Bethel Confession

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The Bethel Confession is a theological confession that was written in Bethel, a suburb of Bielefeld, Germany, in August 1933, that is, during the early stages of the "church struggle" in 20th-century Germany. Hermann Sasse and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are among its chief authors. The first draft, as well as what is known as August Version have, by special arrangement, been made available to Lutheranwiki.

Contents

[edit] The prehistory and history of the text

During August, 1933, two draft versions of the Bethel Confession were written in Bethel, a suburb of Bielefeld in Germany. There is the first draft of this document and there is the longer, more detailed "August Version." In addition to Bonhoeffer and Sasse, Georg Merz (1892-1959) contributed to both versions, and Wilhelm Vischer (1895-1988) contributed to the "August Version."[1] As an attachment to an introductory letter by Friedrich von Bodelschwingh -- the director of the Bethel Institution who had served as Reich bishop of the German Evangelical Church in May / June 1933 -- the "August Version" was sent to 20 renowned protestant theologians (including Karl Barth) for comment.

The responses were not as positive as hoped, resulting in a watering-down of the confession in an editorial process that lasted till November 1933, resulting in the "November Version." This led Sasse and Bonhoeffer, along with others, to abandon the project, while Martin Niemöller, with the consent of von Bodelschwingh, published it nonetheless, anonymously. It appeared in several publications in late 1933 and early 1934, without having any discernible positive impact. This "November Version" was the only one known till 1959 when the "August Version" was first published by Eberhard Bethge among the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.[2] The first draft was first published in volume 12 of the new edition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's works.

One renowned student of the German church struggle wrote about the "August Version" of the Bethel Confession that, while it did not have the desired effect of laying the groundwork for a serious theological discussion with the German Christians, it
remains a brilliant, trenchant, and impressive testament to the theological work that could still be accomplished in the summer of 1933. While ponderous in form, burdened with numerous proof texts from the bible, from Luther, and above all from the confessions, it was in some places theologically and politically clearer and more precise than the famous Barmen Declaration from May 1934.[3]

It is to the "August Version" that we now turn.[4]

[edit] The main teachings of the confession

[edit] Introduction

Judging by the outline, the Bethel Confession is basically trinitarian-creedal in its structure. In this, it is similar to Luther's 1528 confession,[5] to his exposition of the creed in the Large Catechism, but also to his 1537 Smalcald Articles. As is equally evident, the Third Article of the Creed, especially the work of the Holy Spirit in the church through the pure means of grace, is the main emphasis of this confession.[6]

What, then, is the theological evaluation of the opposing camp, the German Christians, that emerges from the Bethel Confession?[7] The confessors of Bethel seem to have regarded their opponents as espousing chiefly the pneumatological heresy of enthusiasm, that is, the notion that God's Spirit can be perceived in any number of ways, esp. in history and creation, apart and beyond God's written word of the Scriptures. The direct outgrowth of this chief heresy was an enculturation of the church that was both wrong (it destroyed the unchanging, transcultural message of the church in law and gospel) and violent (it undermined the unity of the church). In the view of the confessors of 1933, their opponents, while seeking to purify the German protestant church of everything Jewish (members, liturgical words, scriptures), are in fact guilty of the heresy of Judaizing since they make a certain ethnic qualification (being a German Aryan) a prerequisite for belonging to the church (see esp. VI.6., but also VI.2, cf. Acts 15:1, 5). Thus, the German Christians, in light of this confession, appear as a radiclaized, nationalist version of German cultural protestantism of the pre-WWI era, especially as some of their tenets, e.g., the elimination of the OT from the Christian bible, were already advocated by chief representatives of cultural protestantism, e.g., by A. von Harnack.[8]

As an aside, it is known that Hermann Sasse and other Lutherans had qualms about signing this confession with Reformed Christians.[9] Why? First of all, it is remarkable that the confession draws supporting quotations from the entire Book of Concord, and from it only, that is, not only from the "ecumenical" Augsburg Confession, but also from the decidedly Lutheran and anti-Calvinist Formula of Concord. However, secondly, it is clear that the Bethel Confession is not all-inclusive: it does not condemn all heresies; it clearly focuses on the heresies of the German Christians and their supporters or sympathizers. It therefore does not sharpen the Lutheran profile, e.g., in the article on Christ: the fact of Christ's being true God and man is confessed; what this means is implied more than being expounded in all its biblical-confessional (and controversial) depth.

Also the frequently emphasized agency of the Spirit through word and sacraments alone is formulated in a way that was apparently acceptable to the Reformed at the time: the Barthian 1934 Barmen Declaration confesses that "Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and sacrament through the Holy Spirit" (art. 3); it also speaks of "the ministry of [Christ's] own Word and work through sermon and sacrament" (art. 6).[10] Here again, there is agreement in the "that" of Christ's and the Spirit's agency "through word and sacraments;" but the "how" is not set forth in any detail.

Sasse's unwillingness to sign Bethel 1933 with Reformed theologians might have been rooted in this: the formulations "Jesus Christ is true God and true man" and "the Spirit works through word and sacrament" can be spoken by Lutherans and Reformed; but he knew that both meant different things when using these formulae. This prepares the ground for his 1934 refusal to sign the Barmen Declaration: the Lutherans and Reformed are not one church because they do not share one confession of faith prior to arriving at the conference; they can therefore also not issue a joint confession at the conference without first reaching a consensus with the church of the prophets and apostles on the dividing issues of the past. This refusal was clearly something other than "confessional formalism".[11]

[edit] Outline

[edit] Main teachings

[edit] On Holy Scripture

The confession affirms the bible (both Old and New Testament) as the only source and norm for the teaching of the church. It affirms the entirety of the bible and its unity in Christ, against attempts to replace the OT by Germanic myths. It affirms that the Holy Spirit is heard only in the Scriptures.

The confession rejects new forms of enthusiasm according to which Christ reveals himself without and outside of Scripture. It rejects a view of Scripture according to which it, as a merely historical document, contains only general religious truths. It rejects taking the OT as an example, as if Israel's election could be referred to that of other nations. Similarly, it rejects the notion that the divinity of the Mosaic law is proof for the divine nature of all national codes of law. It rejects all attempts to destroy the unity of the bible by eliminating the OT from the canon. It rejects all attempts to distinguish between God's and man's word in the bible based on human reason or religious experiences.

[edit] What is Reformation?

It asserts that the church of the Reformation is essentially protestant church in that it does not sacrifice the scriptural word of God for the external unity and historical continuity of the church. But it is also essentially church in that it, as congretion of Jesus Christ, rejects the identification of the church with national, cultural, or religious movements. "The Reformation is essentially a return to Holy Scripture, a bowing under Holy Scripture. In it, Martin Luther is the teacher of Holy Scripture that is obedient to the word" (95). Martin Luther is thus not an expression of the Germanic genius, the author of the modern understanding of freedom, or the founder of a new religion. His mission and ministry goes beyond the German nation, benefitting "still today all nations in his office of evangelist" (95).

[edit] On the Triune God

The confession affirms the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity, including the filioque. It affirms the exclusivity of the access to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. The mystery of the Trinity is confessed as beyond reason. The confession rejects attempts to divide the Trinity by dividing the works of the Trinity ad extram, that is, the triune God's works toward the world in creation, reconciliation, and redemption.

[edit] On Creation and sin

[edit] Faith in the Creator and natural knowledge of God

The confession affirms that God created the world out of nothing and that he is its Lord. It also affirms that this teaching of the church is based on the Scriptures alone. The natural knowledge of God is therefore not able to see it quite this way: Drawing conclusions from effect to cause, God appears to reason as the ground of the world; it therefore gets bogged down in the contradictions of this fallen world. Faith, on the other hand, does not take contradictory experiences, but God's biblical word as point of departure and trusts that this world's contradictions will be solved first in the new creation.

Faith and natural knowledge therefore can no longer be considered as one; man now lives in a fallen world. The Creator is know, not from some interpretation of what goes on in the world, but from his word of Holy Scripture.

The confession rejects that God the Creator and Father can be known without Christ (outside of Christ the Creator is an angry tyrant). Trusting in an omnipotent and all-merciful god is "hope without certainty" (98). The confession rejects the notion that the world as it is now corresponds to the original creation: the present-day struggle for the survival of the fittest is result of the fall into sin. It rejects as enthusiasm the notion that God's voice can immediately be heard in a certain "historical hour" and that God reveals himself by some immediate act in history. It rejects the notion that the voice of the people is God's voice as "enthusiastic interpretation of history" (99).

[edit] The natural orders

The confession affirms that God, for the sake of redemption and the new creation, preserves his fallen world by means of certain firmly established orders (sexes, marriage, family, nation, property (labor and economy), vocation, political authority), which are no longer the orders of original creation. "They are valid but not ultimate orders of God" (99). The orders per se remain, while their form changes in history. The confession affirms (against the notion of a "total state"): "Man cannot withdraw from any of these orders, which also cannot be transferred or transformed one into another. Marriage remains marriage, nation remains nation. Political authority remains political authority" (ibid.). While Scripture speaks of tribes and nations, the modern notion of "race" is not found in it or the confessions. There is a common humanity, created by God, behind the individual nations.

The confession furthermore affirms that life in the orders of preservation is filled with tensions. The state is called to address them in its way, while the church proclaims the resolution of all tensions through the redemption in Christ.

The confession therefore rejects the notion that there are permanent orders in this fallen world that, unaffected by the fall, can uncritically be affirmed. It equally rejects the notions that, because the orders are not permanent, Christians are free to live in them or not: the gospel is not a blue-print for a new, harmonious social order. It also rejects the notion that makes obedience to the orders dependent on whether Christians represent them or not: all legitimate and lawful authorities are to be heeded, not only the Christian ones.

[edit] Law

The confession distinguishes between the orders of preservation known to all men and the law revealed in Scripture in many individual demands. These demands are not applications of some principle; they are actual commandments of the Lord. "The church, therefore, does not proclaim the law of Scripture as a principle that is to be applied in a number of ways, but as God's concrete claim of Lordship which ties us again and again only to the one Lord revealed in the bible" (102). The orders of life are viewed as binding law for the Christian only based on the bible.

The confession affirms the uniqueness of the OT law in comparison to the laws of the nations, thereby also affirming the uniqueness of the people of Israel.

[edit] Sin

The confession affirms the utter depravity of man after the fall by which he became a child of wrath. It therefore rejects the notion that sin is merely a disease or "separation from the organic connection of life." Sin is defined as "rebellion against God's absolute claim of Lordship in the law of love" (104).

It furthermore rejects as Gnosticism the notion that reduces creation and sin to a common principle: "Creation and sin are ultimate opposites" (104). The "attempt to understand sin as necessary excuses sin, makes white out of black, makes it possible for man to justify himself, abrogates thus the reconciliation by the death on the cross, furthermore takes the ultimate seriousness off the opposition of good and evil, and leads thus to lasciviousness" (ibid.).

It furthermore rejects the notion of sin as moral or biological imperfection that is removed by doing it better the next time around: only Christ's death on the cross removes sin. It also rejects the notion that the sinner is no longer a creature of God.

[edit] On Christ

The confession affirms the Christology of the Small Catechism, emphasizing in particular that Jesus is both God's and David's Son who is our Lord because he is our Savior sent by the Father.

It therefore rejects the notion that Jesus is "an appearance of the nordic nature in the midst of a world subject to disintegration. Christ is the radiance of the glory of the Father (Heb. 1:3) in the world and the Son of David, sent to the lost sheep of Israel" (105). The confession also rejects the notion that Christians confess Christ as Lord on account of his heroic piety.

It rejects the notion that the cross of Christ is merely a symbol for a general religious-human truth, e.g., selflessness: "The cross of Jesus Christ is not a symbol for anything, but the unique revelatory act of God, in which thus for all the fulfillment of the law, the death sentence over all flesh, the reconciliation of the world to God are executed" (106). This makes the death of Christ unique.

It rejects the notion that the crucifixion of Christ is to be blamed exclusively on the Jews: all nations are guilty of his death since he died for all.

[edit] On the Holy Spirit and the Church

[edit] On the Holy Spirit

The confession affirms that the Holy Spirit is natural, eternal God, proceeding from the Father and the Son; that he is given to man only by means of the external word and sacrament in the church; that he calls the church of Christ out of all nations; that he creates faith, conversion, and renewal in man.

It rejects the notion that the Holy Spirit is known without Christ in the orders of creation.

[edit] On justification and faith

The confession affirms that a gracious God is found only by faith in Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Mediator, a faith that is created by the Spirit through the word concerning Christ. Faith clings to the word against reason and carnal pride and conscience.

The confession therefore rejects the "confusion of (pagan) trust in God and faith" (108). Pagan trust in God is the same as belief in God's providence. "In impenitent familiarity, it takes God's grace for granted without fear; it wants to be justified by God before the world; it is rigidly fixed on what takes place in this world without knowing by faith about the end of all things in Christ and about the future" (ibid.).

Faith in Jesus Christ is not the same as belief in some anonymous power or fate: "Christian trust in God means to accept this world obediently out of the hand of the Father, to take up one's cross and to carry it in the power of the promise that God will create a new heaven and a new earth at the end of all things. Pagan 'trust in God' trusts in the fateful laws of the world; Christian trust in God lives from the certainty that the Lord who judges the world in his day is the God of gracious promise" (ibid.).

The confession therefore rejects "as Israelitic thinking" (109) the notion that God will judge man based on his "decency." God will ask only for man's faith, the fruits of which are trust in God and a sense of duty. "Faith, entirely God's work in man, does not look to its fruits but only to its Lord ... The purpose of the gospel is not joyful trust in God, sense of duty, and the will to victory, but repentance (conversion) and daring faith in the heavenly kingdom in Christ" (ibid.).

[edit] On church, ministry, and confession
  • On the church

The confession affirms that the church is the body of Jesus Christ who is the Lord of his people. It exists wherever men are called out to repentance and faith by Christ in the gospel. It is communion of saints because of God's call, not because of human works.

The church, looking to itself, confesses its sin and weakness; looking to Christ, it boasts in his invincibility.

Church can only be understood in the church, not by the world. Its doctrine is foolishness to the world, to science, to the government. The church is known only by the pure doctrine of the gospel and the right administration of the sacraments, not by the religious or moral status of its members.

"Wherever the gospel is purely and rightly proclaimed and the sacraments are administered according to their institution, there God creates faith by the Holy Spirit; there the one holy, catholic church is a reality in the world. Where either of them is falisfied or cut short, there is no longer the church, but one of the many religious societies and world views" (110).

  • Ministry and confession

The confession affirms that, as the church stands under God's word alone, the preaching office is given to proclaim God's word and to administer the sacraments instituted by Christ. The ministry thus stands under God's word alone; it is a trust of God's word.

The confessions affirms the right of the Christian church to confess the biblical word whenever it is threatened by deformations. The resulting confessions, normed by the Scriptures, are the norms for the ministry in the congregation.

The confession therefore rejects the notion that places the office above word and sacraments, as if they first became efficacious by the office. This anathema affects both the Roman hierachy and the enthusiast spiritual individualism: "The power of the office rests neither in a historical institution nor in the inner powers of human gifts" (111).

"We therefore also reject the attempt to apply the modern notion of leadership to the preaching office. The preaching office is ministry of the word of reconciliation and therefore stands in contradiction to every leadership magic" (ibid.).

The office of bishop is superior to the congregational preaching office only by human right; it remains bound to Scripture and confessions and therefore has no authority to absolve others from being bound by the confessions.

[edit] Church and nation

The external forms and customs and polity of the church do not belong to its essence; the makes the church flexible to enter in its external forms into the different nations and ages.

"The national character of a church is limited by the content of the proclamation. Based on it alone, only by the church itself, can the manner and form of its entry into time be determined" (112).

"The message of the gospel is for all nations equally approachable or inapproachable. For God's Holy Spirit alone can create faith in man and awaken the consensus of rightly confessing. The communion of the confessing church goes beyond the boundaries of a nation. Never is the nation coterminous with the church" (112).

Christians are both citizens of their respective nations and, as members of God's people, citizens of heaven.

[edit] Church and state

The confession affirms that political authority is ordered by God and therefore is to be obeyed by everyone. It is there to protect life, to maintain discipline and honor. This charge is its dignity and limit. Since there is political authority among Christians and pagans, it belongs to the realm of death, not to that of salvation.

"Secular authority and church are both from God. They are separated from each other by insurmountable boundaries and yet dependent on each other" (113).

The church cannot be integrated into a state; it remains vis-a-vis every secular authority by the contents of its proclamation.

The church remains connected to the secular authority in that a. its word addresses the very people that are kept alive by the office of the sword; b. its word points man back into the order of goverment as one established by God; and c. it knows itself in its visible form to be subject to secular authority.

Secular authority depends on the church only in that the former is shown the limits of its order by the right proclamation of the latter. Otherwise, the former becomes a tool of the devil who seeks disorder to destroy all life.

There will be conflict between church and state when the church desires to be a political actor, requiring, e.g., membership in the church as prerequisite for citizenship in the state. There will also be conflict when the state wants to use the church as its tool, when it can no longer endure the church's proclamation concerning the sole Lordship of Christ, concerning the state's being part of the world of sin and death.

The confession therefore rejects the notion "of a Christian state in every form" (114). The state does its duty only when it remains in its boudaries; it does not bring about man's salvation. "It must not misuse the church as its moral-religious foundation. It is a false doctrine that the church is only the soul or conscience of the state" (114f.).

It also rejects "every attempt to establish a visible theocracy on earth by the church as a infraction in the order of secular authority. This makes the gospel into a law. The church cannot protect or sustain life on earth. This remains the office of secular authority" (115).

[edit] The church and the Jews

The confession affirms that, of all peoples of the world, God has chosen only Israel to be his people, only based on his mercy, by no means based on any natural prerogatives.

At the time of Jesus, the leaders and the people rejected the promised Messiah Jesus, seeking a national-political Messiah instead who would bring them global dominion. Instead of being a political liberator, the Messiah Jesus died by and for the Jews, thereby eliminating the fence between Jews and Gentiles. "The OT covenant people is not replaced by another nation, but the Christian church from and in all nations" (115).

The confession affirms that God remains faithful to his old people even after the crucifixion of Christ. He preserves a "holy remnant" of Israel according to the flesh, "which will neither disappear in another nation by means of emancipation or assimilation nor become a nation like any other by Zionist or similar efforts, nor be exterminated by pharaonic measures" (115f.).

The confession affirms that the church is charged to call the Jews to repentance and to baptize the believers in the name of Christ for the forgiveness of sins. The refusal to evangelize the Jews "for cultural or political reasons" is disobedience.

"The communion of those belonging to the church is not determined by blood or race, but by the Holy Spirit and baptism" (116).

The confession rejects "any attempt to compare or confuse the historical mission of any nation with the salvation-historical charge of Israel" (ibid.).

No nation is charged to avenge the murder of Golgotha. -- The miracle of God's faithfulness to Israel must not be confused with the religious significance of the Jewish or any other nationality.

The confession rejects the attempt to transform the German evangelical church into a church for the Aryan race only, because this would make this church itself into a Jewish-Christian legalistic congregation. It rejects furthermore the establishment of segregated Jewish-Christian congregations, as if "the Christians from Judaism had to develop a Christianity according to their nature" (117). "What is special about the Jewish Christian is not found in his race or nature or history, but only in the special faithfulness of God toward Israel according to the flesh" (ibid.).

"Instead of giving up, either willingly or unwillingly, in one area the ecclesial fraternity with the Jewish Christian that is created by word and sacrament, the Gentile Christians should rather expose themselves to persecution" (117).

[edit] On the end of all things

The confession affirms "that Jesus Christ is the end of history and world" (117): he will return to judge the living and the dead.

The confession affirms that there is no gradual improvement of this world into the next, even thought it will be this world that will be renewed.

The confession rejects the notion that the coming world will not have anything to do with this world.

The confession refuses to give a doctrine concerning the outcome of the judgment of Christ, "neither the one doctrine concerning the apokatastasis of the whole world nor the other doctrine of the eternal damnation. The outcome of this judgment can only be spoken about in prayer" (119).

The confession rejects finally the kind of millennialism that seeks to locate the beginning of the visible rule of Christ in certain historical events.

[edit] Notes

  1. ↑ At the time, both Merz and Vischer taught at the seminary in Bethel. The Lutheran Merz taught symbolics and practical theology; the Swiss-Reformed Vischer taught Old Testament.
  2. ↑ Cf. the account given by Bethge, who draws on letters and personal memories of those who were present at the time for his reconstruction, in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Kirchenkampf und Finkenwalde: Resolutionen, Aufsätze, Rundbriefe, ed. E. Bethge, 2nd ed. (Munich: Kaiser, 1965), 80-89.
  3. ↑ K. Scholder, Die Kirchen und das Dritte Reich (Frankfurt/Berlin: Ullstein, 1986), 1:579.
  4. ↑ The German text is found Bonhoeffer, Kirchenkampf, 91-119. Simple page numbers refer to this edition.
  5. ↑ See AE 37:360-372. Interestingly, however, Luther discusses the "natural orders" in conjunction with the second, the Christological article, not in conjunction with the First and Third Articles, ibid. 364f.
  6. ↑ Cf. the more in-depth interpretation of the Confession by A. Wenz, Das Wort Gottes -- Gericht und Rettung: Untersuchungen zur Autorität der Heiligen Schrift in Bekenntnis und Lehre der Kirche (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 99-116.
  7. ↑ A first overview over the theological situation in the summer of 1933, especially the "political theology" set forth by protestant and Catholic theologians, is offered by Scholder, Kirchen, 1:525ff. Cf. also Wenz, Wort Gottes, 88-98, who points to the national missionary intentions of the German Christians.
  8. ↑ In his 1920 book, Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1924), 217, Harnack asserts: "in the 2nd century, it was a mistake to reject the OT, righly repudiated by the great church; to retain it in the 16th century was a fate the reformation was not yet able to avoid; but to preserve it since the 19th century as a canonical document in protestantism, that is the result of religious and ecclesial paralysis."
  9. ↑ Cf. Bethge's introduction to the piece in Bonhoeffer, Kirchenkampf, 86.
  10. ↑ Controversial of course would be the opening Barthian-Barmen formulation in art. 1: "Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death. We reject the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God's revelation." This is not the Trinitarian approach of the Bethel Confession that, while centered in Christ, distinguishes between the Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer, and between law and gospel.
  11. ↑ Thus Bonhoeffer's view of Sasse after studying the 1936 edition of Sasse's 1934 book What does it mean to be Lutheran? (cf. E. Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologe, Christ, Zeitgenosse, 5th ed. (Munich: Kaiser, 1983), 644). It is no accident that Bonhoeffer and Sasse eventually split over the issue of the validity of the historic Lutheran confessions, esp. vis-a-vis the "miracle" of Barmen, which Bonhoeffer stylized into the decisive criterion for the church's being church while downplaying the historic differences between Lutherans and the Reformed (cf., on the other hand, the statements in the Bethel Confession that denied the bishops the power to downgrade the authority of the historic confessions). There are, as Sasse saw clearly, significant similarities between the theology of the Barthian "confessing church" and the German Christians; they have to do with a shared and deeply ingrained unionism that favors present-day confessing over historic confessions.
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