Part 8 (1/2)
The matter drew attention, even in Germany, where the ”Volkische Beobachter”
in its edition of January 14, 1936 reported the story as told by its correspondent in Copenhagen under the caption ”Danish theologians grow nervous” and with the subt.i.tle: ”The Jewish question arises in Denmark”.
The report of the former German Envoy, Richthofen, dated January 13, 1936, shows the same att.i.tude, considering the article of the theologians as an act of defence against ”the ever increasing understanding of the Jewish question in Germany among the Danish public”. [156]
In the autumn of 1938, Bishop Fuglsang-Damgaard said in his sermon at the opening of a new church, Lundehuskirken, that it was with deep pain that the Christian community had heard about the persecution of the Jews in Germany, which had reached a culminating-point in those days.
149 pastors of Copenhagen supported these words by a public statement and p.r.o.nounced their ”deep sympathy with our Jewish countrymen on account of the sufferings which at this time befall their brethren and which must fill every Christian with horror”. <58> Dr. Fuglsang-Damgaard asked the pastors to pray for the suffering Jews in the services the following Sunday, and he himself declared at a service in h.e.l.ligkors Church, that we must pray to G.o.d ”to protect our people against the poisonous pestilence of anti-Semitism, hatred of the Jews and persecution of the Jews. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was David's Son after the flesh, and those who love Him cannot hate His people”. [157]
13 SWEDEN
The Swedish Ec.u.menical Council sent the following letter, dated April 3, 1933, to the German Evangelical Church Council in Berlin:
”The Swedish Ec.u.menical Council, a representation of different Swedish Church communities, sincerely regrets the existing conditions in Germany and the boycott of German goods abroad, and is deeply concerned by the anti-Semitic action in your country, such as has been expressed in official statements and actions.
We hope and pray that, with G.o.d's help, it will be possible for the German Evangelical Churches actively to stress the genuinely Christian principles, which you upheld in your appeal before the latest elections.
”Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
As Christian brothers, we are anxious to be in communication with you in this matter and further hear your views.
In sincere communion in the faith, for the Swedish Ec.u.menical Council: Arch-bishop Erling Eidem, Chairman. [158]
The Appeal of the German Evangelical Church Council to which this letter referred, was published on March 3, 1933, just before the elections for the Reichstag. Unfortunately, we do not know whether any reply was received by the Swedish Ec.u.menical Council.
In 1933, 64 prominent Protestant Church leaders also published an ”Appeal to Swedish Christianity”, warning against anti-Semitic influences in Sweden:
”Action against the Jews in Germany seems to work as a stimulant - and no small one - for the anti-Semitism which exists in certain Swedish circles.
Many of us may have been p.r.o.ne to consider this movement in our country as insignificant, and not worth combating. But the matter is more serious than that. If sufficiently great spiritual strength is not mobilized against this fanatical and shortsighted nationalism, it is difficult to foresee the result. <59> The undersigned regard it as their duty to express the worry and anger with which this anti-Semitic movement has filled them, and to appeal to Swedish Christianity of all denominations to fight against racial hatred, stressing Christ's valuation of man and his brother-love. <59> Already from a general and cultural viewpoint, anti-Semitism is an expression of ingrat.i.tude and shortsightedness. No less in our country, citizens of Jewish descent, have contributed in all fields to such a degree that, if all trace of what they have done were erased from the Swedish civilization, to-day, it would be much poorer.
But first, anti-Semitism must be condemned from a Christian-religious viewpoint. Here too one can, rightly, speak of a debt of grat.i.tude. The prophets and psalms of Israel also belong to our holy heritage. And in spite of all wild racial hypotheses, Jesus Christ is a son of Israel and a perfecter of these prophets' work.
However, it is not only, and not first and foremost, the grat.i.tude for a spiritual inheritance which urges Christian people to take their stand against anti-Jewish activity. They would be denying their Master if they did not do so. For in Him all racial differences are overcome, in the divine love, which has taken form in Him, we are all each other's brothers, no matter to which nation or race we belong.
Whosoever professes himself a follower of Christ, yet lets himself be seized by nationalistic presumption, of which anti-Semitism is one of the most repellant expressions, must realize that any action designed to attach a stamp of inferiority on members of the Jewish people or deprive them of full civil rights, is in absolute opposition to the spirit and teaching of Jesus.
The gravity of the situation has impelled us to make public this declaration, which is also an appeal to Swedish Christianity to oppose unmitigatedly a propaganda which is becoming louder and more aggressive anti-Jewish, and the mentality of violence from which it stems. Time must not be lost. Freedom of speech is not yet stifled. The gospel of Truth and Love may still sound its voice.” [159]
At a meeting of the Stockholm Pastors' Society, held in 1934, Professor Nygren of Lund opened the discussion on the subject: ”What is the reason for the struggle within the German Church?”
The Pastors' Society unanimously decided to publish in the press their agreement with the fundamental viewpoints expressed in Prof. Nygren's address.
The Society's Resolution reads as follows:
”The furious struggle now taking place within the German Church is not on a personal question, a question of rights or a question of organization.
Nor is it a struggle for or against the National-Socialistic State or for or against the liberalistic freedom ideal. <60> The struggle concerns Christianity itself, its existence or non-existence.
What is happening in Germany to-day is nothing more or less than the appearance of a new religion, beside and in contrast to Christianity - a religion based on 'Blut und Boden', on racial idealism and racial egoism.
This has to some extent thrown Christians and non-Christians into jail.
From a deeper viewpoint, the difference between 'German Christians' and the heathen 'German Faith Movement', therefore, becomes surprisingly small. If we observe the deepest tendency, of which, in general, the followers of these movements are quite unconscious, it can even be said that, for the former group, it is a question of the new religion in Christian guise; for the latter, the same religion in Germanic guise.
The extraordinary danger is that the present Church management has not the least understanding of the reason for the struggle. It believes that it is fighting for the sake of Christianity and does not realize that it has slipped into a new racial religion.
True, it often stresses that the Bible and the Confession should be left 'unas- sailed', but the tone of the voice itself reveals that it is on something else that one subsists. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The real pathos first appears when one can talk of 'Blut und Boden', 'Blut und Ra.s.se', 'Blut und Ehre'. The G.o.d one really wors.h.i.+ps is the idol of one's own people.
But in the German Church there are men - and fortunately these are not few - who understand what is at stake; what this new religion has to offer the people, from a Christian viewpoint, is nothing less than idolatry. One creates a new G.o.d in one's own image, the image of 'the German Man'.
The Christians who see this must, through their faithfulness to the Gospel, be forced out into the struggle. Because of this they find themselves in tragic conflict; for there is so much in the new state to which, in their hearts, they say 'yes', and with joy. But when they fight this new heathen spirit that has penetrated the Church and seized the power in it, they are stamped as enemies of the state by the uncomprehending Church management. The point has been reached, where those who do not want to give up their Christian faith are attacked by the German Church management: with external means of power, the secret state police, removals from office and suspensions.
We, Evangelical Christians of a kindred people, have seen with grief and concern that the German Church management through such activities has tarnished the Christian name. With the deepest sympathy we follow the oppressed Christians'
brave and joyfully self-sacrificing struggle, in defence of Evangelical Christianity, not only in Germany but also the world over.” [160]
<61> The Resolution contains points that to-day are obvious to us, but in those days they undoubtedly enlightened many ignorant people.
Much that has been said by the Lutheran Church leaders of Sweden, already in the first years of Hitler's regime, shows a deep theological insight into the nature of anti-Semitism. Few Churches in other lands showed this insight at so early a date. This fact should prevent us from over-simplifying the answers to the question, as to how far certain of Luther's views about the Jewish people influenced the Lutheran Churches in the twentieth century.