Beeson Podcast, Episode #645 Dr. Paul House, Dr. Angela Ferguson March 14, 2023 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I’m your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. Did you know that the month of March is Women’s History Month? We want to feature on the show today the history of some exceptionally courageous Christian women who witnessed the gospel in the Confessing Church in Germany during World War II. And we have some learned guests with us who are especially well prepared to help us do so. Before Kristen introduces them, I want to invite you back to campus on Monday, March 20th at 7PM when our students will lead a special service of worship in conjunction with women’s history month. It will be in Reid Chapel, the main undergraduate chapel here at Samford University. It will include prayers for women and scriptural reflection on the ways in which God has used women in the history of salvation. Then come back the next morning, Tuesday, March 21st at 11AM to Beeson’s beautiful Hodges Chapel for the first of our annual Conger Lectures on Preaching. Dr. Scott Gibson, the Garland Professor of Preaching at Truett Seminary, will deliver these lectures. March 21-23. On the topic of The Preacher’s Character. For more on these events, go to BeesonDivinity.com/events. All right, Kristen, who is with us on the program today? >>Kristen Padilla: We have on the show Dr. Paul House, who some of you listeners may already know. He is Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School, where he teaches courses in Old Testament and Hebrew. And we also have with Dr. Angela Ferguson. She is an Assistant Professor of German in Samford University’s Howard College of Arts and Sciences. Welcome both Dr. Ferguson and Dr. House to the Beeson Podcast. We always like to begin the show by getting to know something more personal about our guests. Dr. Ferguson, I’m looking at you. This is your first time on the show. So, I thought we could begin by learning more about you; your background, where are you from, your faith journey, and then how you came to Samford? And then following hearing your answer I wonder, Paul, if you could tell us what you’ve been up to these days? Angela, why don’t we start with you? >>Angela: Well, it’s a bit of a long story, but I actually grew up in Germany. So, that’s what brought me to teach German. That’s why I teach German. And my father was a pastor. So, my faith journey began at home hearing him and learning from him. And if I can share a couple of little anecdotes, I came to faith in Christ when I was nine years old. I remember having a conversation with my dad about really wanting to follow Christ. But my family had this rule that we couldn’t get baptized until we were 13. So, I had to wait for four years. But one really amazing thing about that ... two amazing things ... first, I really remember my baptism very well. I was baptized by my own father. And just what I learned from him and the conversations that we would have at home. All of that is kind of carried forward in my faith life. But also my dad used to lead groups to the Holy Land. And I got to go with him when I was ten. So, I actually had my first communion before I got baptized (don’t tell many people) ... anyway, we were in the Garden of Gethsemane. And so he knew that Jesus was my personal savior. So, he knew that I was saved. And he said, “Normally, you wouldn’t do this until after you are baptized. But you get special permission today.” So, those are just these kind of little powerful moments that have stayed with me. But my life with Christ has been one of kind of a continual following and a continual kind of being with Christ throughout. What brought me to Samford is also a little bit roundabout, because I had never heard of Samford, but I was in Germany. I was in Berlin. And one of the professors from here, Hugh Floyd, came over with a group of students. I ended up helping him. And then he came back to the US and the provost at the time came over with a group of nurses. And they were interested in the deaconesses houses. So, I took them around and translated for them. That’s kind of what connected me with Samford. >>Kristen Padilla: Hmm. Wonderful. What’s been going on with you? >>Paul: Yes. I continue to teach Old Testament Theology this semester and I am teaching a course in Isaiah. So, having a good time with that, people learning. I’m trying to continue to learn. Also with Angela I have been working on a project biography [Fritz Onash 00:05:28] who was partner with Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his seminary ministry. And it’s been a privilege to work with Angela. We had met a long time ago. But as I was trying to do some of the work on this project, it became evident to me that I needed help with particularly German. And remembered her. And she was willing to engage in this journey. So, we’ve been having a lot of fun learning. And less fun writing. But we’re getting at it. >>Doug Sweeney: As we said to our listener already, this is an episode on the women of the confessing church. So, why don’t I ask a couple of questions now that just get our listeners ready to process the rest of the interview. First of all maybe, Dr. House, we’ll start with you. Can you tell our audience what was the confessing church? >>Paul: Yeah. In a nutshell it was probably best described as a movement of faithful confessing believers, confessing in the sense of orthodox confession of faith, belief in scripture. That exists from 1933 to 1945, the entire time of the Third Reich. Founded really in 1934 around the Barmen and [inaudible 00:06:45] Declarations. And then was fairly strong, facing lots of opposition in particularly 1937, 1938 leading up to World War II. With most of the pastors and lay people drafted into the army, the work suffered during World War II, but continued. And that’s part of the story – that the women particularly had a great part in, though not just the women. So, it was always a minority group within the protestant church. I don’t think ever more than 25% or so. Certainly existed across all of Germany, which I think our hearers would be happy to hear, or interested to learn anyway, included most of Poland, what is Poland now. All of that was Germany and a whole lot of the story that we’re studying took place in Pomerania. So, yeah, it was a great group of people inspired in many ways, but hardly flawless. They were people like us. >>Doug Sweeney: And Dr. Ferguson, lots of Beeson connected people know about and love Dietrich Bonhoeffer. But we want to focus on the women of the confessing church. Can you give our listeners just a little general bit of information on who these women were? >>Angela: Well, today we’re going to talk about two particular women. But these were the wives of pastors in both cases. But other women that were involved were also the mothers, the mother-in-laws – and these women, when you’re a pastor’s wife, you’re really part of that office. And that means that they had both the privileges but also the responsibilities of that. And these women took that very seriously. And so when their husbands were not available to lead the churches, to be with the people who were suffering, the women took on those roles. And they also took on more official roles. In some cases, preaching, doing funerals, things like that. All the things that a pastor would have done, had he been there. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, let’s get into these women. You mentioned two. And I know from Paul that you’ve been studying and very interested in a woman by the name of Hildegard Schaeder. What can you tell us about her education, her marriage, church service? And then on a more personal note, how has her story, her life, encouraged you? >>Angela: Wow. So, Hildegard Schaeder was originally Hildegard [Entiline 00:09:32]. What’s really interesting about her, but also about the man who becomes her husband, is that they did not come from church families. So, a lot of these pastors came out of the homes, they were the sons of pastors. And so that would be carried on. Or the daughters of pastors would marry a pastor. So, they kind of knew the life. She came from outside of that. Her father worked in business. He worked for Siemens but she was drawn to the life of faith. She ended up, she’s a very bright young woman, she ended up going to Berlin to go to university. She studied philosophy and she studied theology in Berlin. She got to know Dietrich Bonhoeffer, got to know the group of people that were there in that way, met her husband kind of as these groups of the confessing church would get together. She herself ... he describes her as a modern, female student of the time ... so she would have been much more modern, not as conservatively dressed maybe as some of the other women. He shares with us that this is not appropriate for us, but for that context she smoked. This was a sign that she was very modern. (laughs) So, he was really drawn to her. He is [foreign language 00:10:50]. Later on in East Germany he becomes a bishop of the evangelical church, the protestant church in former East Germany. But the two of them came together, got married, and she from the very beginning they married in 1936. They were married by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And they were partners in the work from the very beginning. She was both his helper in physical things, but also his intellectual equal. They could have discussions. He really admired her knowledge, for example, of Hegel in philosophy. He really felt that she brought a lot. So, yeah, it feels like so much. I might go on and on. But he was called up to be a soldier in 1940, from about ’40 to ’42. And then again in ’44 and then he was there through the end of the war. And then he was a prisoner of war for a year. So, they were apart again for two years. And while he was gone she led the confirmation classes. She did funerals. She kept that congregation going. Even while he was there, the pastor’s wife did all of the work with women, all of the work with children, all of the work with young people that the church was doing. The pastor’s wife would host people in their home, help make all of that possible. Hildegard Schaeder in particular, the two of them, they had a total of six children over the course of their lives. So, she also was caring for these young children. She was also caring for her mother-in-law. She had her first three children in ... they married in ’36. She had the first one in ’37 and then ’39 and then ’40. Obviously, there’s the break because they’re being kept apart because he’s off serving as a soldier. They briefly are able to come back together in ’44 and then she has a baby in ’45, but that baby dies at birth. And she suffered from sepsis at that moment. And I share that ... I know that’s a bit of a frightening thing. But it really, that harmed her health and it weakened her. But it didn’t stop her from being faithful to the work that was before her. And when he finally comes back, that illness is one she did not ever get over. She had a weakness in her heart from that point forward. She ended up dying in 1963 because of what had occurred to her then. They did have three other children after he gets back, after the war. But she took care of everyone and all of the business of the church. So, she cared for his mother, she cared for their children, and when he came back he said there was no sign that my mother or my children had ever suffered anything. They hadn’t suffered hunger. The only one who was physically damaged was Hildegard. She had taken all of that upon herself. So, you also asked me what is it about her story that really inspires me? It inspires me that she in spite of difficulty, in spite of everything, remained faithful to the call of God on her life. And I’m going to include another piece and this is from ... so, everything I know about her comes from Erich Schaeder’s memoirs about his own life. So, it’s like you’re picking out the little bits and pieces about her that you can. But he shared that when she died, the person who preached her funeral preached that she had sometimes struggled with faith. And you sit there with that and you think, I get that, she’s encountering some incredibly difficult things and it leads her to question. But she never stopped being faithful, even on the days when maybe she didn’t feel so certain. So, I find that really, really powerful. And my prayer for myself is to be faithful to what God has placed before me. To be faithful to the work in the way that she was. It’s just an incredible thing. >>Doug Sweeney: That’s our prayer for our listeners as well. So, Dr. House, the other woman we want to single out for special attention today was named Margaret Onash. We know you know a lot about her. Interestingly, faithful listeners to the podcast may remember that a while back we talked with you a little bit about a man named Fritz Onash. But they don’t know about Margaret Onash. Who is she? And why is she important? >>Paul: Yes. She has been such a part of what Angela and I have been studying. And has been such a delight and a surprise. I studied Onash first in relationship to the seminary work of Bonhoeffer. So, I knew he had a wife named Margaret. I knew that they had children and this sort of thing. I’d been to where the seminary was, now in Poland. And got the sense of the kind of life they had. But I didn’t really know much about her. I read an article about Fritz, it was dated 2001, by a man named Frederich Bartles. Through Kristen’s help and all we got in touch with Frederich Bartles and he was able to share lots of unpublished documents with us. Eventually including a 40 page memoir by Margaret that she wrote in 1993. So, when she was 80. And she described how she grew up in a pastor’s home. [Eberhard Bethge 00:17:16], Bonhoeffer’s close friend and biographer was her brother. Their father died when they were young. And as [inaudible 00:17:28] said, the brothers got the money to study at university, so eventually she goes to Berlin and studies at a place called Burkhart House. Which was a training college for women who wanted to be in community work, church work, deaconesses. This was the spring of 1937. So, she starts going to church at Dahlem near where the seminary is located. And her pastor was Martin Niemöller who was then jailed in July 1937 and was jailed the entirety of the war. She and the women students protested, they were arrested, taken to jail for a while. So, she had a taste of what she said hundreds of pastors were jailed that same summer. She had known Fritz Onash’s sister from when they were in school together at a girl’s school. So, she came to meet him in that way with that sister’s urging, she sent Fritz a greeting when he was in jail for six weeks in 1937. And she said that’s how our relationship started. So, they eventually married in 1939, days after the war started. They had hoped to work together in the seminary, but instead with seminary being closed through the war, they moved to [inaudible 00:19:04] and he worked in the regional office of the Confessing Church, preaching all over the country where the churches were orphaned. They had no pastor now because of the war. Some of these places were tiny, as we’ve been tracing. She became well known famous for her hospitality. Now again, she’s trained in biblical studies and she sees her work as service of the church and community outreach. So, their apartment was often filled with former students who were on leave from the army. They eventually were known for taking in refugees, including some Communist and Jewish people. One witness of the time said, “I often thought she had no comfortable husband. It wasn’t easy to be the wife of this person.” But when asked how they did all of this on 150 marks a month, how they took in these people, fed these people, organized things like care packages to Bonhoeffer when he was in prison – she asked as an old person, she looked back and said, “Those were very rich times for us.” So, there wasn’t this sense of how hard it was. She did live a long life. When Fritz was murdered by Soviet soldiers in March 1945 she and her three children all under the age of four began this trek out of [KOO-SLEEN 00:20:39] and back again in which she just testifies their Christian faith. But how hard it was to march ... how did they put it, Angela? Two of the kids could ... no, the baby could ride on a cart, but the other kids, and one could be carried, the other one who was three had to walk. So, it’s this kind of story and reading her memoirs as an 80 year old with clear sight. And still saying that faith was worth it. And meant everything with the loss of husband, and the loss of so many things. Eventually lost their homeland because all of the people were pressed west across [inaudible 00:21:29] so they lost their home. Pomeranian, all that country side. But just a faithful Christian woman, who also had strains. Her first child died during the bombing raid. I mean, she was giving birth and don’t quite know why, but the child did not survive, and then after that she really had to steal her nerves to be able to stand all these bombing raids they lived through. So, she didn’t act like it was effortless or there were no problems. But it was trust in Christ that the day they were leaving KOO-SLEEN as forced out and then a couple of times she recalls the scripture they read in the morning and the prayers they said before they then set out. And how they felt God’s providence as the moved. So, her church work was largely hospitality, largely opening up her home and giving it over to people she knew and didn’t know. So, I think it sets a different kind of strong witness. The Confessing Church [inaudible 00:22:42] was small. It was established that a state owner could say who was going to be the pastor. Fritz and Margaret, a lot of their work was in places like that, whose pastor was away in the war. And so it’s an important couple to remember. Both of these couples. One, that lived all the way through the war and became really the most prominent student that Bonhoeffer ever had, as far as church work went. One, who because of how history went completely almost forgotten, and Margaret with him. So, a bit of privilege to kind of recapture some of this. I hope we can pass it on to readers. >>Angela: You know, with her hospitality – the other thing I would add in is you’ve mentioned they’re only making 150 marks that’s being donated. The food was from rations. They were- >>Paul: And Fritz grew a bunch of food, too. >>Angela: Yeah. They were finding a way to make those rations spread. I mean, that to me is such a bread and fishes kind of miracle. >>Paul: It is, and in one of the last letters Bonhoeffer writes to [inaudible 00:23:54] he says, “Thank Margaret for sending this package of food and cigars to me in prison. Because I know the children are going to need the food and Fritz still smokes.” But they were all so masterful at getting people to donate rations and doing things, like you say, multiplying. So, yeah, again, I think of them with admiration for all of the different ways ... once they decided we must put others first, and be there for others, all the different ways God showed them how to do that. >>Kristen Padilla: I’ve heard deaconesses mentioned. So, I’m wondering, what other women ministered in the Confessing Church that you might commend to our listeners? Were there deaconesses? >>Paul: Tell them what a deaconess actually was in this context really. >>Angela: (laughs) You’re going to be a lot better at that, but the deaconesses were something that you have in the evangelical churches of Germany. You did also have ones for the Baptist churches of Germany. So, I brought this book about the Baptist churches. There were also deaconesses there. These are women who were single. They were not married. They devoted their lives to the service of God. They would often live in community, in houses, and quite often they would minister. So, they would help the sick, help the poor, and they felt God’s call. They devoted their lives to God’s call in their lives in that way. I used to joke as a child that we don’t have any Baptist nuns. I can be the first Baptist nun. And then I found out that actually there were lots of Baptist nuns. We can put it that way. But they did incredible work. I had a great privilege when I was in Berlin, one of the last times I lived there, of meeting a woman who was a deaconess. She was a Baptist deaconess. And she had lived through the war and lived through the suffering. And had had harrowing experiences as a woman when the war ended and the Soviet Army came in. That’s another piece that gets mentioned. >>Paul: Yeah, and along those lines, if I may, there’s a particular person, Bertha [inaudible 00:26:12], born 1872, died 1945. She was the head of the Salem Deaconess House in KOO-SLEEN where the Onash’s lived and where Fritz died. Under her leadership there were four children’s homes. A school for protestant nannies, and some other work she had set up. We also know the Jewish boy was able to survive in one of the children’s homes and that they also made rooms available to the Confessing Church for illegal pastoral exams. So, the 73 year old Bertha stayed behind with 25 other sisters, deaconesses, when one of the sisters sought protection from the Russians, Bertha was pushed onto the floor and worked over with rifle butts. Still completely powerless she and the sisters had to leave the deaconess mother house, her life’s work, on March 10, 1945. Infected from dysentery she died April 6, 1945. But her slogan, “God buries his workers, but his job goes on,” went with the sisters and finally let them find a new home [inaudible 00:27:25]. So, a lot of these Confessing Church stories are really stories of young people, young men and women. Some of them married who were doing these kinds of things. But this is a 73 year old, a deaconess, faithful to the end, connected with Fritz Onash and with his father’s church who was faithful. They didn’t have to stay, is the point, and they did. To try to continue to minister to the people. >>Angela: I can add in one more story about Hilde Schaeder. At the end of the war ... so, Fritz is still a prisoner of war. She and her mother-in-law are there. And the Russians come in and the Russian commandant called for her to come to his office. Now, for women it was incredibly dangerous and horrific things happened at the hands of the Russians. And so she was in profound fear, but she had to obey that call. And she was shocked at what happened. Which is this: she walked into the office and he said, “Why aren’t any church services being held? Why is no one preaching?” She said, “Well, my husband is a prisoner of war.” He said, “Then you preach.” So, she preached, starting from then. And her husband wrote about it so beautifully. You have the clothing that you would wear to preach, it’s called your [foreign language 00:28:54], that particular thing that you would wear. And he said, “Her [foreign language 00:28:57] clothing of office, was a white apron, and her wooden shoes.” So, you just have this image of a woman who is coming from all the work she’s been doing and then standing before the flock. So, that was an incredibly powerful story. >>Kristen Padilla: Paul, did you tell me that there were a couple of women ordained? >>Paul: Yes. More than a couple. I think as many as 10 or 15. And it was a special act of the old Prussian union synod in 1942 that, as an emergency order, yes, women could be consecrated or ordained for this work. Even aside from that, some of the women who weren’t ordained were leading bible studies, doing the hospital and other visitation work, and ordained or not, what strikes me as so impressive is they weren’t so worried about who got the credit. The old saying, “it’s amazing what you can get done when you don’t care who gets credit.” So, I guess the other thing I would say is that the ordained and not ordained women who were leading bible studies, [inaudible 00:30:20], laughed and said at one point, “They would let us do a bible study anytime because the leadership couldn’t imagine anybody would care about a bible study.” But they just talked about how powerful it was that they could meet and have bible studies. There’s a lot of leading in bible studies. But yes, there were people and she was one of them who was ordained during World War II. >>Doug Sweeney: These stories are all so striking and so inspiring and doubtless we’ll have some people who listen to this episode who are military veterans and have some experience of suffering in a time of warfare. But a lot of people who will listen to this don’t have experience of this sort of suffering. It kind of reminds me, listening to you tell these stories reminds me of sitting under some of the stories of my in-laws who grew up in World War II in the Netherlands, in a town that the Nazi’s occupied for almost the whole war. I find the stories inspiring. But then I have to process them in relation to my own experience to figure out what the application or the takeaway for me is going to be. So, maybe for people like me who have never fought in a war, never had my town occupied by a foreign military – do the two of you ... surely, you’ve been working on this book for a long time – you must have kind of noodled over why are these stories so powerful to people like us? Even who don’t share all those experiences. What do you think? Can you edify our listeners with a little bit of word of application for them? What does this have to do with their lives, their very different lives? Angela, maybe we could start with you. >>Angela: I’m going to come back to the word “faithfulness.” They inspire me to be faithful to the bible, to the truth of the bible, to the truth of what is taught. To be strengthened by that and to be willing to be open to speaking that truth, even in times when it’s difficult. Because we don’t face those types of difficulties, but we do sometimes face challenges. We face a culture that is not always open to those truths. Some of the truths of the bible are very hard to live, even when you have an easy life. Or maybe especially when you have an easy life. So, for me, that’s the inspiring piece. >>Paul: Yeah, and I would say that as I look at women’s history month and I think of some of the women in my family, take my father’s mother who was a Christian person, through the Great Depression. They lost everything. They did the whole Missouri to California deal. Including they had a three, four month old child die. She lived long enough to survive that. In her 70s she had one of her sons murdered. She lived through that. Then there was also lots of other difficult days along the way. I think everybody has their difficulties. There are enough to suit us. We don’t put ourselves in the category maybe of the recent war in Ukraine or the terrible times of folks in Syria and Turkey, or [inaudible 00:33:50] earthquake. But we have enough to suit us. And the question is, is the faithfulness worth it? Now, hopefully you have at least one grandson that notices your witness and my grandmother has more than one who did remember that. But also I would say Margaret and the others would not have ever thought perhaps that they would still be helping people who never met them now. And I’ve not met your in-laws but their story is ... I argue from the greater to the lesser. I’m always the lesser in this. If they can do that, and the Lord can see them through that, I believe he can help me be faithful now. One last thing. We have a lot of Beeson graduates who are men and women who are married now and some already in school now, studying together. I think it’s an encouragement to them to see how these couples who both have training, knowledge, concert together. Find ways to do that. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, we always like to end these shows by allowing our guests to share what the Lord has been doing in their lives, teaching you these days, that might serve as a word of encouragement to our listeners. So, as we round off this episode ... I’ve already been encouraged by what you’ve had to say. But perhaps there’s something else that the Lord has been working on with you that could be a good way to close out today. >>Angela: The thing that speaks to me right now is just the privilege that I have to work with young people and share these stories with them. So, that they can learn and be inspired. So, yeah. And as I’ve said a couple of times, just helping me be faithful. >>Paul: Yeah, these were people deeply committed to their families. Multiple generations. And I have been called upon recently to be committed to multiple generations of my family. And in much less difficult circumstances than they faced. So, again, as I’ve said before, some days I wonder what I’m doing and how I’m going to do it. And I look out and in my mind’s eye I see Fritz Onash limping ahead of me way ahead. And now I see with Margaret who saw so much, did so much, and endured. And so I think, yes, they encourage me to say, “keep taking this next step, see how they cared for their people, keep looking at ...” Of course we have biblical examples, but again, what we’re talking about is how these women could encourage everybody, including a man like me. >>Doug Sweeney: Amen. I think we all want to be more like them. You have been listening to Dr. Paul House, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament here at Beeson Divinity School. And Dr. Angela Ferguson, Professor of German here at Samford University. Thanks to both of you for your hard work on these women and the Confessing Church movement. Thanks, listeners, for being with us. We love you, we’re praying for you. We say good-bye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.