Religion: Bowed Heads

Germany’s traditional and somberRepentance Day, almost forgotten under the Nazis, was celebrated with special fervor this year. Portly, bald Theology Professor Heinrich Vogel of the University of Berlin wrote a special prayer for the occasion. In the Evangelical churches (about 1,500) of Berlin and Brandenburg synod, German heads bowed piously to its words:

“God has made us as dirt and dung among the nations. . . . We are deserving of all that is happening to us at this time. It is our, fault, our great fault. . . . O God . . . watch over those who have power over our powerlessness and show them that hate can never accomplish anything.”

At Repentance Day services, pastors underlined the guilt of the German Protestant church itself. Said Dachau’s No. 1 ex-prisoner, famous Pastor Martin Niemöller:

“The church did not win, it failed, and is still failing because it maintains that though the world all around it is being judged, the church is above criticism. We Protestants must repent, we did badly. There were only 45 Protestant pastors in Dachau concentration camp as opposed to 450 Catholic priests.”