Religions in South Africa

The study of religion in South Africa has progressed by leaps and bounds during the past twenty years. Even more drastic changes in this discipline have been contemplated and suggested since the country’s first democratic elections in 1994. This paper critcally explores the three dominant theoretical models in the study of religions ex¬pounded and proposed in South Africa by Cumpsty, by Prozesky and Krüger, and by Chidester. It focuses on the assumptions these models make about the nature of religion, the relationship be¬tween religious studies and theology, and between religion and social transfomation. It concludes with a plea for a discourse-centred approach to complement these theoretical models.

2014

in 2000, the study of religion at UKZN, Durban campus, takes place via three programmes, viz. the UG programme in Religion, and the two PG programmes in Religion and Social Transformation and Religion Education. This article reviews some of the seminal considerations for the developing of the programmes as well as the dynamics and main considerations that impacted on their actual development over the last ten years. Pointing to the legacies of apartheid, underdevelopment and de-Africanisation, it reviews the focuses of the programmes with regard to their multi-religious approach, and their focuses on religion and development and religion and society. Content- wise it explains the rationales for both religion-specific and inter-, comparative or multi-religion modules. It closes by summarising the critical theoretical perspectives and frameworks in terms of which postgraduate research took place in the areas of religion and civil society; religion and counselling; religion, globalisat...

alternation.ukzn.ac.za

Since the promulgation of the National Policy on Religion and Education (2003), Faculties of Education have worked hard to develop the Religious Component of the Life Orientation curriculum-Religion Education. Schools also started to offer Religion Studies as a full Grade 12 subject. This paper investigates the background to and current state of these developments, some of the thematic focuses on which Religious Studies can impact, and the contours and issues in terms of offering Religion Studies as Grade 12 subject. The article provides a few pointers to important focuses that need further development, such as the articulation of the BA major in Religion with the Religion Education and Religion Studies curricula.

2010

From back cover: This excellent book provides new impetus to the academic debate around the assessment criteria of the impact of the broad religious sphere on social development in contemporary South Africa. The volume is exemplary in its interdisciplinary approach and for advancing a new theoretical framework that combines hermeneutical and empirical methods. Indeed, the book sets new standards in the fields of practical theology and sociology of religion. Prof Wilhelm Gräb, Professor of Practical Theology & Director of the Institute of Sociology of Religion and Community Development, Humboldt University, Berlin This book may easily stand out in future as seminal in the way that it promoted the social development debate of the church and its organisational structures from an interdisciplinary focus. The book will not only impact on how the church and religious structures should reach out to address social development themes such as poverty. It will, in turn, facilitate understanding by other disciplines of the role of the church and FBOs, which will encourage them to engage the church and religious structures more meaningfully in pursuing the social development agenda. Prof Antoinette Lombard, Professor of Social Work & Head of the Department of Social Work and Criminology, University of Pretoria This publication makes a significant contribution to the debate about the role of the faith-based sector in social development in post-apartheid South Africa. Its initial positive hypothesis is supported by original interdisciplinary research that paints a realistic picture of organised religion in contemporary South Africa; it also sets new standards for empirical and socially based religious and theological research. As such, it presents an appropriate intellectual response to the social agenda of the “New South Africa”. Dr Ian Nell, Senior Lecturer in Practical Theology, Department of Practical Theology and Missiology & Director of the Unit for Religion and Development Research, Stellenbosch University This book provides valuable theoretical and practical perspectives for critical engagement in the field of development in post-apartheid South Africa. It provides much-needed insight into the contribution of the religious sector while, at the same time, challenging this sector to embrace a more holistic view of development. With its combination of experienced and novice “voices”, the text is a vigorous and commendable example of interdisciplinary collaboration. Prof Jaco Dreyer, Professor of Practical Theology, Department of Practical Theology, University of South Africa

In analysing ‘sociality’ (the formation of inclusive or exclusionary collective identities), ‘materiality’ (the desire for material objects, sensory experiences and gendered bodily performances of rituals) and ‘exchange’ (communist or capitalist economic exchanges in rituals of gift-giving and expenditure) as three aspects of religion within local and global contexts, David Chidester has used the social theories of Durkheim, Bataille, WEB Du Bois, Weber, Marx- Adorno-Horkheimer, Benjamin and others. The purpose of this paper will be to assess what we have gained from Chidester’s use of social categories such as ‘sociality’ and ‘exchange’ to analyse unconventional or ‘wild’ forms of religion in post-apartheid South Africa within a global context. On the basis of his sociological analysis of Freedom Park and the 2010 FIFA World Cup as forms of ‘wild religion’, I will in conclusion argue for the legitimacy and relevance of using etic vis-à-vis emic categories to afford a critical understanding of African religious realities within a global context.

Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference Parliamentary Liaison Office Occasional Paper #18, 2005

The advent of a democratic South Africa brought numerous changes in the public sphere. With the adoption of the 1996 Constitution, a new model of religion-state relations was instituted that fundamentally altered the interaction between religious groups and the new government. This paper is an attempt to examine this developing model by placing it in the context of other models and other countries, particularly in southern Africa. The historical and cultural context of South Africa will then be discussed, its evolution from the colonial past to the democratic present, and an exploration the limitations of the model as well as its implications for religious groups in South Africa today.

2003

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY At the request of Social Compass, on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary as a leading journal for the sociology of religion, I was asked to define the challenges which the sociology of religion will face in the African context over the next fifty years. After retrospectively sketching both the African situation (with its three pillars of historic African religion, Islam, and Christianity) and some Africanist themes in the sociology of religion, globalisation is discussed as the first challenge: how does it affect religion and identity, and how does the model of the formal (self-) organisation which it favours, have an impact especially with regard to representation and resilience of African religious forms. The next major challenge clusters around the problematic state of civil society in Africa: in the face of disorder and violent conflict, can African religious forms contribute to the societal consensus that is central to modern statehood? The third chall...

2014

In analysing ‘sociality’ (the formation of inclusive or exclusionary collective identities), ‘materiality’ (the desire for material objects, sensory experiences and gendered bodily performances of rituals) and ‘exchange’ (communist or capitalist economic exchanges in rituals of gift-giving and expenditure) as three aspects of religion within local and global contexts, David Chidester has used the social theories of Durkheim, Bataille, WEB Du Bois, Weber, Marx- Adorno-Horkheimer, Benjamin and others. The purpose of this paper will be to assess what we have gained from Chidester’s use of social categories such as ‘sociality’ and ‘exchange’ to analyse unconventional or ‘wild’ forms of religion in post-apartheid South Africa within a global context. On the basis of his sociological analysis of Freedom Park and the 2010 FIFA World Cup as forms of ‘wild religion’, I will in conclusion argue for the legitimacy and relevance of using etic vis-a-vis emic categories to afford a critical under...

Education Sciences, 2018

Scholars of Religion Education (RE) have promoted a non-confessional approach to the teaching of religions that explores and examines the religious history of humankind, with due attention paid to its complexity and plurality. In this promotion, the public representation of religion and its impact on RE has not received sufficient attention. An often hegemonic representation of religion constitutes an important part of religion in public life. Moreover, this article argues that this representation is a phenomenon shared by secular, secularizing, and deeply religious societies. It shows that a Western understanding of secularization has guided dominant RE visions and practices, informed by a particular mode of representation. As an illustration of how education in and representation of religion merges in RE, the article analyses the South African policy document for religion education. While the policy promotes RE as an educational practice, it also makes room for a representation of religion. This article urges that various forms of the representation of religion should be more carefully examined in other contexts, particularly by those who want to promote a non-confessional and pluralistic approach to RE.

This article examines the adequacy of the policies of a few selected South African Christian groups on socio-political transformation. I will first examine the role of religion in identifying injustice in South Africa and then the contribution that religion makes to facilitate and nurture dialogue and. I will then scrutinize the different kinds of strategies for the transformation of injustice into justice that are rejected or sanctioned and encouraged, as well as the extent to which religious viewpoints contribute to a general consensus on principles of justice for the new South Africa of the future. These issues will be discussed with reference to four important policy documents concerned mainly with issues of social justice released by various groups of Christians in the last few years. These documents were selected to be representative of the principal political actors in South Africa, and because they all contain definite policies on socio-political justice. These are the documents Kerk en Samelewing, which represents mainstream Afrikaner religious thought; The Kairos Document, and The Road to Damascus, which represent the way that black Christians supportive of democratic opposition groups think, and A Relevant Pentecostal Witness, which is representative of how the traditionally apolitical Pentecostal black Christians have become politicized in South Africa today. Reference is also made to the important Rustenburg Declaration, a document released in late 1990 by the most representative meeting of church leaders ever held in South Africa.