status confessionis barth and bonhoeffer

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The Aryan clause, the Confessing Church, and the ecumenicalmovement: Barth and Bonhoeffer on natural theology, 1933–1935

Jordan J. Ballor

Scottish Journal of Theology / Volume 59 / Issue 03 / August 2006, pp 263 - 280DOI: 10.1017/S0036930606002262, Published online: 25 July 2006

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0036930606002262

How to cite this article:Jordan J. Ballor (2006). The Aryan clause, the Confessing Church, and theecumenical movement: Barth and Bonhoeffer on natural theology, 1933–1935.Scottish Journal of Theology, 59, pp 263-280 doi:10.1017/S0036930606002262

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SJT 59(3): 263–280 (2006) Printed in the United Kingdom C© 2006 Scottish Journal of Theology Ltddoi:10.1017/S0036930606002262

The Aryan clause, the Confessing Church, and theecumenical movement: Barth and Bonhoeffer onnatural theology, 1933–1935

Jordan J. BallorJournal of Markets & Morality, (161 Ottawa NW Suite 301), Grand Rapids, MI 49503, USA

[email protected]

AbstractIn this article I argue that the essential relationship between Dietrich Bonhoefferand Karl Barth stands in need of reassessment. This argument is based on a surveyof literature dealing with Bonhoeffer and Barth in three basic areas between thecritically important years of 1933 and 1935. These three areas come into sharprelief given the political background of the German Christian victory in the churchelections of 1933. Their respective positions, both theological and political, onthe Aryan clause differ greatly. For Bonhoeffer, the imposition of the Aryan clauseon the German churches represented a clear status confessionis, and Bonhoefferfavoured a very public schism. For Barth, while the Aryan clause was certainlytroublesome, it was deemed better to wait for a ‘more central’ point, namely, thatof the question of natural theology. Barth’s emphasis on the importance of thequestion of natural theology carries over in his position regarding the significanceand role of both the Confessing Church and the ecumenical movement. We seethat Bonhoeffer explicitly questions the validity of Barth’s emphasis on naturaltheology with respect to the Confessing Church and to the ecumenical movement.While many scholars have argued for the basic agreement between Barth andBonhoeffer, especially on the question of natural theology, a closer examinationof the two in the period 1933–35 calls such conclusions into question.

A critical reassessment of the theological affinities between Karl Barthand Dietrich Bonhoeffer is long overdue. The valid recognition of sharedpolitical opposition to the German Christians, those who favoured closeraffiliation and cooperation with the Nazis, has often been the basis forasserting similar agreement in other areas, including the foundations of theirrespective theological enterprises. But as Bonhoeffer’s biographer EberhardBethge notes, the period roughly beginning in 1933–34 is characterised bynoteworthy ‘theological differences, accompanied by a very close alliance inchurch politics’ between Barth and Bonhoeffer.1

1 Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, trans. Eric Mosbacher et al. (Minneapolis:Fortress Press, 2000), p. 178. The biography of Karl Barth by Eberhard Busch, Karl

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For some, theological similarities or continuities between Barth andBonhoeffer have been overemphasised, skewing or glossing over importantpoints of difference alluded to by Bethge. This has led to a depiction ofBonhoeffer largely as a pupil of Barth and particularly in agreement with hisrejection of natural theology.2 And where the differences between Barth andBonhoeffer have been examined more closely, the critical points of departurehave often been misdiagnosed. For example, John D. Godsey mistakenlyargues that the fundamental point of disagreement concerns ‘their assessmentof liberal theology and how it was to be overcome’.3

This article will highlight important differences between Barth andBonhoeffer manifested in the critical developmental years from 1933 to1935. During these years, Bonhoeffer would leave his teaching post at Berlin,hold the pastorate of two London congregations for eighteen months, andbind himself to the Confessing Church in the emerging church struggle. Atissue for us here is the tracing of the complex relationship between Barthand Bonhoeffer in this period. As Andreas Pangritz notes, ‘On the eve of

Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, trans. John Bowden (Grand Rapids, MI:Eerdmans, 1994) will also be important for the following discussion.

2 For positions arguing or asserting the basic theological agreement between Barth andBonhoeffer, see Charles Marsh, Reclaiming Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1994), p. ix; Shin Chiba, ’Christianity on the Eve of Postmodernity: Karl Barthand Dietrich Bonhoeffer’, in Christian Ethics in Ecumenical Context: Theology, Culture, and Politics inDialogue, ed. Shin Chiba, George R. Hunsberger and Lester Edwin J. Ruiz (Grand Rapids,MI: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 192; Martin Rumscheidt, ‘The Formation of Bonhoeffer’sTheology’, in The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. John W. de Gruchy (NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 65; Clifford J. Green, Bonhoeffer: A Theology ofSociality (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 239; and Stanley Hauerwas, Performingthe Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2004). Formore specific depictions of Bonhoeffer in essential agreement with Barth’s rejectionof natural theology, see Benkt-Erik Benktson, Christus und die Religion: Der Religionsbegriff beiBarth, Bonhoeffer und Tillich, trans. (from the Swedish) Christa Maria Lyckhage and ErikaGoldbach (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1967); Rainer Mayer, Christuswirklichkeit: Grundlage,Entwicklung und Konsequenzen der Theologie Dietrich Bonhoeffers (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1969);John W. de Gruchy, ‘Editor’s Introduction to the English Edition’, in Creation and Fall:A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1–3, trans. Douglas S. Bax, vol. 3, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), pp. 11–12; Martin Ruter and Ilse Todt, ‘Editor’sAfterword to the German Edition’, in Creation and Fall, pp. 170–1; and Green, Bonhoeffer:A Theology of Sociality, p. 203. For important dissenting depictions of the relationshipbetween Barth and Bonhoeffer, see William F. Connor, ‘The Natural Life of Manand Its Laws: Conscience and Reason in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’, (PhDdissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1973) and Robin W. Lovin, Christian Faith and PublicChoices (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984).

3 John D. Godsey, ‘Barth and Bonhoeffer: The Basic Difference’, Quarterly Review 7, no. 1(Spring 1987), p. 18.

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The Aryan clause, the Confessing Church, and the ecumenical movement

political power being handed over to the Nazis, the fronts are already clearlydemarcated; in spite of Bonhoeffer’s ethical criticism of Barth, Bonhoefferstands unambiguously on Barth’s side.’4 By this, Pangritz is pointing to thesolidarity between Barth and Bonhoeffer in their opposition to the GermanChristians and Hitler’s assimilation of the German state church.5

Nevertheless, there are critical points of dispute and tensions whicharise between the two men in this period, ones which cannot simply beignored by pointing to the broad, general agreement in opposing the GermanChristians. This article will trace the positions of Barth and Bonhoeffer onthree key points of difference: the Aryan clause, the Confessing Churchand the ecumenical movement. We will see that on each of these points,Barth emphasises the importance of the ‘No!’6 to natural theology, whileBonhoeffer differs, sometimes explicitly, from such an understanding. Ofkey import for determining the extent of Bonhoeffer’s and Barth’s accord isthe Barmen Declaration of the Confessing Church, of which Barth was theprimary author and to which Bonhoeffer constantly called the ConfessingChurch to remain loyal.

Moreover, the Confessing Church’s relationship to the broader ecumenicalworld is of great interest. Given the jaundiced view with which the politicalstructure in Germany saw the rest of the world, the international character ofthe ecumenical efforts cast suspicion on the Confessing Church’s designs toappeal to the worldwide church for support. It is especially with the Germanecclesiastical situation in view that we must appreciate the increase andrising primacy of Bonhoeffer’s ecumenical activities during these years. Wewill see that although Barth and Bonhoeffer agree broadly about the centralimportance of Barmen and the relationship of the Confessing Church to theinternational Protestant community, their approaches differ significantly.

It is in their particular views of the Barmen Declaration that the relationshipbetween Barth and Bonhoeffer comes to a head. For Pangritz, their mutual

4 Andreas Pangritz, Karl Barth in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, trans. Barbara and MartinRumscheidt (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 47.

5 For more specific observations about Barth’s political opposition to the GermanChristians, see James Barr, Biblical Faith and Natural Theology: The Gifford Lectures for 1991 Deliveredin the University of Edinburgh (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). For general conclusionsabout the extent of and motives behind such opposition, see Eric Voegelin, Hitler andthe Germans, trans. Detlev Clemens and Brendan Purcell, The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin,,vol. 31 (London: University of Missouri Press, 1999).

6 Karl Barth, No! Answer to Emil Brunner, in Natural Theology, trans. Peter Fraenkel (London:Geoffrey Bles, 1946), pp. 65–128. Also important for comparison will be EmilBrunner, Nature and Grace, in Natural Theology, trans. Peter Fraenkel (London: GeoffreyBles, 1946), pp. 15–64.

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adherence to the declaration points to ‘a problematic internal to Barth’sand Bonhoeffer’s theology that is related to the political significance andthe societal meaning of the “christological concentration” as expressed inexemplary fashion in the first thesis of the Barmen Declaration’.7 However, ifwe note the broader implications of Bonhoeffer’s Christology as ‘logology’,8

we might begin to see Bonhoeffer’s initial attempts to reconceive Barth’schristocentric focus.

An illuminating context for the examination of the Barmen Declarationin particular and the Confessing Church in general is the question of the so-called ‘Aryan clause’.9 It is in their disagreements about the necessary reactionto the imposition of this requirement on the German church that we see asubstantive split between Barth and Bonhoeffer. We will then move from an

7 Pangritz, Karl Barth in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 3. The first thesis of the BarmenDeclaration reads, ‘Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the oneWord of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in lifeand in death. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and wouldhave to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this oneWord of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God’s revelation’(8:11–8:12), in Arthur C. Cochrane, The Church’s Confession under Hitler (Philadelphia, PA:Westminster Press, 1962), pp. 239.

8 See Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, and Christ the Center, trans. Edwin H. Robertson (NewYork: Harper & Row, 1978). These two texts, when read together, provide a deeperunderstanding of Bonhoeffer’s Christology and its relevance for natural theology,rooted in Christ as ‘logos’ in John 1:1. See my ‘Christ in Creation: Bonhoeffer’sPreservation Theology’, Journal of Religion 86:1(2006), pp. 13–17.

9 Bonhoeffer, ‘The Church and the Jewish Question’, in No Rusty Swords: Letters, Lecturesand Notes, 1928–1936, ed. Edwin H. Robertson, trans. Edwin H. Robertson and JohnBowden, vol. 1 of Collected Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Harper & Row,1965), pp. 221–9. Paragraph 3, section 1 of the ‘Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung desBerufsbeamtentums. 7. April 1933’, reads ‘Beamte, die nicht arischer Abstammungsind, sind in den Ruhestand (§§ 8ff.) zu versetzen; soweit es sich um Ehrenbeamtehandelt, sind sie aus dem Amtsverhaltnis zu entlassen’, Reichsgesetzblatt 1, no. 34(7 April 1933), p. 175; quoted in Carsten Nicolaisen (comp.), Dokumente zur Kirchenpolitikdes Dritten Reiches, vol. 1, Das Jahr 1933, ed. Georg Kretschmar, (Munich: C. Kaiser, 1971),p. 35. The third thesis of the Deutsche Christen party, contained in ‘The Twenty-Eight Theses of the Saxon National Church for the internal strengthening of theGerman Evangelical Church’, is as follows: ‘The National Church commits itself to thedoctrines of blood and race because our people share a common blood and a commonexistence. Therefore, a member of the National Church can only be such a person who,according to the law of the State, is also a people’s comrade (Volkesgenosse). An officialof the National Church can only be such a person, who according to the law of theState, is fit to be a civil servant. (The so-called Aryan paragraph)’, Joachim Beckmann(ed.), Kirchliches Jahrbuch fur die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland 1933–1944 (Gutersloh: C.Bertelsmann, 1948), pp. 30–2; quoted and trans. in J. S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution ofthe Churches 1933–45 (New York: Basic Books, 1968), pp. 353–4.

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examination of Barth and Bonhoeffer on the Aryan clause to their positionsregarding the Confessing Church (illuminated by the Barmen Declaration).10

The third section will be a survey of the two men on the importance of theecumenical movement,11 and the article will conclude with an assessmentof the relationship between natural theology and the church in light of thepreceding discussion.

The Aryan clauseThe latter half of 1933 marked the escalation of the Nazi regime into therealm of church politics. The status of the German church as a state churchput ecclesiastical leaders in precarious positions. Church pastors and academytheologians alike were civil employees, under the pay and auspices of thegovernment. The special implications of this come to the fore in the case ofthe ‘Aryan clause’, a governmental requirement excluding non-Aryans fromcivil service, including ministry.

Early on, Bonhoeffer had decided what the reaction to this impositionmust be. Bethge notes that ‘by August 1933 Bonhoeffer had concludedbeyond doubt that there could be no question of belonging to a churchthat excluded the Jews’.12 Bonhoeffer and his friend Franz Hildebrandt,who was personally affected by the exclusion order, were convinced thatthe acquiescence of the church to the Aryan clause would usher in a statusconfessionis, which should be followed by vociferous and public schism. In thisway, ‘Bonhoeffer and Hildebrandt insisted that an immediate exodus wouldnot only be more theologically consistent but more strategically successfulthan a delay’.13 But when Bonhoeffer and Hildebrandt looked for supportfor this viewpoint, they were met with little sympathy.

The church election in July 1933 had been a huge victory for the GermanChristians, and this party was now in an unquestioningly dominant positionand seeking to impose the Nazi agenda on the church. Bonhoeffer lookedto Barth for support, and the two exchanged a flurry of correspondenceon the matter. In September, Bonhoeffer initiates the contact on this topic,seeking guidance. He begins, ‘In your booklet you said that where a churchadopted the Aryan Clauses it would cease to be a Christian church . . . Now

10 Sources for this discussion will include Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. G. W. Bromileyand T. F. Torrance, trans. G. T. Thomson, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956–77), hereinafter CD, and Bonhoeffer, ‘The Leader and the Individual in the YoungerGeneration’, in No Rusty Swords, pp. 190–204.

11 Bonhoeffer, ‘The Confessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement’, in No Rusty Swords,pp. 326–44.

12 Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, p. 273.13 Ibid., p. 308.

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the expected has happened, and I am therefore asking you . . . to let us knowwhether you feel that it is possible either to remain in a church which hasceased to be a Christian church or to continue to exercise a ministry whichhas become a privilege for Aryans.’14 Bonhoeffer continues, ‘When is thereany possibility of leaving the church? There can be no doubt at all that thestatus confessionis has arrived; what we are by no means clear about is howthe confessio is most appropriately expressed today.’15 Bonhoeffer favours thepossibility of open schism, but is seeking to enlist the aid of the influentialand elder Barth.

In his immediate reply, Barth also does not doubt that the status confessionishas been reached, as he writes, ‘I too am of the opinion that there isa status confessionis.’16 At the same time, Barth says that other than publicdenouncement of the Aryan clause, ‘I am for waiting. When the breachcomes, it must come from the other side.’17 Despite the gravity of thesituation, ‘it could then well be that the encounter might take place at a stillmore central point’.18 Barth is of the opinion that the best course of actionis to stay in the German church and to call it to repentance from within.Busch writes, ‘Barth pleaded that people should stay in, so long as they werenot simply excluded. However, they should take the line that “to collaboratenow means to protest”. Above all, he warned against mere church-politicaltactics: “We must be men who believe, first and last. That – and nothingelse”.’19 This response is a great disappointment to Bonhoeffer, as Bethgeobserves: ‘Even like-minded theologians such as Karl Barth and HermannSasse decided to wait for even “worse” heresies than the “racial conformity”of the Civil Service Law.’20

In his reflection on the situation, Eric Voegelin, after noting thatBonhoeffer is one of the few young church leaders to take a radical standagainst the Aryan clause, sees that the majority of the church in Germany isslow to act. He writes, ‘So here you have this pattern of social behavior. Aslong as the neighbor gets it in the neck, we all happily join in, but as soonas our own turn comes, then there is resistance. But by that time it is a bittoo late, and naturally the basic rules of humanity were not available when

14 Letter to Barth (9 September 1933), in No Rusty Swords, p. 230.15 Ibid., p. 231.16 Letter to Bonhoeffer (11 September 1933), in No Rusty Swords, p. 231.17 Ibid., p. 232.18 Ibid.19 Busch, Karl Barth, p. 231, quoting Wilhelm Niemoller, Wort und Tat im Kirchenkampf

(Munich: C. Kaiser, 1969), pp. 70–1.20 Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, p. 325.

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the other was being massacred.’21 Later he writes that Bonhoeffer is oneof the ‘genuine victims of resistance; but what is usually called resistanceis a resistance apropos of the threat to people’s own social, material orinstitutional interests’.22

For Barth, even though he concurred with Bonhoeffer’s expression thatthe Aryan clause brought about a status confessionis, it apparently was notthe full status confessionis or did not have the binding character that laterdevelopments would. When his position as professor at Bonn was threatenedby a requirement to sign a pledge of loyalty to Hitler, matters were construedsomewhat differently. Barth writes in a letter reflecting on these events, ‘Fromthe very first moment that I heard in Switzerland that this oath was beingrequired, it was quite clear to me that when the request reached me I wouldbe put in the status confessionis as specifically and as appropriately as could be.’23

The quarrel over the oath would be one of the major instrumental causesresulting in Barth’s retreat from Germany to Switzerland in 1935.

Earlier in April of 1933, Bonhoeffer had already directly addressed theissue in an article entitled ‘The Church and the Jewish Question’. After settingup the questions that ‘can only be answered in the light of a true conceptof the church’,24 Bonhoeffer lays out the ‘three possible ways in which thechurch can act towards the state’.25 The first of these is to ‘ask the statewhether its actions are legitimate and in accordance with the character ofthe state’.26 By this Bonhoeffer means that the church should propheticallycriticise the state and attempt to call it back to its proper role and function. Inthe second place, Bonhoeffer writes that the church is to ‘aid the victims ofstate action. The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of anyordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community.’27

The third option is the most radical and the option whose validity is mostrare. It points forward to Bonhoeffer’s activities towards the end of his life.He writes, ‘The third possibility is not just to bandage the victims under thewheel but to put a spoke in the wheel itself. Such action would be direct

21 Eric Voegelin, Hitler and the Germans, p. 165.22 Ibid., p. 174.23 Letter to H. von Soden (5 December 1934) and Briefweschsel Karl Barth-Rudolf Bultmann

1922–1966 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1971), pp. 266ff; quoted in Busch, KarlBarth, p. 255.

24 Bonhoeffer, ‘The Church and the Jewish Question’, in No Rusty Swords, p. 222.25 Ibid., p. 225. See also Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, pp. 274–5.26 Bonhoeffer, ‘The Church and the Jewish Question’, in No Rusty Swords, p. 225.27 Ibid., p. 225.

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political action, and is only possible and desirable when the church sees thestate fail in its function of creating law and order.’28

At the time he wrote this article in April, Bonhoeffer finds the first two asthe only viable options with regard to the specific issue at hand, the Jewishquestion. The third option only is available when the state engaged ‘in theforced exclusion of baptised Jews from our Christian congregations or inthe prohibition of our mission to the Jews. Here the Christian church wouldfind itself in statu confessionis and here the state would be in the act of negatingitself.’29 It is not much later, however, before such a state of affairs becomesmanifest, as the state imposes the Aryan clause on the church. It is at thispoint that Bonhoeffer seeks the aid of Barth, because Bonhoeffer finds thatthe third option can only ‘be decided at any time by an “Evangelical Council”and cannot therefore ever be casuistically decided beforehand’.30

The disagreement on the wisdom of public schism was to have importantconsequences. Bonhoeffer accepted an offer to pastor two congregations,one Lutheran and one Reformed, in London. He did not seek Barth’s adviceon this manoeuvre, possibly because he knew Barth would counsel against it.While Bonhoeffer was away in London, Barth began to have troubles of hisown, as his refusal to resign membership in the Social Democratic party ledto increased criticism of his position at Bonn. During his travels throughoutGermany at this time, Barth ran up against Bonhoeffer’s absence. Buschwrites, ‘To his regret, in Berlin Barth missed meeting Dietrich Bonhoeffer, forwhose clear-sightedness he had such a high regard. Bonhoeffer had retreatedto a pastorate in London for eighteen months.’31 What Barth viewed as aretreat, Bonhoeffer felt was perhaps the only way of publicly acknowledgingthe importance of the Aryan clause and remaining loyal to his family andfriends, like his brother-in-law Gerhard Liebholz and Hildebrandt, who weredirectly impacted by such laws.

The Confessing ChurchWhat might most often be viewed as the point of Barth and Bonhoeffer’smost considerable and explicit agreement (their opposition to the GermanChristians) is complicated by the split between Barth and Bonhoeffer on thereaction to the Jewish question and the Aryan clause. To be sure, Bonhoefferwas a staunch proponent of the Barmen Declaration and its ratification atDahlem. Nevertheless, there seems to be a disconnection between Barth’s

28 Ibid., p. 225.29 Ibid., p. 225.30 Ibid., p. 226.31 Busch, Karl Barth, p. 233.

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view of his own confession and the view of it taken on by most other people,including Bonhoeffer.

The central point for Barth in his response to Brunner in 1934 was avery clear and comprehensive rejection of natural theology. So too was thisrejection the defining characteristic for Barth of the Barmen Declaration.Thus, when Pangritz makes reference to the importance of the first article ofthe Barmen Declaration and its significance for Barth’s rejection of naturaltheology, he is not mistaken.32

With a view of the controlling power of Barth’s rejection of naturaltheology for his view of the church struggle, Busch observes that ‘in the veryfirst days of the Third Reich Barth gave a lecture on “The First Commandmentas a Theological Axiom”, the theme of which unmistakably defined what hebelieved to be the basic situation facing the church and theology’.33 In thislecture from March 1933, Barth:

detected a danger of having ‘other gods’ than God in every theologicalattempt to connect ‘the concept of revelation with other authorities whichfor some reason are thought to be important’ (like human ‘existence’,‘order’, ‘state’, ‘people’ and so on) ‘by means of the momentous littleword “and”’. And he challenged Christians at last to say farewell ‘to alland every kind of natural theology, and to dare to trust only in the Godwho has revealed himself in Jesus Christ’.34

As we will see, Barth tends to find the central issue at stake in the churchstruggle to be a rejection of natural theology. This will be apparent again laterin the discussion of the Confessing Church’s relationship to the ecumenicalworld. At this point, however, we might have some hint of what Barth mighthave meant by a ‘more central point’ in his counsel to Bonhoeffer concerningthe Aryan clause (other than when his own academic position is threatened).

The centrality of the rejection of natural theology not only comes toexpression in Barth’s lecture on the First Commandment and in his replyto Brunner, but also follows in his understanding of the significance ofthe Barmen Declaration. As Busch writes, ‘For Barth, all possibilities ofresistance in the church struggle depended on this clear no.’35 Busch detailsthe relevance of the Barmen Declaration with regard to natural theology forBarth. He writes, ‘the text of the Barmen Declaration was important for Barth

32 Pangritz, Karl Barth in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 3. Cf. n. 2 above.33 Busch, Karl Barth, p. 224.34 Ibid., p. 224, quoting Theologische Fragen und Andworten (Zurich: Evangelischer Verlag,

1957) (collected articles), pp. 138, 143.35 Busch, Karl Barth, p. 241.

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“because it is the first evidence of the preoccupation of the Evangelical Churchwith the problem of natural theology on the basis of the confessions”.’36 Sotoo did the declaration centre on:

Jesus Christ, as he is witnessed to us in holy scripture, the one Word ofGod whom we have to trust and obey in life and death. It rejected as falseteaching the doctrine that there could be a different source of churchproclamation from this one Word of God and (in the closing sentenceof the Declaration) stated that to recognize the truth and to repudiatethe error was ‘the indispensable theological foundation of the GermanEvangelical Church’.37

In a very concrete and important way, then, Barth saw the Barmen Declarationas a sort of confessional companion piece or expression of his position contraBrunner.38 And it is on this point that he ventures further than Bonhoefferin his understanding of the declaration. For Barth, the declaration, ‘takenseriously, contained in itself a purifying of the Church not only from theconcretely new point at issue but from all natural theology’.39

In a broadcast immediately following Hitler’s election as GermanChancellor on 30 January 1933, Bonhoeffer examined the ‘Leadershipprinciple’. The broadcast was cut short by the authorities before itscompletion, but Bonhoeffer lectured again on this topic later in March. Inthis critique of the secularised ‘Leadership principle’, Bonhoeffer’s argumentdoes not reject all ideas of ‘order’ or ‘state’ as does Barth. In the concludingsections of the work, Bonhoeffer explicitly measures the idea of Leaderagainst these institutions and orders.

Indeed, it seems as if Bonhoeffer finds at least provisional value in arguingfrom some kind of worldly order, as he writes, ‘The Leader must lead hisfollowers towards a responsibility to the orders of life, a responsibility tofather, teacher, judge, state. He must radically refuse to become the appeal,the idol, i.e. the ultimate authority of those whom he leads.’40 Of course,we must remember that when Bonhoeffer references what he calls here‘orders of life’, he means what are called earlier in his Genesis lectures‘orders of preservation’.41 These orders are not ultimate or independent,

36 Busch, Karl Barth, quoting CD II/1, pp. 172ff (his translation).37 Ibid.38 Barth makes explicit reference to the German Christians five times in his angry reply

to Brunner.39 Barth, CD II/1, p. 175.40 Bonhoeffer, ‘The Leader and the Individual in the Younger Generation’, in No Rusty

Swords, p. 202.41 See, for example, Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall, p. 139.

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but have value penultimately and dependently on Christ. Nevertheless, theyare valid for critique of secular ideas of order, such as are expressed inthe ‘Leadership principle’ or in the Nazi doctrine of ‘blood and soil’. ForBonhoeffer, at issue much more here is the proper circumspection of theseorders rather than a total rejection of all ‘order’ language. Bethge observesthat ‘it would be a misinterpretation, however, to see his argument as basedupon liberal, democratic ideas. It emerged from a conservative notion oforder that continued to influence him, despite his thinking that was evolvingduring that same period about the breaking up of “penultimate” (as opposedto the “ultimate”) orders.’42

Thus, Bonhoeffer contends, ‘the Leader must know that he is most deeplycommitted to his followers, most heavily laden with responsibility towardsthe orders of life, in fact quite simply a servant’.43 Indeed, it is the Leader’srelation and orientation towards the various penultimate and ultimate ordersthat defines his validity. In this way, ‘Leaders or offices which set themselvesup as gods mock God and the individual who stands alone before him,and must perish. Only the Leader who himself serves the penultimate andthe ultimate authority can find faithfulness.’44 Here we see a depiction ofwhat an ordering which has closed itself off to Christ might look like, theinstitutionalisation of the individual sicut deus. And we see too the hints ofjust why Bonhoeffer might later seek to ‘put a spoke in the wheel’ of suchan institution.

A situation that arose later during Bonhoeffer’s time at Finkenwalde thatis related by Bethge will shed some more light on Bonhoeffer’s particularviews of the Confessing Church’s declarations. Bethge writes of Bonhoeffer:‘When his students came out with the cliche that liberal Christians endedwith the German Christians and orthodox or positive Christians movedtoward the Confessing church because this was the logical outcome of theirtheologies, he objected not only that this was factually untrue but that thecomponents of the decision being made did not revolve around theology.’45

This discussion arose within the context of the examination of the SmalcaldArticles in particular and the relation between declarations of the church andtheologies of individual persons. Bethge writes of Bonhoeffer, ‘In discussingthe question of church schism, he emphasised that the reformers hadconfined themselves exclusively here to the Article of Justification as the

42 Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, pp. 259–60.43 Bonhoeffer, ‘The Leader and the Individual in the Younger Generation’, in No Rusty

Swords, pp. 202–3.44 Ibid., p. 204.45 Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, p. 448.

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grounds for disagreement, and he emphasised the exemplary unity thatexisted with Catholics in the other articles.’46 This emphasis is striking forBonhoeffer’s students, as they were inclined to see the primacy of the Barthiantheological emphasis behind Barmen.

The recognition of the broader continuities between the reformers and theCatholics is important, and is found in that ‘the ordinands were impressedwhen Bonhoeffer, a consistent and unwavering proponent of Barmen andDahlem, drew their attention to this point and advised them to remainmoderate here. Their theological education had led them to see a differentspirit at work, rooted in the old schism, that could be detected in each of thearticles.’47 Instead of using an interpretive approach which defines Barmenas a prolonged and constant polemic against Catholicism, the ordinands‘were being instructed by someone with a keen awareness of the differentspirit behind all the present-day pronouncements; he taught them that therewas a great distinction between the church’s theologies and the decisions itmade’.48

The students’ confusion is rooted in Barth’s identification of naturaltheology with Catholicism and neo-Protestantism. It is at this point thatGodsey’s distinction between Barth and Bonhoeffer on the questions ofnatural theology and liberalism is incorrect. Recall from earlier that Godseyholds that the difference between Barth and Bonhoeffer is not to be found inany disagreement between natural theology but rather in their appropriationof and reaction to liberal theology.49 Pangritz finds Godsey’s depiction to be‘in danger of bringing about precisely what he seeks to avoid, namely, thatBarth and Bonhoeffer are played off against each other’.50 An approach thatpits the two against each other is inadequate for Pangritz, who is much moreinclined to minimise their respective differences.

Nevertheless, Godsey’s framing of the difference is problematic, andultimately untenable, because for Barth natural theology is so fundamentalto both liberal Protestant theology and Catholic theology, while Bonhoefferdenies such an essential relationship. The ‘basic’ difference between Barthand Bonhoeffer cannot be their attitudes towards liberal theology, preciselybecause these attitudes are indicative of more basic theological commitments.For Barth, his rejection of liberal theology is based on his more fundamentalrejection of natural theology.

46 Ibid., p. 447.47 Ibid., p. 447.48 Ibid.49 Godsey, ‘Basic Difference’, p. 24.50 Pangritz, Karl Barth in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 13.

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In his angry reply to Brunner, Barth remarks that Brunner ‘has enteredupon the downward path in Nature and Grace more obviously than in anyprevious pronouncement . . . I am no longer able to distinguish himfundamentally from a Thomist or Neo-Protestant.’51 It is their commonbasis in natural theology that is the unifying factor in Barth’s rejection ofboth Catholicism and liberal theology. In this vein he writes, ‘The Reformersdid not perceive the extent to which even Augustine, to whom they were sofond of appealing, has to be regarded as a Roman Catholic theologian, andthe reserve with which he has therefore to be taken.’52 In the preface to hisChurch Dogmatics, Barth identifies the Roman Catholic doctrine of the analogiaentis with liberal theology, ‘the line which leads from Schleiermacher by wayof Ritschl to Hermann’ with ‘the analogia entis which is legitimate only on thebasis of Roman Catholicism’.53 And here too, Barth views ‘the analogia entis asthe invention of Antichrist’.54

Bonhoeffer’s careful leading of his ordinands through the Smalcald Articlesand his comments about the nature of the relationship between churchdecisions and the positions of an individual theologian pivot here on Barth’sconflation of natural theology, liberal theology and Catholic theology. Aswill be noted below, Bonhoeffer states that the Confessing Church does notconfess against Rome, despite whatever intentions Barth may have had tothat end. As Bonhoeffer writes in August 1935, ‘For the Confessing Church,Anti-Christ sits not in Rome, nor even in Geneva, but in the government ofthe National Church in Berlin.’55

The ecumenical movementThe difference in view of the significance of the Barmen Declarationand the Confessing Church in general plays into the respective viewsof the relationship between the Confessing Church and the ecumenicalworld. Here, as in his understanding of Barmen, Barth takes his point ofdeparture on the question of natural theology. By contrast, Bonhoeffer hasdifferent ecclesiological concerns, being much more concerned with issuesof discipleship and church community.

We get a glimpse of the pervasive importance of the answer to naturaltheology for Barth in a conversation that took place in October 1933. Busch

51 Barth, No!, p. 90.52 Ibid., p. 101.53 Barth, CD I/1, p. xiii.54 Ibid.55 Bonhoeffer, ‘The Confessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement’, in No Rusty Swords,

p. 338.

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relates that ‘in a conversation with the American churchman and ecumenistCharles Macfarland, who had an audience with the Fuhrer immediatelyafterwards, Barth emphasised that the Anglo-Saxon church should nowsupport the Confessing Church in one way and only in one way, by showingtheological solidarity with its struggle against natural theology’.56 The relationof the Barmen Declaration to the Confessing Church and the relation of theConfessing Church to the broader ecumenical world both revolved aroundBarth’s ‘No!’ to natural theology.

Since in general the ecumenical movement was not to understand itsrelationship to the Confessing Church along this line, Barth reflects in 1935that ‘all in all . . . for the moment this ecumenical business hasn’t mademuch of an impression on me’.57 Indeed, Busch relates that in lecturesdelivered in Basel, Barth ‘used the occasion to formulate his view of theecumenical problem’. The ‘thesis’ that Barth expounds is strikingly similarto the language of the first article of the Barmen Declaration. His thesis is that‘the question of the unity of the church must be identical with the questionof Jesus Christ as the specific head and Lord of the church . . . Jesus Christ, asone mediator between God and man, is himself church unity, that unity inwhich there may indeed be multiplicity of congregations, gifts, and personsin the church, but which rules out a multiplicity of churches’.58 Here we seeBarth’s rejection of natural theology related specifically to his ecclesiology.Thus, in his reply to Brunner, Barth concludes regarding natural theology,‘Only the theology and the church of the antichrist can profit from it. TheEvangelical Church and Evangelical theology would only sicken and die ofit.’59

Bonhoeffer, on the other hand, views the relationship between theecumenical movement and the Confessing Church in a very differentway. This is not surprising given both his greater involvement with themovement and his diverging understanding of the significance of the BarmenDeclaration. In his enormously important paper from August 1935, ‘TheConfessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement’, Bonhoeffer lays out twoessential questions. The first is put to the ecumenical movement by theConfessing Church, and the second is reciprocated to the Confessing Churchby the ecumenical movement. Neither question centres around the question

56 Busch, Karl Barth, p. 231.57 Letters to E. Wolf (30 July 1935) and to Nelly Barth (1 August 1935); quoted in

Busch, Karl Barth, p. 264.58 Theologische Fragen und Andworten, pp. 217, 225; quoted in Busch, Karl Barth, p. 264.59 Barth, No!, p. 128.

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of natural theology that is so essential, albeit in different ways, both to Barthand to Brunner.

The first question brought to the ecumenical movement by the ConfessingChurch is whether or not the ecumenical movement is a church. ForBonhoeffer, the identification of a church centres on a confession, and thisis the unique perspective from which the Confessing Church questions theecumenical movement. For ‘the Confessing Church is the church whichwould be exclusively governed in all its totality by the confession. It isfundamentally impossible to enter into conversation with this church at anypoint without immediately raising the question of the confession.’60 Becauseit defines its entire existence in terms of the confession, the ConfessingChurch finds a unique position representing ‘vicariously for all Christianity,particularly western Christianity’61 in the church struggle.

Since ‘there can only be a church as a Confessing Church, i.e. as a churchwhich confesses itself to be for its Lord and against his enemies’,62 the unityachieved in the ecumenical movement must be on the basis of the truth ofthe confession. For ‘the question of the truth is none other than the questionof the confession in its positive and limiting sense, the question of theconfitemur and the damnamus’.63 The relevance of this becomes clear as we findthat the confession is always a confession that addresses a specific issue oropponent. The question of the truth does not prohibit the unity of differentdenominations because of disagreements over particular doctrines. The unityof the Confessing Church lies in its transcendence to truth questions beyondthose that divide Reformed and Lutheran. This is because ‘the ConfessingChurch does not confess in abstracto; it does not confess against Anglicansor Free-churchmen, it does not even confess at this moment against Rome;still less does the Lutheran church today confess against the member of theReformed Church.’64 This way of understanding the confession is describedas ‘living’, which ‘does not mean the putting of one dogmatic thesis upagainst another, but it means a confession in which it is really a matter of lifeor death’.65

And here we come to Bonhoeffer’s explication of the importance of theBarmen Declaration. The Confessing Church ‘confesses in concretissimo against

60 Bonhoeffer, ‘The Confessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement’, in No Rusty Swords,p. 329.

61 Ibid., p. 327.62 Ibid., p. 335.63 Ibid., p. 336.64 Ibid., p. 337.65 Ibid., p. 338.

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the German Christian church and against the neo-pagan divinisation of thecreature; for the Confessing Church, Anti-Christ sits not in Rome, or evenin Geneva, but in the government of the National Church in Berlin.’66 Herewe see the switch in perspective between the situation when Bonhoefferexpounds on the Leadership principle in 1933 and the situation in 1935,when the order of government has been totally closed to the gospel andis seeking its destruction. In Bonhoeffer’s view, the Confessing Church hasentered the stage of the ‘spoke in the wheel’.

Natural theology and the churchPangritz is correct in pointing to the unity between Barth and Bonhoefferin their identification of the danger to the church in the German Christianthreat. Barth sums it up well when he observes, ‘from the beginning theNational Socialist policy on religion and the church could only be aimed atthe eradication of Christian belief and its expression’.67 Bonhoeffer concursin his identification of the National Church government with the Antichrist.

But it is at this point that Bonhoeffer departs from Barth. For Barth, theAryan clause, the significance of Barmen and the identity of the ConfessingChurch, and the relevance of the ecumenical movement are focused onhis rejection of natural theology. James Barr characterises Barth’s positionthis way: ‘Start along the line of natural theology, he thought, and sooneror later you will end up with something like the “German Christian” (DC)movement. The DC ideas that nation or race or culture were in-built structuresof humanity and that religion must accommodate itself to them were, as Barthsaw it, the logical result of the long compromise with natural theology.’68

The occasion for the rise of Barth’s rejection of natural theology was political,as ‘it was thus the rise of German totalitarianism, whether rightly interpretedor not, that brought the issue of natural theology into an absolutely centralposition. It was not surprising, therefore, that the Barmen Declaration, whichexpressed the dissent of the Confessing Church, was framed in terms entirelyBarthian’.69

The differences between Barth and Bonhoeffer on the Aryan clause, themission of the Confessing Church, and the usefulness of the ecumenicalmovement make any facile conclusion about the agreement between the

66 Ibid., pp. 337–8.67 Eine Schweizer Stimme (Zurich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1945) (political talks and writings,

1938–45), p. 258; quoted in Busch, Karl Barth, p. 223.68 Barr, Biblical Faith and Natural Theology, pp. 10–11.69 Ibid., p. 11.

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two, especially on matters of natural theology, unwise. Certainly the closealignment of Barth’s and Bonhoeffer’s political opposition to Hitler andthe German Christians should not be an occasion to downplay points ofdisagreement in their respective theologies.

Bonhoeffer is no less politically opposed to the German Christians thanBarth, but, as seen in his explication concerning the Leadership principle,he does not simply identify the problem with the use of any argumentfrom ‘order’, ‘state’ or ‘office’. Bonhoeffer sees that such an argument is oneweapon against the corruption of natural theology present in the Nazi ‘bloodand soil’ doctrine. Neither, however, is it the only relevant weapon againstthe German Christian heresy. It is here where Bonhoeffer also disagrees withBrunner, who no less than Barth finds the central issue to be that of naturaltheology. Thus, Brunner writes:

a false theology derived from nature is also at the present time threateningthe Church to the point of death. No one has taught us as clearly asKarl Barth that we must here fight with all the passion, strength, andcircumspection that we can muster. But the Church must not be thrownfrom one extreme to the other. In the long run the Church can bear therejection of theologia naturalis as little as its misuse. It is the task of ourtheological generation to find the way back to a true theologia naturalis.70

In general, Bonhoeffer might find some agreement with Brunner on someof these points. Nevertheless, Bonhoeffer construes the central duty of histheological generation in a different way.

In earlier dialogues with Barth, Bonhoeffer had consistently called formore ethical concreteness. He does so between 1933 and 1935 as well.Rather than relying solely on the resuscitation of natural theology, Bonhoefferis concerned with the pure teaching of the Gospel and the correlative call toobedience. He writes, ‘The Confessing Church takes the recognition of theGospel given to it by God through Holy Scripture in the confession of theFathers and given fresh today with infinite seriousness. It has learnt that thistruth alone is its weapon in the struggle for life and death.’71 From its basisin Christ’s presence as the Word of proclamation, the church has been given‘a command and a promise – what is demanded is not our own realisationof our own aims, but obedience. The question has been raised.’72

70 Brunner, Nature and Grace, p. 59.71 Bonhoeffer, ‘The Confessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement’, in No Rusty Swords,

p. 343.72 Ibid., p. 344.

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And so too has the question been raised regarding the theological affinitiesbetween Barth and Bonhoeffer. Given the varied disagreements on theimportant events between 1933 and 1935, we can say that Bonhoeffer did notshare Barth’s view on the fundamental importance of the question of naturaltheology in the matters of the Aryan clause, the Confessing Church and theecumenical movement. Disagreement on these points is reason enough fora closer look at the complex relationship between Dietrich Bonhoeffer andKarl Barth.

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status confessionis barth and bonhoeffer

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