Bonhoeffer and Public Theology: The politics of recognition in postcolonial formation

Abstract

This essay examines Bonhoeffer’s insights into the legacy of European modernity, with its Janus-faced nature. Bonhoeffer’s theology of the cross is, at a methodological level, grounded in both Christological collectivism and a biblical symbol of reconciliation. This combined position reinforces the politics of recognition and the critical appraisal of European modernity, and it promotes solidarity with innocent victims. As such, it breaks through Gustavo Gutierrez’s critique of Bonhoeffer. Using the genealogical (power-discourse) approach to Bonhoeffer, this essay engages with Walter Benjamin to conceptualise the significant regime of “effective history” with its anamnestic reasoning and to deal with the absence of those silenced in the underside of history. This is crucial for a new interpretation of both reparative justice (suum cuique) and Bonhoeffer’s discourse ethics of parrhesia, which can be applied in public theology within a postcolonial framework.