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This issue of the Journal contains an obituary by Prof. John de Gruchy, Editor of this Journal, for Eberhard Bethge. Many readers will be aware of Bethge's significance in international Bonhoeffer studies, and Prof. de Gruchy's contextual reading of Bonhoeffer in South Africa. At the same meeting where Bethge's death was announced and tribute paid to him, the Evangelical Church of the Union (EKU) announced that Prof. de Gruchy was to be awarded the prestigious Karl Barth Prize for the year 2000. Previous recipients of this Prize include Hans Kung and Eberhard Jungel. The Jury said that this Prize was awarded to Prof. de Gruchy "in recognition of his forward-- thinking transmission of the Theological Declaration of Barmen of 1934 as well as of the theological impetus of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth in the ecclesiastical and social contexts of South Africa. Through his Reformed Liberation Theology, John W de Gruchy has contributed with prophetic impulses to the overcoming of the Apartheid mentality as well as to the democratisation of the South African society and to the renewal of his church, thus playing an outstanding role for a culture of international and intercontinental theological exchanges."
The editorial and administrative staff of the Journal, past...