The Barmen Declaration

In January 1933 Hitler's National Socialist German Workers Party came to power in Germany. The following year, on 29-31 May, the Confessing Synod of the German Evangelical Church met in Barmen to draft a confession, calling the churches to an orthodox confession of faith. This was in the face of efforts by the nazis to co-opt the churches into support for Hitler's racist programme. The resulting confession, the Barmen Declaration of 1934, was drafted by Karl Barth and Hans Asmussen, Reformed and Lutheran theologians respectively, and approved by the Confessing Synod. Here is the magnificent second paragraph:

2. "Jesus Christ has been made wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption for us by God." 1 Cor. 1:30

As Jesus Christ is God's comforting pronouncement of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, with equal seriousness, he is also God's vigorous announcement of his claim upon our whole life. Through him there comes to us joyful liberation from the godless ties of this world for free, grateful service to his creatures.

We reject the false doctrine that there could be areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ but to other lords, areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.

Among those Christians in Germany who would pay with their lives for their stand was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was put to death at Flossenburg in April 1945, only three weeks before it was liberated by the Allies.