This week in Christian history: Eddie Long dies, Altona Confession released

Altona Confession published – Jan. 11, 1933

This week marks the anniversary of the Altona Confession, a German Protestant confession of faith written in response to the rise of Nazism.

Officially titled “Message and Confession of the Pastors in Altona in These Perilous and Bewildering Times in Public Life,” the Confession was spearheaded by German Pastor Hans Asmussen and named after a port town in Hamburg, where he lived.

Asmussen and other local pastors crafted the Confession in response to the rise of Nazism, including an incident the year before in which Nazi storm troopers stormed Altona and engaged in violence against other political factions.

“Rather than fundamentally opposing National Socialism political from the outset, it intended to strengthen the church’s mission to teach, preach and minister confidently on the foundation of the Bible and Confessions alone,” noted a German website focused on Christian resistance to Nazism.

“Precisely this made the text a political provocation, however, because it challenged National Socialism’s and Communism’s claims to totality and severely bound them with the fundamental authority of God’s Word.”