The Confessing Church: Resistance Through Confession

The Barmen Declaration of 1934 called into existence a movement: the Bekennende Kirche, or Confessing Church. Those who signed Barmen and committed to its principles separated themselves from the official Reich Church that had fallen under Nazi control. They organized their own church government, trained their own pastors through underground seminaries (including one led by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Finkenwalde), and sought to preserve the integrity of the Gospel under extreme pressure.

Confession as an Act of the Church

The Confessing Church understood confession not merely as a personal spiritual exercise but as a corporate ecclesial act. To confess Christ as Lord was simultaneously to refuse every other claim to ultimate lordship. Barth and others argued that this was not political resistance in the ordinary sense - it was the church simply being the church. When the church speaks truly of Christ, it cannot avoid a collision with any power that claims what belongs to Christ alone.

Bonhoeffer and the Limits of Barmen

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the most prominent members of the Confessing Church, appreciated Barmen but also criticized what he saw as its limitations. The Declaration addressed the status of the church but said little about the persecution of Jews. Bonhoeffer argued that the church's confession of Christ must lead to solidarity with those who suffer, not merely to institutional self-preservation. His eventual involvement in the conspiracy against Hitler reflected this conviction.

The Inheritance of the Confessing Church

The Confessing Church's legacy is complex. Many of its members accommodated themselves to the regime more than they should have. But its theological witness - that the church confesses Christ as the one Lord and that this confession has structural consequences for the church's life - has influenced ecclesiology around the world. From South Africa's Belhar Confession to contemporary evangelical discussions of cultural captivity, Barmen continues to pose its central question: will the church confess Christ, or will it confess something else?