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The Ecumenical and Interfaith Landscape in Bonhoeffer’s Times Victoria J. Barnett Victoria J. Barnett is the Director of Programs on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust at the U S Holocaust Memorial Museum1
It is a delight, a pleasure, and an honour to be invited to this event honouring the publication of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ecumenical Quest by Keith Clements. I have personal and scholarly reasons for rejoicing in the publication of this book, and I’ll begin with the personal reasons. I served from 2004 to 2014 as one of the general editors of the English translation of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke. In addition to being a member of the editorial board, Keith was the editor for volume 13 of the Bonhoeffer works, which covered the period from late 1933 to early 1935 when Bonhoeffer served several German parishes in London. It’s also one of the volumes in which Bonhoeffer’s ecumenical interests play a major role. All of our volume editors of course did a splendid job and I’m not going to list my favourites, but suffice it to say that Keith was wonderful to work with and set a very high standard, not just in terms of his editorial work but in terms of his expertise on the ecumenical world and the British church scene during those years in Bonhoeffer’s life. So I wasn’t at all surprised when I read the galleys of Bonhoeffer’s Ecumenical Quest to discover not only a well-written and engaging work but one that truly expands our understanding not just of what Bonhoeffer was doing in the ecumenical movement, but of what that ecumenical engagement meant in the larger context of his theology. That brings me to the scholarly reasons for rejoicing in the publication of this book. An in-depth study of Bonhoeffer’s role in the ecumenical movement is long overdue, and Keith’s book gives us a vivid portrait not just of Bonhoeffer, but of the remarkable ecumenical leaders of that era and the larger issues that were at stake. There are not many 1
Remarks for the book launch of Keith Clements’ Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ecumenical Quest (WCC Publications), 4 March 2015.
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DOI: 10.1111/erev.12163 C (2015) World Council of Churches. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Copyright V