my contemplations

The South African reformed church scene is quite a complex one, I can’t think how to explain it to outsiders. But then again, I guess you find the reformed church scene around where you live complex too?

I’m in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa. Studying with me is a number of students from the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa. Basically the same church, but they split up about 150 years ago, and ever since been apart. Then there is a Reformed Churches of South Africa, again supposed to be basically the same church, split up because of some theological debates in the Netherlands just under 150 years ago which was brought over here by the ministers studying there. Then the “Afrikaanse Protestantse Kerk”, I’ll do them the honour of not writing there name in English. They split up from us in 1986 because the Dutch Reformed Church said Apartheid was wrong, and a number of other things. Then you’ll find three other churches within the Dutch Reformed (our Dutch Reformed) family. The Uniting Reformed Church (the old coloured church and a part of the next church which would be mentioned), another Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (traditionally the black church), and then another one whose name I can’t remember, but this was always the Indian church. And this is just the beginning.

This is the legacy of Apartheid, and the legacy of Afrikaners. My flatmate was working with a laywer for a few months who does settling between companies and employers or something like that. They said that you can find settlement between anyone, except between an Afrikaner and a Zulu, because these two groups are so hard-headed.

So the long intro to a few thoughts after yesterday’s debate about whether the Afrikaans churches do enough to combat racism within themselves, hosted by the center for Public Theology at TUKS. We had Mr Neels Jackson, a brilliant journalist from Beeld who does the religious journalism. Must be one of the best journalists on religious matter I’ve ever read. Then Prof Piet Meiring, formerly from the department of Missiology at TUKS, and part of the Truth and Reconciliation committee. Prof Theuns Dreyer from the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (Nederduits Hervormde Kerk), and Dr Johan Pienaar, moderator of the Northern synod of our church.

At first I thought about giving a summary of the whole debate, but that won’t be possible. So, some high and low points.

A definite low point for me was Prof Dreyer’s speech. Although I don’t disagree with what he said, I got the idea that he was using very beautiful language to defend the fact that you won’t find a lot of black people in the church he is from, and that there is no chance that a large part of there church will ever be non-white. He talked about racism being part of a bigger problem of stereotyping, and how we should actually battle things like forced integration and affirmative action, since this is making Afrikaners negative and thus more racist.

A definite high point was Prof Meiring suggesting that we need to take the problem of racism much more seriously, and that we should consider putting an interdisciplinary course together on the subject which is compulsory for all theological students. This I think must have been the best and most concrete suggestion of the whole morning. Another interesting thing he mentioned was a study on radio sermons a number of years ago, and the finding that almost all radio sermons was about our relationship with God, and almost nothing was said about the ethical dimension of faith, about our public role as Christians.

Neels Jackson made some very good remarks from the observations that he made after attending a number of synod meetings last year. His answer is that we are not yet doing enough about racism. I wholeheartedly agree with him.

Meiring told the story of Nelson Mandela visiting the General Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1994, and telling them that the telling sign of whether they could put Apartheid behind them would be whether they can unite with the other churches within the family. If Madiba was right, then we have failed miserably. My question to the panel was this: Do you think Nelson Mandela was right when he said that this would be the telling sign of whether we could put Apartheid behind us, whether we have put racism behind us, and if not, what would be?

Meiring obviously agreed with Madiba. So did Jackson, saying that we need to end racism to unify the churches, but the churches would need to be unified in order to end racism. Dreyer differed from him. Saying something in the line that forcing unification would not ensure the end of racism (which I’m sure no one in that room said), and then saying something which boiled down to the fact that different people should have different churches, not only because of race, he basically also said that it can’t be helped that the Afrikaans churches cannot unite into one. Although Pienaar didn’t respond to the question, by gutt feel is that he would also say that we don’t need to unite to show that we have put Apartheid and racism to and end.

My thoughts? Well, it seems like 9:00 AM on a Sunday morning is the most segregated time in South Africa. That can’t be right, can it? We can say nice things as much as we like, and talk about “spiritual unity” and other beautiful words, but before I’m not standing next to my black brother on a Sunday morning, I can’t say that I’ve overcome Apartheid. Would we ever do that? I think so yes, but sadly, I think it will take other factors to really put pressure on the existence of the churches in South Africa to bring us together on a large scale. In the meantime, our congregation will be joining the local Uniting Reformed Church in a course on parenting over the next few weeks…

You might wanna look at this post (Multi-Cultural Church), and this blog (Sorry for Apartheid). South Africans touching on similar topics.

I think it was after reading some of the work of John de Gruchy that my dad told me about the cross as symbol or metaphor for a horisontal and a vertical conversion. We need to have a vertical conversion, a conversion to God, and a horizontal conversion, a conversion to our fellow human being.

I found the metaphor strange, and I have to admit, I still do. Not because I think it is wrong, but I guess it’s because I was trained to be as historical as possible, thus, the first thing I think when I hear something like this is: “the way the cross was built has nothing to do with what it meant, that is simply a construction”. And actually, I forgot about the image, until the last 24 hours.

As part of my reading for my dissertation I’m currently busy with Mission in Bold Humility: David Bosch’s Work Considered, so far it’s an excelent book. I think I’ll blog about it some more later on. One of the authors wrote about Bosch using this image, and then, in a public debate on rasicm today, professor Piet Meiring (if I remember correctly) also mentioned this image. So I’m reconsidering the image.

In spite of my historical thinking, I realize more and more that this image do bring together a very deep meaning of the cross. But first this. Protestants had a way of holding very strongly onto the cross and forgetting the other aspects of the life of Jesus (incarnation, life, death, resurrection etc). The Gospel according to Mark also kind of did this, so I guess there is something to say for the primacy of the cross, but I’d rather say that the cross is symbol for Christ, in all aspects of his life, death, resurrection etc.

Historically the cross has had a lot of interpretations which dealt with how it restore a relationship between God and man. I’m not going into the atonement argument which is so popular today now. I don’t understand this quite well, but it’s so central to theology over 2000 years, I can’t possibly deny this. Jesus is the door to the Father (Gospel of John). This is the vertical side, we convert to God, we restore a relationship between God and man. And sometimes this is the easy part.

The hard part, more so than not it would seem to me, is converting to our fellow human beings. This meaning of the cross is being considered more and more, for example when we start noticing the political reasons behind the crusifixion. Jesus was crucified because he himself was “converted” to his fellow human beings. The cross remain a symbol calling us to a different way of life, where the “other” is more important.

Just found this post in my drafts, wanted to post it a week or two ago, and somehow didn’t, can’t remember why…

Last week I had one of the best, but also most shocking, youth evenings. It all started when we read Psalm 1 last Sunday with the young high school leaders, and the Psalm only opened up difficult questions. They wondered what it would mean if they are not to dwell with “sinners”, since they know so many people with different believes, and then they started asking questions about theodicy (why do God allow bad things to happen). I didn’t answer the questions, but on Thursday we again read the Psalm with the whole group, and with the high school leaders leading the groups, they simply discussed what they heard, and the questions it made them ask.

The little room was buzzing as the 20 kids was discussing theology. Ons group talked about theodicy, another about how we address different religions, and yet another about the debate about science and faith. Obviously they wouldn’t have formulated their questions using these academic terminology, but that is what they were discussing.

When I stopped them they still wanted to talk, but I moved the conversation to the whole group. They started sharing what they were talking about, asking the questions that really bugged them, and at the same time providing quick answers for their friends.

What really shocked me was that our kids have nearly no tools for discussing God. Many would say: “The Bible says”, but no one would read a text and ask that we listen to what the text say. They use a slogan theology, stating slogans which supposedly are true, and building a whole idea from them in very crooked ways. Maybe worst of all is that very few of them know how to listen to something and evaluate what is being said; after a long conversation I finally ask if I can maybe give some thoughts, everyone went quite, and I said a few basic things which I thought might help, but as soon as the conversation continued, they continued using their slogans. But here and there spots of light appear, with a few coming later on to continue the conversation, asking what I meant with some of the things I’ve said.

Point is that teenagers seem to like discussing theology, or at least, they like talking about God or spirituality or the supernatural or something. But the ways in which this is done provide a very dangerous ground for their friends, because they feed each other with ideas which can be harmfull (I think). Answer is not to start preaching the supposedly “whole theological truth” to them, as if I know it. Many have tried, and many have failed. We need to provide a space where young people can talk about God, and it’s amazing that we have somehow created this safe space. But we also need to help them form a contructive way of approaching questions about God. Not neccesarily a set of answers, but just some tools which would guard them against slogans like: “God did this to test your faith”, when “this” refer to a family member that died…

Any success stories out there of how young people’s theology (way of thinking about God, not neccesarily doctrines about God) was formed in a positive way?

Well, for the youth ministry guys out there, I like following this blog, although it has nothing to do with this current post and my struggles…

You know what must be one of the worst things in life to do? Re-typing something! I absolutely hate re-typing! I don’t mind writing, I do that a lot, and actually like doing it. But when I loose something and have to re-do it, that’s really bad. Although usually it ends up being written better. Well, I lost this post. Saves it on a flashdisk, and I think I didn’t stop the flasdisk the last time I used it. First time I loose data this way.

So, Scot McKnight from jesuscreed.org is visiting South Africa. Attie Nel from Attie se Koffietafel got him over for Pentacost. We have a tradition in the Dutch Reformed Church to celebrate Pentacost with a series of church services over throughout the week, Mcknight is leading these in Attie’s congregation, and Attie dis the rest of us the favour of arranging a whole program full of other speaking arrangements for McKnight.

Yesterday morning I attended a lecture McKnight gave on the New Perspective on Paul. Actually it was presented to the fourth year New Testament class, Stephan Joubert’s, from e-kerk, class, but it was opened up so that the rest of us can also attend. There wasn’t a lot of visitors however, but I found it interesting to see how bloggers got together. Attie en McKnight got together, both bloggers. I visited, because of blogging. And Tom Smith also came to visit, although we didn’t talk about it, I guess also thanx to blogging.

I found out that McKnight disagree with the New Perspective, and the things flowing from it. Also with NT Wright’s idea that Paul was writing against a Roman political system, an idea very influencial in the later works of Brian Mclaren (Secret Message of Jesus and Everything Must Change). I also found it interesting that McKnight was introduced as a leader in the emerging church, this while I can swear I read McKnight himself writing that he write about the emerging church from the outside. However, I think this he does very good, do read his article on What is the Emerging Church? if you haven’t doen that yet.

Then later I had the oppurtunity to have lunch with McKnight and some other pastors from our denomination. We had some interesting conversations on the theological influences on South Africa. Someone at one stage summarized it like this: We are Dutch people, watching American television, reading German theology and talking an obscure language which no one understand. Interesting that British theology never really had a big influence on South Africa.

I just found which must be a very near to complete list of David Bosch’s works. Tiina Ahonen didi a study on “Transformation through Compassionate Mission. David J. Bosch’s Theology of Contextualization” which was published in 2003 by the Luther-Agricola-Society. I can’t seem to find a place where you can but the book, from page 228-242 you will find a list of both published and unpublished works from Bosch. Including everything from some speaches given to study guides to monographs and books.

I’ll add more and more works of Bosch on the wiki I’m working on while working on my mini-dissertation. You can find my Attempt at a comprehensive Bosch reading list here. I don’t think adding Ahonen’s whole list would be helpfull though, it’s simply too much.

OK, I’m back to my old absolutely minimalist look. Change might be good, but I can’t seem to find a theme which I like better than the current one.

I’ve been intrigued by the Web 2.0 developments for more than 18 months now, trying to understand it, trying to follow the developments, and trying to see the implications. Most of this has been in blogging, and more and more I realize that I simply do not seem to have time keep up to date with everything happening and changing.

Although I’ve been a huge wikipedia fan, as you will find out if you follow the links I use to, for example, movies, I think I’ve only made one contribution ever, and that was the birth date of Anne Clayborn on the Mars Trilogy page, if I remember correctly. Recently, however, I’ve been introduced to wikispaces by someone in the congregation. We started generating the content for our new church website on wikispaces, and then I set up another wikispace for an alternative camp we are attempting in July.

But my current idea is to actually produce my whole mini-dissertation which need to be written in the next few months on a wikispace. It will be on something like: David Bosch as Public Theologian: the public role of the church in the theology of David Bosch. As I proceed I’ll publish parts I’ve written, and thoughts I have, there, which would provide the opportunity for anyone interested to fine-tune my thoughts through questions, alternative formulations, thoughts I haven’t had yet etc. Obviously in the end I’ll have to publish a final version for which only I can take responsibility, but by then I’ll have the advantage that many people have sharpened my thoughts.

So, if you have interest in the topic, or interest in the idea of producing the dissertation like this, or interest in David Bosch, do follow the wikispace here, you can also sign up for the RSS feed.

What do you think? How would copyright laws and plagiarism rules and everything apply to this? Is this possible? Can I legally do this within a university system? Would anyone even think of actually taking part in the conversation around an others Masters dissertation?