WWII

Editor’s Introduction: Responses to Christian Nationalism

[1] This May marked the 90th anniversary of the Barmen Declaration, which was written to denounce the German Christian movement under the Nazi regime and continues to serve as a guide for avoiding the false teaching of Christian nationalism. [2] This issue of JLE contains a lengthy two part essay, first presenting the history of […]

90 Years Barmen Declaration of Faith (1934)

Introduction and Scope [1] The assault on Germany’s Protestant church through the nationalist “faith movement” called the “German Christians” was as swift as it was successful: In 1931, “German Christians” did not exist. In the church elections of 1932 they scored dismally. On church Election Day July 23, 1933, “German Christians” took over leadership of […]

Book Review: A Cold, Descending Fog: Letters Home and a Memoir from Wartime Berlin, 1939-1940 edited by Stewart Herman III

[1] The summer of 1939 afforded Stewart Herman Jr. his last idyll as a pastor of the American Church in the heart of Nazi Germany, little though he knew it at the time. An opportunity to travel for six weeks through Scandinavia and the Baltic states, heading northward beyond the Arctic Circle, proved an invigorating […]

Review: Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance (Baylor University Press, 2014)

[1] This book reestablishes Williams’s doctoral dissertation work at Fuller Theological Seminary, entitled: “Christ-Centered Empathic Resistance: The Influence of Harlem Renaissance Theology on the Incarnational Ethic of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” Williams’ exploration is a welcome journey into a domain of praxiological substance in a contemporary age where vain ideologies, boisterous pathologies, and impotent philosophies have become […]