What kind of a breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of

unchanging truth for the Colston Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Today, May 31st marks the 90th anniversary of a great act of courage.

On this day in 1934, a group of theologians and ministers published the results of a conference.

It's known to history as the Barman Declaration.

The ideas articulated and claimed in the document were not

theologically innovative or all that remarkable.

However, it was the time and place in which they met and crafted this statement that made the

Mormon declaration so historic and so significant for us today. The gathering of

ministers and theologians were from Lutheran, reformed in other Protestant traditions.

The meeting was called in response to the growing danger of Adolf Hitler.

Most German Protestant groups had simply submitted to the Nazi oversight that was demanded

of them after the Nazi rise to power in 1933.

These so-called German Christians having compromised with the racist, eugenicists, and totalitarian regime

were left alone to practice their faith.

The group that gathered in Barman, Germany, however,

included theologians Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Nemoller, and Carl Bard.

They had founded the dissident confessing church as well as underground

seminary's the statement that was drafted was centered on the identity of

Christ and the implications of Christ for the Christian. And I quote,

Jesus Christ as testified in scripture as the word of God.

He is God's revelation in the Church's authority.

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