"Meeting with others"” “

“The humanism of Bonhoeffer was profoundly rooted in the life, death and resurrection of Christ”, but, at the same time, was “forged by the meeting with others, and shaped by suffering and by the struggle for truth and justice. He affirmed, in spite of everything, “the goodness of man against perversion, hope against despair and life against death”. That’s why, according to the South African theologian JOHN DE GRAUCHY , intervening at the 9th International Conference on “Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Christian humanism” (Rome, 8-10 June), the great Protestant theologian remains of great actuality in our time. Born in Breslau in 1906, Bonhoeffer died in the Nazi concentration camp of Flossebürg in 1945. THE VALUE OF THE HUMAN PERSON. The meeting in Rome, promoted by the International Bonhoeffer Society, was attended by a hundred or so experts and academics from fourteen different countries. It was opened by KEITH CLEMENTS, general secretary of the Conference of European Churches (CEC). “What still makes Bonhoeffer relevant – said Clements – is his being a witness of the need to reaffirm the significance of each person in a period in which the person was cheapened, threatened and abused”. Steering our course between the extremes of religious fundamentalism “with its fear of diversity”, on the one hand, and “the relativistic and individualistic tendencies of postmodern society”, on the other, “we wish – said Clements – to know that there exists a power of salvation for everyone, a grace that affirms the value and dignity of each”. “We live in a very agitated period, distinguished by injustices, wars, discrimination against foreigners and abuses against prisoners – said the American theologian MICHAEL LUKENS -. Studying the work of Bonhoeffer means exploring its significance for our difficult task in the world”. TRAVELLING COMPANION. In the view of ARY BRAAKMAN (Holland), “although they came from profoundly different cultural environments, Bonhoeffer and the Catholic Maritain have much in common” in their “view of the Church as an institution able to contribute to the emancipation and socialization of the individual and society. Their legacy may help Christianity to build a more human society”. Thanks to Bonhoeffer’s work, published in Poland in 1970, “the country’s Catholic intellectuals rediscovered their own social conscience and learnt from this ‘travelling companion’ to work together with “people of good will'”, stressed the Polish theologian JOEL BURNELL. At the same time, “their lay counterparts recovered the sense of moral transcendence necessary for supporting the resistance against the absolutism of the Communist regime”. “By overcoming their reciprocal mistrust – Burnell continued – they smoothed the way for the project of a civil society founded on the link between humanism and Christianity, which took shape during the activity of Solidarnosc and in the dialogues of the so-called ‘Round Table’ between opposition leaders and Communist apparatchiks that led to the elections in 1989”. TIME OF RESPONSIBILITY’. “Does Bonhoeffer deserve to be commemorated among the ‘just’ at Yad Vashem?” According to the American scholar STEVEN HAYNES “this debate may distract us from examining in depth everything he taught us about the phenomenon of salvation and the ways in which the search for salvation illuminated his mission. One of the questions that have long perplexed scholars of the ‘conduct of salvation’ concerns the motivations of those who risked their own life to protect the Jews during the Holocaust. The dynamic that inspired them may be defined in terms of ‘Christian humanism’ and/or ‘Christian philosemitism’, and since Bonhoeffer seems to have reflected both impulses, he shows that one of these elements does not necessarily exclude the other. On the contrary, they may co-exist and interact in the ‘saviours'”. “The conception of the individuality of each person is interwoven”, in Bonhoeffer’s thought, “with the perspective of time”, so the theologian “rejects a mode of thought decoupled from the temporal dimension and considers ‘the present moment’ as the time for Christian responsibility”, remarked ROBERT VOSLOO (South Africa). From the close link “between human person, community and God” “the challenge of the ‘economization’ (or redemption) of time arises and “the resources for human existence lived to the full are drawn”.