With the support of the Student Opportunities Fund, Ordinand and DThM student Paul Charles was able to travel to Sydney Australia to the International Bonhoeffer Congress.
In January this year, I had the opportunity to present a paper at the International Bonhoeffer Congress in Sydney Australia. The Congress is held every few years and brings together Bonhoeffer scholars from around the world to discuss his life and work. Thanks to funding from the Student Opportunities Fund, I was able to attend both the Congress itself, and the two-day postgrad gathering beforehand, presenting my current research and getting feedback from other scholars.
This year’s theme was ‘Crisis and Hope: Reading Bonhoeffer for Today,’ and the many papers focused on subjects like the climate emergency, authoritarianism, and the role of the modern church. My paper looked at one of Bonhoeffer’s essays, ‘After Ten Years,’ in which he reflects upon the state of resistance against National Socialism both before and during World War II. In the essay he argues that the greatest enemy of the good is not evil, but stupidity. Evil can be named and fought against, but stupidity is a far more dangerous foe. It is seen in those who choose to believe propaganda and lies, who don’t engage in reasoned thought, who step back from political life and go with the flow. Bonhoeffer saw the main problem in Nazi Germany to be those who were choosing to become stupid…and thus giving free rein to those who sought to do evil. Many bloggers and news sites, from all areas of the political spectrum, have quoted Bonhoeffer’s words and argued the same is happening now. My paper argued that they may well be correct, but that this sort of rhetoric is unhelpful and divisive in our 24-hour media world. Instead, our responsibility is to do our best to remain in community with others and to love them, regardless of their views.
As I prepare to finish my time at St. John’s and Cranmer Hall and take up the role of curate in the Church of England, I am always interested in how the theology we read and quote influences those outside academia. It was a phenomenal opportunity to be able to get to know others at the Congress asking the same questions, doing what they can to interpret Bonhoeffer for the 21st century. I was both challenged and encouraged by many of the papers, and I hope to keep the connections I made as I move into parish ministry.
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