Teaching (With) Bonhoeffer: Decolonising and Contextualising Theologies from the Otherside

Teaching Bonhoeffer to post-graduate students in Oceania: the ‘otherside of the globe’, that vast ‘Blue Continent’ (PIFS 2022) which comprises island states that cross the equator, the date line, and waves of colonisation from foreign powers that still exert control over a number of countries, has highlighted the resonances of Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics with indigenous ways of knowing and behaving. Those resonances are apparent across several key notions: sociality, christocentrism, and ethics of responsibility. Furthermore, Bonhoeffer’s own relationality and commitment to life together is a description of the ‘whole of life’ ideals of the Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji with its motto, ‘leadership for justice’.

As Green (1972, rev. 1999) was early to articulate, sociality is at the core of Bonhoeffer’s theology, essential to the person and work of Christ, theological anthropology, and as I have asserted, the ontology and ethics of ecological engagement (Rayson 2021). Furthermore, the christocentrism apparent throughout Bonhoeffer’s theology, most explicitly in the Christology lectures but woven throughout the corpus, ensures the immanence of Christ in the created world and has implications again, for ecological engagement. Finally, this is directed in an ethics of responsibility for all types of engagement with the ‘other’, humans, non-humans, soil and water.

In Oceania, rootedness to vanua (the word for land, the people, and conceptually, the relationships between land, people, God, ancestors, and all creation) is fundamental to life itself (Tuwere 2002). It is placed within the broader construct of moana (the waters, the ocean) (Halapua 2008) since it is the ocean that holds the vanua in place. Moana connects (is)lands, peoples, myths and holds the journey of wayfarers ‘since before “once upon a time”’—the usual way storytelling begins here. Hence, Pasifika (the diverse peoples of Oceania) identify as belonging to moana in a way that is different to land-based constructs of nation-states that have been imposed from the outside. They identify as wayfarers, navigators, so both the ‘ground’ of the journey and the sojourners are fluid.

The deep cultural knowledges of the interconnectedness of all things, of the importance of right relationships across all axes, of the deep spirituality that runs through all of creation have deep resonances in Bonhoeffer’s theology. For this reason, teaching Bonhoeffer in Oceania provides learners with another ‘language’ with which to articulate their own spiritualities. Furthermore, the biography of Bonhoeffer adds a layer of authenticity to the theology of ‘another white male’ from abroad, making his theology unusually accessible.

It is in this context of the Pacific Theological College that contextual theology itself takes place. From the earliest imaginings of ‘Coconut Theology’ from Sione ‘Amanaki Havea in the 1980s, contextual theology has moved from what Jione Havea (2011) describes as the essentialisation of theology—culture transporting the kernel of essential theology—to actually creating contextual theologies that are rooted in place. Theorising contextual theology again ‘unearths’ resonances with Bonhoeffer’s notion of groundedness (DBWE 2, 80; 3, 77; 8. 38; 22, 439 etc). The tension between culture and theology continues to spur creative imaginaries in Oceania. Taking Bonhoeffer’s challenge that “the sanctorum communio does not place its trust in culture, but it recognises culture as the ground on which it has to work” (DBWE 1 fn 457), academics and students in Oceania are engaged in the long process of decolonising and contextualising theologies so that they are truly indigenous and truly life-giving.

Jione Havea’s assertions that the ‘con’ in contextualisation are taken seriously in this paper, therefore the problems of: essentialisation; language; globalisation; borders; and difference, Havea’s five identified ‘cons’, are addressed and in some cases challenged.