Research Challenges on Religion in South Africa

The title Life, the Universe and Everything, the third volume of the famous four volume trilogy (sic) called the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, recently deceased ("I love deadlines," he said, "especially the whooshing sound they make as they go by"), is perhaps the most adequate statement of the depth and breadth of the challenges to researchers who investigate the question of religion in South Africa, or anywhere else for that matter. I argue that such research needs to focus not only on the role of religion in social transformation, but on transformations within religion itself, those that are occasioned by our current context and historical conjuncture.

The essay thus deals, after some initial comments, with brief discussions of "regional" concerns about methodological/ontological issues, with hermeneutics, with practical questions, and with the present conjuncture of history in South Africa-all in order to define a field of responses to the question about research challenges on religion in South Africa.