Articles

Since its arrival in Southern Africa, the Bible has been a site of struggle (West 2007), though often in more complex ways that most postcolonial analysis has acknowledged. This article reflects on some of that history but focuses on the present, examining the place of the Bible in public discourse in South Africa, more than a decade after liberation.

The dominant interpretive paradigm in African biblical scholarship involves a socio­historical comparative analysis of the biblical text and the African context. While the analytical processes employed in each of two major constituent parts ­­ biblical text and African context are clear, the third part of the interpretive act, namely the actual comparative appropriation is less clear. Nigerian scholar Justin Ukpong and South African scholar Jonathan Draper (via the work of Cristina Grenholm and Daniel Patte) are the clearest about the interpretive elements that brings the biblical text and the African context into conversation, and yet even in these cases the ideo­theological dimensions of the appropriative act are somewhat obscured.

The three key elements of African biblical interpretation are the biblical text, the African context, and the act of appropriation through which they are linked. The biblical text and African context do not on their own participate in a conversation. For dialogue to take place between text and context a real flesh and blood African reader is required! This reader moves constantly back-and-forth between the biblical and African context, bringing them together in an ongoing conversation which we call appropriation. How the reader moves between text and context is determined by a range of factors, including their ideo-theological orientation, their ecclesio-theological missionary heritage, their engagement with ordinary readers of the Bible in the church and community, and the important issues that require attention in the African context. In this essay, each of these elements in African biblical hermeneutics is explored.

The Christian Church continues to absolutize the kingship of Jesus from the time of his birth into his resurrection from the dead. But according to the witness of the four gospels, Jesus'identity is paradoxical,combining both Messiah and "The Son of Man." In all four gospels Jesus is the Messiah from the time of his birth to the end of his life. It is in his crucifixion that he is pre-eminently the Messiah, and Pontius Pilate mockingly establishes his ironic identity through the superscription, "The King of the Jews." Jesus is the Messiah preeminently in death. In the Gospel according to Mark it is the unnamed woman who anoints Jesus as Messiah in death. In and through his resurrection, however, Jesus is "the Son of Man," no longer the Messiah. For by his resurrection from the dead he inaugurates God's New Humanity that is commissioned to continue the work that he initiated, namely,to work toward the establishment of justice and peace on earth.

Of all the parables attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels, none is more ambiguous in terms of its origin and meaning than the Parable of the Ten Virgins. Everything depends on the correspondence between content and context, and especially the issue of literary form and function, regardless of whether the story is interpreted in terms of its present location in Matthew’s Gospel or in an earlier setting. No one denies that the parable appears to have a certain allegorical character, but is it an allegory in its form and function? And is the content of the story so completely determined by the crisis of the delay of the Parousia that its conception as an allegorical illustration must be allocated in the context of Matthew 24-25 or the early Church? The application of 25:13, an admonition that concludes the story, supports such a possibility, but, as everyone recognizes, it is a Matthean redaction. If, however, the narrative is pre-determined by its apparent Christian motifs, its dismissal as an allegorically fashioned story originating within the context of the early Church would appear to be justified.

Some years ago Elsa Tamez, a biblical scholar and social activist from Costa Rica, made the comment that Latin American biblical scholars would have to face up to the fact that there were biblical texts that resisted being read liberatively. One of the great contributions of Latin American biblical scholarship has been its resolute commitment to reading the Bible as a liberatory text (see Vaage, 1997, Hanks, 2000). While not questioning this contribution or orientation, Tamez was worried that she and her colleagues were sidestepping significant hermeneutical issues by not taking seriously those texts that seemed to have an anti-liberation ideological agenda (or grain). Her comment arose from seeing my little book on Contextual Bible Study (West, 1993) in which I try to come to grips with the text of 1 Timothy from a gendered perspective. She herself, told me, was working on 1 Timothy for the very same reason. What do those of us who are committed to God's project of liberation for women do with texts like 1 Timothy 2:8-15 and what hermeneutical questions does this generate?

I have made my opening point before (West 2003), but I will make it again because it is so important. I worry when well intentioned people who are not HIV-positive prescribe what kind of theology there ought to be or how we ought to read the Bible for people who are HIV-positive. The questions of how we read the Bible (specifically the Old Testament) in the context of HIV/Aids, the subject of my paper, must be substantially constituted by actual collaboration with people who are living with the virus. We are all affected, and we are all being partially constituted by the daily realities of HIV/Aids, but we are not all infected. Alongside the other liberation theologies that have shaped our African contexts ? and I speak here specifically of liberation theologies that have centred around race, class, gender and culture ? HIV/Aids must now take its place (see for example Maluleke 2001; Nicolson 2000). And what an HIV/Aids liberation theology demands is that we grant an epistemological privilege to the experience of those who are infected. Per Frostin is correct when he says that the distinguishing characteristic of liberation theologies is not content but methodology (Frostin 1988:11), and key to the methodology of liberation theologies is the epistemological privileging of those who experience that particular marginalisation. Those who know the lived reality of HIV/Aids, must become the primary interlocutors of theology (see Frostin 1988:6-11).

How does one begin to address the meaning of hope? On the one hand, there is no theme that goes more to the heart of life than that of hope. On the other hand, precisely because hope stands at the core of the human condition, there is no aspect of life that is unrelated to it. Our very birth is an affirmation of hope even when our parent(s) or guardian(s) despair of any. The fact that we rise each day is an affirmation of hope even if only with the smallest glimmer. The major life transitions of childhood to puberty, the relationship with a significant other, the pursuit of education and a career, the birth of our own children, and retirement are all expressions of hope. Despite the injustices, tragedies, and suffering of life, we can find even in the darkest hours a glimmer of hope. Death is no negation of hope. With the death of a loved one, we gather to celebrate life and to affirm the hope that makes any such celebration possible.

What is hope? Is it a grand illusion that we embrace willingly as a coping mechanism in the face of the overwhelming negativity in life and in face of the triumph of death over life? In what follows, I want to explore the "groundless ground" for hope in experience that stands behind, under, before, and ahead of any religious doctrine regarding hope. Perhaps then we can be sure that we are engaging "real" hope and are not being blinded by wishful thinking.

The strategy for exploring the "groundless ground" of hope will be to examine the human condition in the world for any indication that humanity is sustained by a limitless dimension that requires of us to affirm real possibilities in even the darkest hours of life. Hence, whereas this project does not deny the possibility of revelation, it is concerned with natural theology and not with revealed theology. The question whether or not revealed theology necessarily presupposes the natural theology of hope investigated here must remain open.

Die Religion ist nicht ein Sichhinausphantasiren aus dieser Welt in eine jenseitige Welt und aus dieser Zeit in ein nachheriges Leben, sondern sie ist die tatsächliche geistige Wechselbeziehung mit dem ewigen Himmel Gottes in jedem Moment und an jedem Ort unseres kreatürlichen Daseins. Ist Dieß nicht ihr realer Kern, so ist sie ein kernloses Träumen.

Alles wirklich religiöse Interesse konzentrirt sich darauf, wie der Mensch während seines zeitlichen Lebens zur wirklichen Aneignung des Ewigen zum persönlichen Lebensbesitz gelange und was er daran für sein zeitliches Leben habe ..., daß wir damit gar nichts Anderes beschreiben wollen, als ... den Prozeß der Erhebung des Menschen aus dem natürlich fleischlichen zum wahrhaft geistigen Leben ...

Heidegger is indebted in a profound fashion to Aristotle. This article employs Heinz Happ's analysis of Aristotle to propose that, whereas Joseph Owens' The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics neglects the Aristotelian "Material-Series" of "many", "other", "unequal" and "unlike", Heidegger neglects the Aristotelian "Form-Series" of "one", "same", "equal", and "similar". This is because Heidegger reads "matter" in the Aristotelian sense not as "stuff" but as "possibility". As a consequence Heidegger stresses the "situatedness" of "thrown Being-in-the-world" as the place where possibilities are experienced to the exclusion of the eidetic of actuality and mere static "presence". Two theological implications are drawn from this analysis: 1) Aristotle's "unification" of the Material and Form-Series in the Unmoved Mover suggests the inseparability of possibility and actuality and allows the contemplation of "God" as possibility above actuality. 2) A theological recovery of the "Form-Series" can aid us in understanding the Pauline Christian notions of "being in Christ" and "possessing the mind of Christ".

Perhaps no other individual theologian served as a lightening rod for the explosive energy of the theological world of the 19th century than did David Friedrich Strauß. As author of the controversial The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, he came to be seen as the representative of the liberal attack on the sacred scriptures because of his conclusion that the gospel narratives are myth. The theological right applauded the dismissal of Strauß from the university in Tübingen in 1835, and they were mortified with the announcement of his appointment in 1839 to the university in Zurich. Nowhere was the destructive power of religious conviction unleashed with such political consequences in the 19th century than in Zurich with this appointment. As consequential and deadly as the events surrounding Strauß' appointment and the subsequent political revolution in the canton of Zurich were, their details have not been told in English.2 What follows seeks to fill that lacuna.

At the beginning of his letter to the Romans the Apostle Paul declares that he is not ashamed of the Gospel—for two reasons. On the one hand, it is "the power of God" that is directed towards salvation, and, on the other hand, it discloses the reality of God's justice.

Paul continues to be identified with "justification by faith," but in actuality "justification by faith" as Romans 4 indicates, is a relationship with God that goes all the way back to Abraham and Sarah and simply serves as the point of departure for Paul's presentation of the Gospel in Romans 5. Far more significant is his interpretation of Jesus' death and resurrection which discloses a new road into the fulfillment of the justice that God wills for humankind. The movement from Abraham's faith into the salvation of Jesus Christ that generates justice is expressed in the double prepositional phrase of Romans 1:17, "Out of the trust [of Abraham] into the trust [of Jesus Christ]."

Reconstructed identities, redefined differences and a reconstitution of diversity mark the key tasks South Africa society has undertaken in the years of transition from an oligarchic tyranny to a plural democracy. With that as the key, this essay looks at the question of tolerance in an emerging democracy in four steps. The first comments on the transition to democracy in South Africa, particularly in respect of the establishment and work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The second unpacks the discourse about nation-building which predominates since 1994. The third, a brief excursus on the question of religious diversity and political tolerance follows, attempts to show how the politics of identity and difference plays itself out in one, significant cultural form. The final step is a turn to the theory of democracy, exploring the notion of tolerance in relation to identity and difference, and indicating my preference for a discourse ethics or deliberative theory of politics.

A micro-study of a vital centre in the history of Christian struggle against apartheid, this essay--part homage--identifies some key characteristics of those who influenced and trained people as they confronted the state and racism in South African society, especially those who operated out of a deep religious conviction. The history of the Cape Office of the Christian Institute, its complex interactions with an enormous variety of people from all walks of society, national and international, and the particular charisma of its director, Theo Kotze, form the substance of the essay. It is history, but it is also an attempt to point to and recover, for the future, the kind of leadership and commitment that this institution produced in large measure, to unpack on a small, local scale, exemplary historical dynamics that were present in South African society that still have a bearing for us.

Written for a volume reflecting on the failures and challenges of the United Nations Summit on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban, South Africa in 2001. Describing the way in which discourse about racism has evolved in a post-apartheid era, adopts a definition of racism as embedded prejudice linked to structural discrimination. Noting that neither a biological nor a cultural basis for understanding "race" has validity, I then define the ongoing "epistemic violence" of racism, rooted in European and American history. How we will overcome racism in a context where it is no longer overtly linked to any racist regime? If racism is embedded in a paradigmatic epistemé, how can it be overcome without public regulation, civil transformation and personal conversion as the necessary and simultaneous conditions of its eradication?

Using the concept of (multiple) identities as constructed by (shifting, porous) boundaries, the paper explores how these philosophical notions play themselves out in Africa under condition of globalization. It begins with the idea of an African Renaissance, given special currency in South Africa and more widely by our current President, Thabo Mbeki. It is his sense of Africanness that I probe, and its relation to identity under globalizing conditions. Second, I read globalization itself as a way of orienting the notion of identity within a broader field of terms—social, political and economic. Third, I treat what seems either to be truncated or seen as derivative forces of money (or economy) and power (or politics) in some theories, namely, culture—more precisely, religion, the one thing that seems most derivative to creatures of the Enlightenment. I seek to redraw boundaries, to read globalization from another place, to link it to the place of Europe and to relocate it in an African worldview, which is not an African worldview alone, and thus to decentre it.

Where migration patterns stretch the capacities of health care systems of African countries, religious beliefs, rituals and practices represent vital cultural capital. Religiously motivated or based healing and health-related activities, often with strong local impact, generate "religious health assets" that need much more analysis and understanding-for policy reasons and for development theory and practice. The essay explores some of the conceptual and theoretical frameworks necessary for carrying out a deeper analysis, using a local South African context-the historically black settlement of Imizama Yethu, Hout Bay-as an empirical example of how the key dynamics and processes associated with problems in health care promotion and delivery might impact on the role of religious health assets. This is based on a detailed study of local governance in health care in the area by a Norwegian political scientist, who concludes that the key ingredient, mostly missing, is "trust." The essay defends a religious approach to the issue and outlines the principles of a major project that seeks to explore them in the wider Sub-Saharan African context.

What is the public sphere like in South Africa today? In what way is it public? And what might it mean to speak of "reconstituting religion" in this public sphere? In order to answer these questions with some intelligence, we need to understand how the public sphere is currently constructed. The essay describes such a construction in terms of a shift to: a postcolonial situation; a postmodern situation; a post-resistance situation; the reality of globalization with the falling of the walls which were erected from within by apartheid and reinforced from without by international sanctions; the trouble in which resistance discourse finds itself since 1994; and the rise of a more nuanced understanding of resistance (hidden or coded "arts of resistance"). Related to these shifts, we pay attention the way in which identity and difference are implicated in each other in this context. This leads to a final, critical question, an ontological one: Who? Who is our prime interlocutor in determining our view of reality, our sense of what it means to live as a human being in this society? Who sets the agenda, frames the questions, offers the key categories for our understanding or our condition? Who benefits from the way in which transitional processes are conducted and new social arrangements are put in place? Who does not benefit, who suffers the consequences? More pertinently, who does so systematically, that is, not merely arbitrarily?

Written for the end of the millennium, this essay considers the future for Africa and what this means for a public Christian witness. It begins by considering Africa's experience of marginalization from the globalizing world economy, noting how this is both historically conditioned and heterogeneous. Problems of governance, power and authority rest within this history, particularly the colonial disjunction between citizenship and subjecthood mirrored in policies of mixed direct and indirect rule (M Mamdani). In such a situation, Christianity cannot confine itself to issues of inculturation and evangelization, but must enter into the public sphere more directly. This is complicated, because Africa is also a continent of contested Christianities, indigenous and exogenous. From this angle of view, the question is how one takes into account critical questions in Africa about resources (human and material), gender and well-being (or illness and disease, negatively). Without attention to such issues, a Christian (or any other) response is likely to at best naïve, at worst disingenuous. The challenges are clear. A key issue is whether African churches or Christian groups have the resources, or the will, to respond to them adequately.

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.