Pub Date : 2022-11-07DOI: 10.17570/stj.2022.v8n2.a6
W. Wessels
Within South African homiletic thought, prophetic preaching has predominately been understood as preaching steeped in Black Theology of Liberation (BTL). Historically homiletics in South Africa showcased both a rejection of BTL as a merely political ideology and promoted BTL as paramount for prophetic preaching in the democratic context. The former relented, whilst the latter is still dominant. However, there has been no research on the implications of prophetic preaching regarding the proposed outcomes of such preaching, which has a relatively broad scope, including poverty relief, development, admonishment of corruption, and the Lordship of Christ in the public sphere. In this article, I will reflect on prophetic preaching as preaching BTL from a postcolonial, psychological, and ethical perspective, locating four potential consequences of prophetic preaching: a colonial identity paradigm, resentment, misrepresentation of the vital flaws of society, and the relenting of personal responsibility.
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Pub Date : 2022-11-07DOI: 10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.af3
Ninnaku Oberholzer
Traditionally women are valued for their ability to bear children and often regarded as mere vessels for reproduction. This patriarchal view of women is notably encountered in the portrayal of the Virgin Mary, who throughout history has been regarded as a “vessel” for God’s message and therefore portrayed as a perpetual virgin, shrouded in servanthood and suffering. The aim of this article is to distinguish Mary from this tradition and the way the early church perpetuated the patriarchal custom of equating womanhood with motherhood. Instead, an exploration of Mary as occupying a leadership role is offered. This exploration will take place by way of a consideration of early Christian art that depicts Mary as a figurehead of the early church - which indicates that this depiction predates Mary’s assigned role as pious mother and the “vessel” of God. Ultimately, this contribution critiques the manner in which womanhood and motherhood are equated with one another and highlights the embeddedness of patriarchal influences in Christianity’s traditions.
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Pub Date : 2022-11-07DOI: 10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.af4
T. van Wyk
This article explores the range of the construct “family†in light of the author’s experience of how the death of a congregation-member exposed the strength, persistence and immovability of the construct, “familyâ€. Despite different attempts and approaches to deconstruct and broaden the notion of what family refers to that originated in the 1970s, a traditional notion of what kinship (family) entails remains focused on ties that bind people by blood or by marriage. The article provides a brief overview and evaluation of different attempts at a postmodern understanding of family, but ultimately it is illustrated that there has been little change to the construct of family. The notion of “relational autonomy†from a Trinitarian theological perspective is presented as a more thorough foundation for familial ties that are characterised by a creative tension of both distance and belonging. This theological foundation provides a point of departure for a dynamic understanding of the range of choices related to what constitutes, “familyâ€, which does not cast someone in the stone of the construct of a “familyâ€, even beyond their own death.
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Pub Date : 2022-10-18DOI: 10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.a13
C. Ullrich
Tentatively emerging from a global pandemic, we are confronted with a horizon of immanent adversities: (1) the closing window for altering the trajectory of our climate crisis, (2) the political antagonisms that exacerbate greater polarization, and (3) the effects of late-stage capitalism that service these first two interconnected configurations. Far from indulging a doomsday pessimism or comfortable misanthropy, this article pursues two continental philosophers, situating them within the tradition of ‘negative political theology’ to think through a future of nothingness. Developing and then distinguishing between what is called the ‘plastic apocalypticism’ of the philosopher Catherine Malabou, which thinks the end of the world as such, and an ‘insistent messianic’ of the radical theologian, John D. Caputo, which takes the end of the world as the condition for saving it, an argument is made in favour of a mutual compatibility – recognizing the passing away of this world, its absolute contingency, but also the ‘event’ of God’s insistence. This messianic insistence and plastic revelation both resist divine intervention and instead look toward the formation of a new future, just as such a future (of nothingness) is the condition for the persistent interrogative of all concrete political arrangements.
{"title":"Future of Nothingness","authors":"C. Ullrich","doi":"10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.a13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.a13","url":null,"abstract":"Tentatively emerging from a global pandemic, we are confronted with a horizon of immanent adversities: (1) the closing window for altering the trajectory of our climate crisis, (2) the political antagonisms that exacerbate greater polarization, and (3) the effects of late-stage capitalism that service these first two interconnected configurations. Far from indulging a doomsday pessimism or comfortable misanthropy, this article pursues two continental philosophers, situating them within the tradition of ‘negative political theology’ to think through a future of nothingness. Developing and then distinguishing between what is called the ‘plastic apocalypticism’ of the philosopher Catherine Malabou, which thinks the end of the world as such, and an ‘insistent messianic’ of the radical theologian, John D. Caputo, which takes the end of the world as the condition for saving it, an argument is made in favour of a mutual compatibility – recognizing the passing away of this world, its absolute contingency, but also the ‘event’ of God’s insistence. This messianic insistence and plastic revelation both resist divine intervention and instead look toward the formation of a new future, just as such a future (of nothingness) is the condition for the persistent interrogative of all concrete political arrangements.","PeriodicalId":42487,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Theological Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46414531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-18DOI: 10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.af1
Hanzline R. Davids
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and plus all other (LGBTIQ+) people often are being “corrected” by families through religious and cultural beliefs because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) that destabilises stable constructs of heteronormativity. For these belief systems, LGBTIQ+ people threaten the concept of family and associated values that inform the so-called social fabric and cohesion of sexuality and gender norms. In recent years, LGBTIQ+ people, human rights defenders, and academics have shed light on the practices of “conversion therapies” on the African continent in various forms as practised by religious and cultural communities. “Conversion therapy” is also called “reparative therapy” or “gay cure” interchangeably to describe different practices that are out to change, suppress or dissuade LGBTIQ+ people’s sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions. This article will use short narrative audio video interviews conducted by openDemocracy to give voice to survivors of “conversion therapy” on the African continent. In these videos, survivors speak about the intersectional reality of family relations, mental health and religion’s impact on their well-being. Over the last few years, there has been a reappreciation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Bisexual Latin-American theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid views the Trinity as a critique of heteronormative binaries. Therefore, this article explores whether Althaus-Reid’s Trinitarian theology offers a counter theological narrative against “conversion practices” as advocated by families based on religion.
{"title":"Un-silencing “Conversion therapies” of LGBTIQ+ people in Africa","authors":"Hanzline R. Davids","doi":"10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.af1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.af1","url":null,"abstract":"Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and plus all other (LGBTIQ+) people often are being “corrected” by families through religious and cultural beliefs because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) that destabilises stable constructs of heteronormativity. For these belief systems, LGBTIQ+ people threaten the concept of family and associated values that inform the so-called social fabric and cohesion of sexuality and gender norms. In recent years, LGBTIQ+ people, human rights defenders, and academics have shed light on the practices of “conversion therapies” on the African continent in various forms as practised by religious and cultural communities. “Conversion therapy” is also called “reparative therapy” or “gay cure” interchangeably to describe different practices that are out to change, suppress or dissuade LGBTIQ+ people’s sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions. This article will use short narrative audio video interviews conducted by openDemocracy to give voice to survivors of “conversion therapy” on the African continent. In these videos, survivors speak about the intersectional reality of family relations, mental health and religion’s impact on their well-being. Over the last few years, there has been a reappreciation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Bisexual Latin-American theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid views the Trinity as a critique of heteronormative binaries. Therefore, this article explores whether Althaus-Reid’s Trinitarian theology offers a counter theological narrative against “conversion practices” as advocated by families based on religion.","PeriodicalId":42487,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Theological Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43256083","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-18DOI: 10.17570/stj.2022.v8n2.a7
Eberhardt Ngugi
Treatment of diseases was known in Africa long before the coming of modern scientific medicine. The Africans had their own traditional folk healers who treated both organic and functional diseases. Knowledge of plants, soils and water with special properties have enabled them to deal with infections, bacteria, and diseases. Different kinds of plants, large and small, terrestrial, and lacustrine, constitute about 75% of traditional medicine. Animal products make up about 20%, and minerals constitute the remaining 5% (Alves and Rosa 2005:77). However, with the coming of missionaries some developments took place. Western medicine was introduced in dispensaries and hospitals with a natural explanation for all sickness and healing. Missionaries treated indigenous healing as superstition, and unworthy of belief by promoting biomedicine and faith healing through prayers. Hence, there is a need of bridging the trio gaps through pastoral counselling in order to make sustained efforts to foster collaboration among them. Â
早在现代科学医学出现之前,非洲就已经知道了疾病的治疗方法。非洲人有自己的传统民间治疗师,既治疗器质性疾病,也治疗功能性疾病。对植物、土壤和具有特殊性质的水的了解使他们能够对付感染、细菌和疾病。不同种类的植物,大的和小的,陆生的和湖生的,约占传统医学的75%。动物产品约占20%,矿物质占剩余的5% (Alves and Rosa 2005:77)。然而,随着传教士的到来,一些发展发生了。西医被引入药房和医院,为所有疾病和治疗提供了自然的解释。传教士通过祈祷来推广生物医学和信仰治疗,将土著治疗视为迷信,不值得相信。因此,有必要通过牧灵咨询来弥合三方之间的差距,以便持续努力促进them.Â之间的合作
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Pub Date : 2022-10-18DOI: 10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.ad3
R. Baard
In response to Dirkie Smit’s inaugural lecture at the University of Stellenbosch, In Diens van die Tale Kanaäns: Oor sistematiese teologie vandag, the question is raised: what is the relationship between language and theology? Traditionally theology subsumed rhetorical language under confessional language, but this shifted in the twentieth century as theologians started to pay more attention to the ways in which even confessional language shapes human experiences and actions and reflects and constitutes power relations. This linguistic turn has implications for public theology, i.e., theology done for the sake of the public good. First, it relates to the question of the role of culture and the reality of pluralism in theology, pointing to the need for careful balance between the emphasis on the church’s own historical language, and the need for critical and pluralistic perspectives to engage that language. At the same time, while the linguistic turn rightly points to the relationship between language and violence, care should be taken not to confuse the two and, in the process, ignore concrete concerns.
作为对Dirkie Smit的回应™在斯泰伦博斯大学的就职演讲《Diens van die Tale Kanaâns:Oor sistematiese teologie vandag》中,提出了一个问题:语言和神学之间的关系是什么?传统上,神学将修辞语言归入忏悔语言之下,但在20世纪,随着神学家开始更加关注忏悔语言塑造人类体验和行为、反映和构成权力关系的方式,这种情况发生了变化。这一语言学转向对公共神学有影响,即为公共利益而进行的神学。首先,它涉及到文化的作用和神学中多元主义的现实问题,指出需要在对教会的强调之间谨慎平衡™他自己的历史语言,以及需要批判性和多元化的视角来使用这种语言。与此同时,虽然语言的转向正确地指出了语言与暴力之间的关系,但应注意不要混淆两者,并在这一过程中忽视具体关切。
{"title":"Public Theology and the linguistic turn","authors":"R. Baard","doi":"10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.ad3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.ad3","url":null,"abstract":"In response to Dirkie Smit’s inaugural lecture at the University of Stellenbosch, In Diens van die Tale Kanaäns: Oor sistematiese teologie vandag, the question is raised: what is the relationship between language and theology? Traditionally theology subsumed rhetorical language under confessional language, but this shifted in the twentieth century as theologians started to pay more attention to the ways in which even confessional language shapes human experiences and actions and reflects and constitutes power relations. This linguistic turn has implications for public theology, i.e., theology done for the sake of the public good. First, it relates to the question of the role of culture and the reality of pluralism in theology, pointing to the need for careful balance between the emphasis on the church’s own historical language, and the need for critical and pluralistic perspectives to engage that language. At the same time, while the linguistic turn rightly points to the relationship between language and violence, care should be taken not to confuse the two and, in the process, ignore concrete concerns.","PeriodicalId":42487,"journal":{"name":"Stellenbosch Theological Journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48887936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-18DOI: 10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.a12
P. White, Headman S Ntlapo
This article examines some of the missiological problems of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), taking into consideration the theological and missiological concepts of forgiveness, reconciliation, and justice. The article proposes the Ubuntu Justice concept’s viability as a missiological framework with which to respond to the activities of the TRC. The article further explores the methodology and the goal of public hearings and uses the “Gugulethu Seven†and the “PEBCO Three†cases to highlight the sacrosanctity of truth, remorse, and forgiveness in the process of reconciliation. This inquiry considers that as an African understanding and a strategy of upholding justice and maintaining peaceful relations, Ubuntu recognises the importance of the process of rehabilitating both the victim and the perpetrator. For the process of reconciliation to be genuine, the perpetrator must genuinely commit to treating the victim as an equal, affirming both the humanity and the dignity of the victim.
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Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.17570/stj.2022.v8n1.a8
Kivatsi J. Kavusa
The article reflects on how African Christianity can attempt home-grown solutions for sustainable life in Africa. John Mbiti alleged that missionaries established a Christianity that befits European worldviews and despised African traditional values. Missions, though they brought the Gospel together with literacy and medicine, made westernization the way of human “advancement.†Locals came to believe that “progress†consists not in being themselves, but in imitating foreign ways. It impaired the hermeneutical abilities of Africans to understand the world through their own cultural systems. Today this impairment prevents the concept of connectedness of life to unfold in African life, churches, and politics. Just as their evangelisers, the converted African Christians relate with the earth in the mood of subject (humans) versus objects (nature). This article construes African moral dimension of nature, the sense of community (Ubuntu) and the cosmological role of kingship as vehicle for Christian hermeneutics of sustainability in Africa and African churches.
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Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.17570/stj.2023.v8n1.a9
Hendrik Johannes Prinsloo
This article analyses 1 Thessalonians 1:1–10 from a rhetorical perspective. Instead of the typical approach which is used to analyse the letter in terms of ancient rhetorical theory, this article explains Paul’s rhetorical strategy found in the text itself; it is therefore called a text-centred rhetorical analysis which follows a minimum theoretical approach. Accordingly, the overall rhetorical strategy is identified in both pericopes. A discussion of the dominant and supportive arguments and rhetorical techniques follows the identification. This article illustrates how Paul adapts the ancient letter style to achieve his rhetorical objectives. It remains critically important to note that his pastoral concern confirms the favourable relationship that the congregation continued to have with God the Father, with Jesus the Lord and with the missionaries.
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