RELIGION IN GERMANY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22941, 20 January 1938, Page 10

RELIGION IN GERMANY

The German Government's decision to place Dr. Niemoller on his trial, for offences that amount to | treason, is not unexpected. This is an almost inevitable outcome of the Nazi Party's determination, in the name of its new national religion exalting the German people as an object of worship, to suppress the preaching and teaching of Christian doctrine. Dr. Niemoller has exerted a powerful influence in the Confessional Church. This body, most of whose leaders are Lutherans, has laid stress on loyalty to the Confessions of Faith of the Evangelical Church, claiming that these are the chief guarantees-of the exclusion of secular or political ideas from the Gospel. It has been equally emphatic in asserting that the organisation of the Church must'conform to its own requirements and not be in any way created by the State. This Confessional Church has never been comparable in size with other religious bodies in Germany, and about a year ago it lost members because its leaders resolved to stand apart from the association of Lutheran Churches of Hanover, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Brunswick and Schleswig-Holstein, which were essaying a middle path between subservience and revolt. Naturally Herr Kerrl, Reichsminister for Church Affairs, took note of this uncompromising attitude of the Confessional Church, whose leaders preferred doctrinal loyalty to pursuit of religious unity. Its leadership, remodelled not long ago, has been in several hands, but Dr. Niemoller, although not in high authority, has been outstandingly bold in declaring adherence to the principle of independence of the State. His stand has attracted the frank displeasure of Herr Kerrl, and it has seemed, for many months, only a matter of time before a State trial of this spokesman would ensue. Its progress will be watched ill many lands .with painful~jntere