How the First World War Helped Give Rise to Political Theology

 https://politicaltheology.com/how-the-first-world-war-helped-give-rise-to-political-theology-ramon-luzarraga/

~Theologians Supported 1914 War~

Thirteen of the signatories were theologians, Protestant and Catholic alike. They included Gustav Adolf Deissman, Albert Ehrhard,Gerhart EsserHenrich Finke, Wilhelm Herrmann, Anton Koch, Joseph Mausbach, Sebastian Merkle, Friedrich Naumann, Adolf Schlatter, August Schmidlin, and Reinhold Seeberg. The leading theologian in the group, and one of the leading intellectuals among the ninety-three, was Adolf von Harnack.

~A Lie of the Manifesto (1914)~

the Manifesto claimed the German army acted in Belgium out of self-defense against intense fighting by irregular forces. This claim was an outright lie, because what became known as “The Rape of Belgium” served no military purpose, and caused the deaths of innocent civilians and the burning of villages and towns besides Louvain.

~Barth's Understanding of Liberal Theology~

Barth had long questioned the liberal Protestant status quo represented by his former teachers. Barth suspected that liberal theology subordinated God’s revelation in Jesus Christ to human history, culture, and thought. 

~Barth's Theological Foundation of Barmen~

Barth rejected the presumed liberal Protestant harmonization between Christian faith and culture, insisting instead on the sovereign otherness of God which negates all human attempts at self-justification. This included every human manifestation of government and those who’d rebel to replace a status quo rule with a new one of their own. Barth’s reasoning is that any human principality, power, and dominion would seek justification to rule on its own terms, instead of subjecting themselves to God’s sovereign authority. His insistence on a stark, conflictive difference between God and humanity became the theological foundation for the next antecedent to German political theology: The Barmen Declaration.