BTW, I’ve tired of IntenseDebate, so that function is no longer available here.

For whatever may have been the significance of this theology of the Old School of Erlangen, it had certain faults that, in spite of the stature of its exponents as men and scholars, made it impossible that there should come from it a lasting renewal of the Lutheran Church. They had not been able to keep away from the seductive poison of Schleiermacher subjectivism. In spite of all their efforts to hold fast to the objective truths of revelation, this method that took its cue from Schleiermacher inevitably led to fateful consequences. The close of the century showed clearly what keen-eyed contemporaries had detected at the time. If “I, the Christian, am for me, the theologian, the real object for systematic-theological observations,” then no power on earth can preserve such a theology from the fate of becoming a Science of the Good Man, a Science of Religion.

Hermann Sasse, “On the Problem of the Relation Between the Ministry and the Congregation” (1950), trans. E. Reim

We now make a leap into the following year, 1941, and come to a sermon on 1 Peter 5:6-11, which Elert preached on June 29, a week after the beginning of the Russian campaign. Thereby, he interprets the well-known verse 8. “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

For Elert it is clear that this passage relates to the epic battle between the German army and the army of the atheist-Bolshevist Soviet Union—a world-historical struggle in which he recognizes “the mighty hand of God” (v. 6) as a “clenched fist” of the Lord against His mortal enemy. The war is certainly not a crusade, because rightly it is not being waged in the name of Christ and the Kingdom of God; it is not an eternal but a temporal war. However, as Elert emphasizes, Hitler still fights a holy war on God’s behalf against the satanic power in the East:

“[When] we look with a large dose of sobriety at this major war that is now raging in the East, we know that it is being waged for earthly things; on our side it is being waged for peace, order, rest and to support the life of the European people. The leader of our people (der Führer unseres Volkes; Adolf Hitler) has clearly stated as much, and we thank him for it. He holds a sacred office; God has placed into his hand a sacred sword.” It is “not a crusade, but self-defense against the intrusion of a satanic overpowering will of God’s enemies. And the sword that is drawn against it is a holy sword.”

Berndt Hamm. “Werner Elert als Kriegstheologe.” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte. 11(1998):214-215.

In this non-sentimental but theologically-programmatic way, Elert experienced and interpreted the German army’s winning campaign against Poland as God’s violent act of war against Germany’s enemies. If our fathers, he asked in February 1940, had once judged correctly about the defeat of Napoleon and his army—“With man and horse and cart, God has defeated them!”—is that not valid today?

“May and must we not also judge so today, if not otherwise by chance, that God Himself is seated in the regiment? Does it not truly give God glory if the leader of the people (Führer des Volkes; Adolf Hitler) has so pronounced what everyone feels, including Christians?”

Here Elert invokes Hitler’s speech, delivered on September 19, 1939 in Danzig (Gdansk), in which [Hitler] utilized the old national-religious verse of the Napoleonic era, “Mit Mann und Ross und Wagen hat sie der Herr geschlagen.“

Berndt Hamm. “Werner Elert als Kriegstheologe.” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte. 11(1998):213.

[Younger Lutheran theologians are] attempting to reclaim a bit of Lutheranism’s more “Orthodox” past. Dissatisfied with the status quo, they themselves are survivors of a pro-contraception, pro-divorce, pro-abortion, and now pro-same-sex “marriage” culture. These theologians would suggest that the prevalent (and primarily academic) post-Kantian theological paradigm, one that appeals chiefly to the writings of Luther and relies heavily on Lutheran theological shorthand, is far too elastic to deal effectively with the ethical problems of today. These younger theologians would point both to the past and present as proof. For example, based on an understanding of the orders of creation teaching, some German “Confessional Lutherans” supported the early efforts of National Socialism, including public policies discriminating against Jewish persons.¹ More recently, and after jettisoning the authority of God’s Word as well as natural law in moral matters, some American Lutherans have appealed to Luther’s teaching on vocation to justify same-sex “marriage.”²

Younger Lutheran theologians would suggest that while natural law does not present a comprehensive set of rules and regulations for every situation, it does provide a rational, external and objective critique of the “diverse and strange teachings” (Heb 13:9) that arise due to our sinful human condition. With St. Paul, Luther, and Melanchthon they would affirm that the natural law (Rom 2:14), which is written on the hearts of men (Rom 2:15), is accessible through the use of human reason (sin is irrational; Rom 1:21-22), and is objective, God-given “truth” (Rom 1:18). Thus, natural law would find no apparent reason to prohibit a Jewish man from marrying a German woman. However, natural law would prohibit the marriage of two men or two women, regardless of race. Why? Because marriage (if the term is to mean anything) pertains to one man and one woman united for the chief purpose of procreating and nurturing children. This objective, unalterable truth, imbedded in human nature itself,³ is demonstrable not only from clear passages of Scripture, but also from natural law.

1. Werner Elert. “Der Christ und der völkische Wehrwille.” (1937).
2. Laurie A. Jungling. “A New Vision of Marriage as Vocation for the Lutheran Tradition.” Journal of Lutheran Ethics. VII:2 (2007). Available at: http://www.lcna.org/resources/downloadable-resources. Accessed April 18, 2011.
3. Philipp Melanchthon. Ap XXIII (XI):6. Concordia, 211.

In Germany the modern Lutheran theology was developing into a nationalistic theology strongly influenced by Lutheran tendencies. It could be characterised as a Theology of Creation, taking such elements of creation as the blood, the race, the state, as God-given elements on which the nation, the church, and theology have to build. It was most characteristic that a statement of the Lutheran faculty of Erlangen [most likely the Ansbacher Ratschlag, or Ansbacher Memorandum, signed by Werner Elert and Paul Althaus on June 11, 1934] and other statements coming from Lutheran theologians like Hirsch, Wobbermin, and theologians in Leipzig came very near to such a Theology of Creation, which was criticized by Karl Barth from his Reformed point of view as a mere natural theology having lost any distinctive features of the original Protestant faith.

I’ve translated a few snippets from Nürember racial purity laws, enacted two years earlier). (p. 9)

Therefore, the truly epoch-making and liberating National Socialist (Nazi) system of government… is drawn from this experience and [its] conclusions (the “special interest groups of the Weimar Republic, which Elert has just condemned), [and] has stepped forward first to restore a uniform will of the German people. (p. 11)

Of Civil Affairs they teach that lawful civil ordinances are good works of God, and that it is right for Christians to bear civil office, to sit as judges, to judge matters by the Imperial and other existing laws, to award just punishments, to engage in just wars (iure bellare, rechte Kriege fuehren), to serve as soldiers, to make legal contracts, to hold property, to make oath when required by the magistrates, to marry a wife, to be given in marriage. They condemn the Anabaptists who forbid these civil offices to Christians. They condemn also those who do not place evangelical perfection in the fear of God and in faith, but in forsaking civil offices, for the Gospel teaches an eternal righteousness of the heart. Meanwhile, it does not destroy the State or the family, but very much requires that they be preserved as ordinances of God, and that charity be practiced in suchordinances. Therefore, Christians are necessarily bound to obey their own magistrates and laws save only when commanded to sin; for then they ought to obey God rather than men. Acts 5:29.

The AC does not state that every war is a just war, but rather distinguishes just from unjust wars. As in all things, Christians are to avoid sin also when it comes to war, serving in the military, and so on. Obeying orders, depending on the situation, may indeed be sinful, and this must be rejected, just as signing a legal contract in order to defraud is sinful, immoral, and illegal and must be rejected. When any earthly order claims authority over God’s moral law, whether written in Scripture or inscribed into the hearts of men (natural law), it must be rejected. The AC says: “obey… save only when commanded to sin.”

Lutherans who suggest that any act committed, solely on the basis of “following orders,” is God-pleasing, are not familiar with this article of the Augsburg Confession. Nor, perhaps, are they familiar with the awful history of the Third Reich.

In response to the Barthian, unionist Barmen Declaration, on May 31, 1934 Erlangen school theologians Werner Elert and Paul Althaus signed the Ansbach Memorandum (Ansbacher Ratschlag), which included such categories as “race” and “blood” within the Orders of Creation teaching. For those interested in German Lutheranism during the Nazi Period, paragraph 3 of this Memorandum is an issue:

3. Das Gesetz, nämlich der unwandelbare Wille Gottes’ (FC, Epit. VI, 6), begegnet uns in der Gesamtwirklichkeit unseres Lebens, wie sie durch die Offenbarung Gottes ins Licht gesetzt wird. Es bindet jeden an den Stand, in den er von Gott berufen ist, und verpflichtet uns auf die natürlichen Ordnungen, denen wir unterworfen sind, wie Familie, Volk, Rasse (d. h. Blutzusammenhang). Und zwar sind wir einer bestimmten Familie, einem bestimmten Volk und einer bestimmten Rasse zugeordnet. Indem uns der Wille Gottes ferner stets in unserem Heute und Hier trifft, bindet er uns auch an den bestimmten historischen Augenblick der Familie, des Volkes, der Rasse, d. h. an einen bestimmten Moment ihrer Geschichte.

[... people, race (that is, blood relationship). And so we are assigned a particular family, a particular people, and a particular race. Inasmuch as God's will encounters our here and now, He also binds us to a particular historical moment of the family, the people, the race, that is, a particular moment of their history. My translation.]

It should be clear why especially Elert’s rejection of the traditional doctrine of the natural law should be problematic. It should also be clear why Lutherans advocating “race” and “blood” as part of the Orders of Creation during this part of Germany’s history (just look at the photo above, taken in Berlin the year before the Memorandum was signed) should be considered especially problematic.

Lowell Green, in his Lutherans Against Hitler: An Untold Story (CPH 2007) suggests that Elert and Althaus had been “prodded” into joining the group that would write and publish this document. Green also suggests that Elert and Althaus left this group in October, after it was suggested that the Memorandum had lead to the Nazi takeover of the Lutheran Land Church of Bavaria (p. 332).

In a newer work, The Erlangen School of Theology: Its History, Teaching, and Practice (Lutheran Legacy, 2010), Green suggests that as soon as July 1, 1934, the day Ernst Roehm and other members of the Sturmabteilung leadership were assassinated, Elert’s “eyes were opened” to the evils of Hitler and the Nazi program (p. 241). In fact, in this work Green suggests that, remarkably,

Elert’s new assessment of the situation was known only within a close circle of family and friends. The Nazi reign of terror had begun, and Elert discreetly hid his opinion and prudently pretended to go along with the new government. His camouflage was so convincing that he was able to serve as Dean of the Theological Faculty for an unheard-of span of eight years (1935-1943); this was a university belonging to the state of Bavaria which had been “coordinated” into the German Reich and was therefore under Nazi control! (p. 241).

What’s curious is that Green seems to be claiming that Elert’s eye’s were opened 1) within two months after publicly including, in perhaps one of the worst conceivable political environments ever, “race” and “blood” within the Orders of Creation doctrine, and (2) only after Hitler ordered the assassination of a known political rival and homosexual, Ernst Julius Röhm, and his top brass.

What’s even more curious is that Green seems to base a number of conclusions on archived papers available only at the University of Erlangen, among which are “several first-hand reports written by Elert which describe his experiences and Dean of the Theological Faculty during the Hitler years” (p. 238), reports written, it must be added,

under post-war American occupation and within the context of German paranoia over retribution for Nazi atrocities.

Tell me again why Green’s newest work is being promoted by Logia?

The signs read: “Germans, defend yourselves against the Jewish atrocity propaganda, buy only at German shops!” and “Germans, defend yourselves, buy only at German shops!”
Credit line: National Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives
Date: Apr 1, 1933
Locale: Berlin, Germany
Sources: National Archives , College Park , MD; Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz , Berlin, Germany

As a theologian with expertise in the Reformation period and the Lutheran Confessions, Green cannot be expected to be familiar with every book and article in the field of the Church Struggle. However, his failure to recognize in his bibliography, footnotes, or the pages of his monograph the extensive and easily accessible scholarship that directly relates to his topic is perplexing, to say the least. As one might expect, much of this unacknowledged scholarship contradicts Green’s thesis, but to ignore it entirely gives the impression that he does not believe it is even worthy of mention. A study of Lutheran theology and Lutheran resistance during the Third Reich should certainly make some mention of, even if only to refute their theses, the work of Doris Bergen, Gerhard Besier, John Conway, Robert Ericksen, Richard Gutteridge, Wolfgang Gerlach, Martin Greschat, Susannah Heschel, Jochen-Christoph Kaiser, Bjoern Mensing, Kurt Nowak, Eberhard Roehm, Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz, Joerg Thierfelder, and many others. Green’s tendency to rely primarily on published collections of documents, a limited selection of secondary sources, and the archive of the theological faculty at the University of Erlangen contradicts his claim that this book is an impartial study of “the untold story” of Lutherans against Hitler.

Scholars of the Church Struggle, including many of those named above, have been critical, even harsh, in their evaluation of the actions and inaction of Confessional Lutherans during the Nazi era. These historians charged the Confessional Lutherans with theological inflexibility, ultra-nationalism, antisemitism, and even support for many of Hitler’s goals. Green states that he felt compelled to answer these derogatory charges and, in so doing, redeem the reputations of Confessional Lutherans, some of whom he had studied under at the University of Erlangen in the 1950s. Indeed, Green succeeds in providing an entirely different picture–but at a cost. His monograph is so polemical and one-sided that it undermines his own argument. A case in point is Green’s treatment of Karl Barth and the Confessing Church. In the chapter on Theocratic Enthusiasm Green makes the patently absurd and offensive claim that, “There were uncomfortable similarities between Hitler and Barth” and then goes on to compare Hitler’s worldview to Barth’s (236). He also likens the Confessing Church to a totalitarian movement. To be sure, Barth and the members of the Dahlem-wing of the Confessing Church should not escape the scrutiny of scholars nor should their efforts to protect the churches from Nazi and German Christian encroachments be mocked.

By focusing disproportionately on the struggle for church autonomy in the Third Reich, particularly the success that Lutheran Bishops Marahrens, Meiser, and Wurm had in preserving the independence of their regional churches, Green directs the reader’s attention away from issues that shine a less favorable light on the Confessional Lutherans. The unflattering record of Confessional Lutherans, especially Althaus, Elert, Marahrens, and Meiser on the Jewish question is virtually ignored by Green. They may have opposed militant antisemitism but their statements and silences throughout the Nazi period indicate a latent antisemitism and insensitivity to the Third Reich’s Jewish victims. Green’s exculpatory analysis of the 1933 Erlangen response to the Aryan paragraph, the 1934 Ansbach memorandum, and the 1939 Godesberg declaration is indicative of his allegiance to the leading figures of Confessional Lutheranism and his unwillingness to acknowledge the damaging role they played in undermining Protestant resistance to the German Christians and the Nazi Party.

A balanced study that neither excoriates Confessional Lutherans for distancing themselves from the Niemoeller-wing of the Confessing Church nor extols them for their rigid adherence to the principles of Lutheran Confessionalism is needed now more than ever.

If Hockenos’s critique of Lutherans Against Hitler is valid, I’m wondering if it could be applied to The Erlangen School of Theology. Although I’ve not read the former, the latter clearly serves as an apologetic for Green’s favorite Erlangen theologians.