Wednesday, January 4, 2023

It is the 4th of January, 2023. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

I’m afraid that the historical character that is the World War II hero, Nazi foe, or Holocaust martyr can be passed over quickly because of familiarity. That is, it took so much courage to face the evil that was Nazi Germany, and so many rose to the occasion. I wonder if we are sometimes fatigued by a story arc we have oftentimes heard; nevertheless, if you don’t know the story of Kaj Munk- the Danish Lutheran pastor, playwright, and martyr who died on this the 4th of January in 1944.

He was born in 1898 as Kaj Petersen- to Mathilde Petersen and her husband Carl- a tanner in Marino on Lolland Island between the Danish mainland and Sweden. His father died the next year, and in 1903, at the age of 4, he lost his mother. Kaj was adopted by Peter and Marie Monk, and once he was adopted, he took their surname. Peter and Marie were members of the Inner Mission movement- these were conservative Lutherans who sought a revival within the church- they have been cast as pietists. The struggle between inward piety and outward works of mercy would be a theme in Munk’s later theology.

As a young boy, he was disillusioned when a friend died, Kaj prayed for him to be resurrected, and he wasn’t. The death of his grandmother and the outbreak of World War I led to a crisis of faith for young Kaj Munk. He found solace in the theology of Kierkegaard and the plays of Henrik Ibsen. At the University of Copenhagen, he studied theology and wrote Pilatus, the first of his plays- a historical drama based on the life of Pilate. In 1923 and 1925, respectively, he wrote two of his more famous plays- first “En Idealist,” a play about the life of Herod, and then “Ordet,” a play about the struggles of a Danish family across generations and its relationship to the Inner Mission movement and the peasantry. It was made into a movie by filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer- in translation as “the Word” and won the highest prize at the 1955 Venice International Film Festival.

Denmark had been neutral in World War I and began World War II as neutral as well. But they were double-crossed, occupied by the Nazi forces in 1940, and put under military occupation in 1943.

Munk would be an outspoken preacher, playwright, and journalist in the first years of the occupation. He would write the historical drama Niels Ebbesen- it would be published in 1942 and was an obvious rebuke of Hitler. Niels Ebbesen was a medieval Danish hero known for opposing foreign German invaders. Munk was guilty of falling afoul of the German occupiers not only for his plays and news commentary (in 1938, he published an open letter to Mussolini criticizing his persecution of the Jewish people) but also for his preaching. Once the Danes were occupied, preaching at the National Cathedral could only take place with the approval of Nazi authorities. It was in December, during Advent 1943, that Munk began preaching to large crowds at the Copenhagen Cathedral.

It was during this time that an increasingly paranoid and weak Hitler called for revenge killings to be publicized- in Denmark, these were called the Clearing Murders. Despite his friends’ call for him to go underground, Munk would not. It was within a month of his preaching at the National Cathedral- on this, the 4th of January in 1944 that Munk was arrested, dragged from his home, and shot dead- his body thrown into a ditch as a warning to others and a note attached to his body claiming that he was a German informant.

The response to the death of the pastor and playwright showed the Nazis that the Danish resistance was popular- thousands showed up to the funeral, and the Danes would eventually be liberated and it would join western alliances, notably NATO.

Kaj Munk was a troubled orphan playwright and Lutheran pastor whose convictions about the way of Jesus led him to be one of the major figures in the Danish resistance movement, and he died on this day in 1944 at the age of 45.

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary- back in Hebrews 11:

By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.

24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 4th of January 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man whose favorites Munks include Kaj, Thelonious, Andre, Art, and the Chip- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man now just waiting for the pitchers and catchers to report… Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.