Christianity in the West existed for many centuries as a majority religion/ideology in a (mostly) comfortable marriage with the state. In this arrangement, the church provided ideological legitimation to the state, while the state secured a privileged and protected status for the church. This symbiotic relationship was a hallmark of Christendom.
As a result of this arrangement, Christianity tended to lose its prophetic edge. Supported by the power of the state, the church was often reticent to challenge injustices and abuses of authority. Moreover, the idea that the state, its culture, and its people were fundamentally “Christian” undermined the church’s calling to be a missional witness to the gospel. What need was there for calling people to faith and repentance when the culture and its people had, supposedly, already embraced Christ?
Yet at its core, the church is not a privileged majority, but rather a prophetic minority. That is, it exists as a band of Kingdom citizens who, in the midst of the nations, live to honor a transcendent King—one who rules over all kings—and call others to do likewise. As Michael Goheen notes, “Under the union of church and state that came to be called Christendom, surrounded by what was ostensibly a Christian culture, the church gradually lost its sense of being a distinct community embodying an alternative story. The prophetic-critical dimension of the church’s relation to its culture diminished, and the church’s identity was increasingly shaped by the culture’s story rather than by God’s mission. Rather than being an instrument for God’s redemptive purposes, the church became an arm and agent of state policy, part of the constellation of powers within the ‘Christian’ empire, alongside the resident political, economic, military, social, and intellectual authorities.”[i]
One who understood this prophetic-critical role of the church was German Catholic bishop Clemens August von Galen—known as the “Lion of Münster” for his roaring opposition to the Nazis. When the National Socialist party assumed power in Germany in the 1930s, it initially postured itself as a friend of Christianity. Much of the official rhetoric—particularly in the Concordat of 1933—stated that the church would remain free to operate according to its convictions. However, in practice, the Nazi government systematically curtailed the church’s freedoms and sought to subsume all expressions of Christianity under the power and direction of the state. This was but one example of a church transitioning from a privileged majority to a prophetic minority at odds with a hostile ruling party.
Von Galen, who saw through the empty rhetoric of Nazi officials, consistently critiqued the government for its abuses of power and publicly called the church to civil disobedience in cases where the state was at odds with Christian conviction. As the Nazi’s sought to “de-confessionalize public life,” von Galen observed that the church was being “openly and with impunity calumniated, slandered, and defamed in Germany! How many Catholics, priests and laity, are attacked and insulted in newspapers and public meetings, are forced out of their jobs and positions, and are put in prison and mistreated without trial.”[ii]
Recognizing that the church no longer held pride of place within the state, von Galen declared, “The time of conventional Christianity is past. Today, almost everyone will be personally put to the test.… will he decide for Christ or against him?”[iii]
He urged the church to live in allegiance to a higher authority and accept the consequences of so doing: “We … are called and obligated to serve God and the Kingdom of God on earth, to serve our fellow men, to serve our people and our State, by loyal fulfillment of our duties in our families, occupations and communities, by loyalty grounded in the fear and the love of God, as the holy martyrs did.… And if, as we do so, we are misunderstood, insulted, slandered, reviled, even persecuted, tortured and killed, ‘Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven’ (Matt 5:11).”[iv]
Von Galen understood that his church had become a minority and that it had to faithfully carry out its duty to stand for truth in the face of opposition.
His prophetic stand did not go unnoticed. Nazi officials seethed at von Galen’s public condemnations and some in the Gestapo wanted to publicly hang him. Yet his popularity among the masses within his diocese caused Nazi leadership to withhold retribution, fearing that his execution would undermine public support of their regime. In response to an internal request for his assassination, officials in Berlin decided to delay the matter until after the World War, noting that “revenge is a dish best served cold.”[v]
Hitler himself—though publicly silent on ecclesial matters in Germany—even vowed to make von Galen pay for his opposition to the Third Reich. In a private conversation in July 1942, Hitler asserted, “I am quite sure that a man like the Bishop von Galen knows full well that after the war I shall extract retribution to the last farthing. And, if he does not succeed in getting himself transferred in the meanwhile to the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, he may rest assured that in the balancing of our accounts, no ‘T’ will remain uncrossed, no ‘I’ un-dotted!”[vi]
Von Galen’s Catholic Church thus became a prophetic minority in the midst of Nazi Germany. Gone were its privileges and protections. The day had come for it to face opposition with cross in hand.
This episode in church history remains relevant for the Christian community today, particularly in the West (i.e., the countries of Europe and North America) where the church is facing an identity crisis. While the contemporary Western church does not always face such intense opposition from the state, it is nevertheless called to live as a counter community that embodies a different narrative than those which the world sets forth. Just as von Galen’s church countered the narrative of German racial superiority and the false narrative of Alfred Rosenberg’s “positive Christianity,” so too must the church today live as exiles (1 Pet 1:1) who testify—through word and deed—that we serve and adhere to a higher authority.
The church in the West is already being relegated to the margins of society. This might feel like an uncomfortable, new reality to many, but it is a reality that most churches throughout the world face on a daily basis. Like our brothers and sisters in the Majority World and like von Galen’s church in mid-twentieth-century Germany, we too will have to learn to live as a prophetic minority among a populace that does not look favorably on the narrative we embody or the God that we serve.
While the prospect of losing political power and privilege might be unnerving to many Christians in the United States, there remains great hope—not that we would recapture some semblance of a “moral majority,” but that we would witness the coming of God’s kingdom in the midst of hostile powers. Such was the case with the first-century church—which advanced in the face of significant opposition—and such will be the case today if the church faithfully embraces its calling to be a community of light in the midst of social, political, and spiritual darkness.
“The faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) does not depend on a secure standing with the state; it relies on him who “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3). And as the church assumes its role as a prophetic minority in the face of opposition, let us render to Caesar what is his, but let us not forget that our ultimate allegiance is to the Son who rules over all nations (Ps 2) and that our task is labor for his kingdom, regardless of the political consequences.
[i] Michael Goheen, A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 9.
[ii] Quoted in Daniel Utrecht of the Oratory, The Lion of Münster: The Bishop who Roared against the Nazis (Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2016), 106.
[iii] Quoted in Utrecht, Lion of Münster, 96.
[iv] Quoted in Utrecht, Lion of Münster, 105.
[v] Quoted in Utrecht, Lion of Münster, xiii.
[vi] Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944: His Private Conversations (New York: Enigma Books, 2000), 555.
