When someone talks about moving abroad to get away from Trump’s America, I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was studying at Union Seminary in New York City in 1930-31, and could have remained in the U.S. In fact, Union professors and other church leaders implored him to stay. But he knew he needed to return because ofthe gathering storm in Germany… in his faithfulness, to oppose the Nazi Party and Hitler.
Watching Protestant support the Nazis in the 1932 and 1933 elections that led to the establishment of the Third Reich, Bonhoeffer recognized the church’s apostasy. First, the accommodation of a church that could offer no critique of the National Socialism, and eventually, the full-throated support the national church and its members offered Hitler and his government. Reading for this piece, I came across a startling metric: The German church had 18,000 pastors: 12,000 never took a position; 3,000 were pro-Nazi: and 3,000 worked against the Nazis.
Bonhoeffer, with others like Martin Niemoller, were in the last group. They founded what became a separate church body, the “Confessing Church,” a Protestant resistance movement opposing the church’s “nazification” – both the syncing of church theology to Nazi ideology and the enlisting of church’s power and blessing to support the Nazi regime.
The Confessing Church was founded on a demand for freedom – that no worldly power could have so much authority as to deny the church and individual Christians the freedom needed to be faithful. That should sound familiar for UCCers.
There was little separation of church and state in German history before the emergence of the Confessing Church. In the U.S. that tradition came from the experience and theology of our separatist Congregational forbearers. In UCC parlance, the same assertion – “Christ is the only true head of the church” – is not only about our commitment to the separation of church and state. It’s also the basis of our congregational polity, our non-creedal faith and our covenantal theology. And, I pray, our social justice witness…
In Bonhoeffer’s judgement, the dominant form of Christianity in Germany was simply not spiritually muscular enough to recognize the threat posed by National Socicalism and resist it as a matter of faith. In the “underground” seminary Bonhoeffer led, he trained clergy to create Christian community grounded in Christ and committed enough to one another to grow in and live out a powerful faith. (Hopefully, that feels familiar to Old Firsters!). Bonhoeffer believed that Christ was both the center and the connection for the members of such a activist, servant church community.
In general, I’m wary of comparisons between our situation and fascist governments of the past. Trump may hope to become our absolute autocrat. So such comparisons effectively raise emotions and alarms. But our struggling system still has some guardrails and power centers independent of the President and his Executive Branch. Let’s pray, there is enough strength left in our constitutional democracy to resist his malignancy. Still I find the example of the Confessing Church incredibly helpful prescriptively.
Remember the last “Fear Not” about Christan votes in the last elections (81% of white Evangelicals and 67% of white Catholics supported Trump)? Clearly, in a demographically changing America, racism / white fear are motivating factors. Bonhoeffer, in America of the 30s, was dismayed by the American church’s ineptitude when it came to integration. How different might American history be if a larger portion of the American church had made racial justice and equality confessional issues?
But could it also be that evangelical Christianity isn’t giving its adherents the spiritual resources needed to meet the challenges of our contemporary society and the current political moment? One of you responded to the previous piece: “I just read your Fear Not. I have read a few people — Christians from the Evangelical side — who have said the white christian nationalists’ and fellow travellers’ behavior is deadly to Christian witness. I think that’s right.”
But for us, there’s a question closer to home. How is our public witness, as Christians who oppose Trump? Is our faith – like much of the German Church in the 40s – only “Christian nominally when in church, but withering as soon as we take it out into the world”? As a queer Christian, I want to challenge the church to have the courage to “come out as Christian,” so our more progressive Christianity might hit the mark. The nation needs all people of good faith to take a stand.
The church in the U.S. is already effectively divided between those who support and those who oppose MAGA as their profession of faith. (Is there also a large, “lukewarm” in between?) But the example of the Confessing Church helps us who oppose Trump based on our faith know what to do.
At least, I’d like us to be a louder, more forceful opposition and / or resistance. Like I said in the first of this two-part “Fear Not,” “just as here and there, law firms, universities and corporations have stood up to the President.” And the Council of Catholic Bishops has now done so on Immigration. Despite earlier hopes that the courts could be our defense, there seems to be no single force to bring Trump in line. Instead, we’re going to have to undertake the hard work of taking away his support one pillar at a time. We need all the opposition possible from every sector if our nation is to survive this threat. I want the church to contribute its fair share offering.
We also need to care for the integrity of the church God has entrusted to us. Is it… are we being faithful and protecting what is sacred? In our following Christ, can we find the depth and clarity to proclaim the true meaning of Christian faith in the face of so much cruelty, harm, lawlessness and disregard? Bonhoeffer’s question was “Who is Christ for us today?” Will we be the ones who were faithful even with the cost of discipleship?
In courage and faith,
By, Michael Caine, Rev.
Michael is the Senior Pastor of Old First Reformed United Church of Christ in Philadelphia
Editor-in-chief, Rev. Renaldo McKenzie, The NeoLiberal Journals