deeds.” His life was cruelly cut short at an early age. His theological enterprise was barely begun. Yet his contribution–at a time when European Christianity suffered drastic blows–was an authentic witness to a world come of age.

Doris Bergen takes up the question of why the churches made so few protests against the Nazis’ crimes. Their silence in face of the Nazi persecutions and outrages has been a charge frequently leveled against Christianity. The question, she thinks, is inadequate. It is not the silence, but the noisy and enthusiastic support for the Nazi regime which concerns her most. Much more pertinent would be to question why the churches so readily backed the Nazi state. Why did they engage in pro-Nazi ceremonies, lend their religious support to Hitler’s wars of aggression, indulge in antisemitic propaganda, and even expel Jewish-Christian members from their parishes? She gives numerous and shocking examples of how the majority of churchmen, both Catholic and Protestant, subordinated or distorted Christian teachings in order to provide ringing and voluntary endorsements as loyal Germans, and genuine Nazis. This was the very opposite of silence. She clearly does not have much time for those who were later to argue that churchmen were intimidated by the ruthless police state tactics of the regime, and were fearful lest they be taken off to be imprisoned in one or other concentration camp. As she rightly points out, silence or martyrdom were not the hallmarks of the majority of German Christians, though all honour is due to those who chose this latter path. But she might have considered more fully the principal reason for what seems to us now as widespread apostasy. In my view, the root cause lies in the churches’ shattering loss of credibility in the years after 1918 when their strident preaching of an imminent German victory with God’s blessing was proved false, and their proclamation of God’s beneficence had to come to terms with the millions of corpses lying in Flanders Fields. In the subsequent years, the attempt to regain the allegiance of those they had so grievously misled was their principal concern. Enthusiastic support for a popular political movement seemed to be the avenue to make the church relevant again. For Catholics, who had for so long been regarded as second-class citizens, the opportunity to upgrade their status by joining the Nazi bandwagon seemed to secure their institutional position in the wider society. Protestants too were eager to celebrate their national loyalties and to swallow their reservations about the tactics employed by their new rulers. Their complicity in the regime’s crimes cannot be doubted, even if many of them deluded themselves as to its true nature or intentions. The silence of the churches after 1945 was all the more obvious when, for the most part, they showed no remorse or repentance.

Bob Ericksen echoes the same themes in his short chapter, in which he too strongly criticizes the readiness of so many church people to concur with Nazism, including the majority of the Confessing Church, at least on national grounds. Bonhoeffer was one of the very few pastors of his generation who differed from the majority. This only led to his isolation both during his life, and even more so afterwards. For many years after 1945 the majority of nationally-minded churchmen took exception to his political or to his theological views, or to both. It was at least twenty years before the impact of his “new theology” and the prodigious efforts of his biographer, Eberhard Bethge, paid off. Ericksen has more recently written extensively about the complicity of both the pastors and the professors in serving the Nazi regime, mainly for nationalistic reasons. In this essay he correctly criticizes the churches’ readiness to praise Hitler’s brutal imposition of repressive measures, especially against the Jews, for whom churchmen showed relatively little or no empathy, and all too readily accepted the Nazi propaganda that the Jews were a threat to German values. Their predisposition to anti-Judaic theological biases rendered them, even Bonhoeffer, incapable of changing to a much more positive evaluation of their Jewish heritage.

Matthew Hockenos gives an excellent summary of how the Protestant churches eventually came to terms with this deficient legacy. He rightly questions the extent to which Bonhoeffer himself changed his theology about the Jews, since we lack any substantial evidence after his very tradition-bound statement of supersessionist theology from 1933. Hockenos points out that the leaders of the Evangelical Church after 1945 were all survivors of the Confessing Church struggle, and still politically and theologically nationalistic. When it came to addressing the church’ share of responsibility for the policies of the Third Reich, these leaders “demonstrated more trepidation than courage, more equivocation than clarity, and more obstruction than determination.” Most of them were shocked by Bonhoeffer’s readiness to take part in the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler and regarded him as a national traitor not a Christian martyr. They stressed the post-war indignities and sufferings of their own people at the hands of the occupying powers, rather than the far greater sufferings their countrymen had imposed on so many other nations and peoples. It took years before Bonhoeffer’s reforming ideas could take hold. Similarly, years were to pass before a new climate of repentance for Christian prejudice against the Jews could emerge. Hockenos provides a notable if brief description of the slow and often reluctant process of “metanoia” in the Evangelical Churches on the subject of attitudes towards the Jews, and contrasts this with the much more vibrant contributions of such Catholics as John Oesterreicher and Gertrud Luckner, whose pioneer efforts were to find fruition in the Second Vatican Council. But thanks to Bonhoeffer’s biographer, Eberhard Bethge, the same route was finally taken by the German Protestants too.

Keith Clements’ fine contribution focuses on Bonhoeffer’s postwar reception in Britain, which was much more friendly and sympathetic than in his homeland. This was largely due to the friendships he had established with the ecumenically-minded community during his earlier visits to England. Principally it was the Bishop of Chichester, George Bell, with whom Bonhoeffer had collaborated in the Life and Work Movement, and who warmly welcomed him on his arrival to look after the German-speaking churches in London. Bell found Bonhoeffer a most valuable source of information about the German Evangelical Church, and resolutely backed the Confessing Church in its struggle to block the Nazi plans. It was also Bell, who most courageously defied public opinion and organized the first memorial service for Bonhoeffer–a dead German–in a large London church in July 1945. So too Bonhoeffer found an ally in Joe Oldham, one of the chief architects of the future World Council of Churches, and in Ronald Gregor Smith, the Editor of the Student Christian Movement Press, which was the first to publish Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison in English translation. Its impact caused sensational reactions in the early 1950s. All of these men had a deep sense of the crisis facing Western Civilization, and the need for new visions, not just for the church, but for the world and humanity. Bonhoeffer’s message from his prison cell exactly matched their hopes, and gave a pragmatic concreteness to their witness in those years.

Other essays in this collection explore the impact of Bonhoeffer’s theology in such far distant societies as Japan and Brazil, thus giving a world-wide dimension to his legacy. Of course, this global appearance of his ideas and life-story owed much to the successes of his translators, especially into English. Several papers in this book show how this task was undertaken, and how the translators had to wrestle with Bonhoeffer’s cultivated, upper-class, but somewhat dated German, and to find up-to-date and more colloquial expressions in English for his much wider audiences. A very good instance of their dilemmas comes in trying to translate the well-known poem Christen und Heiden. They were also perplexed by Bonhoeffer’s continual use of masculine pronouns for “God” or “Man”, and wondered how appropriate it would be to turn these gendered expressions into some more modern form of inclusive language. It was a delicate course to steer between the Scylla of Bonhoeffer the proto-feminist and the Charybdis of Bonhoeffer the hopeless chauvinist.

The theologians’ contributions focus very largely on Bonhoeffer’s ideas about “public ministry” and are drawn from close studies of his Ethics. As the epoch of European-centered Christianity is increasingly replaced by global diversification, and as his homeland Germany, like other parts of historic Christian Europe, becomes more and more pluralistic in its religious allegiances, so Bonhoeffer’s insights will undoubtedly continue to be of value in guiding us forward in fashioning new forms of discipleship for the years ahead.

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Conference Report: XI International Bonhoeffer Congress, Sigtuna, Sweden, June 27-July 1, 2012

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

Conference Report: XI International Bonhoeffer Congress, Sigtuna, Sweden, June 27-July 1, 2012

By Keith Clements

We are grateful to Dr. Keith Clements for the following conference report. Dr. Clements was general secretary of the Conference of European Churches from 1997-2005 and editor of Bonhoeffer Works Volume 13: London, 1933-1935.

Sigtuna, Sweden, was the venue for the recent XI International Bonhoeffer Congress. The 140 participants came not only from Europe and North America but from as far afield as Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, drawn by the overall theme A Spoke in the Wheel: Reconsidering the Political in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Sigtuna, the small, picturesque lakeside town situated between Sweden’s capital Stockholm and its most historic cathedral city Uppsala, lays claim to having the country’s oldest surviving street, Stora Gatan. For the Congress participants however one house in Stora Gatan was invested with particular historic interest, for it was there that late one night in May 1942 Dietrich Bonhoeffer had his clandestine meeting with his English ecumenical friend Bishop George Bell, giving him the fullest possible details of the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler. These details Bell was to pass to the British foreign office in the hope of securing allied support for a coup and a new, non-Nazi German government. It was perhaps the most significant, daring and fateful point in Bonhoeffer’s political involvement. The house in Stora Gatan (today it is the local tourist office) became a point of pilgrimage for many at the Congress, while the recalling of that 1942 meeting provided a firm point of contact with historical and political reality for the Congress discussions themselves.

No less appropriately, the Congress was housed in the Sigtuna Stiftelsen (Foundation), established in 1917 and one of Sweden’s most creative and influential church-related institutes facilitating dialogue on social and cultural issues. On the opening evening two of our Swedish hosts—Congress President Bishop Dr Martin Lind and Prof. Dr Sven-Erik Brodd—cogently but carefully expounded the significance of the Swedish Lutheran scene and its relation to Bonhoeffer’s German context for a proper understanding of the reception of Bonhoeffer in Sweden—a reception which in fact began in 1936 when Bonhoeffer brought his Finkenwalde class of students on a short visit to the country. The Congress was equally well served by the other plenary lecturers whose presentations followed by open discussion occupied the next three mornings: Bishop Prof. Dr Wolfgang Huber (Berlin) on ‘The Theological Profile of Bonhoeffer’s Political Resistance’; Prof. Dr Jean Bethke Elshtain (Chicago) on ‘The Profile of Bonhoeffer’s Political Resistance from the Perspective of Political Science’; Prof. Dr Wolf Krötke (Berlin) on ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Understanding of the State’; Dr Victoria J. Barnett (Washington D.C.) on ‘‘Church, State and Civil Society”; and Prof. Dr Nico Koopman (Stellenbosch, South Africa) on ‘How Do We Live Responsibly?’ Rarely can Bonhoeffer’s thought and actions have been subjected to such scrutiny and interpretation from so varied angles in three short days. Warnings were issued, for example by Wolfgang Huber, against seeing Bonhoeffer as more than a marginal figure in the political resistance as far as his personal activity was concerned. As the other presenters also argued, his true significance lies rather in his underlying perception of responsibility in relation to state and society, and his daring to inhabit the misty borderland between ecclesial and individual responsibility. Another reiterated concern was Bonhoeffer’s relation to democracy: was he, or would he have become, a democrat such as we assume now to be the norm in westernised society? Again, warnings were heard against too easy answers, either those of dismissing him as a conservative traditionalist and therefore of little contemporary relevance, or of assuming that his anti-totalitarianism equally betokens an ease with what passes for liberal democracy (but may in truth be anything but liberal or democratic) in western society today. The real questions are about how Bonhoeffer theologically interpreted his situation then, and how we might learn from him how we might no less critically and theologically evaluate our situations now. Nico Koopman aptly summarized how, in the still-changing context of post-apartheid South Africa, Bonhoeffer is persistently relevant:

Bonhoeffer’s theology helps South Africans in our quest for responsible living. He offers helpful descriptions of responsible living as a life that responds faithfully to the concrete call of God in Jesus Christ, which also implies responding faithfully to human beings of our generation, as well as those of past and future generations. He equips us with a theological rationale and motivation, as well as with thicker theological descriptions of human dignity and human rights. He provides essential tools for formulating policies that are cautions about wrong compromises, and that advance the fulfilment of human dignity and human rights. He shows the way to a threefold action of firstly prayer, which includes spiritual and moral formation, secondly concrete obedience, and lastly active hoping and waiting upon God.

The issues raised in plenary, with other questions, were examined further in no fewer than 36 shorter afternoon seminars on a fascinating range of subjects which presented participants with beguiling problems of choice: topics ranging from ‘Religion, Race and Resistance’ to ‘The Form of Christ and Christian Formation’; from ‘The Politics of Life Together’ to ‘The parish as a body of otherness’; from ‘Theology as Politics versus “Political Theology”’ to ‘Bonhoeffer and Human Rights.’ Andreas Pangritz (Bonn) looked yet again at the oft-quoted phrase ‘to fall within the spokes of the wheel,’ alluded to in the Congress title itself and found in Bonhoeffer’s 1933 essay ‘The Church and the Jewish Question.’ It seems we Anglophones are still wilfully misreading this phrase! But as well as established academics taking a fresh look at perennial points of interest and debate, these seminars also allowed many younger scholars to share their work-in-progress on quite new themes and perspectives, and drawing upon more recent approaches in social and political science, gender studies and psychology. The plenary papers and much of the seminar material will, it is hoped, be published in due course.

Though intensive, in true Bonhoefferian style the Congress was not ‘all work and no play.’ An octet of voices from the Uppsala University Choir gave an utterly charming evening concert of traditional Swedish songs, to rapturous and prolonged applause (have you ever seen young people sing so joyfully with their whole faces?). A group performed the play ‘Dem Rad in die Speichen fallen’, by Galileo Galilei and der Narr. The layout of the Foundation with its informal lounges and outdoor ‘cloister’ made for easy communality during coffee breaks and late evening conviviality around the bar, while in the long Scandinavian summer daylight Sigtuna at large, with its lakeside and woodland walks, lent itself to contemplation whether alone or with others. It is rumoured that theological conversations even took place between early-morning joggers. Then of course mealtimes served not only splendid meals, such as Bonhoeffer himself would have relished, but also the opportunities to talk or argue with friends old and new. To all this was added morning worship in the chapel, calm and meditative, and uplifted by the inspiring organ-playing of Gottfried Brezger (Berlin). Thanks are due to John Matthews, Hans Buurmeester, Michael Lukens and Gottfried Brezger for arranging these services. Towards the end of the Congress, news from the different language and national sections of the International Bonhoeffer Society was shared.

Prof. Dr. Christiane Tietz (Mainz) perceptively and succinctly surveyed the ‘Harvest’ of the Congress under five main headings: awareness of the need for care in retrospective reading of Bonhoeffer in his own historical context as distinct from ours; a new perception of the political character of Bonhoeffer’s whole theology; a realization that a contextually committed theology will always have political implications; new insights into Bonhoeffer’s political actions which were not simply confined to his role in the conspiracy but involved a novel questioning of the state and the nature of its authority; and a fresh encounter with the foundational role of spirituality in Bonhoeffer’s political engagement, which enabled him to remain faithful even in the most extreme circumstances. These insights, Tietz stated, map a future for the new generation of Bonhoeffer scholars but are not merely of historical interest: they are inspirational for our own contemporary responsibilities in society.

The Congress certainly demonstrated that Bonhoeffer studies not only have a past but a future, as evidenced by the strong presence and vital contributions of so many younger participants—not to mention the fact that for reasons of time and space the organizers had had to decline as many proposals for seminar topics as they accepted. At the final chapel worship, one of the leading veterans of the Bonhoeffer Society, John de Gruchy (South Africa), gave a poignant meditation on the theme ‘Nothing is Lost,’ referring to the text Ephesians 1:10 ‘. . . as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Christ,’ taken up by Irenaeus in his doctrine of recapitulation and in turn by Bonhoeffer in his prison reflection on the line in the hymn ‘I will restore it all.’ A group that has existed as long as the Bonhoeffer Society, said de Gruchy, should have no fears that the work of its pioneers will lose its significance, any more than a loss in our personal lives is irredeemable. In this spirit also, a card with signed greetings was sent by the Congress to Renate Bethge who is no longer able to attend meetings in the way she, and of course Eberhard, did to the immense profit of so many of us.

At the Congress banquet on the final (Saturday) evening several distinguished guests from church and cultural life in Sweden were welcomed, and Bishop Martin Lind as President expressed his deep satisfaction with all that had taken place. John Matthews from the English-Speaking section spoke of the Sigtuna event providing a four-fold experience for us all: inter-national, inter-generational, inter-disciplinary and inter-personal and thus a real taste of Gemeinsames Leben. Finally, next morning we made our way to Uppsala for High Mass in the impressive Cathedral, at which Bishop Lind preached on authentic witness to Christ as always involving the overcoming of separation—a hopeful note on which to take leave of one another to go our ‘separate’ ways across the world.

Heartfelt thanks, then, to our hosts in Sigtuna and the Congress organizers especially Bishop Lind, Kirsten Busch Nielsen, Anders Jonåker, John Matthews, Karina Juhl Kande, Jurjen Wiersma, Hans Buurmeester, Martin Hüneker and Stephen Plant. Much appreciated also was the work of the German-English interpreters Elaine Griffiths, Renate Sbeghen and Ursula Ziel.

And what of a future Congress? Sigtuna has set a dauntingly high standard in terms alike of content, organization and venue, but a provisional committee is already investigating possibilities for 2016. This particular wheel will keep turning!

 

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Book Note: Victims of Nazism: Bonhoeffer and Jägerstätter

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

Book Note: Victims of Nazism: Bonhoeffer and Jägerstätter

By John S. Conway, University of British Columbia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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December 2008 Newsletter

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Association of Contemporary Church Historians

(Arbeitsgemeinschaft kirchlicher Zeitgeschichtler)

John S. Conway, Editor. University of British Columbia

December 2008— Vol. XIV, no. 12

 Dear Friends,

We are already in the Advent season and are now looking forward to the Christmas celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. So let me take this occasion to wish you all the very best as the year ends, and to hope that you will have a joyous and restful holiday, even in these troubling times. This also brings to an end Volume XIV of this Newsletter, so I want to thank all of you for your support and encouragement which has meant so much to me over this time. For example, I recently received a very generous letter from Peggy Obrecht, which she has allowed me to share with you.

At this time of year with Thanksgiving approaching, I just want to tell you once again how grateful I am for your efforts at turning out, month after month, not just insightful reviews of recent books and articles but fascinating pictures of the religious history of these past centuries. You have provided a great resource for those of us wishing to understand better how the theological and psychological views of church officials and scholars, and their subsequent actions, influenced not just the religious world in which they worked but the greater society around them as well. (Sometimes to the embarrassment of the church but, more often than not, to its credit.)

It has been as good an education as one could have, and many times over the years I have incorporated your thoughts and viewpoints, along with those of your contributing editors, into speeches or sermons I have had to deliver (giving credit where it was due-you will be glad to hear).

May you live as long as I do which, I hope, will be at least another twenty years. ”

I fear that I may not be able to live up to such kind and lengthy expectations, since my seventy-ninth birthday falls this month, but promise to do what I can so long as I am able. I particularly want to thank those who have helped with their contributions this year, especially my fellow workers over so many years now, Matthew Hockenos and Randy Bytwerk.

Some of you have asked me to define the criteria used to select books to be reviewed. The choice may seem rather haphazard (or in the eyes of some perhaps erratic). I have only three criteria: first the availability of new titles, which of course cannot be predicted in advance, and which arrive here in Vancouver in uncontrollable intervals; second, the subject matter has to be concerned with the twentieth century or later; third, I try to be as inclusive of as many branches of the Christian church as possible, regardless of denominational or geographical setting. This provides a wide and ecumenical variety of subjects, so that I hope one or other review is of interest to all of you, some of the time. I am aware that such an arrangement prevents any concentration on particular themes, or special issues limited to one topic. But I hope my preference still continues to find your favour and support. As of now, we have 503 subscribers, scattered all around the globe. May I wish every one of you the very best for 2009.

Contents:

Book reviews

1a) Dietrich Bonhoeffer London 1933-1935
1b) “Ihr Ende schaut an .. “ Evangelische Märtyrer des 20. Jahrhunderts
1c) North European Churches/ European Integration

1a) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, London 1933-1935 English translation, edited by Keith Clements. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 13) Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2007. 524 Pp. ISBN-13: 978-0-8006-8313-9.

The English translation of the seventeen volumes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s writings, published in German between 1986 and 1999, proceeds apace. The latest volume to appear is Volume 13, which has been skilfully translated with extra annotations added by the British editor for the benefit of English-speaking readers. It is entitled “London” since it covers the period of Bonhoeffer’s service as pastor of two German-speaking congregations in London during 1933 to 1935. This was in fact a crucial turning point in his career. He was just short of twenty-seven when the Nazis came to power, and when the whole German Protestant community was convulsed and divided along both political and theological lines. At once Bonhoeffer recognized the dangers ahead. He was one of the few. But early on in 1933 he had thrown his support behind those determined to prevent the pro-Nazi faction in the Protestant churches from gaining control of church affairs. He had witnessed with increasing anguish over the summer of 1933 the manipulation of church elections and the apparent victory of the so-called “German Christians”, who sought the whole-scale and willing identification of the Protestant Church with the goals of the Nazi Party.

Bonhoeffer’s decision to apply for the vacant post in London was in one sense a means of distancing himself from the looming church struggle in his homeland. But he certainly did not want to be an exile, or to consider emigrating on a permanent basis. Rather, he saw the posting as an opportunity to arouse concern among his contacts in the wider church world, particularly amongst those engaged in the nascent ecumenical movement. He wanted to inform them of developments in Germany, and to rally their support by making them aware of the errors and indeed heresies being preached by his clerical colleagues. He was convinced that such misguided preaching demonstrated an abandonment of the strict orthodoxy of his Lutheran heritage for the sake of temporary political advantage.

This volume therefore necessarily gives a full account of the German Church Struggle and Bonhoeffer’s continuing engagement in it, often on an almost daily basis by lengthy telephone calls to Berlin, but also by frequent short visits back to Germany. At the same time, this volume also gives details about his running of his two parishes, as well as about his wider involvement in the ecumenical movement. These latter activities culminated in his participation in the 1934 meeting in Fanø, Denmark, which was highly significant in his theological development. In addition, this volume contains the sermons he preached in London. The introduction by Keith Clements gives English-speaking readers a valuable analysis of the origins of the German Church Struggle, which was, at least to begin with, in essence an inner-church conflict over what the nature of the Christian church should be. This reached its apex while Bonhoeffer was abroad in 1934. Because of his absence in London, he was not able to attend the Confessing Church’s formative meeting at Barmen in the Rhineland in May 1934. On that occasion Karl Barth was the principal author of the famous Barmen Declaration, repudiating the claims of the “German Christians” on theological grounds. Bonhoeffer’s comments on that brave statement are highly instructive.

1934 was also the year in which Bonhoeffer began to play a more pivotal role in the ecumenical movement. Despite his young age, his qualifications were considerable. He had already had the advantage of travelling abroad in the immediately previous years. He had served for a year as a curate in the German Church in Barcelona, and then had spent a hugely formative year at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where his theological horizons widened rapidly. Here too he gained added fluency in English. Immediately after his return to Berlin in 1931, he had been chosen to go to Cambridge for a conference of the World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship through the Churches. Here he made such an impression on the older generation of leaders that he was at once recruited to serve as a Youth Secretary of the Alliance, and was given responsibility for promoting its cause among youth throughout central Europe. It was through this work that he first met Bishop George Bell of Chichester, a leading figure in the Ecumenical Council of Life and Work, who was to become so important for Bonhoeffer in the next chapter of his life in England.

Bonhoeffer arrived in London in mid-October 1933, and almost immediately was invited to go down to Chichester for a full discussion of the events unfolding in Germany. This volume gives the background, both in Germany and in England, for such deliberations, of which unfortunately a written record was seldom made. Nevertheless it is clear that Bonhoeffer’s clear and accurate knowledge of the events unfolding in Germany was helpful not only to Bell, but also to his superior, the Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom Bonhoeffer conferred in March 1934. These church leaders hardly needed to be convinced of the seriousness of the crisis in Germany. The dictatorial steps instituted by the Reich Bishop Müller against his opponents in the Confessing Church seemed to herald the attempt to impose more radical pro-Nazi measures on the whole church. Bonhoeffer of course rightly stressed that such distortions of the universal Christian gospel had to be opposed. But it proved to be an uphill task to mobilize other branches of the church, even in the ecumenical movement, to take action. The official “German Christian” authorities naturally protested against what they considered “unwarranted interference” by such bodies as the Council of Life and Work, led by Bell. Hence difficult and tortuous diplomatic negotiations were called for.

For his part, Bonhoeffer was eager for a strong and open protest. He even refers to the need for an ultimatum, which could be a test of the ecumenical movement’s reality and vitality. In his letters to the Geneva staff of Life and Work, he deplored what he saw as prevarication or vacillation. Instead he wanted the ecumenical community to make up its mind. In April 1934, he wrote: “There is much more at stake here than just personal or administrative difficulties. Christ is looking down at us and asking whether there is anyone left who confesses faith in him” (p. 127).

Naturally he was in favour of Bishop Bell’s Ascension Day message regarding the German Evangelical Church, sent in early May, and advised Bell on how it could be strengthened. In particular the message expressed strong concern about the autocratic measures taken by the Reich Bishop and about the introduction of racial principles in determining the nature of the German Church. Shortly afterwards, the delegates of the various regional branches of the Confessing Church met in Barmen and issued their notable Declaration. This meeting gave added strength to their determination to oppose the unscriptural and indeed heretical attempts to Nazify the Church. One result was the decision to establish the Confessing Church’s own seminaries for theological ordinands, who would thus be rescued from contamination at the state-run university faculties of theology. Bonhoeffer early on came into consideration as the Director for the proposed seminary of the Berlin-Brandenburg Confessing Church – a post he was to assume in the following April. This new development meant that his hope of going out to India to spend time in one of Gandhi’s ashrams to study life together had to be abandoned. But another alternative plan – to start a Protestant monastery inspired by the ideals of the Sermon on the Mount – was in fact to be realized at least in part when he subsequently returned to Germany.

The confrontation between the ecumenical community and the officials of the German Reich Church came to a head in August at the international conference held in Denmark. Actually there were two conferences held simultaneously in the same place. The first was the Youth Conference of the World Alliance with some sixty student members from all parts of the world. Bonhoeffer had taken care to ensure that none of the Germans present supported the “German Christian” position. It was to this gathering that he gave his powerful address in favour of a church-led pacifism and called on the whole Ecumenical Council to unite in proclaiming the peace of Christ against the raging world. It was to be the apogee of his youthful and ardent pacifist idealism. The text is fortunately preserved in full in this volume.

At the same time, the larger conference organised by the Council of Life and Work, saw representatives from the official German Church , attending as duly authorized members, including the head of the Church’s foreign department, Bishop Heckel. As the documents in this volume show, Bonhoeffer had already had his confrontations with Heckel who had tried to use his office’s authority to impose control over and theological views upon the congregations in Britain. Bonhoeffer’s strong resistance against this attempt and his success in gaining the support of Bishop Bell and other leaders of the ecumenical movement now culminated in the Fanø deliberations. Despite Heckel’s vehement objections, the Council was steered by Bell to pass a strong resolution condemning the policies of the “German Christian”-dominated church government. The Council also elected one of the leading figures in the Confessing Church, Karl Koch, to join its ranks, as a strong and public indication of its support. Bonhoeffer left immediately for Germany to inform Koch and his advisors of this support.

Despite these warnings and remonstrances, the “German Christian” campaign to bring all aspects of church life into line with the Nazi ideology, was stepped up in the next few weeks, making much of Hitler’s tactic of theFührerprinzip. Bishops were placed under house arrest, dissident pastors were disciplined, mission work was throttled, and all suggested compromises were denied. In retaliation, Bonhoeffer and his colleagues in Britain resolved to get the support of their congregations to switch their allegiance from the Reich Church to the Confessing Church. Extensive correspondence followed which is reflected in the surviving papers. But how this confession-based transfer could be brought about was still unresolved even after Bonhoeffer was called back to Germany in April 1935 to take up his duties as director of the Confessing Church’s training centre in the remote Pomeranian village of Finkenwalde. Before he left England, he just had time to pay brief visits to three Church of England residential colleges where the ideal of training the future clergy in a monastic setting was still being practised. Some of his correspondence also hints at how this idea grew on him, when he envisaged a community of life together based on the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount

Inevitably, the more personal and spiritual side of Bonhoeffer’s ministry in London is only here hinted at, but the memories of survivors from those days, newly collected in Keith Clements’ appealing and beautifully illustrated memoir, Bonhoeffer and Britain, (reviewed in our Newsletter, October 2006, Vol. XII, no. 10), show that his dedication to his parishioners was much appreciated, as were his thoughtful and often inspiring sermons, several of which are here reprinted in an excellent translation. For a young pastor, who had not yet reached his thirtieth birthday, his achievements in London were to prove formative for his later development. In particular his recognition of the urgency of the Church Struggle, and his determination to reject any form of compromise for the sake of his career, or for nationalist reasons, was to make him a singular figure among his colleagues and age-cohorts. His period in London was to deepen his convictions about the vital need to relate the ethics of the Gospel to the surrounding political events of his day, and if necessary to take up arms against injustice and intimidation. Inspired by the model of the Sermon on the Mount, these were the values he sought to instil in his parishioners and students in the subsequent years. And there can be no doubt that his friendship with Bishop Bell in these few months was one of his most supportive encounters and sustained him until the end. It was to Bishop Bell that he sent his final message from Germany on the day before his execution in Flossenburg concentration camp on April 9th 1945.

“Tell him that with him I believe in the reality of the Christian brotherhood that rises above all national conflicts and interests, and that our victory is certain”.

It was therefore entirely fitting that the first memorial service for Dietrich Bonhoeffer was held in Holy Trinity Church in central London and organized by Bishop Bell only three months later in July 1945. The service was recorded by the BBC and broadcast to Germany. This was how Bonhoeffer’s parents first learnt of his death. Bishop Bell’s sermon recalled: “As one of a noble company of martyrs of differing traditions, he represents both the resistance of the believing soul, in the name of God, to the assault of evil, and also the moral and political revolt of the human conscience against injustice and cruelty.”

It is therefore also fitting that Bonhoeffer is one of the ten Christian martyrs of the twentieth century, whose statues were to be placed on the west portal of Westminster Abbey and unveiled there in the presence of the Queen in July 1998, thus making his connection with London a permanent record of his faithfulness and example of ecumenical fellowship.

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1b) “Ihr Ende Schaut an. . .”. Evangelische Märtyrer des 20. Jahrhunderts, Edited by Harald Schultze and Andreas Kurschat. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt 2008. 811pp ISBN 978-3-374-02370-7.

This encyclopaedia of German-speaking Protestant martyrs in the twentieth century forms a counterpoint to a similar large-scale compilation published by the German Catholic authorities. The object is to record the names of those Christian witnesses put to death for their faithfulness, both in order to preserve the historical record, and to uphold the ethical impulse these sacrifices can give to later generations. At the same time, these volumes can be seen as a further attempt at coming to terms with Germany’s chequered record during the past century.

This work consists of several hundred short biographical entries, arranged in geographical groupings, such as Germany, the Baltic lands, the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, and east and south-east Europe. These entries are preceded by two hundred pages of introductory essays, which are valuable in describing the settings in which these martyrs lost their lives.

As is made clear by Professor Harold Schultze, the problem of selection was an ongoing one for the editors. The decision to limit those chosen to members of the German-speaking Evangelical Churches or affiliated communities necessitated drawing boundaries. For example, the numerous martyrs among the Jehovah’s Witnesses were excluded. On the other hand, particular note was made of those who suffered death in the Soviet Union or its satellite territories. And the martyrs who lost their lives while witnessing in the German Democratic Republic, are here included, as are martyrs from the non-established Protestant communities, such as the Mennonites.

How should martyrdom be defined in the present context? Clearly the concept has become widened beyond the early ascriptions to those who confessed their faith publicly and were burnt at the stake. In the twentieth century, both the methods of persecution became more varied, but so did the motives of the persecuted. In many – possibly in most – cases, political and social motives went hand in hand with religious convictions to spur individuals to take up resistance against tyranny of various kinds. It is often impossible to try and prioritize such impulses, but the editors have struggled to find the attestation of Christian witness before the individual was included. Certainly they have sought to avoid honouring only the clergy or office holders in the church. In the wake of the overthrow of the Nazi regime, strenuous efforts were made commemorate those men and women murdered at the hands of the Gestapo or SS, especially those involved in the fatal Putsch of 20 July 1944, whose victims indeed became the best known in this group of Protestant martyrs.

But as this case demonstrates, the mixed religious and political motives of these men and women, and in some cases their previous adherence to or support of the Nazi regime, caused highly ambivalent reactions. The famous Protestant martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer was for many years regarded with aversion, even in his own church, because he had challenged the long-held Lutheran tradition of obedience to established authority, and had even conspired to assassinate the head of state. Only when the political climate changed, and the majority of Protestants acknowledged their previous complicity with the criminal Nazi regime, was due recognition awarded to Bonhoeffer and his companions. For the same reason, an increased readiness was found to widen the definition of martyrdom so that many of the victims of political repression could be included, even though some explicit Christian witness or conviction was needed in order to be mentioned in this compilation.

At the same time, numerous physical memorials to these martyrs have been built in Germany, not only for Protestants. Particularly such striking monuments as the Holocaust Memorial in central Berlin gave added impetus to the commemoration of these martyrs. Such architectural structures, however, naturally lack the detail of the individual’s service or contribution. So such undertakings as this encyclopaedia provide a valuable and necessary addition, and will help to ensure that the names of murdered and oppressed individuals and their specific witness will not be forgotten or erased with the passing of time.

Of course, commemoration of contemporary martyrs raises troubling questions for the ir surviving successors. Why were they so few? And why did their examples not lead to much wider movements to resist the tyranny of which they were the victims? The silent majority which failed to follow them stood and still stands accused. But at least younger generations are now being enabled through such books as this volume to look at the painful and also terrifying experiences of these martyrs, and hopefully to determine not to allow such circumstances to recur.

While the heuristic value of this volume for German-speaking readers and congregations can be taken fro granted, the historian has also to consider wider issues. Particularly, in the history of the Soviet Union, it seems somewhat one-sided to focus only on the Protestant victims of Stalin’s despotism. Many thousands of other Russian Christians suffered martyrdom, and whole populations were starved to death through famine, or worked to death in the notorious Gulag camps. Should these not also be remembered? And even more controversially, questions have to be asked about those German-speaking Protestants who served in Hitler’s armies, whose ruthless atrocities contributed to the deaths of so many civilians, including Jews. Even after sixty or more years, Germans, including Protestants, have much to contemplate with penitence in the history of their impact on eastern Europe. Remembering the sufferings of these martyrs is only one stage; it needs to be accompanied by a much more comprehensive reckoning, which takes account of the behaviour of the church as a whole. Only thus will the danger of self-justification or self-glorification be avoided. Martyrs must not become an alibi, but rather an abiding witness to a higher standard of Christian discipleship.

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1c) Hugh McLeod, Risto Saarinen, Aila Lauha, North European Churches. From the Cold War to Globalization. Tampere, Finland: Church Research Institute, 2006. 135 pp. ISBN 951-693-270-3

Edited by Lucia Faltin and Melanie J.Wright, The Religious Roots of Contemporary European Identity. London: Continuum 2007. 230 pp. ISBN-13: 978-0-8264-9482-5

For the past sixty years, the European churches have been attempting to restore and reconstruct the moral and spiritual values of their civil society, which was so ruthlessly and destructively torn apart by the totalitarian powers, first by Nazi Germany and subsequently by Soviet Communism. In the southern lands, around the Mediterranean, this task was taken up principally by the Roman Catholic Church. But in northern Europe, as outlined in the first of these new books, especially in the region of Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic lands, it has fallen to the Protestant churches to tackle this issue. They have attempted to create a new climate of interaction between politics and religious communities in the search for viable and constructive patterns of political behaviour based on the ideals of peace, justice and the preservation of creation. They have sought to encourage the development of international institutions, in particular the fostering of post-war European political integration. This short book, co-authored by three distinguished church historians, one British and two Finnish, describes this process from a variety of national perspectives. With funding provided by the European Union, this team of historians was asked to study the political role of churches in Europe and their impact on the far-reaching project for European integration.

Given the often traumatic experiences suffered by the churches in the course of the twentieth century, some of them self-inflicted, the task of finding common ground on which to unite in binding up the wounds of war and political violence has not been easy. These Protestant churches were all closely attached to their own nations, often established as part of the national institutional structures, and saw themselves as central components of the national identity. Only a few far-sighted churchmen recognized the need to embrace new concepts of pan-European coexistence, while relegating to a back burner the supposedly glorious achievements of their own national pasts. For this purpose the nascent ecumenical movement, born after the first world war, was a valuable training ground. In Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the most notable theologian to expound such views, but he remained a lone and even suspect figure. In Britain, Bishop George Bell, and in Geneva, the Dutch General Secretary of the World Council of Churches after 1948, Visser ‘t Hooft, were similarly advocates of the new proposals for overcoming national rivalries through some form of European integration. But, on the other hand, the anguish caused by the second world war’s disasters, not only destroyed the rather naive idealism of the ecumenical movement’s founders, but also increased the influence of those who followed Karl Barth in believing that any human political institution would be bound to fail. The Church was instead called to be a prophetic voice of healthy criticism towards all worldly rulers and to throw its support decidedly behind the poor and oppressed, the victims of misused power. In the 1950s and 1960s this witness was to become particularly notable in the Third World, where the World Council aspired to become “the voice of the voiceless”.

But in Europe, even though these Protestant ecumenists thought a lot about Europe and its future, it was the Catholics who took the initiative after 1945. Largely due to Pope Pius XII, Catholics were encouraged to look for a restoration of a Christian Europe and to promote Christian cultural values. They therefore gave their support to such initiatives as the founding of the Council of Europe, which provided the ideological, background for the political moves resulting in the creation of the Common Market and subsequent developments in the economic sphere. These led successfully to the closer merging of western Europe, and were to form a model for its later expansion.
But some Protestants remained sceptical. They disliked seeing the notion of western European integration being subordinate to American-led Cold War politics. They suspected Catholic intentions in any new structures. In the Nordic countries, too, longstanding antipathies towards Catholicism were reinforced by their strongly Protestant heritage and equally strong Social Democratic political traditions. In Germany, the most notable Protestant church leader, Martin Niemöller, spoke scathingly of his West German government’s policy as being “conceived in the Vatican and born in Washington”. In such circles, the image of “Europe” was repeatedly portrayed as “capitalistic, conservative, corrupt and Catholic”.

Nevertheless, in the 1960s and 1970s, the obvious success of the European Economic Community led to a Protestant re-evaluation. Its institutions, and a more integrated European nucleus, now seemed to be an effective force for the defence of peace, security and human rights. The warmer ecumenical climate induced by the Second Vatican Council and the less rigidly dogmatic conservatism adopted by Catholics also encouraged more collaboration in pro-European initiatives. One offshoot was the founding of the Conference of European Churches which linked all denominations across the Iron Curtain in a sincere attempt to defuse the hostilities of earlier years, and encouraged a consciousness of pan-Europeanism. Another formative influence was the election to the papacy of the Polish Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian in centuries. His influence extended Catholic horizons in their understanding of a new European synthesis.

Historians are still in dispute as to how far religion, especially the Christian churches, was significant in bringing about the revolutionary events which swept over eastern Europe in 1989. But there can be no doubt that participation in religious rituals provided some of the strength for protest groups to combine and mobilize their forces against the totalitarian state’s ubiquitous control. Church members also played a highly important role in preparing the ground for new beginnings, including the proposals for becoming integrated with the successful economies of western Europe. The churches often provided a source of alternative values to those so long upheld by the previous communist rulers. In Russia, for example, the Orthodox Church was the principal link to the nation’s earlier history and culture.

In the 1990s and after the turn of the century, it became the turn of the Catholic Church to try and set the course of European integration along Christian lines. The specific proposal was to write a constitution for the whole European Union, which would explicitly spell out its Christian identity. In 2001 the Conference of European Churches and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Europe published a text which affirmed their willingness to participate in the building of Europe, and stated their conviction ”that the spiritual heritage of Christianity constitutes an empowering source of inspiration and enrichment for Europe”. Such a plan however ran into strong opposition. Not only was this seen as a clearly unilateral move designed to stigmatize other religions, such as Judaism or Islam, but it evoked the spectre of a revived and triumphalist Catholicism of earlier centuries. Even whether God should be mentioned in the proposed constitution was a source of discord. Catholics regarded such a statement as a very important reminder of the cultural roots and commitments of Europe. The eventual denial of this suggestion was deeply disappointing to the Vatican.

In the wider setting, this raised the heart-searching question of whether Europe had a soul, and if so what kind of a soul it was. Some European leaders believed that after the era of godless totalitarianism, the European Union needed a spiritual as well as a political and economic base. But with the incorporation of most European countries west of Russia, the demographic pattern was clearly pluralistic. And although the Christian churches were still powerful and influential institutions, they no longer held a monopoly. There were a rising number of alternatives to Christianity. Since 2001 however, there has undoubtedly been a rise in Islamophobia, which has been sufficiently strong so far to bar the possibility of Turkey joining the European Union. The process of European integration is still in progress, and it remains to be seen whether the religious factor or the attitudes of Christian churches will continue to be a significant contributor to the new patterns of political and social collaboration. The history of religious divisions in Europe is a long and often sad chapter. Has the time at last come when these faiths can decide to live in peace and mutual respect with each other?

The editors of the second book under review both teach at the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations in Cambridge. The essays they have collected are written by scholars from different parts of Europe from a wide variety of perspectives, and range over different historical eras. Particularly helpful are the essays analysing conditions in the newly-liberated countries of eastern Europe. But they all seek to analyse the presence of religion in the development of national and continental identities, the manifestation of religion in secular society, and the role of religion in further European integration.

In the fifty years since the Treaty of Rome was signed to establish the initial cooperative measures for anew Europe, the hall-mark of such steps was pragmatism. Economic cooperation was dictated by the need to repair the destruction of the second world war, while political cooperation was prompted by the need for adequate barriers against the Communist threat. But such measures were not defended from any openly-adopted ideological stance. To be sure, the early founders of this movement were clearly aware that the traditional religious physiognomy of Europe is Christianity. But the recent experience of Nazi and Fascist ideological fanaticisms and their consequences deterred the repetition of any such far-flung rhetoric. Europe`s Christian roots were silently acknowledged, but the whole emphasis was on practical matters. At the same time, it was recognized that the sad history of Christian divisions would make impossible any attempt to synthesize some form of European identity out of such a history. Nor was it attempted. Indeed the expectation of many of Europe`s leaders was that the religious factor would soon enough be relegated to the past, or to the less controversial spheres of private life.

But with the addition of so many new members, especially those without the kind of secular traditions fostered in parts of western Europe, and with the question posed as to whether Turkey, as an Islamic state, should be invited to join, the religious issues have moved to the forefront again. Can a European identity be forged on a purely secular basis or not? Already, as can be seen over the question of inter-European immigration, questions of identity, either national or international, are continually raised. The members of the Union have adopted differing answers, some preferring a multicultural stance, others an assimilationist approach. With regard to the presence of so many Muslims in Europe today, we should perhaps note the view of one contributor, Sara Silvestri, who points out that at one period of European history, the late Middle Ages, a peaceful cohabitation and fertile interaction with Islam was both possible and practised, especially in Spain. On the other hand, she is also right that present-day Islam poses serious challenges to Europe, and shows how the legacy of European, and Christian, intolerance produced the failure of relationships which makes political as well as personal integration all the more difficult. Or, as Paul Kerry concludes in his essay: “ Just as the European experience includes multiple motivations and aspirations. . . so the recognition of this variety will allow for richer more thoughtful dialogue between those discussing the religious roots of contemporary European identity”.

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With warmest regards to you all,
John Conway

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