Confessing Church

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For the unrelated movement with a similar name in North America, see Confessing Movement.

The Confessing Church (German: Bekennende Kirche) was a Christian resistance movement in Nazi Germany. In 1933 the Gleichschaltung forced Protestant churches to merge into the Protestant Reich Church and support Nazi ideology. Opposition was forced to go "underground" to meet, and created the Confessing Church that September. In 1934 the Barmen declaration, primarily authored by Karl Barth with the input of other Confessing Church pastors and congregations, was ratified at the Barmen Synod through which it was re-affirmed that the German Church was not an "organ of the State" for the purpose of strengthening Nazi agendum but only subject to Christ and his mission.

Some of the leaders of the Confessing Church, such as Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were sent to concentration camps, and some died there. Christians who did not agree with the Nazis were left without leadership. The Confessing Church engaged in various forms of resistance, notably hiding Jews^[1] from the Nazi regime. The Confessing Church is a unique example of a crypto-Christian movement operating in a majority Christian country.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

When the Nazis were consolidating their power in Germany during the 1930s, one of the areas that they exercised significant influence over was the German State Church (Lutheranism). Various Lutheran pastors, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer (pictured to the right), decided to resist the encroaching Nazi influence. This underground resistance movement on behalf of German (Lutheran) pastors became known as the Confessing Church. Unfortunately, many leaders of this underground movement, including Bonhoeffer himself, were sent to concentration camps and later executed for their "treasonous" undertakings.

Widely regarded as one of the preeminent Christian theologians of the 20th century, Bonhoeffer wrote The Cost of Discipleship in 1937. This book can be seen as the cornerstone of the Confessing Church movement for it was written at a time when the German State Church was struggling over whether or not to pursue or resist the onslaught of the National Socialist (Nazi) movement. Bonhoeffer claimed that the times represented a true divine test, much like the story told by The Book of Job in the Old Testament. Many Germans considered Bonhoeffer to be poignantly accurate in his remarks concerning the peculiar epoch in German history.