The Political Dimension of Reconciliation: A Theological Analysis of Ways of Dealing with Guilt during the Transition to Democracy in South Africa and (East) Germany

When a nation is working through its past, the call for reconciliation is often expressed, as was the case in South Africa after the end of apartheid and in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Informed by Ralf Wüstenberg’s long residence in South Africa and his own native Germany, this book investigates the conditions and dynamics associated with political reconciliation.

Wüstenberg starts from the observation that reconciliation as a central theme in Christian theological teaching is...