Sort of Married

In San Francisco and New York, the law is blurring the meaning of family.

Nobody has yet figured out a way to be “a little bit pregnant,” but if some public officials have their way, it may soon be possible for homosexuals to be “sort of married”—thanks to recent events in San Francisco and the state of New York (CT, Aug. 18, 1989, p. 44). Official actions there have been both embraced and reviled as sanctions for gay and other nonmarried, live-in relationships. It looks as if the church may need to prepare for a long series of legislative battles on yet another family issue.

In New York, the state Court of Appeals ruled that a partner in a long-term homosexual relationship can take over the couple’s rent-controlled apartment when the lover who signed the lease dies. The term family, wrote Associate Justice Vito Titone for the four-to-two majority, “should not be rigidly restricted” to those who have formalized their relationship by obtaining a marriage certificate.

San Francisco’s contribution to the blurring of boundaries for family is a “domestic partners” ordinance. The proposal, written by gay municipal supervisor Harry Britt, includes a formal process for couples to register at city hall and be issued certificates similar to marriage licenses. Once registered, those who are city employees would be eligible for some of the same benefits as married employees. Shortly before the ordinance was signed into law, Britt noted that it was written so that “it could be used everywhere, and this afternoon we’re sending it to … so many other cities I can’t remember them all.”

All Eyes On San Francisco

In San Francisco, the story is not quite over. In early July, on the day the domestic partnership law was scheduled to take effect, the Reverend Charles McIlhenny of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Rabbi Lionel Feldman submitted a petition with over 27,000 signatures to the registrar of voters, forcing a November referendum that will finally decide the law’s fate.

San Francisco voters (and New York judges) are not the only ones who should be concerned about the outcome. These measures do more than simply recognize that society is host to a growing number of variations on the traditional family. They also give implicit endorsement, sending a clear message to impressionable young people that same or opposite-sex live-in relationships are acceptable. It is one thing when that argument proceeds from the mouth of a gay-rights activist; it is quite another when the highest court of New York and the governing board of a metropolitan area put their weight behind such distortion.

Fortunately, the San Francisco measure has stirred up a reaction. Bay Area evangelical pastor Gene Selander says that the close call on the domestic partners ordinance will guarantee that we will “see a little bit of the church militant arise” in months to come.

We hope so. A legislative aide to municipal supervisor Harry Britt said of the forthcoming referendum, “Now people all over the country are going to be watching this election. That’s what our [gay-rights] movement is all about. We want to be out. We want to be visible.”

We can pray that the church will be equally visible—and even more articulate—in speaking out against anything that chips away at the foundation of family and marriage. The health of society—and the church—is at stake. God’s purposes rest too squarely on the strength and stability of the family for us to sit quietly by.

By Timothy K. Jones.

Pete Rose might have bet on the ponies, but the rest of the nation apparently prefers the numbers game. Voters across the nation are rushing to the polls to approve public lotteries and other forms of legalized gambling.

Like the “sin taxes” on alcohol and tobacco, legalized gambling seems to make sense. Let bad habits pay for improved education, care for the elderly, housing for the homeless, and other services too costly to be borne by other forms of taxation. We may mildly mutter our objections to bingo and lotteries, but state-sponsored “gaming” has become public policy in many states without significant protest. Many legislators have been reluctant to approve public lotteries, but say opposition to legalized gambling is half-hearted and no match for the highly organized proponents. We evangelicals have been asleep or preoccupied with other worthy crusades.

In the meantime, gambling has begun to grip men and women in epidemic proportions. Valerie Lorenz, executive director of the national Center for Pathological Gambling, sees “compulsive gambling as the mental health problem of the 1990s.” Sirgay Sanger, who heads the National Council on Compulsive Gambling, has predicted that we may be “headed into a decade in which gambling will be the addiction of choice.”

That Gamblers Anonymous and various treatment centers for compulsive gamblers have grown rapidly is further evidence of the nation’s emerging addiction problem. Estimates are that up to 3 percent of the population must be classified as compulsive gamblers. These people have serious problems. Studies suggest that at least 20 percent of those who enroll in therapy programs have already attempted suicide at least once as a result of their enslavement.

Public officials recognize the potential harm of gambling, even as they legalize it. Minnesota’s legislature, for example, recently approved the creation of a state lottery (potential revenue: $90,000,000). Then, with a tip of the hat to an already sizable addiction problem in the state, the legislature promised the commissioner of human services $300,000 to establish treatment programs for those who would become ensnared in the web of state-promoted wagering. New Jersey, which expects to net $1 billion in lottery revenue this year, has set aside $275,000 for treatment of gambling-addiction problems. It is a thoughtful arsonist who puts a cup of water in the fire bucket. By and large, the irony of these disproportionate grants is lost in the legislative lust for expanded state revenues.

“Taxing” The Most Vulnerable

Victims of gambling addiction tend to be young adults, and the majority come from economic situations in which they are least able to afford the losses. A New Jersey study indicates that more than one-third of families with annual incomes of less than $10,000 spend one-fifth of their income on lotteries. In effect, they are financing a “program” ostensibly instituted to provide them with education, health care, jobs, and housing—a truly regressive form of taxation!

Yet if our response to the alcohol and tobacco revenues is any indication, we may continue to view lotteries and other types of legalized gambling as useful—albeit regrettable—sources of revenue. How tragic if we do. How tragic for those caught in gambling’s destructive grasp.

We have rightly learned to fight abortion and pornography aggressively—evils that galvanize our moral indignation. Shouldn’t we also generate some energy and responsible action to try to stem the plague of gambling, especially the state-promoted forms? Shouldn’t we use our organizational skill and lobbying savvy to resist the lottery plague?

By George K. Brushaber.

Lausanne II is now history. But the monumental task the conference addressed—world evangelization—is still ahead of us. The challenge would indeed be daunting without periodic conferences like this, which are occasions to discover the cohesiveness of the worldwide fellowship committed to the task and to sense the empowerment of the Spirit for witness and service.

Gathering 4,000 participants and support staff from 186 countries to the steamy urban jungle of Manila is no mean feat. And despite moments of apprehension during the last 12 months of preparation, the small working committee with its bare-bones office staff did a fine job of gathering up the loose ends into a meaningful pattern. Perhaps the monumental effort of putting the conference together makes world evangelization look somehow more manageable.

The choice of location showed both spiritual wisdom and political savvy. The sheer bulk of evangelicalism, along with the greatest vigor, has shifted from West to East, and from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern. While Switzerland may have been less humid and a whole lot more comfortable, shifting the Congress to the Third World made sense.

It also made sense because of the implicit endorsement of the incorporation of social-justice concerns into the program of evangelization. Third World evangelicals have, of course, always blended the two causes. But until the latter half of this century, European and North American evangelicals have largely restricted social activity to crusades against vice. And despite the forward-looking teaching of key evangelical thinkers, there remains a residual resistance to any social activity that does not promise an immediate crop of conversions.

But holding a major meeting in a Third World urban center is not the same as giving full recognition and participation to the evangelical leaders of the developing countries. Currently, only four of the thirteen members of the executive committee are Third Worlders. And all the North American members are white. The next step is clear: increase the proportion of the committee drawn from the Two-Thirds World and develop an appropriate racial balance among those drawn from North America.

By the Editors.

We hope a Hitler will never come again, but temptations like those he brought surely will

TIM STAFFORD

On September 1, 1939–50 years ago—Hitler invaded Poland and a world war began. Now, generations later, we are able to view this almost nostalgically; Word War II appears to be “the good war,” in which the sides were neatly divided between good and evil. Such historical memory appeals to our desire for moral order; Americans were “good people” who met and defeated evil.

One enigma persists, however: How did Germany come to be so dominated by evil? Where were their “good people”? Where, particularly, were the Christians in this “land of Luther”? With the translation and publication of Klaus Scholder’s The Churches and the Third Reich (two vols., Fortress), it has become possible for Americans to study this question much more closely.

History is about deeds that make a difference. In retrospect, to the secular historian, the “church struggle” against Hitler seems unimportant, for it failed. But during the thirties, the church struggle provided the most passionate and well-publicized resistance to Hitler’s totalitarianism. (A sign of how much has changed: Hitler proudly promoted his philosophy of government as “totalitarian,” in contrast to seemingly impotent democracy.) News stories about the church struggle appeared almost daily in such papers as the New York Times. Martin Niemöller, the foremost leader of the church resistance, was a household name.

We can learn as much from studying failure as from studying success. Through considering the church’s reaction to Hitler, we can learn how it is that good, Christian men and women allowed a truly demonic government to lead their nation—and the world—into hell on earth.

An Unglorious Prize

Prewar Germany was not an agnostic nation. Though certain strata of society were strikingly anti-Christian, most Germans felt a deep piety mixed with a profound patriotism. It would have been difficult for any leader to lead Germany if the church had stubbornly and openly opposed him.

Hitler knew that. So when he came to power in 1933 he set a high priority on controlling the church. Within months he completely dominated other important German institutions: the labor unions, the universities, the parliament, and the political parties. He devoted much more energy to the church, but with it he never quite succeeded. If you awarded a prize to the German institution that most successfully withstood Hitler’s arrogation of power, you would have to give the prize to the church. Unfortunately, this would be like awarding an Olympic gold medal to a one-legged runner after all other competitors fell down; the church, if it did better than others, did not do well.

I will mention six crucial aspects of the failure, concentrating on the Protestant side. (Catholics failed just as grievously, but in different ways and for somewhat different reasons.)

Satan comes as an angel of light. The German church was terribly afraid of communism. Not far from their borders, Stalin was in the midst of his deadly reign. A worldwide depression was destroying the German economy. Germans felt alone and persecuted in the world, as they had ever since the end of World War I and the Versailles Treaty. As Scholder writes, Germans felt that they lived in an “age of transition, which expected nothing of the present and everything of the future.”

Hitler played masterfully on these fears and dreams. His appeals to decisive leadership, to personal discipline, and to anticommunism attracted conservative German Protestants.

They ought to have known better. Hitler’s National Socialist party had a reputation for racism and thuggery. Less known, but not particularly hidden, was its background in pagan “pan-German” religion, which saw the German Volk as the power of light in a battle against worldwide darkness. This mystical elevation of German ethnicity was inherently anti-Christian, not only because it was anti-Semitic, but more broadly because Christianity, considering all people as equal (and equally helpless) at the foot of the Cross, could hardly glory in the greatness of Germanness.

In coming to power, however, Hitler disguised these features of his beliefs. He eliminated party leaders with a taste for anti-Christian religious controversy; and when he first came to power, he put on a show of pious religiosity. On the one hand, he insisted that his concerns were strictly political; he had no interest in doctrinal disputes. On the other hand, he spoke reverently of the Christian foundations of the German nation, promising that the government would “take Christianity under its firm protection, as the basis of our entire morality.…” He ended his speeches with a pious benediction, beseeching God’s blessing on Germany. Hitler, a master of symbols, created an impression of humility before God. Most Germans, including most Christians, chose to trust him.

Hitler wanted to reorganize the nation, including the churches, through the führerprinzip or “leadership principle.” He professed to be distressed by the fragmentation of Protestant churches into numerous autonomous regional bodies; he proposed one centralized authority for the entire Protestant church. This posed as a matter of mere organization. In the enthusiasm of the moment, when most Germans joyfully believed that their nation was being saved, the churches accepted.

In reality, of course, Hitler wanted a convenient way to dominate the church. Once he had a national church organization, with a Reichsbischof at its head, it was easy to get his man into that position, and to use him to intimidate any resistance to the National Socialist program. Fortunately for the church, Hitler’s choice was a little-known military chaplain, Ludwig Muller, who spoke in pious phrases but dithered and lied whenever controversy sprang up, so that even supporters soon lost all confidence in him. If Hitler had chosen someone skillful, he might have neutralized the church without difficulty. In the events, Ludwig Müller’s untrustworthiness generated more immediate resentment than Hitler’s program.

God and country. Not only did Hitler play on a national mood, he played on a weakness in the church. German Protestants were proud of their church, with its well-ordered, 400-year-old Lutheran heritage and its world-renowned theologians. And they were proud of being German. They regarded German culture as the peak of Western civilization. Many German Christians moved easily from their pride and patriotism to a conviction that God had some unique place for the German people. They mixed God and country, even God and race.

“The German Volk,” wrote theologian Wilhelm Stapel in 1922, “is not an idea of humanity but an idea of God’s.” Some of Germany’s best theologians developed the proposition that God was revealing himself through his sovereignty over the German national experience. From this it was a short jump to the claim that Hitler’s seemingly miraculous transformation of Germany was an act of God, demanding Christian assent.

Perhaps Manifest Destiny—America’s nineteenth-century conviction that we had a unique calling to civilize the world—was similar. But nineteenth-century America was not squeezed by economic depression and civil turmoil as was Germany in the twenties and thirties—and America never produced a national leader like Adolf Hitler.

A national movement, the “German Christians,” rose up to celebrate Hitler, and their enthusiasm, plus the backing of Hitler’s officials and the support of prominent theologians, swept them to victory in the newly instituted national church elections. “German Christians” did not want the church to stand back from the wave of renewal Hitler was bringing; they wanted the church “coordinated” with the marvelous changes in the Third Reich. They wanted, for example, the laws removing Jews from civil service positions applied to Christian pastors. Those who were racially Jewish, or who had married Jews, would lose their churches. There were only a few such pastors, and the rationale was this: Doesn’t the work that God is doing in our nation require a wholehearted “Yes!”—even if it involves incidental cases of injustice?

In retrospect, Christian willingness to let Jews suffer seems incredible. It is salutary to remember, however, how few American Christians were at this same period disturbed by injustices done against blacks. People are able to ignore remarkable horrors, particularly if they have only incidental knowledge of the people involved.

The German church did ultimately resist “coordination.” Resistance began with political opposition to Reichsbischof Muller and his reorganizing schemes; then, under the leadership of Karl Barth, resistance became more theologically based. Bypassing the official church channels, church leaders met in the extraordinary Barmen Synod, where they solemnly ratified the Barmen Confession as the basis of the true Christian church.

The Barmen Confession was essentially theological, not political; it emphasized the uniqueness of God’s revelation in Christ, repudiating any “revelation” in German history or any other source. The political implications were obvious: nazism must be judged by the Bible. Around the Barmen Confession formed what was known as the Confessing Church, which asserted itself to be the true national church of Germany on the basis of its orthodox confession of Jesus Christ. (This was in contrast to the recognized national church, taken over by the “German Christians,” which based its authority on its official status.) It is difficult to assess the size and strength of the Confessing Church, but in some areas it was clearly a majority. After several years of strife, it succeeded in regaining partial control of the church bureaucracy. But by the time it had fought the battle within the church, it was too late to say a decisive word to the nation.

The limits of leadership. Hitler had not been in office long before some remarkably brave and capable pastors rose up to oppose his plans for the church. Martin Niemöller was the most outspoken and energetic; his past as a decorated World War I U-boat captain gave him impeccable patriotic credentials. Karl Barth provided theological resistance; his passionate insistence on the unique revelation of Scripture inspired ordinary pastors in a way that is rare in the history of theology. A young theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer was influential behind the scenes. It would be hard to wish for a more dynamic trio of leaders.

Yet more than leaders was needed. Niemöller was painted as a radical, and when Hitler imprisoned him, many pastors were secretly pleased. Barth, a Swiss citizen, had to leave the country. Bonhoeffer became a solitary voice and fell silent, his resistance going underground. Ultimately, only a small minority of Christians were willing to put their lives on the line, and these few could be marginalized.

The limits of theological statements. By all accounts, the high-water mark of the church resistance was the Barmen Declaration—a fine credal statement still read with profit today. All who attended the Barmen Synod were astonished by the breeze of the Spirit that blew there. But excitement must be translated into unified organization, into action with all the risks attendant. Proclamation is not enough. Sacrifice is required. And here the German church largely failed. Jealousy and pride among denominations and among individual leaders enabled the Nazis to play Christians off against each other.

Government tyranny may operate through nonconfrontational bureaucratic control. Hitler eventually abandoned the well-publicized war of direct confrontation with the churches. He won the silent war of bureaucratic harassment. Rather than imprisoning outspoken members of the Confessing Churches, government authorities made it difficult for such pastors to get new churches, threatened to take away their pensions, withheld salaries. It was more difficult to protest virtuously against the loss of a pension than it had been to protest against the forceful takeover of church offices.

Through the thirties, the government managed slowly to squeeze the church resistance down to nothing by such harassment. Eventually, when the war came, most young pastors were drafted, and they went quietly to war. Germans, deeply patriotic, could not imagine refusing to fight for their country.

The church can win battles for its rights but lose its identity as the church. It is possible to write a glowing account of the Confessing Church. It had its moments of glory. For example, the church never yielded on the Jewish question; despite sustained pressure from the Nazis, the church insisted on its right to baptize anyone seeking to become a Christian, regardless of racial background. The irony is that eventually the principle became meaningless: all “non-Aryans” having been put in concentration camps, none were left to baptize.

The great slogan of the Confessing Church was Let the Church Be the Church. It referred to the church’s unique calling. The church was to remain detached, as citizens of another kingdom, from the rages of the day. In a nation suddenly enthralled with its emerging destiny, detachment was essential.

What the slogan sometimes came to stand for, however, was an exaggerated view of the separation of church and state. It meant defending the church’s right to decide whom to baptize and what to preach; but it also could be taken to mean that the church would leave nonchurch matters strictly up to the state. The Confessing Church spoke strongly against the government when it interfered with Christian prerogatives. It failed to speak out when the government, as a “state matter,” interfered with Jews. Failing to speak for others, the church did not really remain the church.

Differences Today

It is difficult to imagine a country more ripe for Hitler than Germany in the thirties. Shattered institutions, a devastated economy, a pervasive sense of bewilderment and shame for the demise of their great culture—the circumstances of prewar Germany are very far from those in America today. We may be no better than those Germans, but we live under better conditions. Our institutions and traditions protect us from the likes of Hitler.

That is not to say, however, that there is nothing to learn from the failures of Christians in Germany. In other, subtler ways, the church can be tempted to support an immoral agenda, or at least be neutralized in its opposition.

We can learn to be watchful of those who seem to be our friends. We should beware of leaders promising deliverance from our fears, of politicians professing newfound piety. Politicians who understand how we think, who can manipulate our symbols and use words we love to hear—perhaps, today, words such as family and morality, which were also prominent in Hitler’s vocabulary—are inherently more seductive to the church than politicians, whom we find naturally prickly and difficult. The German church would never have submitted so happily to a leftist government, but a right-wing regime could play it like a fiddle.

We can learn that we cannot afford a lofty indifference to politics. In the German church, those least involved with the political scene were often the most easily led astray, because they were politically naïve.

We can learn that careful, theologically and biblically astute thinking is essential. Christians in Germany were only effective in resisting Hitler where the wider church—not just a few leaders—understood the distinctive Christian position at stake. The German church struggle teaches us that a church needs a clear, robust theology based on the revelation of God in Christ. If its positions are vague or sentimental, based on the spirit of the times more than on Scripture, the church can be swept away by those more expert at understanding the spirit of the times than we. Only the rare church leader can win political games with the politicians.

Finally, Christians must be willing to pay the price of sacrifice. Writing position papers and rating candidates will be inadequate. When was evil ever confronted by a position paper alone? The Confessing Church in Germany did some fine theologizing. Few, however, would give their lives to implement it.

Sacrifice is not the same as working hard for your cause. Christians have their distinctive institutional and religious interests, and it is expected that they will work to protect these just as do other lobbying groups. But sacrifice means working hard for people other than yourself—people who can never repay you. The German church failed at this. Their priorities were the prerogatives of the church: Christian influence in the schools, for example.

In the years before the war Dietrich Bonhoeffer frequently quoted Proverbs 31:8: “Open your mouth for the dumb, for the rights of all the unfortunate.” Sadly, few Christians responded. In our political involvements, we must be careful to do better. Otherwise, we may preserve our position in human society while sacrificing our position in God’s.

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