Decoloniality has come to be a topical feature of the South African discursive environment. This is unsurprising given the stage of its nation building project that is characterised by a noticeable disillusionment with the false promises of Rainbowism.
The Christian cultural experience and its chief temporal custodians, the church, owing to its historical role in shaping the South African cultural landscape and its continuing prominence in the collective consciousness, can scarcely avoid scrutiny in relation to the theme of decoloniality.
Thus contemporary Christianity cannot be disassociated from prevailing cultural influences. Precisely as all human beings, inescapably, are creatures of culture. Christians are born into families, communities, cities and nation states with their distinct cultures, usually long before their profession of faith in Christ. Their social outlook, therefore, cannot but be indelibly tinged by the cultural context through which they were introduced to the world.
Culture is a complex phenomenon. The biblical exploration of it proceeds with the assertion “the LORD God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15).
The English word "culture" derives from the Latin word cultūra which translates as cultivation, from which words such as agriculture, horticulture and aquaculture stem. The cultivation of the earth occurs within the parameters of a given social environment and thus gives rise to the development of culture as we know it, with its distinct norms, knowledge systems, prejudices, conception of logic, worldviews, languages and traditions.
Necessarily culture possesses inordinate power to shape the lens through which reality is processed. Most of this conditioning predates the full development of consciousness and thus genuine individual choice of whether to accept or reject what has been presented as normal is postponed until much later, when worldviews have ossified, making genuinely changing them extremely difficult at best and nigh impossible at worst.
There is nothing inherently wrong with culture. In fact quite the contrary. After all the entire biblical narrative, as does all of history, occurs within given cultural settings, with the predominance of the Hebrew culture.
What is also inescapable is that every culture, even with its undeniable splendour, carries some pointed flaws. Even at its best, it is an imperfect conduit of biblical revelation and knowledge. As Paul the apostle acknowledges, "we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves"[i]. The acknowledgement of this common limitation should liberate and disarm all of us as it leaves none of us unimplicated.
The foundations of the Christian faith are built on the law and the prophetic revelations of various Jewish people. The Apostle Paul, along with the rest of the original apostles were Jewish by birth, tradition and outlook. In fact the historical Jesus Himself was no different.
It is not without irony that the growth of Christianity in its infancy occurred despite fierce opposition from the Jewish cultural and religious establishment. Such that the nascent movement came to be seen as an assault on Jewish identity and culture. We find here the ineluctable conflict between culture and biblical Christianity.
Whilst the Christian experience inescapably occurs in a given cultural setting, the two are subject to unavoidable tension. Biblical Christianity must nevertheless transcend culture if it is to maintain its purity and transformative power. It must cleanse itself of undue cultural influences that threaten its credibility. This is the unremitting task of Christian leadership in any generation that must begin with itself.
To quote the words of Jesus Himself – you are the salt of the world[ii]. Salt by its very nature is a transformative agent and so should biblical Christianity. Not unlike salt when it loses its saltiness, when the church is unable to weed itself of unbecoming cultural influences, it risks irrelevance or as the bible puts it being - thrown out and trampled underfoot by men ii.
This is a sobering admonition to the South African church as it navigates the landmines of post-apartheid society. The call to decolonise Christian experience is therefore no mere accession to the latest cultural fad but an attempt at a biblical response to well-documented historical failures that continue to leave their ugly mark on the present.
The Biblical Christian experience occurs within the parameters of two towering proclamations, the so-called Cultural or dominion Mandate[iii] and the Great Commission[iv]. God issues the first to Adam and Eve and by extension to the entire human race. The latter is pronounced by Christ to His disciples and thus to Christians across the ages, until His second coming.
Spurred on by the words of Christ to – make disciples of all nations – led by Paul the apostle, Christianity spread like wild fire from the present day Middle East into Western Europe. There, like yeast[v], it leavened the culture for a period spanning well over a millennium, leaving an indelible mark on European art, architecture, literature, popular culture and identity, which has outlived the assaults of rationalistic movements such as the Enlightenment.
Around the middle of the last millennium, with the enablement of advancing shipping technology, it was Europe’s turn to carry the banner of world evangelisation from the Middle East. This it did with commendable and well-meaning zeal but not without the stains of prevailing cultural beliefs that robbed Africans of their status as co- bearers of the divine image.
The collision between European and black South African culture occurred amid this wave of global missionary work. It intersected with the awakening of European cultural consciousness that spawned an unprecedented spirit of exploration known as the Great Renaissance. This included the voyages that brought Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama and Jan van Riebeeck to South African shores in 1488, 1497 and 1652 respectively. All of this can also be seen as the outplaying of the biblical cultural mandate given to all mankind.
These innocuous ventures marked the genesis of the colonial project that culminated in Apartheid and the residual ethnic tensions that contemporary South African society is still grappling with.
The Christian cultural experience and its chief temporal custodians, the church, owing to its historical role in shaping the South African cultural landscape and its continuing prominence in the collective consciousness, can scarcely avoid scrutiny in relation to the theme of decoloniality.
Thus contemporary Christianity cannot be disassociated from prevailing cultural influences. Precisely as all human beings, inescapably, are creatures of culture. Christians are born into families, communities, cities and nation states with their distinct cultures, usually long before their profession of faith in Christ. Their social outlook, therefore, cannot but be indelibly tinged by the cultural context through which they were introduced to the world.
Culture is a complex phenomenon. The biblical exploration of it proceeds with the assertion “the LORD God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15).
The English word "culture" derives from the Latin word cultūra which translates as cultivation, from which words such as agriculture, horticulture and aquaculture stem. The cultivation of the earth occurs within the parameters of a given social environment and thus gives rise to the development of culture as we know it, with its distinct norms, knowledge systems, prejudices, conception of logic, worldviews, languages and traditions.
Necessarily culture possesses inordinate power to shape the lens through which reality is processed. Most of this conditioning predates the full development of consciousness and thus genuine individual choice of whether to accept or reject what has been presented as normal is postponed until much later, when worldviews have ossified, making genuinely changing them extremely difficult at best and nigh impossible at worst.
There is nothing inherently wrong with culture. In fact quite the contrary. After all the entire biblical narrative, as does all of history, occurs within given cultural settings, with the predominance of the Hebrew culture.
What is also inescapable is that every culture, even with its undeniable splendour, carries some pointed flaws. Even at its best, it is an imperfect conduit of biblical revelation and knowledge. As Paul the apostle acknowledges, "we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves"[i]. The acknowledgement of this common limitation should liberate and disarm all of us as it leaves none of us unimplicated.
The foundations of the Christian faith are built on the law and the prophetic revelations of various Jewish people. The Apostle Paul, along with the rest of the original apostles were Jewish by birth, tradition and outlook. In fact the historical Jesus Himself was no different.
It is not without irony that the growth of Christianity in its infancy occurred despite fierce opposition from the Jewish cultural and religious establishment. Such that the nascent movement came to be seen as an assault on Jewish identity and culture. We find here the ineluctable conflict between culture and biblical Christianity.
Whilst the Christian experience inescapably occurs in a given cultural setting, the two are subject to unavoidable tension. Biblical Christianity must nevertheless transcend culture if it is to maintain its purity and transformative power. It must cleanse itself of undue cultural influences that threaten its credibility. This is the unremitting task of Christian leadership in any generation that must begin with itself.
To quote the words of Jesus Himself – you are the salt of the world[ii]. Salt by its very nature is a transformative agent and so should biblical Christianity. Not unlike salt when it loses its saltiness, when the church is unable to weed itself of unbecoming cultural influences, it risks irrelevance or as the bible puts it being - thrown out and trampled underfoot by men ii.
This is a sobering admonition to the South African church as it navigates the landmines of post-apartheid society. The call to decolonise Christian experience is therefore no mere accession to the latest cultural fad but an attempt at a biblical response to well-documented historical failures that continue to leave their ugly mark on the present.
The Biblical Christian experience occurs within the parameters of two towering proclamations, the so-called Cultural or dominion Mandate[iii] and the Great Commission[iv]. God issues the first to Adam and Eve and by extension to the entire human race. The latter is pronounced by Christ to His disciples and thus to Christians across the ages, until His second coming.
Spurred on by the words of Christ to – make disciples of all nations – led by Paul the apostle, Christianity spread like wild fire from the present day Middle East into Western Europe. There, like yeast[v], it leavened the culture for a period spanning well over a millennium, leaving an indelible mark on European art, architecture, literature, popular culture and identity, which has outlived the assaults of rationalistic movements such as the Enlightenment.
Around the middle of the last millennium, with the enablement of advancing shipping technology, it was Europe’s turn to carry the banner of world evangelisation from the Middle East. This it did with commendable and well-meaning zeal but not without the stains of prevailing cultural beliefs that robbed Africans of their status as co- bearers of the divine image.
The collision between European and black South African culture occurred amid this wave of global missionary work. It intersected with the awakening of European cultural consciousness that spawned an unprecedented spirit of exploration known as the Great Renaissance. This included the voyages that brought Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama and Jan van Riebeeck to South African shores in 1488, 1497 and 1652 respectively. All of this can also be seen as the outplaying of the biblical cultural mandate given to all mankind.
These innocuous ventures marked the genesis of the colonial project that culminated in Apartheid and the residual ethnic tensions that contemporary South African society is still grappling with.
From its onset in South Africa, and through much of its history, the custodian of Christian experience – the church - has struggled at times to disassociate culture and some of its dark marks from shaping the ensuing church culture. As Robert Dana points out, missionaries often fell into the trap of innocently thinking of themselves “not only as ambassadors of Christ but also as embodiments of the 'Christian way of life.’"[vi]The problem is that this "way of life" was as much a product their culture as it was of the bible[vii].
Too often the distinction between the two was not clearly delineated. Jingoism and cultural imperialism become inevitable where there is no self-conscious distinction concerning where culture starts and ends and where the gospel begins. Thus the deep-seated stain on European culture and thought in relation to its African counterpart, which conceived of the former as inherently superior to the latter, gained undue sway even within the church.
On some occasions these cultural beliefs were allowed leeway to go as far as shaping even church doctrine. The obvious example is the neo-Calvinism that came to shape and fuel Afrikaner identity and nationalism, and subsequently serving as justification for racism and apartheid.
Lamentably the formation and development of Afrikaner nationalism is at times unfairly singled out as the chief purveyor of white supremacist thought and practice in South Africa, something not borne out by historic experience. Nancy Stepan highlights the flaw in this line of reason in her assertion that:
a fundamental question about the history of racism in the first half of the nineteenth century is why it was that, just as the battle against slavery was being won by abolitionists, the war against racism in European thought was being lost. The Negro was legally freed by the Emancipation Act of 1833, but in the British mind he was still mentally, morally and physically a slave[viii].
David Livingstone, the famed British missionary captures this embedded cultural blot and its influence on Christian missionary work with damning clarity:
We came among them as members of a superior race and servants of a Government that desires to elevate the more degraded portions of the human family…to become harbingers of peace to a hitherto distracted and trodden down race[ix].
He was clearly not alone, alongside him were eminent clergymen such as Reverend John Philip, who was appointed the superintendent of the London Missionary Society's stations in South Africa in 1822. He argued:
Under the most favourable circumstance, the great body of Hottentots cannot be in any other condition than that of labourers for centuries to come[x].
The end of WWII marked the rapid conclusion of the British imperial era. The heavily indebted and therefore weakened British imperial government could no longer withstand an awakening political consciousness amongst its colonies. “Winds of change[xi]” blew with blistering force across the African continent, energising the moribund South African liberation movement into intensified action.
It is this period that gave birth to men such as Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah, Chief Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela, and they came to be known as torchbearers of justice. All of this brought to the global spotlight the injustice of racism, which until then seems to have been accepted by the West as the natural order of the world.
The conclusion of the colonial era gave rise to a reconsideration of the Western approach to world missions. Unlike in 1910 when Western paternalism ensured that the "the white missionary remained in charge"5, Dana Robert notes the pressing urgency that emerged at the turn of the century to address the scourge of racism head-on.
She quotes Edmund Soper, the mission professor at Garrett Biblical Institute in Chicago, who lead this charge in 1943, highlighting that “racism was a global problem, interconnected with issues of economics, land, politics, and health“. He predicted thus: "No power in the world can prevent the coloured races, the peoples of Asia and Africa, from uniting because of common grievances against centuries of domination by the white man and ending this domination by the use of means we have taught them so well to use“[xii] . He suggested, rather belatedly, that “the hand of fellowship and co-operation” be extended to those of colour.
We see in these developments a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. After all it is the church, whose role as the "ground and pillar of truth"[xiii], and "the city on a hill[xiv]", is to provide moral guidance along with concomitant good works that show the way for a morally misguided world. A troubling contradiction is evident here that finds the church guilty of being indistinguishable from the world it sought to transform, on key moral issues of the day.
Societal pressure, thankfully, precipitated a perceptible agitation for change within the church in South Africa as evidenced in the 1960 Cottesloe Declaration[xv]. This coincided with evolving views about the moral turpitude of racism in general Western consciousness, at least at the rhetorical level. Change moved along in fits and starts, hampered by internal contradiction on this question within the church itself, as Steward Bate observes: The reality of the church's own racist conditioned‑ness was to stand in stark contrast to the messages of its leadership for justice, peace and harmony based on a non‑apartheid, non‑racial model[xvi]. Desmond Tutu also echoes this duplicity in his eloquent lamentation in 1977:
Blacks are left wondering what practical alternatives are available, given the palpable failure of non-violent forms of protest and opposition. We must admit that the passive resistance campaign of the '50s was intended to demonstrate the desire of Blacks for non.. violent change". What was the result? They were clobbered hard and long, and it is difficult for Blacks to accept the Minister of Justice's views about the police…We know of police brutality. Maybe there will always be a White version and a Black version of these things. But I know which for me is more credible. ... Can you tell me how I commend non-violence to Blacks who say that the resistance movements in Europe during World War II were lauded to the skies and still are, but what Blacks consider to be similar resistant movements are denigrated because they are Black? Why can the Christian church regard Bonhoeffer as a modem Christian martyr, and even saint, when he was executed for participating in a plot to assassinate the rulers' of his country?[xvii]
It is heartening to see the subsequent eschewal of fence-sitting by the church hereon, even if belatedly. This shift is evidenced in a statement by Christian bishops, issued during the turbulent 1980s that preceded the eventual capitulation of apartheid: "let there be no mistake.... We are not neutral in the current conflict in South Africa. We support fully the demands of the majority of the people for justice.... We oppose the continuing refusal of the present government and its supporters to give meaningful political power to those who rightfully should have it"[xviii].
The Kairos Document[xix] and its counterpart the Confession of Belhar, both issued in 1986[xx], confirmed the church’s growing doctrinal unambiguity on Apartheid, which once again seemed to follow the lead of societal events rather than leading them. Credit must nevertheless be given to it for its eventual contribution to the societal pressure that finally overwhelmed the Apartheid state, especially in its twilight years.
This piece will not add to the abundance of analysis of the evolving drama of the post-apartheid era. The great promise of reconciliation captured in the apt appellation - rainbow nation – and the subsequent crushing disillusionment. These are beyond the scope of this piece. But the significant role of the church in the post-apartheid nation building project can never be denied even if not without glaring flaws.
A key feature of the initial stages of the post-apartheid era was the rapid emergence of black middle class that was spurred on by the removal of legal barriers to professional and economic advancement[xxi]. This emergence naturally came with an accompanying shift in the demographic profile of formerly white suburban areas. Shared public platforms such as schools, churches and places of work offered the potential for advancing genuine racial integration in South Africa.
A superficial glance at any of these public platforms, with their deceptive visual picture of multi-ethnicity, belies significant failure in advancing genuine equitable reconciliation. The church’s unique role in influencing the beliefs of significant sections of the population through biblical instruction gives it a special responsibility.
This disproportionate influence combined with a mandate to champion mercy, truth and justice[xxii] in society, magnifies a glaring failure to be leading advocates of changing deeply embedded mind-sets with regard to race, given its looming and tragic role in South African history. This is cause for deep soul-searching, in light of a missed window of opportunity that already may have slipped inexorably beyond its sphere of influence.
David Tracy affirms the need for a "pedagogy of transformation" that seeks to "transform colonised and racialised relationships and attitudes between different cultural groups"[xxiii] . Part of this transformation in the South African historical context, must entail the unequivocal affirmation of equality in dignity of historically dehumanised and marginalised black people with their white counterparts. It is naïve to leave this key aspect of the discipleship process to the organic societal evolution, particularly in the prevailing economic, spatial and cultural environment which continues to reinforce the contrary.
Evidence that suggests that the church embraced this pressing historic task with due urgency is difficult to find. On the contrary white flight to the security of more monocultural churches in apparent response to encroaching multiculturalism is disturbingly ubiquitous in South African churches[xxiv]. In many cases the leadership of multicultural churches itself does not always reflect the demographics of the congregants, thus reinforcing the culturally stubborn idea of supposed white superiority, leadership and excellence juxtaposed with black inferiority, followership and mediocrity. What is even scarcer are multicultural churches with significant white congregants where the founding or current leadership is black.
These omissions point to the work that still awaits the South African church in substantively decolonising the Christian experience in a way that embodies the Pauline admonition to the Galatian church: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus[xxv]. After all the second most important commandment calls Christians to love their neighbour as themselves. Indeed, the book of Revelations teaches that genuine multiculturalism is no obscure or passing doctrinal fad but rather the destiny of the ages:
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands[xxvi]
Any major project must inevitably confront unforeseen obstacles, setbacks, detours and delays. Projects don’t come bigger than nation building. Nation building, in turn, rarely faces the kind of complexities that characterise South African society. Owing to its divine sanctioning, the church needs no invitation to play its incomparable role as a prophetic voice with regards to righteousness, justice and mercy, in the growing pains of a fledgling nation. The extent of its influence in this role will nevertheless be determined by its ability to distinguish itself from conspicuous societal ills, not least on race and racism that are rooted in the colonial legacy. Failure to do so poses the risk of finding itself thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
[v] Luke 13:20-21New King James Version (NKJV)
[vi] Robert, Dana L. "“Rethinking Missionaries” from
1910 to Today." Methodist Review 4 (2012): 57-75.
[vii] South Africa owes an eternal debt to the invaluable
role played by European missionaries, who gave up all the comforts of European
life, risking disease, loneliness and death to advance the gospel of Christ in
South Africa. The enduring fruit of the schools and hospitals they established
among many other fruit cannot be forgotten. This piece seeks to neither
disrespect nor disregard their sacrifices. Instead it seeks to shine a remedial
spotlight on some of the unintended cultural baggage they came with and the
difficult legacy contemporary South Africa continues to deal with.
[viii]
[viii]
Lindfors, B. (2001, February). Hottentot, bushman, Kaffir: The making of racist
stereotypes in 19th century Britain. In Encounter images in the meetings
between Africa and Europe (pp. 54-75). Nordic Africa Inst.
[ix] Magubane, B. (1996). The making of a racist
state: British imperialism and the Union of South Africa, 1875-1910. Africa
World Press. Pp 85
[x] Philip, J. (1828). Researches in South Africa
Illustrating the Civil, Moral and Religions Condition of the Native Tribes
Etc.-London, Duncan 1828 (Vol. 2). Duncan. Pp 379
[xi] Ovendale, R. (1995). Macmillan and the Wind of Change
in Africa, 1957–1960. The Historical Journal, 38(02), 455-477.
[xv] South African member churches of the World Council of
Churches (1960). The Cottesloe Declaration
[xvi] Bate, S. (1999). The church under apartheid. Brain, J,
& Denis, P. The Catholic Church in Contemporary Southern Africa, 151-186.
[xxi] Southall, R. (2014). The black middle class and
democracy in South Africa.The Journal of Modern African Studies, 52(04),
647-670.
[xxiii]
Tracy, D., 1981, ‘Defending the public character of
theology’, Christian Century 1, 350–356.
[xxiv] Dames, G. E., &
Dames, G. A. (2014). The pedagogical role of
multicultural leadership in post-apartheid South Africa. HTS Theological
Studies, 70(1), 01-09.
