Preaching in Hitler's Shadow by Stroud Dean G

Author:Stroud, Dean G. [Stroud, Dean G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Published: 2013-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

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[3] We should recall that the Old Testament was not an approved text in Nazi Germany and that using a psalm was allowing a Jewish word to be heard in an approving fashion. As he notes later in the sermon, the text was known and used by many Christians as a prayer at meals. It is worth noting that the Old Testament was out of favor in Nazi Germany, yet Confessing pastors did not avoid it in their preaching.

[4] The German is Liebe Gemeinde, or literally “Dear congregation”; it is the standard opening for sermons.

[5] The German word is Kirchennot without the possessive pronoun “our.” I am inserting the pronoun because I believe that the pastor is talking as a pastor to his beleaguered congregations. It had been a very hard year for both pastor and members. They had seen their pastor arrested by the Gestapo twice, and they had lived with the growing tensions and conflicts between parish and state. They knew their pastor to be outspoken and noncompromising; and most in the congregation loved him for it. Yet it was parishioners in Dickenschied who, after the service, informed the Gestapo that the pastor had returned illegally to preach and demanded his arrest. Albrecht Aichelin, Paul Schneider: Ein radikales Glaubenszeugnis gegen die Gewaltherrschaft des Nationalsozialismus (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1994), p. 207 n. 128.

[6] Certainly here the pastor is referring to the embattled Confessing Church as a whole.

[7] As noted in the editor’s introduction, the Nazis were eager to suggest that benevolence was the state’s business and not God’s. Here Schneider reminds his congregations that God and not the Nazi state is the benefactor to whom we owe our thanks and praise. Also, uniting himself and his congregation with the Jewish singer simply bypasses Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda.

[8] German gütig may mean benevolent, gracious, benign, affectionate, kindhearted, among other things. Once again he contrasts the loving-kindness of God with the harsh, hateful, and violent god of Nazism.

[9] Perhaps the grace Schneider refers to is Danket dem Herrn, denn er ist freundlich, und seine Güte währet ewig, which says, “Thank the Lord, for he is kind and his kindness endures forever.” http://www.labbe.de/liederbaum/index.asp?themaid=28&titelid=185; accessed August 23, 2012.

[10] In German “thou” (du) and its various forms still serve as the familiar form of address and so do not sound old-fashioned. While one could translate these familiar pronouns with the more modern “you” and “your,” something of the intimacy in the German is lost. That God relates to us as du rather than as Sie is a remarkable feature of our faith that we should try to retain. It is nice that English forms do come close to the German du, dein, and the verb ending -est so that we have something of the sounds of the German. I have followed Schneider’s capitalization of these forms.

[11] Certainly Schneider’s reference opposes Nazi Germanic paganism.

[12] Here Schneider takes direct aim at Nazi teaching, even using the Nazi words “blood and soil” (Blut und Boden). Schneider

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