Religious Freedom at Stake - Our new book is available with Wipf & Stock

This has been a wonderful week! I learned today that our new book 'Freedom of Religion at Stake: Competing Claims among Faith Traditions, States, and Persons' (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2019) was released! Elisabeth Gerle, Göran Gunner and myself were the editors of this wonderful volume.

Among the other authors were Hennie Kotzé, Newton Kahumbi Maina, Damaris Parsitau, Keith Matthee (SC), Ma Plaatjies van Huffel, Nokuzola Mndende, Selina Palm, Fatima Seedat, Charlene Van Der Walt, Peter Petkoff, Elizabeta Kitanovic, and of course Elisabeth Gerle, Göran Gunnerand Dion Forster.

Here is the official link to the book on the Wipf & Stock website: https://wipfandstock.com/freedom-of-religion-at-stake.html

Here are the endorsements for the book:

“If secularism fears religion for its threats to freedom, religions have reason to fear the inverse threat of secular stereotypes. Yet religion represents as irreducible a multiplicity as do the modes of modern secularization. With its brilliant plurality of African and European voices, this volume probes key entanglements of power, ethics, and faith. It constructively illumines the tensions not only between conservative and progressive theologies but between reactionary nationalisms and liberal pluralisms.”

—Catherine Keller, Drew University, author of Political Theology of the Earth: Our Planetary Emergency and the Struggle for a New Public

“This volume brings readers, students, and scholars to a more nuanced knowledge of what religious freedom might mean, specifically highlighting how the very concept of religious freedom can oppress and marginalize minority positions within main religions. The volume gives a rare combination of concrete and critical case studies from both the South and North, as well as new and challenging theoretical reflections.”

—Trygve Wyller, University of Oslo

“This book will help the reader grapple with the issue of what is really meant by justice for all and for creation. People of faith, academics, and politicians are challenged . . . to widen the conversation to include freedom from religious abuse within faith traditions and from impinging the human rights of some individuals and the earth.”

—Isabel Apawo Phiri, World Council of Churches

Why did it take 200 years for the Methodist Church of Southern African to appoint their first woman as Presiding Bishop? And what does it mean?

This week I had an article published in the online academic news service, The Conversation. The article considers why it took 200 years for the Methodist Church of Southern Africa to appoint their first woman Presiding Bishop. Moreover, in the same year that Bishop Purity Malinga was appointed as Presiding Bishop, four other women were appointed as regional (District) Bishops in the 6 nations of Southern Africa. Why did it take so long for a woman to be appointed to this position of leadership in the Church?

What does this mean for the future of Methodism, and indeed Christianity, in this region?

You can read the full article here: Methodist Church Southern Africa enters new era as women take up top positions 

Methodist Church Southern Africa enters new era as women take up top positions

Purity Malinga, the new Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. Supplied by Dion Forster, Stellenbosch University

Reverend Purity Malinga has just become the 100th Presiding Bishop to be elected by the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. She is the first woman in the church’s 200-year history to be elected to this position. As Rev Jennifer Samdaan, a prominent female minister in the church, points out,

There had been 99 men before her. For her to be chosen to lead us is wonderful.

The Rev Madika Sibeko noted in isiXhosa: “zajiki’izinto” (things are changing). Indeed, things are changing in the Methodist church.

The Methodist church is South Africa’s largest “mainline” Christian denomination, with its roots in the 18th century Wesleyan revival. Methodism quickly spread throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia and to Africa. In part this was because of the zeal of missionary societies, but also because of the spread of the British empire.

The Methodist Church of Southern Africa became an independent church in 1889. It is the largest Protestant Christian denomination in South Africa and has a predominantly black African membership.

Having a woman elected as the presiding bishop is of great significance to the denomination and the region. In this role Bishop Malinga will be the church’s most senior leader, with responsibility to guide the regional bishops and the ministry and mission of the church in the six southern African countries. These are South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Eswatini and Botswana. Her personality and inclusive style of leadership are likely to bring some important changes to the culture and identity of southern African Methodism.

She previously served as the first (and only) woman bishop of a regional synod, the Natal Coastal District (until 2008). She is a widely respected minister who first qualified as a teacher before entering the ministry and completing her theological studies at Harvard University in the US.

 

The Methodist Church of Southern Africa has a history of challenging tradition, and being at the forefront of working for justice and the rights of oppressed people. Among the other notable southern Africans who were Methodists are Chief Albert Luthuli, Africa’s first Nobel laureate; Nelson Mandela, another Nobel laureate and the first democratically elected president of South Africa, as well as Robert Sobukwe, the respected Africanist. Another prominent Methodist is Graça Machel, the Mozambican and South African women’s rights campaigner.

Bishop Malinga’s induction heralds a new era in southern African Methodism, and indeed church leadership in the region. Her election as the first woman to the post coincided with three other women being elected as regional bishops in the six countries that the church serves. These women are Bishop Yvette Moses (Cape of Good Hope District), Bishop Faith Whitby (Central District, the largest district, covering parts of the Gauteng and North West provinces), and Bishop Charmaine Morgan (Namibia).

The history

Methodism first landed on South African shores in 1795 cloaked in the guise of colonialism and the empire. This date was just four years after the death of John Wesley, the founder of the movement. This makes the Methodist Church of Southern Africa one of the oldest Methodist or Wesleyan churches in the world.

The first record of a Methodist in the region was in the Christian Magazine and Evangelical Repository (1802). The article tells of a British soldier named John Irwin who had been stationed at the Cape of Good Hope from 1795 to protect colonial interests in the region. It records that he hired a small room and began to hold prayer meetings and services.

The formal mission of the church began in 1816 under the leadership of Rev Barnabas Shaw. The Methodists of the Cape were entwined in colonialism, as were most missionary movements that emanated from Britain at the time. Nevertheless, they sought to minister not just to the colonisers, but to the indigenous people living in the area and to slaves.

This got them into trouble with the British colonial authorities. An example was the refusal by the governor of the Cape, Lord Charles Somerset, to let Rev Shaw establish a congregation at the Cape.

So began a history of civil disobedience. Rev Shaw’s response to Somerset’s refusal was blistering:

Having received this answer I therefore left His Excellency and determined to commence preaching without it. My resolution is also fixed never again to ask any mere man’s permission to preach the glorious Gospel.

The Methodist Church continued to show great courage in addressing social, political and structural injustice.

The church also failed in many instances. And there was often a gap between the ordinary members and local congregations, and the more progressive aims of the denomination’s leadership.

New era

It’s fair to ask why it’s taken almost 200 years for women to be elected to leadership positions in the church.

The most obvious reason is that Christianity in general remains a patriarchal religion. The Methodist Church of Southern Africa is no different: men dominate the leadership and formal structures at almost every level.

The church first allowed women ordination 43 years ago. By 2016 only 17% of the clergy were women, only 4% of regional leaders (circuit superintendents) were women, and there were no women bishops.

Some ascribe this to religious patriarchy, and others to the dominance of patriarchy in African cultures of the region. There have been women in senior leadership roles in other regions of the world where Methodism is present, such as the United Kingdom and the United States. However, in many contexts, such as Africa and parts of Latin America, the denomination has been less progressive in recognising and appointing women to senior leadership.

In her address to the 130th annual conference of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa at which her election was confirmed, Rev Malinga echoed the words of Oliver Tambo, the late anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress in exile, who said:

No country can boast of being free unless its women are free.

Her election, and those of Moses, Morgan and Whitby, bring South Africa a step closer to reaching that true freedom.

Dion Forster, Head of Department, Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Professor in Ethics and Public Theology, Director of the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology, Stellenbosch University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

New book - 'Resisting Exclusion: Global Theological Responses to Populism' (download a free copy)

Congratulations to Simone Sinn and Eva Harasta and the Lutheran World Federation for this exceptionally important publication entitled ‘Resisting Exclusion - Global Theological Responses to Populism’.

I wrote a chapter entitled, ‘State Theology and Political Populism in South Africa? A Kairos critique’ (see p.133 ff.)

You can download a PDF copy of the book from the link below for free. Other authors include Nico Norman Koopman Rudolf von SinnerHeinrich Bedford-Strohm Michael Nausner Florian Höhne.

You can download a direct copy from here: 'Resisting Exclusion' (PDF)

#EnoughIsEnough Gender Based Violence, Xenophobia and South African Christians

This week has been an extremely painful week in South Africa. The scourge of femicide, rape, and the physical and emotional abuse of women and girls, as well as rising xenophobic and Afro-phobic attacks on fellow African migrants, have been deeply disturbing.

Many friends have expressed a sense of helplessness - what can Christians and Churches do? What should we do to witness justice, love and change in these situations?

Here is a short video that offers some suggestions that every Christian, and every Church, can do. Please feel free to offer your own ideas, suggestions, and feedback. We need one another! Please share the video with anyone who may find it useful.

As always, thanks so much for watching! I would be grateful if you subscribed so that you can be notified of new videos and lectures.

Feel free to leave me a comment or a question at:

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/dionforster
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#VLOG #Stellenbosch #Theology #EnoughisEnough #ThursdaysInBlack#GBV #Xenophobia #PublicTheology

'Worthy Women': Sexual bargaining for a place in Utopia - or Dystopia?

My colleague, and former graduate student, Sunelle Stander Lays, and I have an article accepted for publication in an upcoming edition the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (JTSA).

The article focusses on the controversial Christian preacher, Gretha Wiid and her 'Worthy Women' movement.

We sought to understand why women would give over their agency, willingly submit to abusive patriarchy, and subject their bodies sexually to their husbands? There are many complex reasons, as we discovered, that relate to economic security, changes in white Afrikaner social identity, misinformed theological hermeneutics, and a desire for social and political security.

I wrote an article on one aspect of our broader argument for the Berlin based Counterpoint: Navigating Knowledge.

In this article I highlight the intersections of race, class and religion within this complex, and very sad, situation. Please see the article here: https://www.counterpointknowledge.org/worthy-women-sexual-bargaining-for-a-place-in-utopia-or-dystopia/

It is entitled: 'Worthy Women': Sexual bargaining for a place in Utopia - or Dystopia?

Thanks to Sunelle for her excellent research! We are also grateful to the Church of Sweden and the Gender Unit of the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology at Stellenbosch University, who funded this research (among many other wonderful projects in Gender, Religion and Health!) We are also grateful to Marcia Pally the editor for this series on Counterpoint for her help and hard work along the way!

Update 7 July 2019

Here is a short video that I made on this research. Thanks for watching! I have received the final proofs for the academic article. I believe that it will be published in July at some point. So please do check out my researchgate profile, or the Journal of Theology of South Africa for the final article.

Why South Africans are prone to falling prey to charlatans in the Church

An article that my colleague, Pastor Simbarashe Pondani and I wrote for The Conversation Africa has been published.

It is entitled: ‘Why South Africans are prone to falling for charlatans in the church’.

You can read it here: http://theconversation.com/why-south-africans-are-prone-to-…

Pastor Simba recently graduated from the Master of Theology, Gender and Health Program at Stellenbosch University. His thesis focused on these opportunistic ‘Pastors of Doom’. When the editors approached me to write an article on this topic I asked if I could write it with Simba. I am so pleased to have been able to draw on his expertise and research in writing the article.

Why South Africans are prone to falling for charlatans in the church

Pastor Alph Lukau - his “resurrection” of a man made world news. Alph Lukau/Facebook

Dion Forster, Stellenbosch University

South Africans – like millions of people across the world – are seriously susceptible to religious abuse.

The local media has once again been abuzz with a litany of shocking stories about manipulation, abuse and fraud by pastors. The latest one, a fake “resurrection” made headlines around the world. A video of Pastor Alph Lukau “raising” a man from the dead went viral and even sparked the #ResurrectionChallenge.

Why do South Africans fall for these religious snakeskin oil salesmen (and women)?

One possible reason is that faith continues to play a very significant role in South Africa. In the last household survey over 84% of South Africans indicated that they are Christians. And a 2010 Pew Report found that 74% of South Africans said that religion played an important role in their daily decisions, values and shaping of their morals.

In addition, churches and religious leaders enjoy higher levels of public trust in South African society than either the government or private sector. This is unlike many other modern democracies in the 21st century.

Some suggest that this susceptibility to religious belief is due to the moral and political failures of the state and politicians. Religious leaders and institutions gain trust in situations where the population faces high levels of economic and social vulnerability, as is the daily reality for many South Africans. Religious groups are often the only sources of basic care and hope in many communities.

We believe that South Africans allow charlatan pastors to win their trust, take their money and get them to engage in frightening, and even comical, quasi-religious acts because of a combination of two factors. Many South Africans have high levels of trust in religious leaders. At the same time there’s a great deal of economic need. In situations like this people look to “supernatural” means to solve basic problems. Research on these phenomena in countries such as Brazil and Nigeria shows similar tendencies.

Some answers

People are drawn to what are known as prosperity gospel pastors because they are offered the opportunity of getting out of poverty and becoming rich by means of God’s blessings. South Africans who are losing hope of gaining adequate employment, or dealing with rising debt, see the lavish lifestyles of prosperity gospel pastors is appealing.

The message is that: obedience and sacrificial giving (to the pastor and their church) is the road to wealth.

Second, in a situation in which there is inadequate health care, it isn’t surprising that people turn to “miraculous” healers to find relief from suffering. This phenomenon is not unique to South Africa - it happens in other countries around the world where religion is important and social systems are weak.

How are these unethical leaders and their sectarian communities spotted?

Tell-tale signs

One of the most telling characteristics is an overt and gaudy display of personal wealth. The intention is to extravagantly display the super-abundance of supposed “divine blessing”.

Sadly, the wealth on display is derived by manipulation, even criminality, or excessive and unsustainable debt.

Next, is the tendency towards the supernatural and the spectacular – miracle healings, raising people from the dead, prophesying and sharing visions.

These “miracles” are frequently staged, using actors, psychological tools or technologies. They serve to attract members, and also to establish a hierarchical religious power structure with the pastor at the top.

The veneration and deification of the pastor is another common characteristic. They are presented as a “spiritual elite”, having direct access to God, a special measure of God’s blessing, and particularly powerful spiritual gifts. As God’s “chosen one” these aspects serve both to give the pastors power over their members, but also to shroud them in mystery.

In contemporary religious sociology this is referred to as “religious exceptionalism”. The laws of nature, culture, the religious tradition, the state and morality do not apply to them since they are an “exception”, supposedly by God’s divine choice.

In some instances, these leaders and their communities display cult like tendencies, seeking to isolate their members from regular life and their friends and families, who are portrayed as sinful and evil. It is under such conditions of deep trust, sincere faith, great need, facing spiritual manipulation and isolation, that many of the abuses take place.

Rights and freedom

What should be done to curtail such abuses?

The South African government has sought to regulate religious leaders and communities through the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights, Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities. The commission is attempting to set up standards for conduct, registration and qualification of religious groupings and leaders.

There is some concern that the state-appointed commission will use laws and policies to infringe on the legitimate rights to freedom of religion, and possibly even silence critique of the state.

Also, many of the abuses are not primarily religious or theological in nature. They are covered by civil law that should simply be enacted to protect citizens.

South Africa remains a deeply religious nation. The state and religious leaders and their communities bear a shared responsibility to identify and expose corrupt religious leaders, as well as safeguard citizens against abuse, while maintaining their rights to religious freedom.

Simbarashe Pondani has contributed to this article.

Dion Forster, Head of Department, Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Professor in Ethics and Public Theology, Director of the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology, Stellenbosch University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Populism and Religion outside the US: Research and Reflections

It feels like a lifetime ago - in November 2018 I presented a paper on a Panel on Religion and Populism at the American Academy of Religion.

It was one of the 'Wildcard' sessions that was recorded.

The panel was hosted by Prof Marcia Pally (New York University, Humboldt University), Prof Torsten Meireis (Humboldt University), Luke Bretherton (Duke University), Michael Minkenberg (European University), and myself - Dion Forster (Stellenbosch University). You can watch the presentations here: https://youtu.be/7lZzbCQeXP8

My paper is currently under review for publication.

Call for Papers: Global Network for Public Theology, 23-26 September 2019, Bamberg Germany

The next meeting of the Global Network for Public Theology will take place form 23-26 September 2019 in the beautiful city of Bamberg in Germany. This event will be hosted by the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Centre for Public Theology at the University of Bamberg. 

I had the joy of visiting the centre, and doing a public lecture there, in May 2017.

You can download a PDF copy of the call for papers here.

The call for papers for the next meeting is now open. The closing date for abstracts is 31 December 2018. The title of the conference is:

“Place and Space: Theological perspectives on living in the world”

Here are some further details on the theme.

Public theologies reflect on the contextuality of the Christian religion. Much of this contextuality is dependent on place: place as the culture and the society in which religions are situated, place as the position from where a theologian speaks, place as the biographical contingencies that shape people’s lives. Moreover, public theologies ask for the contribution of Christian ethics to society, thereby shaping the social, cultural, and religious space to which they belong. The consultation analyses the categories of space and place to deepen the understanding of contextuality as well as to explore glocal problems.

Proposals addressing one of the following dimensions are welcomed:

•  place to live

Who belongs to a nation, society, or community? Who may belong? How does migration influence societies? What are the possibilities – globally and locally – to alleviate the drawbacks that may result from the chances of birthplace?
– keywords: migration, homelessness, new concepts of housing; trading citizenships; colonised and invaded space, work in a globalised world

•  space to live

How is public space shaped and used? How do forms of aesthetic expression change the self-awareness of a society? How can public space be prevented from eroding? How do we deal with spaces of exclusion from society?
– keywords: civil society, urban development, architecture and aesthetics, memorials and monuments, perception of and public support for public space, private and public space

•  sacred space

How is the distinction between “sacred” and “profane” drawn in different contexts? What is the public function of sacred places in religiously plural societies? Can spirituality encourage to move beyond existing borders? Which heterotopias, sacred and secular, can we discover?
– keywords: churches as space within space: encounter with God, space for retreat, place of commemoration, platform for intercultural exchange; church buildings and their secular use; the church within society: mechanisms of exclusion and paternalism of inclusion;

•  space and speech

From where do we speak? How does religion affirm or challenge mechanisms of segregation?
– keywords: theologies of positionality and their limits: nationalism, theology of the land; populist movements; lebensraum; space and perspective

The conference language will be English.
Accepted papers might be published in the conference proceedings.

•  politics of space

Which borders regulate access to the public in a given society? Is there a hierarchy of spaces within society?

– keywords: the public and civil society; gender, race, and other ways of coding public space; othering and asymmetries of social construction, zones and milieus, criteria of access and marginalisation, permeability of social space(s); space and stage: self- presentation in public

• God and space

How does the spatial turn influence our image of God? How to deal with God's presence and absence in biblical theology and contextual perception? How is our perception of God shaped by its context?

– keywords: contextual theology and the doctrine of God; instances of kenotic theology: creation theology, theology of liberation; divided obligations: to the state, to God

• Deadline for proposals and submission guidelines

We invite theologians and scholars of neighbouring research areas to submit proposals of no more than 300 words by December 31st, 2018. These can be submitted electronically to dbfoet.fs-oet@uni-bamberg.de. Please add a (provisional) title to your proposal and send us your contact details.

When the Bible is dangerous and when it brings life - An interview with Gerald West

The Bible is a source of great inspiration, encouragement and blessing for millions of people. However, for many persons, communities and contexts, it is also the source of great suffering and struggle. While the text and narratives of the books of the Bible can inspire, encourage, and bless, they can also be used to destroy, to deny, to harm and to support human rights abuses, the destruction of creation, and the perpetration of injustice.

Today’s VLOG is one of the most important I have done to date - it is a conversation with Prof Gerald West of the University of KwaZulu Natal, and the Ujamaa Centre for Biblical and Theological Community Development and Research. Gerald is widely regarded as the world leader in this field, and Ujamaa is considered the foremost centre of its kind. They not only pioneered the work of Contextual Bible Reading in South Africa, but Gerald, and the Ujamaa teams and the communities they have worked with, have served to help Christians, theologians, community workers, pastors and other interested parties, to engage the Biblical text with care and responsibility. Their work is a testimony to the importance of the Bible, and the necessity of doing careful, community based, and scholarly credible, readings of the Bible.

You can find out more about the work of the Ujamaa centre here, and as Gerald mentioned, there are a lot of free and helpful resources.

• Ujamaa centre: http://ujamaa.ukzn.ac.za/Homepage.aspx
• Here is Prof Gerald West’s academic page: https://ukzn.academia.edu/GeraldWest/
• Here is a link to Gerald’s latest book, published by Brill: West, Gerald O. The Stolen Bible: From Tool of Imperialism to African Icon. BRILL, 2016. https://brill.com/view/title/24146.
• Prof Charlene van der Walt’s book: Van der Walt, Charlene. Toward a Communal Reading of 2 Samuel 13. Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 2014.
• And here is a link to my new book: Forster, Dion A. The (Im)Possibility of Forgiveness? An Empirical Intercultural Bible Reading of Matthew 18:15-35. 1st ed. Vol. XI. Beyers Naudé Centre Series on Public Theology. Stellenbosch, South Africa: SUN Press, 2017. http://www.africansunmedia.co.za/…/Product…/498/Default.aspx.

Thanks for watching! As always, I would love to hear your comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback and questions!

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A politics of forgiveness in South Africa? Is forgiveness even possible?

In my new book 'The (im)possibility of forgiveness?' I present the complexity of notions of forgiveness in South Africa. South Africa's apartheid history (and current reality) is extremely traumatic. It continues to dehumanize the majority of the citizens of South Africa. 

I tend not to speak of a 'post-apartheid' South Africa since I feel that even though we live in a democratic dispensation where apartheid laws have been dealt with, the daily reality of most of our citizens is that apartheid is more entrenched than ever before. Except, now instead of it being primarily a political system in which an unjust state is the supposed enemy, it is a subtle economic system that is deeply entrenched in the social imagination. Some find it extremely difficult to imagine a South Africa in which no person has too much while another person does not even have enough to survive. The 'enemy' we now face is so seductive. It runs across racial and class barriers, seducing us into greater and greater sin. We want to own more possessions, gather more wealth, live in greater opulence, and experience so much more freedom and pleasure. And so, the rich grow richer, while the poor grow poorer.

It is primarily Black South Africans continue to be systematically oppressed through this unjust (economic) system, with unequal ownership of land, and the dominance of whiteness in social spaces and the media. If you want to hear more about my reasons for advocating against the use of 'post-apartheid' as a reasonable statement, or category of thought, then please watch this short video. Simply stated, if I were to claim that we live in a post-apartheid society it would not be true in relation to the daily experience of most of South Africa's citizens. Not only would it be a lie, but it would be a callous lie since it would deny the reality of hardship, suffering and pain that people experience every day.

Hence, while South Africa is closer to democracy (where citizens have the right have to rights), the reality is that politically and economically those rights remain out of reach for most. We are in 'most apartheid' South Africa. In this context, forgiveness becomes a deeply political concept.

Hence I ask, for what reason would White South Africans wish to be forgiven? Is it so that we can be set free from the guilt of our past, and the ongoing guilt of our present way of living? Nathan Trantaal speaks of the 'gif [poison] in vergifnis [forgiveness]'. Forgiveness can be a weapon that creates wounds. A White South African can seek it from a place of power and dominance - asking to be set free without having to face the consequences of our sin (economic sin, racial sin, social sin).

So, if we were to think about a polis in which forgiveness was not only a belief, but a reality, what would it look like? What would it take to get there? I am inspired by Miroslav Volf's idea in 'The end of memory'.

I am often asked when I speak about forgiveness, whether when we forgive, are we expected to forget? I think that forgetting altogether can be dangerous. However, what if we were to live for a world in which a memory of justice, reconciliation, mutual respect, the celebration of diversity, and true wholeness was what we remembered instead of our brokenness, enmity, greed, and fear? How would we need to start living today as a society, a polis, to make such a memory real in the future? This is what Stanley Hauerwas would call a political eschatology.

In this reality forgiveness cannot only be only as a spiritual or a theological reality. It must be concrete, it must be real. The content of true forgiveness should be experienced in a society of justice and grace.

However, it is also inadequate to think that once a political or economic 'transaction' has been enacted that forgiveness would have been achieved - the transactional view of forgiveness is as inadequate as the purely spiritual view.

Please don't missunderstand me - I firmly believe that we need a redistribution of land in South Africa, we need a transformation of our economy, and we must work for a reality in which the majority of our citizens benefit from the bounty and beauty of our land. However, when these necessary things are achieved, we will not yet be reconciled - forgiveness will not yet be achieved. These social, political and economic realities are not the 'end' of forgiveness (its fulfillment or achievement), no, they are the beginnings of forgiveness. Beyond the transaction we need something more, something gracious, something spiritual, something that is shaped by justice but achieved in grace.

I hope that you can see why this notion of forgiveness is such a complex concern? I long for us to be honest about the complexity of the politics of forgiveness in South Africa. It is only when we are willing to count the cost, and even more, to live with grace, that we can move beyond poisonous forgiveness to life giving, life affirming, and real forgiveness. A forgiveness that heals instead of harms.

Here is a copy of the Stellenbosch University Forum lecture that I gave on this topic in September 2017. I was honoured, and very grateful, to be invited by the University to deliver this lecture. The lecture was entitled 'The (im)possibility of forgiveness? Considering the complexities of religion, race and politics in South Africa'. The lecture has been reworked and will soon be published in a book on Religion, Violence and Reconciliation in Africa (published by SUN Media).

Here is a direct link to the youtube link below.

Jesus was the first person to decriminalise sex work (John 8:7) - A conversation in public theology and Biblical ethics

The Central Methodist Mission in Cape Town has a tradition of hanging banners on the outside of their church building on Greenmarket Square in Cape Town. They use this as both a witness to their convictions on social issues (such as sexual identity, economic inequality, freedom of information, issues of injustice etc.) The banners are often quite controversial. I think that is part of their intention - to draw some attention to these important social issues, and invite conversation around them. Either because they are not discussed, or because they are not discussed in honest ways, or considered from a variety of perspectives, or the issues are not discussed and considered in public spaces.

This most recent banner is a case in point. Their prophetic statement is “Jesus was the first to decriminalise sex work (John 8:7)”.

This bold statement has generated a great deal of conversation among Christians and other interested parties! I posted a picture of the banner on my facebook page and asked for some comment. The comments flowed in thick and fast, and what was clear was that this is a controversial statement! Some were strong in their condemnation of the banner, stating largely that it either misrepresented a ‘proper’ interpretation of the narrative of John 8 (many citing John 8.11 as a qualifier). Others took exception to the moral association of Jesus decriminalising sex workers (labelling such persons as sinners, and saying that Jesus would never condone sin). However, this latter group were not always aware of the structuring of aspects of the Johannine narrative that contest those who hold social and religious power (such as the Scribes, and Pharisees) - indeed one possible interpretation of the John 8 narrative was that Jesus was unmasking unjust power. A powerless woman is to be stoned, while an equally adulterous man is not engaged.

So, this is a complicated issue that highlights just how important it is for us to engage such statements, as this one by the Central Methodist Mission, with a measure of informed objectivity on our own convictions and the convictions that others may hold. You can read the comments on on my facebook feed here: http://bit.ly/John8v7

Well, I think this is an interesting discussion! So, please do watch my video in which I try to highlight some of the issues at the intersection of different publics and different perspectives on public theological statements, as well as touching on Biblical hermeneutics, the social (and moral) imagination of Christian communities and societies, and also the prophetic intention of this Church. Please share the video, and please also share your feedback, ideas and comments! 

As always, I would love to hear your comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback and questions!

Please subscribe and like the video, and you will be notified of new posts as they come: http://www.youtube.com/dionforster

Thanks!

Graduating with a 2nd PHD in Holland - the possibility of the (im)possibility of forgiveness!

I am so grateful to be traveling to the Netherlands tomorrow (with my wife Megan!) to graduate with my 2nd PHD at Radboud University, Nijmegen in Holland.

The graduation ceremony (and defence) will take place at 16.30 on Wednesday 11 October 2017 - if you read this beforehand you can watch the ceremony online via this link.

I started my research at Radboud University in December 2013. I worked on the project, and spent some wonderful months, at Radboud University between then and May 2017 when I completed the manuscript / dissertation. You can read all of my posts from Radboud and about this research (in reverse order!) via this link.

The research project is entitled:

The (im)possibility of forgiveness? An empirical intercultural Bible reading Matthew 18:15-39.(Click the title to read an excerpt from the book and see the table of contents).

In Holland it is required that the dissertation is published as a book. It has been published by African SUN Media in the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology series on public theology.

Here is the full reference:

Forster, D.A. 2017. The (im)possibility of forgiveness? An empirical intercultural Bible reading of Matthew 18:15-35. 1st ed. Vol. XI. (Beyers Naudé Centre Series on Public Theology). Stellenbosch, South Africa: SUN Press.

You can read the abstract below, and see copies of the cover of the book and the commendations in the attached images. If you would like to purchase a copy you can do so via African SUN Media.

I have some sections of the book under review for publication, and have already published the following article which is a shortened section of the Biblical exegetical component of the study:

Forster, D.A. 2017. A public theological approach to the (im) possibility of forgiveness in Matthew 18.15-35: Reading the text through the lens of integral theory. In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi. 51(3):1–10.

In this article I also discuss (in summary) the other theoretical component of my study - namely integral All Quadrants All Levels (AQAL) theory.

I made one or two short videos of some of the central concepts (see the bottom of this post for a discussion of the empirical qualitative aspects of the study, and a discussion of one of the primary theoretical components).

I am truly grateful to my promoters, Prof dr dr Jan van der Watt and Prof dr Chris Hermans. They were encouraging, supportive, and wonderful guides along the journey. I learned so much and I am so grateful for the findings of the research and the fruit that it will bear for the participating communities.

Here is a video I recorded at my home University (Stellenbosch University) where I discuss how I worked with the participants to gather and analyse the theological (qualitative empirical) data on forgiveness.

In this video (recorded in Nijmegen at Radboud University) I discuss one of the primary theories that I used in the study, namely inter-group contact theory.

Here is the abstract from the dissertation:

This project engages the complexity of understandings of forgiveness in Matthew 18.15-35 within the context of an intercultural Bible reading process. The study shows that concepts of forgiveness among South African Bible readers are diverse, containing nuanced, and even conflicting, expressions and expectations - a politics of forgiveness. Some have suggested since such entrenched differences in understandings of forgiveness exist in South Africa, that forgiveness may be impossible. However, in spite of this complexity it is suggested that South Africans, and South Africa, could benefit from a rigorous academic engagement with the theologically and culturally diverse understandings of forgiveness that emerge from reading Matthew 18.15-35 in an intercultural Bible reading setting. The knowledge gained from this study may help persons from diverse histories, cultural identities, racial identities, and economic classes, to gain more integral, shared, understandings of forgiveness. In this sense, at least, the possibility of forgiveness may emerge. 

Considering the above, the aim of this study is to produce rigorous, textured, and credible theological insight into the complexity of differing understandings of forgiveness in Matthew 18.15-35 from 'ordinary' Bible readers of different cultures who are members of the same Christian denomination - the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, Helderberg Circuit. This is achieved through structuring the study as a practice oriented research project in empirical intercultural Biblical hermeneutics.

Three theories informed the research design. First, Ken Wilber’s All Quadrants All Levels (AQAL) integral theory is used as a philosophical framework that provides language and structure to ‘plot’ the theological understandings of forgiveness in the text, and in the reading of the text. Second, intergroup contact theory is used to identify the mechanisms and processes for positive intergroup contact that inform the intercultural Bible reading sessions. Third, the Biblical text is engaged in a scholarly exegetical process so as to avoid collapsing the thought world of the text into the contemporary context. This is a critical aspect of a credible engagement with the Biblical text. This process allows for the construction of a hermeneutic bridge to link aspects of the text to aspects of the interpretive insights of the contemporary readers engaged in this study.

As anticipated, the findings of the research process agreed with some aspects of the research hypotheses and varied from others. The findings of the post intervention research data and analysis shows that to a large extent (except for minor variations which are discussed in the study) the participants of the intercultural Bible reading intervention developed more integral understandings of forgiveness. This means that participants were far more open to accepting understandings of forgiveness that were not held within their in-group, but were more common among members of the out-group.

The primary conclusion of this study is that more integral theological understandings of forgiveness are evidenced among the majority participants in this intercultural Bible reading process which was conducted under the conditions of positive intergroup contact. Moreover, this study shows that one can give credible empirical content to, and explicate, the theological perspectives, and the hermeneutic informants, of readers of the Biblical text. This helps the ‘problem owner’, (i.e., the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, Helderberg Circuit), to understand what some of the barriers to shared understandings of forgiveness may be. Moreover, it allows for the design of intercultural Bible reading interventions under the conditions of positive intergroup contact. The data shows that in this case, the participants of this study mostly became more open to a more integral theological understanding of forgiveness with the ‘other’.

This project makes the following novel contributions to scholarly knowledge and the construction of theory: In New Testament studies the research contributes towards a number of new hermeneutic opportunities that arise from reading the Biblical text from a social identity complexity perspective (informed by Ken Wilber’s integral AQAL theory). Moreover, in relation to intercultural Bible reading, the project provides new insights into how persons who hold different socially informed views of forgiveness may encounter one another constructively under the conditions of positive intergroup contact. In terms of empirical cultural Biblical hermeneutics this study is the first of its kind to provide insights into how Black and White South African Christians understand the concepts and processes of forgiveness in relation to Matthew 18.15-35. The findings show that there is a logic behind the socially informed theological understandings of forgiveness that are expressed by the participants. This holds value not only for Biblical Studies, but also for Systematic Theology in general, and South African Public Theology in particular. Then, from a methodological point of view, the interdisciplinarity of the theoretical approach that is employed in this research stimulates new avenues for scholarly theological study in relation to problems in practice.

Thanks for checking in and sharing in my joy! I appreciate it.