Introduction
Since the publication of Philip Hallie's book, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed,Footnote 1 and the release of Pierre Sauvage's documentary, Weapons of the Spirit,Footnote 2 many North Americans have become familiar with the rescue efforts carried out in the French Vivarais-Lignon plateau during World War II. It is difficult to know the exact number of persons sheltered, and indeed this statistic has become a point of contention among historians, with some arguing that 700–1000 Jews were rescued, while a few of those who experienced and contributed to the effort estimate 3500 (in addition to approximately 1500 others).Footnote 3 It is true that during the war a variety of individuals and groups in France assisted people at tremendous risk, but the number saved in the plateau, even if it does hover around 1000, is nonetheless striking.Footnote 4 The residents of this region welcomed individuals and families from throughout France and Europe, providing food, housing, and assisting many over the border into Switzerland, some 300 kilometers away. Moreover, some local residents participated in the manufacture and distribution of false papers, a crime under Vichy law, but the provision of which aided in the survival of hundreds of persons during the period.Footnote 5 Although not all of the inhabitants of the plateau were active in the armed Resistance, they resisted nonetheless by resolutely disobeying the Vichy authorities as well as the Germans. These people were the minority throughout France, for while some citizens actively collaborated with the Germans, the vast majority simply waited out the war, neither collaborating nor particularly opposing the changes brought by the Vichy government and the subsequent German occupying forces.Footnote 6
Hallie's book in particular focused upon the Huguenot pacifist pastor André Trocmé and his wife Magda—residents and leaders in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon—and explored the questions of religious motivation, good and evil, and nonviolence in a brutally violent time. Hallie did not claim to be a historian,Footnote 7 but his book has been criticized for inaccuracies and for focusing too much on the Trocmés and Le Chambon in particular.Footnote 8 More recent publications, including the proceedings of a colloquium held in Le Chambon in 1990,Footnote 9 indicate that although this particular community and the Trocmé family were important to the rescue, so were several other villages and hamlets in the area, as were over a dozen other Protestant pastors, and many others, including resistance fighters. Not all people were motivated by religious convictions, and clearly not everyone, including some of the other pastors, were committed to nonviolence. The story of the plateau is clearly a complicated one and the discussion of what happened there is ongoing.
The aim, therefore, of this article is not to claim that André Trocmé was somehow the center of the rescue efforts or to suggest that, had he not been there, nothing would have happened. It is well known that the peculiar history and geography of the plateau made it a prime place to welcome those fleeing from the Nazis and the French authorities; these contextual factors were absolutely crucial. But as this study will argue, both the ways in which Trocmé engaged the Scriptures and the particular themes he emphasized resonated with this setting. I suggest, therefore, that there was a symbiotic relationship between Trocmé's approach to the Bible and the context of the plateau that became a contributing factor to the maintenance of the rescue operations in Le Chambon for the duration of the war. As yet there has been no substantive study of the role of the Bible and biblical study within the community in all the literature on Le Chambon.
There were other ways in which Trocmé was important—even a catalyst, according to someFootnote 10—to the operations in the region. For example, his international background, education, ability with languages and connections with outside organizations and individuals facilitated cooperation with several groups, such as the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) that aided in the transport of children from the French internment camps to the plateau. Had André and Magda Trocmé not lived in Le Chambon, the internationally focused private Protestant secondary school, Collège Cévenol,Footnote 11 founded by Trocmé with his fellow conscientious objector Edouard Theis in 1938 (but which was Magda's idea)Footnote 12 would not have come to be.Footnote 13 This school provided education for some of the local residents' children as well as students from elsewhere, including many Jewish students. And although Trocmé was beloved by many, his commitments were not universally shared, and sometimes he alienated people. Indeed in his autobiography he admits to having the reputation of a “mauvais coucheur, en partie méritée” (“a spiky individual, partly deserved”) among some of his fellow pastors at the time, and acknowledges his inclinations to angry outbursts despite the fact that others in the community seemed to appreciate such displays of emotion.Footnote 14 He was not from the plateau, but from a bourgeois family from the north of France, and had to earn the trust of his many peasant parishioners.Footnote 15 He had a German mother, German cousins, and an Italian wife whom he had met abroad in the United States. He was a conscientious objector in what became a hotbed of French resistance fighters.Footnote 16 There were therefore plenty of reasons why not all would accept or even like him. However, through the exploration of the Bible, Trocmé found some common ground in this particular place with others who cherished these texts.
Setting the Context
André Pascal Trocmé—Pietist, Socialist and Pacifist
Before beginning a discussion of the wartime activities it is important to provide some background on the individual, André Trocmé, and the community with which he eventually became so closely associated. In 1901 he was born the second son of Paul Trocmé and Pauline Schwerdtmann in St. Quentin, a city in Picardy, near the Belgium border. Schwerdtmann was Paul Trocmé's second wife, and he had seven surviving children from his first spouse who had become adults by the time that André came into the world. Schwerdtmann was from Germany; her father was a Lutheran pastor, and Trocmé remembered holidays and visits to his German cousins and other family members, and learned to speak the language well. When Trocmé was about ten years old, a terrible auto accident in which he was involved took the life of his mother, leaving a void in the child's life.
The elder Trocmé was a wealthy curtain manufacturer, and the boy grew up in a large but strict Huguenot home that emphasized duty. During World War I, the Germans occupied the town, the factory was destroyed, and German soldiers took over the top floor of the Trocmé mansion. Allied bombing raids devastated the French population as much as it undermined the German forces. For an adolescent who understood that his French half brothers were fighting against some of his German cousins,Footnote 17 the war made little sense. He observed trainloads of mutilated bodies returning from the front, and the prolonged horror of the battle of the Somme (1916), which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, took place only twenty miles from the town. Moreover, he witnessed the brutal treatment by the German soldiers of Russian prisoners of war whom the occupying army compelled to build the Hindenburg Line.Footnote 18
In such a context in which life was difficult, and acts of violence took place daily in the streets, the young Trocmé encountered a German soldier named Kindler who was staying with his unit at the Trocmé home. This man, a telegrapher, spoke kindly to the boy and explained that he refused to carry a weapon because of his conversion to a Christian sect that demanded a commitment to nonviolence. Apparently the man's captain allowed him to go into battle without a rifle. Thus Trocmé met his first conscientious objector who based his position on religious convictions. Such an encounter clearly had a strong impact, and it was during this period that Trocmé claims he had his “vocation religieuse” and in committing his life to serving God, he states that he became incapable of killing others.Footnote 19 He participated in a local group of young pietist Christians called the “Union St. Quentin” which studied the Bible, prayed together, vowed to live as morally as possible, and distributed food and spare bits of cigarettes to the Russian prisoners of war, a dangerous act as it was forbidden by the Germans.Footnote 20
The Trocmé family spent the last part of the war in BelgiumFootnote 21 and then moved to Paris, where Trocmé studied at the Faculty of Protestant Theology as well as at the Sorbonne. He claims that here, the profound study of the Bible deepened his convictions about nonviolence and Christian socialism.Footnote 22 He met like-minded students, such as Edouard Theis, who eventually joined him in Le Chambon in 1938, as well as other conscientious objectors and Christian socialists such as Philippe Vernier, Jean LasserreFootnote 23 and Jacques Martin, a Protestant pastor who was imprisoned because of his refusal to do military service and who was never assigned a parish because of his conscientious objector status.Footnote 24 He also met Henri Roser, another Christian socialist who did prison time, and was not given a parish until after the war because of his refusal to fight.Footnote 25 Trocmé's studies were interrupted by mandatory military service (1921–1923) in Morocco, but here he rejected the rifle he was supposed to carry, an act which his Lieutenant chose to ignore, but who also warned that if they were attacked, and Trocmé was ordered to fight and resisted, he would be court-martialed. To Trocmé's relief, the unit never had to engage in battle.Footnote 26 Upon returning from the military he joined the French wing of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (MIR), as did several of his university friends, and remained closely involved with that organization for his entire life, including becoming its European secretary from 1947 to 1960.
In 1925–1926, Trocmé traveled to the United States where he pursued postgraduate studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Here he studied the Social Gospel, and although he greatly sympathized with its emphasis upon Christianity as a revolutionary social force, he missed the element of deep piety and religious feeling which aspects of his upbringing and experiences had stressed.Footnote 27 He also worked as a French tutor for the children of John D. Rockefeller but found the senior Rockefellers to be a bit odd with their emphasis upon saving and investing money, and thoughts that they could change the world through business and finance.Footnote 28 But most importantly, it was in New York where he met a young Italian social work student named Magda Grilli di Cortona, who agreed to marry him despite his promise that their life together would be difficult given his pledge to be a conscientious objector. Magda Trocmé's commitment to helping others was outstanding, and some argue that she played as central a role in the rescue efforts as her husband, just in a different way.Footnote 29 She was an energetic, strong willed and practical person, who remained suspicious of theology and critical of the church throughout her entire life.Footnote 30 She reportedly would not take communion, a refusal that undoubtedly provoked much gossip in the various communities where the Trocmé family lived.
Returning from New York, the Trocmés worked in two different poverty stricken parishes in the north of France: Maubeuge (1926–1928) and Sin-le-Noble (1928–1934), the latter where the young pastor served a coal mining population as his family grew. Alcoholism, domestic abuse, and depression were rife throughout these communities. Trocmé found the cold, hard winters to be difficult for his children, and his worries for their health, especially the possibility of tuberculosis, impelled him to seek reassignment. Because of his pacifism, however, the leaders of the Reformed church in France did not allow him to accept certain invitations from parishes such as one from a suburb of Paris. But in 1934 he and his family agreed to move to the village of Le Chambon, south of Lyon in the Haute-Loire, where he had been nominated to be the new pastor by a unanimous vote of the church council, but on an interim basis because of the national church's dislike of his pacifist views.Footnote 31 Despite this initial temporary status, however, Trocmé remained in Le Chambon from 1934 to 1947 except for a 10 month period in 1943-44 when he and Theis had to go into hiding.
The Plateau: Traditions of Hospitality and Resistance
When Trocmé and his family arrived in the plateau, they came to a place where many of the inhabitants were shaped by the experience of being a minority. Such an identity contributed to a strong sense of compassion and welcome for the impoverished and the outcast, even though over half of the people in the region were themselves poor farmers who barely scraped through the winters.Footnote 32 In fact the latter characteristic appears to have contributed to the emphasis upon hospitality, for many wealthy Protestants in urban areas of France, who were deeply assimilated into French society and more distant from their historic roots, proved to be highly supportive of the Vichy regime and did not take risks to help those in need.Footnote 33
The Protestant roots of the area can be traced back to the late 1520s when a priest from Saint-VoyFootnote 34 named Laurent Chazot converted, as did his congregation, but as a result he was declared a heretic and burned alive in Le Puy in 1529. Nonetheless the ideas of the Reform had taken hold in the region and by 1580 there were over a dozen Reform communities in the area. After the Edict of Nantes (1598) the first Protestant “temple” was built in Le Chambon in 1604.Footnote 35 But in 1679 the building was burned and the Protestants in the area returned to meeting in the forest, a practice necessitated by their minority status and the violence of the Wars of Religion. Despite the revocation of the Edict in 1685 by Louis XIV, Protestantism retained its foothold in the area and with the Edict of Toleration in 1787, the Huguenots were able to live and worship in peace. It was not until 1845, however, that a new “temple” was completed in Le Chambon—the building that continues to be used to this day.
But by 1934, the plateau's inhabitants were a mixture of Huguenots, Roman Catholics, and a variety of other Protestant revival churches which had begun in the area in the nineteenth century.Footnote 36 The latter included a dissident church from the Reformed tradition called the “Église Libre,” a significant group of followers of John Nelson Darby, called the “Les Assemblées des Frères darbystes,” and a schism group from the “darbystes” called the “Les Assemblées ravinistes” (followers of F. E. Raven). The Salvation Army had also come to the area in 1895. The “darbystes” and “ravinistes” did not accept the authority of clerical leaders, but assembled in the forest or in peoples' homes where they would pray, engage in mutual edification and above all, read and discuss the Scriptures.Footnote 37
Indeed, one of the things that united these different Protestant groups was the importance of being able to read and reflect upon the Bible. Literacy rates were very high among Protestants, such that they could decipher the Scriptures in order to defend their beliefs using scriptural support. Even in poor peasant homes the Bible was featured in a prominent place, along with other books focused on religious topics, and some refugees during the war remember spending considerable time with peasant families reading the Scriptures together.Footnote 38 “La lecture” was done every day, often twice a day, and photos from the early twentieth century reveal members of Huguenot families sitting with an open Bible in their laps, or old couples reading to one another. According to historian François Boulet, reading the Bible was a form of spiritual resistance for many Protestants because in times of persecution they found promises of freedom and expressions of hope in these texts. Thus during the war, Boulet suggests that biblical study intensified in its importance and meaning for these people.Footnote 39
This emphasis upon the Bible also contributed to a strong identification of the Protestants with the Jews. The Huguenots saw themselves in the stories of the Israelites. The violence and persecution that they had endured during the Wars of Religion, as well as the period after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, known as “le désert,” during which Protestants worshipped in secret on farms or in the forest and which they compared to the Israelites' wandering in the wilderness, contributed to a tough sense of resilience and suspicion of the state. These experiences, combined with Calvin'sFootnote 40 emphasis upon the “Ancien Testament” created what French historian Patrick Cabanel calls “elective affinities” between Protestants and Jews as minorities in France.Footnote 41 Both had experienced “revocations”: the Jews in 1492 when they were expelled from Spain, and the Protestants in 1685 when many were forced out of France. Although most French Protestants probably did not have the 1492 date indelibly planted in their minds, they were aware that Jews had been obliged to flee towns and villages throughout Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Moreover, both Jews and Protestants had a “Babylon,” which for the Protestants was Paris.Footnote 42 They shared many of the same sacred texts, and anyone who attends a Huguenot worship service is struck by the centrality of the Psalms. Moreover, during the mid-twentieth century it was quite common for the Protestants to name their children Hebrew names, such as Élie (Elijah), Samuel, Hénoch and Lévi for boys and Rachel, Judith, Léa, and Esther for girls.Footnote 43
In addition to this identification with the Jews, the plateau had a long history of welcoming the outsider and the persecuted. Although the inhabitants were not outgoing, overly friendly people, they were willing to shelter those in need. In 1790, for example, they welcomed Roman Catholic priests who refused to take the oath to serve the nation, the law, and the king. They constantly took in beggars and, from the end of the nineteenth century on, the region became populated with many children's homes. These houses were occupied by poor working class children from the industrial cities, such as St. Étienne. In the plateau they could spend summers in clean air, spotless houses, and enjoy a nutritious diet. By the twentieth century, there also emerged another type of children's home, a sort of boarding school, intended to mix youngsters from a variety of backgrounds, urban and rural, and provide a good education in a healthy environment. And finally, in the late 1930s the area welcomed fleeing Republicans from the Spanish Civil War, especially many women and children, who were welcomed by families or who were sheltered in these children's houses.Footnote 44 During the war, these homes became the perfect environment for Jewish and Gentile children who had been brought from the French internment camps, such as that of Gurs, near the Spanish border.
Thus welcoming the persecuted or the poor was not a new idea on the plateau, but as some of the rescuers later said, it was simply the normal thing to do.Footnote 45 One pastor active during the period, André Bettex, comments that a strong formation in biblical studies contributed to this ethic of hospitality and quotes Isaiah 58:7: “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; … ?” Bettex goes on to say that as a child, a strong love for the Jews was also impressed upon him, as the family would often recall Psalm 137: “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!”Footnote 46 among other scriptural texts.
By the 1930s there was also a spirit of resistance among some in the plateau. During World War I, Protestants throughout France had been ultra nationalists,Footnote 47 but as a result of that blood bath, and even though many had admired Pétain, large numbers of Protestants were more circumspect when it came to national political authority. During the 1930s Le Chambon's mayor, Charles Guillon, a Huguenot pastor who resigned his post eight days before the armistice with Germany, had worked diligently with his community in welcoming poor children to the village, as well as refugees from other places.Footnote 48 Throughout much of the war Guillon worked with the YMCA and the CIMADE (n. 24 above) and was central in assisting safe passage for refugees to Switzerland, providing false papers, and delivering intelligence to freedom fighters throughout France.Footnote 49 Moreover, the “darbystes” can be described as a dissident group. They refused to participate in politics, believing it to be against their vocation, but they were strongly committed to helping those in distress.Footnote 50 Although there was the idea in Darby's teachings that the Jews would be eventually rejected, many of these people proved to be the most welcoming towards Jews.Footnote 51 The motivation for such activity seems to be partly spurred by their emphasis upon certain biblical texts, such as Zechariah 2:8 (“‘Truly one who touches you [Israel] touches the apple of my eye,' says the Lord”), and their distrust of the state. Indeed Trocmé commented that the “darbystes” were the first and the most decisive in supporting his work towards the Jews,Footnote 52 and there is indication that perhaps the first Jewish refugee stayed at the home of Marie Brottes, a “darbyste” who lived in the village.Footnote 53
However, resistance to the Vichy regime did not arise instantaneously in Le Chambon.Footnote 54 One thing, such as the unwillingness to salute the French colors in the Collège Cévenol, led to another, including the now famous refusal to obey the Vichy order to ring the church bells in celebration of the foundation of the Légion.Footnote 55 Learning of the imprisonment of Jews in French internment camps, Trocmé expressed a desire to go and assist the prisoners in these detention centers and his congregation supported him. However, he first met with Burns Chalmers of the American Friends Service Committee, as the Quakers were very active in helping the detainees. On the basis of this meeting, it was agreed that instead of sending Trocmé to the camps, Le Chambon and the plateau in general would become a place where children from the internment centers could be brought. Thus the children's homes in Le Chambon quickly became full of both Jewish and Gentile refugees. Subsequently, when the Vichy minister of youth, Georges Lamirand, visited Le Chambon in 1942 in order to rally the youth around the Maréchal, he was confronted by some young people from the Collège Cévenol who made it clear that they were against the persecution and round-ups of the Jews.Footnote 56 Two weeks later the French police arrived in order to arrest Jews seeking refuge in the area. No one was denounced, and Trocmé sent out his boy scouts to warn the peasants who were harboring Jewish families on their farms such that everyone who needed to could hide, in the woods and elsewhere. The police only managed to arrest one half-Jewish manFootnote 57 who was later released. The town had now become, in cooperation with a variety of rescue and aid organizations, a center of resistance to the authorities—a resistance that only intensified once the Germans came into direct control. Indeed there was great fear, some were arrested and killed,Footnote 58 and rarely in the plateau “did the participants have the impression of great success,”Footnote 59 but overall, many refugees were spared much suffering and likely death because of the work of the people in this region.Footnote 60
The Use of the Bible
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon was one of the larger villages in the plateau, and the bulk of its population—both in the village proper, and on the surrounding farms—was Protestant, including members of the small revival groups. Roger Casalis, the pastor who was leaving Le Chambon, provided notes to Trocmé that described the nature and activities of the parish. In addition to discussing the importance of home visits, baptisms, marriages, etc., there is a lengthy discussion of the groups that would meet. These included weekly neighborhood meetings (“de quartier”) at peoples' homes which focused upon biblical studies. Moreover, there were Sunday afternoon meetings, which although they had declined in recent years, had in Casalis' view been extraordinary, characterized by lively discussion of biblical issues and critical theological questions. Casalis comments that such meetings were a powerful and precious means of engaging people and their faith. (He also notes that the majority of the participants were women.) In addition, he describes Sunday school, the three year catechism process, other young peoples' groups, and the books and journals available to the parish such as the Echo de la Montagne, for which Trocmé would later often write.Footnote 61
Thus Trocmé had come to a parish with a strong educational infrastructure, with many of the groups focused upon the study and discussion of the Bible and theology. In his autobiography he refers explicitly to some of these groups, especially the “Études bibliques” or biblical studies meetings that he had with 13 members of the parish every two weeks during the war years.Footnote 62 The pastor would meet with these people, many of them youth leaders, and work through a discussion of biblical passages and prayers addressing how these issues applied to the community. The leaders, referred to as the “responsables,” would then go to thirteen different areas of the parish, and repeat the biblical and theological study while providing practical guidance and strategy for the people who were harboring refugees. Many of these peasants were living in the outlying farms, and Trocmé indicates that there were sometimes tensions between the rural members of the community and the townspeople, as well as with the tourists who came from the large cities to spend summers in the mountainous and wooded area of the plateau. The farmers would sometimes confuse the refugees—many of them sophisticated city people—for tourists. On the other side, the city people were sometimes irritated by the seeming diffidence of the country folk. The biblical studies groups, says Trocmé, “saved the situation”Footnote 63 for they brought the “responsables” together with the rural people, which in turn, through their animated discussion of the Bible and its role in their lives, contributed to developing strategies for sheltering those fleeing from the Nazis and the French authorities. As Trocmé wrote of these meetings: “C'est là, et non pas ailleurs, que furent reçues de Dieu des réponses aux problèmes très complexes que nous avions à résoudre pour héberger et cacher les Juifs dans les mois qui suivirent. La résistance non-violente, c'est là que nous l'avons conçue”Footnote 64 (“it was there, and not elsewhere, that answers from God came regarding the complicated problems we had to resolve for the housing and hiding of Jews in the coming months. It was there that we conceived of non-violent resistance”).
That Trocmé thought biblical study was important is indisputable considering the number of papers and publications he produced concerning how to read the Bible and why he thought such reading necessary.Footnote 65 Some of the preparation notes that Trocmé made for these meetings survive and clearly indicate that these were well organized and sophisticated discussions that systematically worked through a series of biblical texts. The notes are littered with questions that either seek further explanation of the text, or try to connect the text to the present.
Before looking at these texts it is important to state that the teachings of Jesus are Trocmé's primary lenses through which he examines all other scripture. Trocmé interpreted Jesus as nonviolent and revolutionary, and understood the joint ethic of love of God and love of neighbor as “the essence of all the higher religions.”Footnote 66 As he stated publicly in 1951, “[T]heologians throw confusion into biblical interpretation the moment they deny the teaching and sacrifice of Jesus their unique place at the center of revelation … [and that Jesus] [ha]s the right to tell us what the Old Testament and Saint John and Saint Paul and Saint Peter and the book of Revelation mean.”Footnote 67 The Apostle Paul, he says, “must be passed through the sieve of the Sermon on the Mount, and we must ask ourselves if his teaching is ‘Christian’ enough.”Footnote 68 Then Trocmé continues to discuss Romans 13:1–7 as an example of Paul “abandoning the ‘axis’ of the revelation” and “wanting to build a theology of the state” and concludes that this text that adds nothing, but rather, attempts to add a fourth “person,” in the form of the state, to the three revealed aspects of God.Footnote 69 Romans 13:1–7 is a marginal text, and “every attempt to take refuge in these obscure passages is a betrayal of Jesus.”Footnote 70
In 1943–1944 the biblical studies group examined the teachings and parables of Jesus. The approach is guided by six thematic questions: 1) What is the mission, message and method to be disciples of Christ in the world? 2) How to enter into the service of Christ or the kingdom of God? 3) How does that which Jesus has done for us make us capable of serving him? 4) How is repentance central? 5) How can we remain in the service of Christ? 6) As judgment awaits us all, how must we be prepared?Footnote 71 These themes then emerge as questions in the ensuing guide that works through the parables. Sometimes Trocmé uses the structure of thesis, antithesis and synthesis, as he did in some of his sermons, as a way of bringing texts together. For example, when focusing upon discipleship (method) he combines three ideas: love of neighbor, moral revolution, and prudence. For his thesis he guides the group to read the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), Matthew's teaching about the sheep and the goats and the notion of caring for the “least of these” (Matt 25:31–46), and several other illustrations of love of others. Then he asks if one can speak of the love of God without manifesting the love of neighbor. He inquires about what happens if a Christian preaches the gospel but fails to care for others. The “antithesis” focuses upon the idea of “moral revolution” and using the examples of new cloth on an old garment and new wine into old wineskins (Mark 2:21–22) he asks the group several questions about what these things represent, presumably intending to push the notion that the teachings of Jesus can be understood as morally revolutionary. In the third section, the “synthesis,” the participants study Jesus' exhortations not to “give to dogs what is holy nor throw pearls before swine” (Matt 7:6) and his instruction that he sends people out “as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt 10:16). Trocmé then asks the group a series of questions related to prudence such as: Does faith exclude wisdom? What is the strategy of Jesus? What does “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” mean? One can appreciate how this synthesis of love of neighbor and moral revolution in the form of strategic action could be compelling to a group of people who are attempting to live these ideals out while engaged in extremely dangerous activities.
The practice of connecting biblical texts to contemporary life repeats itself throughout Trocmé's notes. After the war Trocmé wrote of how the first fifteen chapters of Acts served as an inspiration for the parish's activities in the rescue effortsFootnote 72 and one finds in his biblical studies notebook a long section on the Book of Acts throughout which are listed questions about the events in Acts along with other questions that link the experience of the early church to that of Le Chambon.Footnote 73 Here Trocmé wonders whether one “can one speak of peace and the edification of the church when one is in the middle of persecution?”Footnote 74 Later on the notebook indicates that the “responsables” focused upon various epistles. It is interesting that when they get to the letter of James, they deal only with Jas 2:1–16 under the heading “The Equality of the Church” and Trocmé asks them to translate Jas 2:2 (when the rich man with gold rings and fine clothes enters the assembly, followed by the poor man in shabby clothing) into the contemporary setting. He also asks his group why God has chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom (Jas 2:5), and whether this continues to be true.
Turning to Trocmé's sermons,Footnote 75 various themes and texts were certainly emphasized. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” “The Sermon on the Mount,” “The Good Samaritan,” and the description of the “cities of refuge” found in Numbers 35 were each favourite texts that had obvious parallels with what the village was doing.Footnote 76 In 1939, one of Trocmé's sermons reflected the first explicit and public reference to the threat of totalitarianism and its potential impact upon Jews and exhorted his congregation to “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deut 10:19), deliberately associating the experience of the Huguenots with that of the Israelites.Footnote 77 The text in Acts 5:29 in which Peter says that “we must obey God rather than human authority” was another obvious and important text, and French historian Pierre Bolle states that it was at the heart of the spiritual resistance in the area.Footnote 78 Georges Menut remembers that the day after the declaration of war Trocmé preached on “Love your enemies,” while the famous “weapons of the spirit” sermon was delivered directly after the establishment of the armistice with Germany in 1940. In this sermon Trocmé and his colleague Theis begin by stressing that as with the plight of the Israelites, the hour of humility had come, and insisted that the community had to love, forgive, do good for one's adversaries and to resist all attempts to force one to submit to things contrary to the orders of the gospel.Footnote 79 Although Trocmé was careful not to try to force his views regarding nonviolence on others, his sermons were not exempt of references to his stance. Nonetheless, he did not think his preaching was political, a perspective that was apparently not shared by all of his parishioners.Footnote 80
These themes of loving the enemy, hospitality to strangers, and nonviolence also appear in the stories Trocmé wrote and recounted to the parish children around the giant Christmas tree set up in the church during the war. These tales depict various creatures, such as a stubborn and thinking donkey who refuses to follow social convention and who teaches her Samaritan owner to care for injured people lying on the side of the road (the donkey is a female, descended from Balaam's donkey in Numbers 22 who later has a baby of her own).Footnote 81 Other accounts build on this theme of compassion for strangers, especially for Jews,Footnote 82 and some describe nonviolent resistance such as a stunning story called “The Revolt of the Animals”Footnote 83 in which gnats and ants operate as spies and crocodiles function as nonviolent submarines. Usually there is a link to a biblical tale that the children would recognize, as well as connections to the circumstances in Le Chambon. Thus again, in a different genre, Trocmé draws parallels between biblical stories and the concrete circumstances of life during the war. The importance of nonviolence, care for others, and resisting social convention is repeatedly emphasized in a variety of ways.
One might wonder how Trocmé dealt with the violence in the Bible. Some evidence of him struggling with this question during the war can be found in a “Sunday School” catechism notebook kept by one of his students.Footnote 84 Here is found a discussion of the fact that God, who is all powerful, allows for war and injustice, and that many wars throughout the Bible are blessed by God. The notes indicate that Trocmé thought that it is in part through war that God formed God's chosen people and defended this people from others. However, Jesus the JewFootnote 85 founded a “new Israel” which is a “spiritual people” and does not need to be armed other than with the things that Jesus has provided. Trocmé understands this New Israel to be announced in Isaiah (Isa 2:2–4; 9:1–6; 11:1–9), marking a new period in which swords are turned into ploughshares (Isa 2:4). In an undated document on violence in the Book of Revelation, which Trocmé understands to be an allegorical text reflecting the experiences of Christians undergoing persecution by the Roman Empire, he asserts that God is the only one who can wreak vengeance.Footnote 86 This notion appears in the catechism notes as well: “God has the right to use violence: God is all powerful. God will punish humans but that punishment will come later (Matt 13:24–30; 36–43 [Parable of the Weeds])… . We are at the moment experiencing God's patience. Christ was given to us for our salvation. God is giving us another chance.”Footnote 87 Thus while judgment and vengeance remain the prerogatives of God, they are not to be manifested by human beings.
Finally, it has been acknowledged in a variety of places that Trocmé and the people of the plateau never attempted to convert Jewish visitors to Christianity. Some Jews were able to maintain religious practices while in the area during the war.Footnote 88 In Trocmé's writings, I do not find the idea that the “Old Israel” has been rejected even though he understands the church to be the “New Israel.” In the biblical studies notes that focus on Romans, Trocmé says that all of Israel will be saved (Rom 11:26) when all the Gentiles are converted to the gospel, but he does not indicate that Israel must have faith in Jesus.Footnote 89 It is not entirely clear what Trocmé thought about this issue, and thus it will require more investigation.
Conclusion
Trocmé's notion that nonviolence lay at the core of the biblical witness found a receptive audience in Le Chambon and throughout the plateau.Footnote 90 However, not all accepted it, and as the war progressed, a resistance movement, willing to engage in violence, emerged in the region that clearly played a significant role in the rescue work and struggles against the Germans.Footnote 91 After Trocmé returned from 10 months in hiding, he was distraught and bitter that some of the young people who had been attracted to nonviolence had joined the “maquis,”Footnote 92 and the degree to which nonviolence was a significant factor in the success of the operations continues to be a contentious issue.Footnote 93 However, Trocmé did communicate with members of the resistance, and there is evidence that he had a certain agreement with its leader, Léon Eyraud, although I have not been able to pin down the precise nature of that accord.Footnote 94 Although conscientious objection was not something that all of Trocmé's parishioners upheld, his stress on the importance of one's individual conscience was key,Footnote 95 and played a central role as people throughout the area had to make decisions, often independently, as to what the appropriate course of action should be.
We find several themes in Trocmé's use of the Bible, however, that resonated with the identity and experience of the people in his parish. The stress on hospitality, love of God and love of neighbor, non-conformity, welcoming the stranger, and the Jews as God's chosen people with whom the Protestants had much in common would not be new to the people of Le Chambon. They accepted and lived out these ideas in their daily activities, even though it was on a gradual basis as the war progressed and as people grew more critical of Vichy, and certainly of the Germans. Trocmé's continued emphasis upon engaging these themes and the texts that he perceived to reflect them, especially in the context of the biblical studies groups, kept these ideas central. Moreover, he constantly invited questions and discussion such that his parishioners, especially the young, of whom so many were important to the activities, could grapple and think about the scriptures for themselves rather than simply being told what they meant. The “responsables” in particular continued such discussions as they went out each week to the more remote areas of the community and talked with the peasants and others who were sheltering various individuals. It is fair to conclude that such activities stimulated and helped sustain commitment as these people proceeded with their dangerous work—work that they did not consider to be particularly heroic, but natural and consistent with what they understood to be the biblical witness and the right thing to do.Footnote 96
