Bonhoeffer and the Responsibility for a Coming Generation

Book excerpt: This volume draws together a selection of high-quality presentations at the 13th International Bonhoeffer Congress held in January 2020 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. The theme of the conference was “How a coming generation is to go on living? Bonhoeffer and the response to our present crisis and hope.” The selected essays engage thoroughly and creatively with this concern to take responsibility not only for our own personal and communal life in all of its complexity and richness but also for the ethos and society that future generations will inherit from us. The pertinence of Bonhoeffer's question is addressed in these contributions anew as we experience threats on a global level to socio-political, economic and inter-religious stability and solidarity. Attention is also given to some important challenges experienced in the so-called global South, and the reality of climate change and ecological devastation implies that the question of how future generations are going to go on living is linked to the fact that we live on a planet that is in jeopardy. Also included as an appendix is the powerful sermon preached by the South African Anglican archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba at the opening worship service of the congress.