Johan Heyns and the class of '51 – prolegomena to a story of people who got hurt

Abstract

Johan Heyns  and  the  class  of  '51  - prolegomena  to  a  story  of people who got hurt This  article consists of  three parts.  In  the first part a story  is  told of  Johan Heyns and some of  the men who shared with him the  final year of  theologi-cal  training  at  the  University  of Pretoria  in  1951.  In  the  second  part prolegomena  to  the  telling  of  a  new story  of  Johan  Heyns  are  explained. Finally  this  new story  is  told by  using  the  voices  of  six people  - students, colleagues andfamily  - who  interrupt  each  other's  voice  on  Johan  Heyns, thereby undermining  the popular ideal amongst local church historians that religion  biography  can  and  should  recreate  a  complete  and  consistent image of  a person's  (moral)  reality.