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Work #1579 · Middle

The Barmen Declaration

Karl Barth
1934 (29-31 May, Barmen Synod) · German
Theological declaration (church-political document) · Reformed dialectical theology / Confessing Church / anti-Nazi German Christianity

Barth's 1934 Barmen Declaration — the founding charter of the Confessing Church against Nazi Reichskirche

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute The Barmen Declaration (Middle)
Time · Extent Finite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Finite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Finite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Mediated
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Partial
Observer · Physicality Both
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Personal
Observer · Moral Authority Revelation
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Finite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

The Barmen Declaration

29-31 May 1934. Hitler had become chancellor on 30 January 1933; the Reich Bishop Ludwig Müller (a German-Christian) had been imposed on the Evangelical Church in September 1933; the German-Christian-controlled Prussian church's 'Aryan paragraph' had taken effect in early 1934.

Space

The Barmen Declaration

Barmen-Gemarke, Wuppertal — the Synod venue. The Declaration was drafted in Frankfurt and adopted in Barmen, both in the Rhine-Westphalia region where Confessing-Church strength was greatest.

Matter

The Barmen Declaration

Six-thesis declaration (~1000 words total). Form is confessional-creedal: each thesis consists of a scriptural citation, a positive doctrinal affirmation, and a 'we reject the false doctrine that...' counter-claim.

Observer

The Barmen Declaration

Confessing-Church synod via Barth's drafting. The Declaration's collective voice represents the Confessing Church as a whole, but Barth's distinctive theological-confessional formulation is recognisable throughout.

Energy

The Barmen Declaration

Church-political-confessional energies of 1934. The Declaration is at once a theological document (a binding statement of Christian doctrine) and a political document (a refusal of the totalitarian-state Church claim).

Information

The Barmen Declaration

Short formal declaration. The six theses are tightly compressed; their full force depends on the unstated context of the 1933-34 Reichskirche crisis.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

The Barmen Declaration

Founding charter of the Confessing Church and a defining twentieth-century church-political document. The Confessing Church organised around it; its inheritors in the post-war German evangelical churches treat it as binding confessional standard; it shaped twentieth-century discussions of church-state relations, religious resistance to totalitarianism, and the limits of pastoral accommodation.