The Higher Powers

The short grey beard, the cigar and the fierce twinkle of Berlin's Evangelical Bishop Otto Dibelius, 79, are second only to the face of Chancellor Adenauer himself as a symbol of resolution against the East German Communists. Toughness, as Dibelius well knows, is not all; he must protect the Christians in the Communist zone with plenty of canny compromise. But during the past few months, Bishop Dibelius began to feel that for the Evangelical Lutheran churches, it was all give and no get.

When the church softened its policy to permit "Youth Dedication" to the state, participation in these strictly secular ersatz confirmations hit an 80%-go% high last spring, and some East German congregations celebrated no Christian confirmations at all. Fewer and fewer children are signing up for the voluntary school program of religious education. Economic discrimination against Christians has not abated, and Red bureaucrats systematically hinder efforts to build new churches and repair old ones. In Saxony alone, 50 churches were condemned as unsafe since the war while the state withheld permission for repairs.

In view of all this, Bishop Dibelius decided that toughness was in order. He said, in effect, that East German laws are not valid for Christians.

There Is No Right. Dibelius said it quietly, in a birthday letter to his colleague, Hanns Lilje, Bishop of Hannover. And he said it in a form to which Germans are especially sensitive: a discussion of the text in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans 13:1 that has sometimes been blamed for Christian docility to Hitler-"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God."

The totalitarian state, wrote Bishop Dibelius, has no claim to the Biblical status of "the powers that be." In a totalitarian system "there is no right in the Christian sense of the word . . . Paul's words are set aside." Encountering a speed-limit sign along a highway in the free world, wrote Dibelius, he would not hesitate to slow down. But not in East Germany. First, because the speed limit would not be applied equally to ordinary citizens and Communist functionaries and because the slowdown would be made necessary, in all likelihood, by some immoral purpose, such as starving out West Berlin. And second, "because I know that these ordinances are those of . . .a regime which I, in the name of God and Our Lord Jesus Christ, would like to see disappear."

No to Authority. Printed as a 23-page brochure by Bishop Dibelius' friends, the bishop's birthday letter exploded like a bomb in both Germanys. "The most sensational and most unsettling for church members of all the sensational and unsettling things [Dibelius] has said, preached and written," spluttered the West German Lutheran biweekly Stimme der Gemeinde (Voice of the Congregation). Bishop Lilje recoiled from his surprise package. "I cannot share Dibelius' views,'' he said. "One can't drive down the street any way one wants to." The board of managers of Dibelius' own Evangelical Church of Berlin and Brandenburg also stepped lightly out of the target area. "We cannot share [Dibelius'] interpretation," they advised member pastors. "The obedience required of us by Holy Writ in respect to governmental authority applies also to the governments presently existing today."

Bishop Dibelius said nothing. He had succeeded in what he had set out to do: remind Germans of their precious right to say no to authority.

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