A LATTER DAY PAUL WRITING TO HIS FRIENDS NEAR AND FAR
FROM WELLINGTON, AOTEAROA
A LATTER DAY PAUL WRITING TO HIS FRIENDS NEAR AND FAR
FROM WELLINGTON, AOTEAROA
Paul Oestreicher (born 29th September 1931) is a German Anglican priest, Quaker, peace and human rights activist. He was born in Meiningen, Germany. He was a member of the General Synod of the Church of England from 1970-81 and 1995-97. From 1981 to 1985 he was Director of the Division of International Affairs of the British Council of Churches. In 1985 the Diocesan Synod elected Oestreicher Bishop of Wellington, New Zealand. In 2020 he returned to New Zealand with his wife. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the British 2022 Queens’ Birthday Honours List for services to peace, human rights and reconciliation
This seems a good moment to gratefully share with you some of the milestones on my pilgrimage, as my OBE citation says, for ‘peace, human rights, reconciliation, and the Church’. These are the things that will continue to motivate me. A state award – I had already received a German one – is only acceptable as an affirmation of these values and of all those who have worked with me to embody them.
PARAMOUNT among them is the priest, prophet and my role model BRUCE KENT who has left us, but leaves his indefatigable spirit, his joyful warmth, his dedication to peace, his passion for justice and his humble determination to leave the world a better place. In Yiddish, he was a Mensch – a true human being. It is to BRUCE, my friend, that I dedicate the seven narratives that follow. Each one may just possibly illustrate in some way what he and I have stood for, with no award in mind. Our sole reward is in the love of humanity that each of them expresses.
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Let me begin with reconciliation. It started early. Trying to make peace between my often warring parents helped to shape my childhood. What’s more, I was born on Michaelmas 1931, the year when Hitler came to power in my birth state of Thuringia. The Archangel Michael, who has never left me, had expelled injustice from heaven (Rev.12.7) and goes on fighting it on earth with the weapons of the Spirit. He equips me for the struggle. Speaking of the Spirit, at this season of Pentecost, we are all set free to benefit from the ‘glorious liberty of the children of God’. Who are these children? My elder daughter answered that question at primary school. Asked to what race her black brother belonged, she replied: ‘the human race’.
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