Today's Journal
BARMEN DECLARATION III
(Note: continued from the last two Journal entries.)“The Barmen Declaration or the Theological Declaration of Barmen 1934 was a document adopted by Christians in Nazi Germany who opposed the German Christian movement. In the view of the delegates to the Synod that met in the city of Wuppertal-Barmen in May 1934, the German Christians had corrupted church government by making it subservient to the state and had introduced Nazi ideology into the German Protestant churches that contradicted the Christian gospel.” (Wikipedia)
The last two days have been Journal entries concerning the Barmen Declaration that was written during the Nazi rise to power in Germany. I have used this space to give opinion concerning the mixture of the church and politics on several other occasions. I don’t think we need to be very good students of world history, religious history or political history to know that… to mix politics and religion is a great mistake. As the above Declaration reads: “the German Christians had corrupted church government by making it subservient to the state and had introduced Nazi ideology into the German Protestant churches that contradicted the Christian gospel.” Church and state are not to be a mixture.
The church is to be what it is: a community for Christians to tell others about the righteous reign of the Father and Jesus Christ the Son. Politics are to govern the civil affairs of a society. It is our responsibility of course, to elect (as long as we are free to do so) those that we believe promote the better choice of principles that align with scripture and doctrinal fidelity of the Kingdom of God.
To say a person is a Republican Christian or Democrat Christian is like saying someone is a Christian Plumber, Christian Hair Dresser or Christian School Teacher. There are no such things. They must be said in proper order…A Plumber who is Christian, a hair dresser who is Christian and so forth. It is better to say a person is a Democrat or Republican and also is a Christian.
The Barmen Declaration is only one example in history of this mistake of mixing politics and religion. It is death to both.
“Give, then, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Jesus