David Congdon, writing in The Presbyterian Outlook:

“Conservative Christians are able to reach this interpretation of Barmen not merely because they discount history but because of a flaw in the Barmen Declaration itself. The Confessing Church’s statement says that the church obeys the Word of God alone but does not clarify what this Word means apart from an abstract idea of freedom. The Word of God thus easily becomes a cipher for any position the church views as divinely mandated, which can range from caring for the sick and marginalized to refusing mask mandates. To be sure, this flaw is what allowed for the approval of Barmen in 1934, and it is unlikely that the Confessing Church could have written a more robust statement at the time. But that only reinforces the point that Barmen is not timeless and arguably should not be viewed as a normative confession in the Reformed tradition.”