Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. On this episode we're going to the year

1934 and we are going to Germany. And we're going to be looking at the Barman Declaration.

In order to understand the Barman Declaration, we have to back up to the

previous year and in 1933 the National Synod of the German Church, this would be the National Lutheran Church, the Church that would have been founded

by Martin Luther himself back in the 16th century.

In 1933, the National Synod of the German Church endorsed the Nazi Party.

From then on it was known as the Reich Kirka or the Reich Church.

In response to that, there were a group of theologians and churchmen who responded by forming what they called the confessing church.

One of the key figures in this confessing church was the young professor of theology at the University of Berlin, Dietrich Bonifer.

And though he was young, he was well wise and mature beyond his years.

He was able to see the problems not only with the Nazi party

and where this was going to eventually take Germany, but also of the significant

problems when the church aligns itself with a political party or a political ideology.

In response to the Reich Kirka, Dietrich Bonifer set out to write what was called the Bethel

statement or the Bethel Confession of Faith.

Now on another episode of five minutes in church history, we'll have to come back and visit

this one.

That statement was not all that well received and when we do revisit this, we'll explain why. But in its place in the next year

in 1934 came the Barman Declaration. As a group of German churchmen theologians

leaders met at the city of Barman from May 29 to the 30th in

1934.

They wrote up the statement, it had a number of articles with it, and then it ended with six what they termed

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