What did German preachers opposed to Hitler say in their Sunday sermons? When the truth of Christ could cost a pastor his life, what words encouraged and challenged him and his congregation? This book answers those questions. Preaching in Hitler's Shadow begins with a fascinating look at Christian life inside the Third Reich, giving readers a real sense of the danger that pastors faced every time they went into the pulpit. Dean Stroud pays special attention to the role that language played in the battle over the German soul, pointing out the use of Christian language in opposition to Nazi rhetoric. The second part of the book presents thirteen well-translated sermons by various select preachers, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, and others not as well known but no less courageous. A running commentary offers cultural and historical insights, and each sermon is preceded by a short biography of the preacher.

In Preaching to Nazi Germany, William Skiles argues that clergy expressed various messages that aimed to limit Nazi interference in church affairs and at times even to undermine the Nazi state and its leaders and policies.

This dissertation examines sermons delivered by Confessing Church pastors in the Nazi dictatorship. The approach of most historians has focused on the history of the Christian institutions, its leaders, and its persecution by the Nazi regime, leaving the most elemental task of the pastor--that is, preaching--largely unexamined. The question left unaddressed is how well did Confessing pastors fare in articulating their views of the Nazi regime and the persecution of the Jews through their sermons? To answer this question, I analyzed 910 sermons by Confessing Church pastors, all delivered or disseminated between 1933 and the end of World War II in Europe. I argue that new trends in preaching popular among Confessing Church pastors discouraged deviation from the biblical text in sermons, and thus one result was few criticisms concerning German politics and society. Nevertheless, a minority of pastors criticized the Nazi regime and its leaders for their racial ideology and claims of "Aryan" superiority, and also for unjust persecutions against Christians. They condemned Nazism as a morally corrupt ideology in contradiction to Christianity. Further, I argue that these sermons provide mixed messages about Jews and Judaism. While on the one hand, the sermons express admiration for Judaism as a foundation for Christianity and Jews as spiritual cousins; on the other hand, the sermons express religious prejudice in the form of anti-Judaic tropes that corroborated the Nazi ideology that portrayed Jews and Judaism as inferior. In the final section of the dissertation I explore the ministries of German pastors of Jewish descent and argue that they not only experienced persecution from the Nazi state, but also from their own congregations. Nevertheless, the themes of their sermons are consistent with those found in those of their colleagues. My research demonstrates that the German churches were in fact places to offer criticism of the Nazi regime, which was often veiled through biblical imagery and metaphor. Yet the messages reveal criticism from a position of obedience and subservience to the state, and at the same time the expose a confused ambiguity about the Jews and Judaism and their relation to Christians in Nazi Germany.

The story of Nazi Germany is one of conflict between two saviors and two crosses. “Deine Reich komme,” Hitler prayed publicly—“Thy Kingdom come.” But to whose kingdom was he referring? When Germany truly needed a savior, Adolf Hitler falsely assumed the role. He directed his countrymen to a cross, but he bent and hammered the true cross into a horrific substitute: a swastika. Where was the church through all of this? With a few exceptions, the German church looked away while Hitler inflicted his “Final Solution” upon the Jews. Hitler’s Cross is a chilling historical account of what happens when evil meets a silent, shrinking church, and an intriguing and convicting exposé of modern America’s own hidden crosses. Erwin W. Lutzer extracts a number of lessons from this dark chapter in world history, such as: The dangers of confusing church and state The role of God in human tragedy The parameters of Satan's freedom Hitler's Cross is the story of a nation whose church forgot its call and discovered its failure way too late. It is a cautionary tale for every church and Christian to remember who the true King is.

The acquiescence of the German Protestant churches in Nazi oppression and murder of Jews is well documented. In this book, Christopher J. Probst demonstrates that a significant number of German theologians and clergy made use of the 16th-century writings by Martin Luther on Jews and Judaism to reinforce the racial anti-semitism and religious anti-Judaism already present among Protestants. Focusing on key figures, Probst's study makes clear that a significant number of pastors, bishops, and theologians of varying theological and political persuasions employed Luther's texts with considerable effectiveness in campaigning for the creation of a "de-Judaized" form of Christianity. Probst shows that even the church most critical of Luther's anti-Jewish writings reaffirmed the anti-semitic stereotyping that helped justify early Nazi measures against the Jews.

Privilege the Text! spans the conceptual gap between biblical text and life application by providing a rigorous theological hermeneutic for preaching. Kuruvilla describes the theological entity that is the intermediary between ancient text and modern audience, and defines its crucial function in determining valid application. Based on this hermeneutic, he submits a new mode of reading Scripture for preaching: a Christiconic interpretation of the biblical text, a hermeneutically robust way to understand the depiction of the Second Person of the Trinity in Scripture. In addition, Kuruvilla’s work provides a substantive theology of spiritual formation through preaching: what it means to obey God, the Christian’s responsibility to undertake “faith-full” obedience to divine demand, and the incentives for such obedience—all integral to understanding the sermonic movement from text to application. Privilege the Text! promises to be useful not only for preachers, and students and teachers of homiletics, but for all who are interested in the exposition of Scripture that culminates in application for the glory of God.

Important and insightful essays provide a penetrating assessment of Christian responses in the Nazi era.