The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-09-12
Germany Will Soon
 Drop Church Strife
Confessional Movement Faces Extinction By Order
 of State-RivaI Powers in Doubt

1 ler's authority or quitting their | posts.
 Any propaganda on behalf of the confessional movements aims then would be classed as ''subversive" anti-state propaganda, leading to immediate Imprisonment.
 That this might happen to the confessional movement is consid- cred in Evangelical quarters as all too possible. It is generally felt that the time is ripe for decision in favor of one or the other rival power in the church, a compromise between the two appearing to be more remote than ever since the confessional synod's sharp resolu- tions in Augsburg.
 Thus, unless something unex. pected happens, 1t is likely that the ministry of interior will make a | clear-cut decision enthroning the | one party in sole power and dis- possessing the other altogether. Theoretically, of course. either party may win or lose. It is con- tended in church opposition quar- ters, however, that the law of June 26 permits the conclusion that the decision will be against the con- fessionalists. It is said that, if the minister intended to uphold the confessional movement, he presum- ably would not have halted the lawsuits now pending. On the con- trary he would have enforced with lall their implications the judg- ments thus far returned by the | courts.
 Mueller Is Nazi Mueller, of course, has one de- cisive advantage over his rivals. He is Nazi and was I1itler's can- didate for the post of Reich bishop at the 1883 church elections. As to the "confessionals." many of their leaders. such as Bishop Hans Meis- CT of Bavaria, are convinced Nazis, I but the movement as such clearly embraces both Nazis and non-Nazis animated by the same religious spi- rit
 Another fact, becoming more and more obvious, also tends to turn the scales in Mueller's favor. Mueller is apparently ready to compromise with the "Neo. pagan" movement in Germany. 70 which such influential Nazis as Alfred Rosenberg, the party's supreme teacher of philosophy, belong. Does Not Revive Paganism "Neo-paganism" has nothing to do with the revival of pagan rites or ,mythoIogies. It Is in the first place a movement seeking to evolve a new religion "adapted to the Ger manic race" The search for a new religion is still in flux, but one thing is unquestioned among "neo- pagans," muc has they may dis agree among themselves, namely. that the greater part of Christian tradition, including the Bible. must be rejected.
 The neo-pagans' argument is simple.
 They start from the principle that any religious teaching must be fitted to the soul of the race to which 1t is addressed.
 Then, they point to the Jewish Bible, evolved in the Orient, among a people racial1y different from the Teutos.
 Bible May Be Discarded
 The conclusion, then, is evident that religion adapted to the Ger manic race cannot be based upon the Bible.
 This doctrine has a tremendous appeal, especially to the young generation in Protestant Northern Germany.
 The Bible everywhere is in the center of discussion. Protestants I find it difficult to answer criticisms from the neo-pagan side because any apology of the Bible imme- diately raises the question of "one- hundred-per-cent" Germanism.