Standing on the Shoulders of the Faithful

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Barmen Declaration, the best-known document of the German Confessing Church during the Nazi era. The Barmen Declaration was a theological statement expressing clear allegiance to the authority of God over and against all idolatrous authorities and the idolatry of the state in particular. The political meaning of this strongly theological statement was obvious in Hitler's Germany. It became a tract for political resistance. A number of the signers of the Barmen Declaration were eventually imprisoned, exiled, or killed.