NAZIS AND THE CHURCH.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20205, 16 January 1934, Page 1

NAZIS AND THE CHURCH.

Hitler Summons Bishop to Interview. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. BERLIN, January 15. Reich Bishop Muller, Primate of the German Evangelical Church, has been ordered to appear before the Chancellor, Herr Hitler, on January 17, and on this interview depends his continuance in office. It has been learned that some pastors read from their pulpits the protest prepared by the Pastors' Emergency Federation against the pagan views expressed by the extremists. The Federation has passed resolutions, it is understood, demanding Bishop Muller's immediate resignation and permitting Press reports of Church troubles.

The present dispute cuts right across the Nazi movement itself. The Extremists wish to abandon the Old Testament and the doctrine of sin, and. to worship Christ as “ an heroic figure.” The Moderates are determined to keep pure the traditional faith of the Lutheran Church.

The Moderates, represented by the Pastors’ Emergency League, include many men who are firm supporters of the Nazi regime in politics. But they reject the demand that all good Nazis should be enrolled under the German Christian movement, and they also re ject the “ Aryan clause,” under which only “ Nordic ” pastors can hold office. They have been strong enough to obtain the suspension of the “ Aryan clause,” and the resignation of the Spiritual Ministry, w'hich controlled the Church and which included Bishop Ilossenfelder, of Brandenburg, leader of the “ German Christians,” the socalled neo-pagans. Reich Bishop’s Dilemma.

It must not be forgotten, moreover, that this conflict has two sides, a public one and an internal one. Chancellor Hitler, who is a Catholic and therefore completely outside the range of this Protestant conflict of faith, naturally dislikes the international flurry which it has caused in the outside world. He will not stand any disunity within his own sphere, and when it is there he is protected carefully from it.

Ilerr Hitler believes in leadership, and thus asked Reich Bishop Muller, his man in the Protestant Church, to apply the principle of Nazi leadership in the Protestant Church. Bishop Muller is in a dilemma, far whereas a facade of unity may be set up in the mundane world of politics that is not so easy to do in the realm of spiritual affairs. Obviously Bishop Muller does not wish to push things too far. Already the conflict has received too much publicity for Nazi taste. The whole Anglo-Saxon Protestant Church of Britain and America is watching the struggle closely and has a keen personal interest in it.