Mike
"The bekennende Kirche...
The nationalreligöse Bewegung Deutsche Christen...
Can you explain what these two are? I'm guessing the 2nd is the "official" German Lutheran church, but it's only a guess."
The Bekennende Kirche was founded in 1933 by Martin Niemöller as the Pastors' Emergency League and was systematically opposed to the Nazi-sponsored German Christian Church (the Reichskirche). The immediate occasion for the opposition was the attempt by the Nazis soon after their rise to power to purge the German Evangelical Church of converted Jews and to make the church subservient to the state. At the Synod of Barmen (May, 1934) the Confessing Church set up an administration and proclaimed itself the true Protestant Church in Germany. After the arrest of many of its ministers the church was forced underground. 2 famous theologians associated with the Bekennende Kirche/Confessing Church are karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
The nationalreligöse Bewegung Deutsche Christen (DC).
These were the true German nazi-christians (not that Hitler had much respect for them), the ones jumping at the chance to transform the Protestant churches of Germany into one Reichskirche.
They were not like the Christian Identity movement, that one has a thorough and well developed theology (a horribly wrong theology, but it fits together quite nicely).
The DC simply did not want to give up the traditions of Protestant Christianity, going to church on sunday, celebrating Easter and Christmas, baptizing the babies etc.
For them Christianity was simply part of German culture. The ideas behind the Faith were of no real significance, they desperately clinged to the forms of the Faith in the face of an ideology they liked better than their own and that was hostile to the traditions they were used to.
"The bekennende Kirche...
The nationalreligöse Bewegung Deutsche Christen...
Can you explain what these two are? I'm guessing the 2nd is the "official" German Lutheran church, but it's only a guess."
The Bekennende Kirche was founded in 1933 by Martin Niemöller as the Pastors' Emergency League and was systematically opposed to the Nazi-sponsored German Christian Church (the Reichskirche). The immediate occasion for the opposition was the attempt by the Nazis soon after their rise to power to purge the German Evangelical Church of converted Jews and to make the church subservient to the state. At the Synod of Barmen (May, 1934) the Confessing Church set up an administration and proclaimed itself the true Protestant Church in Germany. After the arrest of many of its ministers the church was forced underground. 2 famous theologians associated with the Bekennende Kirche/Confessing Church are karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
The nationalreligöse Bewegung Deutsche Christen (DC).
These were the true German nazi-christians (not that Hitler had much respect for them), the ones jumping at the chance to transform the Protestant churches of Germany into one Reichskirche.
They were not like the Christian Identity movement, that one has a thorough and well developed theology (a horribly wrong theology, but it fits together quite nicely).
The DC simply did not want to give up the traditions of Protestant Christianity, going to church on sunday, celebrating Easter and Christmas, baptizing the babies etc.
For them Christianity was simply part of German culture. The ideas behind the Faith were of no real significance, they desperately clinged to the forms of the Faith in the face of an ideology they liked better than their own and that was hostile to the traditions they were used to.