Auricular Confession Returns to a Section of World Protestantism

In Western and Eastern Germany com­bined, there are approximately 42,500,000 Protestants and 24,000,000 Roman Catholics.' Western Germany is 51.1 per cent Protestant, 45.2 per cent Catholic, and 3.7 per cent of other denominations, free thinkers, or non­members. Eastern Germany is 82 per cent Prot­estant, 12 per cent Catholic, and 6 per cent free thinking.' In a population of 69,500,000 there are 43,377 baptized members of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, with 870 churches, constituting our Central European Division.'

The Protestant Kirchentag did not embrace the Central European Division of Seventh-day Adventists.

The Kirchentag

Essentially the Kirchentag is a year-round activity. Its purpose is to provide a lay-spon­sored local Christ-centered program that will lead participants into living better lives. Bien­nially this program swells into something simi­lar to the American frontier camp meeting. At this Kirchentag one was aware of the presence of something more than a search for friendship and fellowship. In an economy where capital and labor have reaped large profits; where pros­perity has gone far beyond the dreams of the Third Reich of a decade ago, the well-to-do and the less well-to-do, the educated and the ignorant, the youth and the aged, mingled with one another, and expressed an interest in reli­gious matters to an astonishing degree.

The crowds stood for hours in the sun listen­ing to plain gospel preaching, only to hurry to another meeting to stand again for hours in the hot sun. There was a deep hunger for some­thing satisfying. A searching for inner peace was plainly evident among the 70,000 official delegates and the 300,000 guests. The motto "Be Ye Reconciled to God" seemed to express the feeling of the participants.

Representatives From Other Nations

Seventy other countries were represented. One hundred and fifteen correspondents and jour­nalists were expected; several hundred came!

A representative of the Church of Scotland stated that the Kirchentag had discovered the individual. He said he would return to Scot­land to discover the individual there. The camp meeting idea seemed to catch the imagination of the European clergymen. Street preaching, al­most unheard of before by the conservative Euro­pean masses, became a success during the Kirchentag. In one day 10,000 persons heard the gospel in this way from dignified clergymen standing on busy street intersections with their microphones and portable public address sys­tems.

This hunger, this willingness to hear and listen is a challenge to our evangelists in Eu­rope. That the Evangelical Church of Europe is not supplying the need of the people is evident from the fact that the people have demanded a return to certain forms of Catholicism.

The Return to the Auricular Confessional

At one time in its history the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church of Germany required at least one confession a year. It was then required by law to attend communion, but communion was served only to those who had gone to con­fession. Then a change took place in which auricular confessional was entirely removed from the custom and practice of the Evangelical Church.

At this 1956 Kirchentag, the matter of the confessional was not argued pro and con; but it was discussed as a recognized and re-established practice. Those members of the Evangelical clergy, as well as laymen who still opposed the practice of auricular confession were encour­aged to return to it as a natural and necessary part of modern church life. Explanations were made regarding the re-introduction of the prac­tice; some limitations were defined; but no effec­tive voice of dissent in the matter was heard.

The leading clergymen explained to the rep­resentatives of the religious and secular press that the early post-war conditions were the cause of the new interest on the part of the average layman in auricular confession to their local pastor.

Consciences had been seared, we were told, by deeds committed in frustration, in fear, or in the absence of restraint. The culprit felt he must confess; he was spiritually disconnected from God; he had perhaps given up his church affiliation in lieu of political activity. Now all earthly hope was crushed. The culprit went to the first pastor he could find, he confessed, and begged assurance of God's forgiveness. The pas­tor felt obliged to yield. In this way this prac­tice so distinctive of Roman Catholicism came back to life in the German Evangelical Church.

With the strong words of recommendation of auricular confession by the leading clergy were included some words of caution: The auricular confession should not be allowed to take the place of the secret chamber of prayer.

As an example of how the world viewed this step we may cite a United Press dispatch of August 12, 1956, which stated: "It would rein­state one of the major dividing points between the Catholic and Protestant beliefs."'

The return of this practice is significant to us as ministers of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. It further narrows the gulf between Protestantism and Catholicism. This Protestant hand stretched across the gulf to Rome is sig­nificant in the light of the increasing tendency of modern man to worship the ecumenical em­pire concept. At the same time it is a tremen­dous challenge. The people feel a deeper need which is not being adequately met by their pres­ent religious way of life. They want a new hold upon God.

It will take God's message of the saving Christ and His soon return to fill the void!