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Thank you for this wonderful invitation to take part in the panel discussion.

As my introduction, I would like to offer four remarks,

all four of them related to terms used in our theme,

and all four of them serving as reminders that one could easily misunderstand these notions.

I begin with the term from a Christian perspective,

which could be misunderstood in several ways,

at least from the South African perspective from where I speak.

Given our experiences, it would be a misunderstanding to presuppose

that a Christian perspective on the common good will necessarily be different from

and even opposed to the perspectives of other religious communities and traditions.

In our case, both during the long years of struggle against apartheid,

and since then during the recent decades of social transformation,

differences between the religious communities have never played any meaningful role.

In the South African society, as radically divided and conflicted as it was,

and in deeply disturbing ways still remains,

has never suffered from religious tensions and conflicts.

On the contrary, adherence of diverse religious traditions

were together in the struggle, shoulder to shoulder,

sharing the same commitments and values,

and today members of different religious communities still cooperate

in building a new South Africa without any real awareness of religious tension between them.

But furthermore, the expression from a Christian perspective could also cause misunderstanding

if it would even seem to suggest that there is something like a Christian perspective in the singular.

If anything, we have learned in very painful and humbling ways

that there are many perspectives all claiming to be Christian,

and when one speaks about the public responsibilities of churches and Christians,

these internal differences very easily harden into tragic and destructive divisions.

We are deeply aware that the Christian tradition is indeed an ongoing argument

about the very goods that constitute the tradition,

and the reformed tradition to which I belong may be even more painfully aware

than several other Christian traditions of this,

since we lack, as reformed people, all structures of authority

that could help us speak with any finality or forbindlichkeit about these challenges.

Our story is always a story of many stories,

and our perspective one of many competing perspectives.

No one can speak on behalf of a Christian perspective in the singular.

So pluralism is not outside the Christian perspective something in which we find ourselves.

It is integral to the Christian perspective.

In fact, vice versa, in our history and experience,

the Christian perspective was integral to pluralism,

and in deeply problematic and troubling ways.

People in South Africa were used to call the church a site of struggle,

and they called the Bible a site of struggle.

What is more, our rich and complex Christian perspectives on public life are deeply historical.

They change over time. They do not remain the same.

During the time of transition in South Africa,

Wolfgang Huber, then Bishop of the ECD in Berlin-Bandenburg,

gave some talks in South Africa on the ways in which contexts change,

and how churches then respond by reading the signs of the times,