He was born, quite literally, into division, conflict, and danger. Yet he has lived his life with the desire to find the humanity in even the most hated of enemies He has made as his life's occupation the work of reconciliation.
Born in Germany in 1931 to a Jewish family, Oestreicher grew up under the Nazi regime. As a child, he lived for months in hiding from the Nazis and witnessed the first outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence in Berlin. At the age of 7, he fled with his family to New Zealand, where they became Quakers.
In 1959, having returned to Europe, Oestreicher was ordained in the Church of England and took a position in a working-class East London parish. Since then he has worked in the British Council of Churches establishing contacts and connections with East European Christians, authored two books on Christian-Marxist dialogue, served on the Christian Peace Conference in Prague (resigning when the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968), and chaired Amnesty International in Britain. He is currently director of international ministry at Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, England. During a recent visit to Washington, D.C., Paul Oestreicher was interviewed by Jim Wallis.
--The Editors
Jim Wallis: I'm very impressed by this vocation of yours--the ministry of reconciliation. What does the ministry or vocation of reconciliation mean to you? And how did you come to your calling?
Paul Oestreicher: It is what I've come to dedicate my life to in a way, the exploration of what reconciliation means--and that is loving enemies. I think I owe this vocation to my father. He was born a Jew and, through the experience of suffering in the First World War, encountered his various Calvaries and became a Christian because he survived the trenches while most of his friends didn't.
Being a Jew by background, even though he'd become a Christian by the time Hitler came to power, my father knew that the moment would come when he would have to flee or die. But he constantly said, "It's only good fortune that I have Jewish parents. If I didn't have Jewish parents and had grown up in a different context, I might be the persecuting Nazi. When I look inside myself I know that the persecutor could be me. And I can never face Hitler without seeing Hitler in myself as well." This idea that your opponent--the person who thinks differently, the person who actually wants to destroy you--is less human than you are was something my father never allowed me to accept.
As a child of 7, I was hidden for nine months from the Gestapo while my parents were on the run. Occasionally my parents would visit me. On one particular Sunday, my mother came to take me for a walk. And it happened that that was the day the Jewish problems began; it was November 14,1938. We were on the streets of Berlin, and suddenly black-uniformed men began smashing up all the Jewish shops around us. My world of security sort of broke with the glass. Somehow, even as a 7-year-old, I knew those people were attacking me.
We ran away from them, and I went back to my cellar hide-out. But something enabled me to see that those people were human beings. They were not different from me. I had to come to terms with not hating them.
That was a long struggle, but one which my parents helped me get through. I thought I was the victim, and I was in a sense. My grandmother, whom I loved very much, was murdered by the Nazis.
Within a few months, we got out of Germany. We were lucky in that we were able to travel to New Zealand. It was a great tragicomedy because my father, with his unusual sense of humor, simply exploited Nazi weakness to make that journey possible.
The Nazis had a regulation saying that if you were a soldier who earned the Iron Cross medal in the First World War, you were permitted to take enough money out of your confiscated bank account to pay for your journey, wherever you were going and no matter how you traveled. So my father booked a passage to New Zealand, state class, on a Dutch luxury liner. And the bureaucracy allowed it to happen.
So here we were--poor, penniless refugees traveling like millionaires. For the first and last time in my life, I had a servant just for me. He was called "boy," though he was in his 20s. He was from the Dutch East Indies, what's now called Indonesia. He became my friend.
He would run and do errands for me. No luxury was too difficult for him to fulfill. But luxury is boring to small children. So I got bored and went exploring on this great ship in places where I was not meant to be.
I found myself climbing down a steel ladder into the engine room and was most impressed by the great turbines. Then I saw another ladder going down onto the engines. And this was a real challenge: Did I have the courage to go even further? So I did. I climbed down, and it got darker and darker and hotter and hotter. Then I got to the very bottom of the ship, and I felt very frightened and guilty--I knew I wasn't supposed to be there.
I took a few steps, and suddenly my foot hit a body lying at my feet. I was terrified. I looked down, and asleep on the floor at my feet was one of the servants. Then I realized that all around him were others. I had stumbled into where they lived--under the engines, on straw, on wooden boards.
This encounter with inhumanity so shattered me that I dreamed the nightmare of that occasion for years. I was literally the poor little rich boy at the top, and these were the people at the bottom. And I've been the poor little rich boy ever since. I still am now. I'm still part of the exploiting world and not part of the exploited world.
I didn't know it then, but this is called imperialism. This is called colonialism. This is called oppression. But I did know that this wasn't what my parents had taught me about people--that people are all equal.
I knew by then that in Germany I had been on the receiving end of persecution. Suddenly I realized that I was one of the guilty people. And to be both persecuted and then to see myself as one of the persecutors was a kind of double conversion to me. Ever since then, I think, everything I've done in my life has been shaped by the experience on that ship.
You've been in South Africa, to the Middle East, and in various parts of the Third World. You've been in situations where there are conflicts in which you have very real convictions about the meaning of justice and peace. How do you avoid being simply a partisan advocate or a neutral mediator who simply works out a compromise? How is the role of reconciler different than both of those roles?
I think different people have different gifts and often have to play different roles. There are some situations that are not, strictly speaking, about reconciliation, about opponents really learning, miraculously almost, to love each other even though they may remain opponents. There are situations where mediation is needed simply to enable people to live together in some bearable way. That may require a neutral mediator.
I think Christian reconciliation actually depends on the honest recognition of enmity--that it exists, that it's painful--and then the facing of it. This is where I often am at odds with most of the established churches where they see the role of the pastor as a neutral mediator among all the people. This kind of pastor never actually takes up significant positions on the issues that really touch people's lives, for fear of dividing the people or being controversial. But to take that position, I think, is inevitably to refuse to accept the challenge of the gospel.
Reconciliation, in Christian terms, means committing yourself to what you believe the gospel demands, sometimes with frightening consequences for others and yourself because it is very costly. But what requires grace and strength is to remain open to those who you know oppose you.
To me, that was most clear in my own commitment to nonviolence and to pacifism. I was a pastor in an Anglican church that was about 250 yards away from Britain's Royal Naval Academy. I knew that a substantial portion of our congregation owed their livelihood to the navy--a navy that was training young sailors to serve on nuclear submarines that could destroy millions of lives. I felt I had to make quite clear that I considered that to be diabolical and yet somehow also stay within talking and caring distance, to be able still to share Communion with the people who were doing that.
I wanted them to take seriously what I had to say. And I was prepared to listen to them, because I am a sinner, too. I've got to be open to being indicted by them as much as I've got to be willing to indict them. I was able to get to the common person in the naval academy, to challenge the young lieutenants through lectures every three months on alternatives to what they were doing. And because I respected them, they actually respected me.
In other words, the love you show for your opponent may not be reciprocated, but you hope it will be. You hope the human communication will not break down.
Reconciliation is actually, in the end, about finding a way through, for example, the immoral and, in my eyes, criminal reality of nuclear weapons to some consensus on how we can get rid of them. That will only happen through dialogue and not through confrontation, although part of the dialogue may involve some forms of breaking the law or being arrested. But you should try to make sure in the process that you give signs of still caring. And the ultimate sign of reconciliation, of course, is a crucified Jesus praying on the cross for those hammering the nails into his hands.
People, including Christians, are often afraid even to explore that kind of reconciliation, or to have significant dialogue, because they fear they won't be able to maintain their position, their passion, or their conviction. They fear that they either will face hard questions they'd rather not answer, or see and touch too much of the humanity of their opponents and somehow lose their edge.
One of the consequences of that insecurity is that we are afraid actually to face our opponent, to look another human being in the eyes, because we feel perhaps that our case may crumble.
This is a risk that the Christian gospel ought to help us face because the one thing that Christians don't need to do is save face. It doesn't matter if we're sometimes proved wrong. It doesn't matter if our cherished belief collapses. We have beyond us a caring God who sustains us. And if we aren't afraid to show our weakness, there's some chance that we will enable our opponent to show his or her weakness.
The moment that happens, you're into what the world calls compromise, but it is really something much deeper. It's a process of love breaking through those bits of armor that have cracked open. Then the idea of loving enemies becomes real. We're engaging in something personal and human.
On my last visit to South Africa, I went to explore what grounds for conciliation there might be between the tribal power structures of Chief Gatsha Buthelezi and the Zulus on the one hand, and the great majority of young black people in the liberation movement on the other hand, who believe that Chief Buthelezi is really a traitor to black liberation. The division between them is a gift to the persecutors who simply want to drive wedges between black people.
Rightly or wrongly, I came to the conclusion that there are still possibilities of real conciliation between Buthelezi and his followers and the United Democratic Front, which sadly now has been politically banned and driven underground. When I put that to some of my closest friends in the United Democratic Front, they actually agreed with me.
But then they stopped and said, "If we try this, so many of our followers are going to suspect treason. They're instinctively going to think we're betraying them. They're right on the front line. Their friends have been shot down by white guns. And if we go and talk to the people they think are the enemy, they won't understand our motives, and our solidarity will begin to crack."
And then I simply shared the pain of recognizing the need for reconciliation, but also recognizing that there are some situations in our world where the cost to those involved is enormously high because the moment you go out in friendship to the enemy, you're always in danger of being called a traitor by your friends. I think that's one of the most difficult of all human situations. Sometimes all you can do is pray and hope that somehow people will be given the strength to go through that and still come out loving each other.
What is the relationship between political naivete and this open posture toward reconciliation? What does it mean to be as gentle as a dove and yet as wise as a serpent?
I find that a very, very difficult question. I was trained as a political scientist before I began to study theology. And I actually believe that if you're involved with difficult political situations, you owe it to everybody in the situation to analyze carefully, not to be naive, but to weigh carefully the probable consequences of actions. In the end, you still have to take risks, but they're not risks taken blindly.
I can't deny that there are charismatic moments even in the world of politics, where a naive action can be a liberating thing. Sometimes one simply has to cut through the expert opinions and do what one's instincts suggest. I would be very surprised if some of the more thoughtful followers of Jesus would not have categorized him at moments as being totally naive. But, in the end, I would still want to say he wasn't. He was a very shrewd judge of human character. And naivete doesn't go well with political discipleship.
I would suspect the naivete on the part of a would-be mediator, who himself or herself is in a more comfortable position, could be very costly in lives for those who are most affected by the negative consequences of their naivete.
Oh yes. Naivete can be very, very costly for others and very dangerous. Although, as I say, there are possibly moments in history when a naive action can be the right thing. Perhaps the word "naive" is even wrong; I'm referring to an action that is more of a gut-level response than a carefully considered political judgment.
There are also some naive and idealistic actions that have religious appeal, but which can tempt one toward a kind of self-righteousness.
I have often felt that about major elements in the peace movement, of which I've been an integral part. We have been criticized by the establishment for naivete, and there are times when we've deserved the criticism. If you are a critic of power, you've got to have the self-discipline to put yourself where the people with power are. You've actually got to say to yourself, "If I were there, and not in the powerless position, what would I do responsibly with my power?" If you ask yourself that question, then you owe the politician as careful a rationale for what you're proposing as is your critique for what he's doing.
It may well be, of course, that the politician is the one who is being naive and acting on almost mythological assumptions about power that are quite wrong. The peace movement at its best has often been able to show that that is so. The whole philosophy of deterrence, which has dictated both Eastern and Western defense policies for the past generation, is based on very naive assumptions about the use of power, and is in fact highly dangerous. And more by the grace of God than by human wisdom we have survived until now.
Is it fair to say that reconciliation must not be based on an illusion or self-deception or self-righteousness but rather on a genuine willingness to respect and even love one's enemies and adversaries, so that something can break through that is realistically and responsibly a better course of action than the others being pursued? Sometimes maybe the better course is being obstructed by the lack of willingness to love and respect.
I can agree with that. And the better course is often also obstructed by those who are actually proposing it, because they're not prepared to be in dialogue with those who need to hear about it. In other words, to be so confrontational that you almost force your opponents to reject what you're proposing because they'll be humiliated means that your proposal will not be heard. If you're determined to win the argument rather than get the right thing done, if you see it simply in terms of a struggle of arguments, the odds are that you will not win the argument because the other side will not hear your case. You must first be accepted to be heard.
Sometimes in the peace movement there seems almost to be a desire not to be heard, or a wish to remain marginal, for the sake of proving or demonstrating one's Tightness or purity. The goal is more to be right, to be thought of as right, than really to see some breakthrough or change occur.
I think that temptation of self-righteousness, of needing to be sure you're right, is part of every reform movement. And it's very important that within the movement there are always people who recognize that as a temptation rather than as something positive.
There seems to be not only the need to be right, but the need to have an enemy over whom to be right. It is in fact a formula for permanent conflict. And it's not just a joke that people in the peace movement are often the most unreconciled, and unreconciling, people.
But I also accept that the peace movement is a collection of human beings. Because we're sinners, that may be our prevailing sin. We've got to bear with each other in our failures. If that is part of the negative luggage we carry, we've got to learn to live with it and recognize that every movement has extremists. It is important that the movement itself doesn't get totally hooked on the philosophy "We want to stay a pure minority." It must be able to bear within itself people of that disposition and still love them.
Another objection that sometimes is raised against the idea of reconciliation comes from the oppressed themselves. For example, in this country racial reconciliation has often occurred at the expense of people of color. Some initiatives purport to be reconciling but don't take into account the realities of power--who has power and who is powerless. And so the end result is one that offers reconciliation without justice. Therefore the word "reconciliation" is a term viewed with suspicion sometimes by people who are poor or oppressed or people of color when it's being uttered by those who have power.
You can't forgive on behalf of others. To recognize an injustice and then to stretch out hands of forgiveness to the oppressor when you're not the oppressed is, of course, a crazy exercise. But it is often done, and that is very hurtful to those who are oppressed.
But, on the other hand, I cannot accept the doctrine that there can be no forgiveness and no move toward reconciliation until there is justice, or in other words, "Until there is nothing to forgive anymore, we won't forgive." That is an understandable human reaction, but it's certainly not what the gospel is about. To say there must be justice first before reconciliation can begin is to say that there can't be reconciliation.
You have said, "I'll talk with anybody." That struck me because it really is rare. Even within the church, Christians who are in conflict with each other sometimes won't even talk with each other. What does it mean to say, "I'll talk with anybody"?
I have seen that particular lesson best illustrated by a friend of mine who's not a Christian, but in whom I recognized an incredible humanity. The humanity I see in Jesus I see in this friend, who is a Jew by birth, a Marxist by conviction. As a child in Vienna, he had seen his own father murdered in the streets by the Gestapo. Today he is a highly successful lyric poet and political poet.
He was invited by a television producer in West Germany to appear on a talk show with a young neo-fascist who claimed, among other things, that accounts about gas chambers in Auschwitz were propaganda and that the deaths reported there never really happened. When he got there, the director of the station said to him, "Well, I can only apologize to you profusely for the bad taste of my producer for asking you to sit down and talk to a neo-fascist like that in the light of the suffering you've experienced. We have paid off this young man. He won't be coming. We will have a neutral interviewer to chat with you about your views on neo-fascism and this phenomenon in our society."
When my friend got on the air, he very strongly attacked the television company for what had happened, not for his being invited to talk to a neo-fascist, but for a young neo-fascist not being permitted to come and air his prejudices in public and be responded to. And, rightly, he made the assumption that this young man would be sitting at home watching. So in a way, the dialogue went on even in the young man's absence.
As soon as the television program was over, my friend got in a taxi, rode to the young man's house at about half past 11 o'clock at night, and they talked until breakfast. My friend said to me afterward, "Well, there's one less neo-fascist." It was a dramatic illustration of his total openness to human beings and his inability to hate fascists, in spite of what had happened to him and his father.
One of the things this teaches me is, of course, that Christians are crazy to imagine that the Holy Spirit, the light of God, is not potentially in every human being. I keep on encountering situations where Christians are bigoted and narrow-minded, while non-Christians or even anti-Christians do the Christian thing. And that doesn't surprise me anymore at all, because there are enough examples of that very thing in the New Testament that Jesus himself encountered.
You have said that the role of the church is not to dominate a society, not to be subservient to it, but to be its conscience. I'm wondering if a church that really has the power to dominate can be a reconciler. Does reconciliation depend on a certain willingness not to possess or seek power?
It's a very difficult question. Yet in the end I have to say that bearing the burdens of power can be a Christian vocation.
I think some are called into a position where we don't want and needn't exercise great power. But the reality is, of course, that all of us have power over somebody. It may be just in a domestic setting. Even street people, who look like they're the most powerless in our society, have ways of manipulating others. The idea of total powerlessness is a very rare phenomenon. So we have to ask ourselves what degree of power we'll accept, and how we'll use it.
When Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The church's task is not to dominate society," he was actually thinking institutionally, and rightly so. He knew enough church history to know that when the church as an institution actually becomes powerful it can no longer be the church.
I think that's true. The church's task is not to exercise power, in that political sense, but to be a conscience, a spiritual power, if you like. But that doesn't absolve human beings individually and corporately from exercising their responsibilities. Some who have the gifts will need to have the courage to exercise power.
To say that the Christian can't be a politician would be tragic. I think Christians need to have the courage to know the risks of power, to know that when they exercise it they will make mistakes, and to know they will be sinners as they always have been. They will need forgiveness, and they will need to learn to make compromises.
But the church is generally aligned with various other power blocs and not so often found in a stance of being vulnerable enough to be a reconciling presence or force. It seems difficult to take on the vulnerability to engage in this reconciling role.
That's right. A church that is totally partisan as an institution has probably made it impossible for itself to be in a reconciling role. There are extreme situations, however, where a confessing church that takes the gospel seriously must be prepared to be partisan and to abdicate the possibility of being a reconciler.
I think of Nazi Germany. There, the witness was, "This is diabolical, and we must stand in total solidarity with its opponents." At least some Christians in South Africa see that as their role now in that country.
Of course one can't help recalling the role of reconciliation exemplified by Jesus and his death on the cross, which is the ultimate symbol of making oneself vulnerable and relinquishing the prerogatives of protection and power. I would think that to the extent that the church enters into that reconciling role, it comes nearer and nearer to the cross.
Yes. Failure is not something that we go seeking. In other words, we don't go looking for crucifixion. But if we don't assume that doing the right thing may well end in tragedy for ourselves, then I don't think we've begun to understand the real nature of sin that is still a reality in our world.
We're still, in some sense, romantics who believe that if you're nice enough to everybody, or reasonable enough, or rational enough, in the end they'll be nice to you. It isn't like that. Sometimes the person who cares for everyone in a situation may, in the end, be rejected by everyone in the situation, as Jesus was. But I think it is right to try to make all the right calculations, to have hopes for success and to work hard toward solutions.
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
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