A Victory for Freedom The apparent capitulation of Herr Hitler
to, the German Confessional Synod may turn out to be one of the most important events since the revolution of 1983. The stand the dissident pastors were making for the right of the Church to order its own affairs and appoint its own hierarchy in its own way has evoked universal admiration, just as the employment of S.A. troopers and secret police against the bishops and pastors has evoked universal reprobation. But just how far the Reiehskanzler went when, after refusing to receive Reichsbishop Muller, he received Bishops Wurm and Meiser and Marahrens on Tuesday is not yet clear. It is not enough for him to wash his hands of the whole Church dispute, and veto the employment of police or storm troopers against supporters of the Confessional Synod. Important financial questions, for example, arc involved, for it matters vitally to the new Church whether it is to get its share of the Church Tax "levied by the State. Neither is it so far clear whether the German Christians under Reichsbishop Muller are to remain associated with the State, and the Confessional Synod to grow up as a Free Church beside them. Such a conception, except for the existence of comparatively small bodies like the Baptists and Methodists and Moravians, is foreign to Germany. That a notable victory has been won for freedom of conscience is manifest, but its magnitude remains still to be assessed.
