The East German church and the end of communism

Burgess, John P.

This book addresses the role of religion in the massive political changes that took place in Eastern Europe in 1989. In particular, it examines the role played by the East German church in that country's bloodless revolution. Although some scholars and political commentators have noted thatthe East German church provided a free space in which dissident groups could meet, they have neither described nor assessed the theology that guided the church's political involvement. Drawing on his own research in East Germany and relying primarily on sources published in East Germany itself, JohnBurgess demonstrates the roots of the church's theology in Barth, Bonhoeffer, and in the Barmen declaration, which in 1934 pronounced Christianity and Nazi ideology to be incompatible...