Die Vereinbarkeit der Barmer Theologischen Erklärung mit Grundüberzeugungen der Lutherischen Kirche und Theologie

The question whether the Lutheran Churches should acknowledge the Theological Declaration of Barmen as one of the normative confessions of the Church was raised frequently since 1934. In this paper, the author shows that a Lutheran reception of the Barmen Theological Declaration is possible if and only if the Declaration of Barmen allows a non-Barthian interpretation that does not reject the Lutheran distinction of Law and Gospel resp. of creation and redemption and a 'natural theology' derived from these distinctions. The author shows that such a non-Barthian reading of the Declaration is possible. He secondly tries to show that a reception of the Barmen confession is not only innocuous but advisable: The Barmen Declaration does not only repeat the 16th century confessions but surpasses them by clarifying the stance the Churches (should) take towards the claims of quasi-religious worldviews of the specifically modern totalitarian ideologies.