The quarterly of the World Council of Churches.

Gill, Theodore A., Jr. ; Stranz, Jane ; Oxley, Simon 等

Guest Editorial

The year 2009 marks the 75th anniversary of the Confessional Synod of Barmen and its Theological Declaration, by which representatives of the Confessing Church in Germany rejected the incursions of the Nazi state into church life. To commemorate the anniversary, this issue of The Ecumenical Review has been produced in cooperation with the Okumenische Rundschau in Germany. Most articles are thus being published in both English and German, and the editors of both journals hope that such cooperation will continue in other projects in the future.

The Barmen synod met in Wuppertal from 29-31 May 1934, and to coincide with the anniversary itself, the next issue of The Ecumenical Review is to contain a major article by Rudolf Weth on the Barmen Declaration as a confession of Christendom for the 21st century. This issue, however, takes as its focus global perspectives on the Barmen Declaration. (1)

From the very beginning, as Keith Clements notes in the article that opens this collection, the Barmen Declaration was an ecumenical event. For the first time since the Reformation, representatives of Lutheran, Reformed and United churches in Germany uttered a common word in the face of the adversity and temptation that faced the German Evangelical Church. In six theses the synod confessed the "evangelical truths" against the errors of "German Christians" and the officially instituted leadership of the church. At the same time, however, Barmen became an affair of the worldwide ecumenical fellowship. The nascent ecumenical movement was drawn into the Kirchenkampf in Germany and was obliged to face the claims of the Confessing Church being articulated by Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Barmen is also an "ecumenical event" in that it has inspired Christians and churches throughout the world to respond to the claims of oppressive regimes and to combat heretical tendencies within their own ranks. Nico Koopman, in his contribution, traces how Barmen informed the theological resistance to apartheid in South Africa, and its inspiration for the Confession of Belhar which rejected any doctrine that sanctioned, in the name of the gospel or the will of God, "the forced separation of people on the grounds of race and colour". Adolfo Ham and Heino Falcke, in their contributions to this issue of The Ecumenical Review, discuss the relevance of the Barmen Declaration to Protestant churches in an explicitly Marxist-Leninist context, in Cuba and in the German Democratic Republic. Fridz Pardamean Sihombing, from the Protestant Christian Batak Church (HKBP) in Indonesia, which grew out of the missionary work of the Wuppertal-based Rhenish Mission, traces the contemporary significance of the Barmen Declaration for a church in a multifaith situation in which the state ideology of Pancasila was used to support the abrogation of religious freedom in the 1990s.

Although Barmen was a common message by confessionally-distinct Lutheran, Reformed and United churches, one of the long-term results of this event of confessing together is the Leuenberg Agreement of 1973 which declared church fellowship between Reformation churches in Europe. Michael Bunker, the general secretary of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe, which has grown out of the Leuenberg Agreement, takes as his starting point Barmen VI for a consideration of the mission of the church today in a largely-secularized Europe. In stressing that the church does not "do" mission, but "is" mission, Bunker's contribution can be seen alongside those of Adolfo Ham and Heino Falcke. Theodore A. Gill, for his part, traces how the Barmen Declaration became part of the Book of Confessions of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA, and the role played by the declaration in recent controversy, often referred to as the "culture wars" in the United States.

In recent decades, the long-term ecumenical legacy of Barmen can also be seen, as Keith Clements points out, in a renewed attention to what confession actually means in the global socio-ethical sphere. The inspiration taken from Barmen within South Africa to reject apartheid and its theological justification had its parallels in the declarations by the Lutheran World Federation and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches that apartheid represented a "status confessionis" and a "theological heresy". Heino Falcke describes how in the 1980s the Protestant churches in the GDR embarked on a process of examining how to confess the faith in relation to peace that culminated in a committed statement of faith in the field of political ethics rather than the field of doctrine. The "declaration on peace", in the Ecumenical Chronicle, has been drawn up by students at the University of Hamburg in advance of the 2011 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation of the World Council of Churches. Taking the Barmen Declaration as their starting point, the students seek to develop an "Ecumenical Declaration on Just Peace" against the background of the Conciliar Process for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation, not least in the former GDR. Perhaps the best-known example of contemporary confessing in the socio-ethical field, however, is the "processus confessionis" that the World Alliance of Reformed Churches launched at its general council in Hungary in 1997 and that led to the elaboration of the Accra Confession at the following general council in Ghana in 2004. Nico Koopman recalls how this process of confessing on economic injustice and the destruction of the environment initially grew out of discussions within the context of the Southern African Alliance of Reformed Churches. Central to the process is the idea that that the issue of economic justice is not merely a question of social ethics, but is at the very centre of the Christian faith itself. Guillermo Hansen, originally from Argentina, in his contribution to this issue, however, takes issue with the utility of using the theological language of "confessing" as a response to the globalized neo-liberal economy. Appealing to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's insights on status confessionis, Hansen argues that the challenge of the neoliberal onslaught requires the church to speak out, not because its essence is under direct attack, but because the field of public life faces pressure of unprecedented proportions.

This appeal to Bonhoeffer, however, raises a further issue that returns the discussion to the Synod of Barmen itself. Bonhoeffer's comments on "status confessionis" came in an essay on "The Church and the Jewish Question". For Bonhoeffer, the issue on which the essence of the church was challenged was the state-instituted exclusion of baptized Jews from the Christian community. It was the "Aryan clauses" of the Nazi regime disqualifying Jewish Germans from holding state office, and thus from pastoral charge in the church, that provided much of the initial opposition to the church government of the Reichsbischof Ludwig Muller by the Pastors' Emergency League and set in train the events that would culminate at Barmen. However, as Victoria Barnett points out in her contribution to this issue of The Ecumenical Review, the lack of an explicit response at Barmen to the persecution faced by Jewish people in Germany already in 1934 may best be described as the "missing" seventh thesis of the declaration. Though the Barmen Declaration offered, particularly in its fifth thesis, the potential for a more generalized political resistance to Nazism, few Protestants went through that door, and even among those who did, there was largely silence about the Jews. Barmen was, she asserts, a theologically articulated foundation for the freedom of the church over against ideological demands, reminding Christians of where their ultimate allegiance should be. Yet such theological clarity, she states, does not necessarily guarantee solidarity with the victims. Thus, in all these respects, even 75 years after it was elaborated, the Barmen Declaration remains a question and a challenge to the church and the worldwide ecumenical community.

Dr Stephen Brown

Dr Fernando Enns

A note from the editor

Like the World Council of Churches, The Ecumenical Review observed its 60th anniversary in recent months. Soon after the Amsterdam assembly, where the WCC was inaugurated in August of 1948, "ER" made its appearance. World Council general secretary Willem A. Visser 't Hooft served as editor; his introductory column began with the assertion, "This Review is not an end in itself."

The purpose of ER, Visser 't Hooft explained, was to foster "ecumenical conversation", not primarily among individuals but between churches. He appealed to readers:

 We therefore ask our readers not merely to tolerate but to welcome
 uncompromising frankness of speech, even if at first reading it may
 hurt. Churches cannot afford to deal with each other on any lower
 plane than on the plane of truth. How then can we ever hope to come
 closer to each other, if we do not say to each other openly what we
 really believe?

He observed that the pages of this publication would inevitably reflect both the strengths and the weaknesses of Christians' quest for church unity, for "The ecumenical movement is not a finished product and should not be judged as such." Over the decades, ER's editors, staff, partners as well as layout and production details have changed from time to time. The foundational vision continues to be honoured.

As explained in our guest editorial, the making of this tribute to the Barmen synod's 75th anniversary has profited from collaboration with the journal Okumenische Rundschau, which is to offer a parallel edition in German. We are grateful to coeditors Fernando Enns and Stephen Brown, and to the supervising board of Okumenische Rundschau, for their committed cooperation throughout the production process.

This volume of The Ecumenical Review also marks the beginning of a co-publishing relationship with Wiley-Blackwell of Oxford, England. In recognition of Wiley-Blackwell's tradition of academic excellence and the importance of scholarship to the ecumenical conversation, several articles in each issue of ER henceforth will be peer-reviewed by theologians or experts in related disciplines. Remaining true to the purpose for which ER was conceived, other material in ER will feature contributions from grassroots practitioners of ecumenism as well as officials and other members of the churches.

We welcome readers' comments on ER, particularly given the innovations you will find in this issue. Please do not hesitate to contact us, as both criticism and affirmation are intrinsic to continuing the ecumenical conversation.

Theodore A. Gill, Jr.

Editor

Theodore A. GILL, Jr.

Deputy Editor

Jane STRANZ

Book Review Editor

Simon OXLEY

Production Manager

Lindsay Ann COX

Guest Editors

Stephen BROWN

and Fernando ENNS

NOTES

(1) The text of the Barmen declaration can be found in: The Declaration, Resolutions, and Motions adopted by the synod of Barmen, May 29-31, 1934. In: A. C. Cochrane (1957) The church's confession under Hitler, Appendix VII, pp.237-247. The Westminster Press, Philadelphia. See also Theological Declaration of Barmen. [WWW document] URL http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/barmen.htm [accessed on 12 December 2008]

Stephen Brown is managing editor of Ecumenical News International.

Fernando Enns is a lecturer in peace theology at the University of Hamburg and a co-editor of Okumenische Rundschau.