Heinrich Bedford-Strohm | Peter Bubmann | Hans-Ulrich Dallmann | Torsten Meireis (Hrsg.): Kritische Öffentliche Theologie (Leseprobe)

36 Dirk J. Smit
ecumenical figure and public intellectual – amongst others President of the SACC
and Rector of Stellenbosch University – and internationally known for his pedagogy
of hope. As ecumenical leader he was actively involved in the envisioning
that led to the formation of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
He would later be present in the French Cathedral in Berlin in 1999 when
Huber awarded the Bonhoeffer Prize to the TRC Chair Archbishop Desmond Tutu
and Vice-Chair Alex Boraine.
The second essay was called »The Barmen Declaration and the Kairos-Document.
On the Relationship between Confessionand Politics«. It again addressed a
burning issue in South African church circles at the time, since Black Reformed
Christians adopted the Confession of Belhar (1986) and challengedthe apartheid
ideology, theology and ecclesiology in the spiritof Barmen. Huber quoted Luther
that our whole life, all our action, is confession, and argued that witness, confession,
the Christian life are all identical and take place in different ways, from
words and texts to actions and practices and structures. Modifying aword of Bonhoeffer,
he argued that »the first confession of the Christiancommunity is the living
witness in the unity of word and deed«. (Huber, 1991b: 50) He thendeveloped
arich typology of ways in which word and deed may be related in the church’s
witness – responding to real issues in South Africa at the time.
In the same year he published avolume on an ethics of responsibility, Konflikt
und Konsens. Studien zur Ethik der Verantwortung (1990). Even in this book on
ethics asection on »hope for the church« formed amajor part and the book concluded
with an essay on »Auf dem Wegzueiner Kirche der offenen Grenzen«. The
calling of the church was clearly integral to his thoughts on ethics and responsible
life. The confession or witness of the church always takes form under concrete
circumstances, in specific contexts,inparticular times – and therefore the church
should always also read the signs of the time inorder to discern how to confess
Jesus Christ there and then. This is what concrete responsibility requires. Future
generations will know whether the church only sought tomaintain and protect
itself during crises or whether it asked how tomorrow’s children will be able to
live. This is what Huber heard in Bonhoeffer and this is what again motivated Botman
and many others.
1995
In 1995 Wolfgang Huber was invited once more, now as Bishopofthe Evangelical
Church of Berlin-Brandenburg. At the University of the Western Cape he was
asked to lecture on the church. Remarkably, he drew alarge public audience on
aSaturday morning during school holiday, lecturing on »Kirche – wohin? Eine
Problemanzeige in zwanzig Thesen«. As usual, he began with arich description
of the context and crisis of the moment. Then he argued – again as usual – that