The journal’s main area of interest is the phenomenological and comparative study of the diversity of religions, religious traditions, and the religious movements and formations of religions in Southern Africa. We are particularly interested in the lived realities of religion in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since we foster the equal recognition of all religions, research on the prevalence, relevance, and practicing of World Religions in both local and global contexts is also encouraged. Research contributions may focus on any of the dimensions of religion, religiously shared or specific values, and the historical and/or current problematization and contextualization of religions or religious discourse. Online ISSN 2413-3027 Print ISSN 1011-7601
All work published is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0) Journal for the Study of Religion is an Open Access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of Open Access. Should any work or aspect thereof be referred to the author and journal should be duly referenced.
Lived religion and lived development in contemporary society
This book review critically examines Lived religion and lived development in contemporary society. The book honors Wilhelm Gräb. It explores the complex link between lived religion and development using interdisciplinary, empirical, and decolonial frameworks. The book offers insights into practical theology, indigenous epistemologies and ecological ethics. Its strengths include an African focus and theoretical innovations. Limitations exist in conceptual density and chapter quality. The book’s importance for Southern Africa will be discussed. Recommendations for future scholarly inquiry will conclude this review.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tshenolo Jennifer Madigele https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Religious communities and ecological sustainability in Southern Africa and beyond
Climate change and environmental degradation are current realities worldwide. This book is a result of two inter-disciplinary groups in the field, A capacity-building Webinar for Religious Communities and Ecological Sustainability in Southern Africa held on September 1, 2020 (Öhlmann and Stork, 2024, p. 13) and A Conference on Churches in Southern Africa as Civil Society Actors for Ecological Sustainability held at the University of Pretoria in Pretoria, South Africa, from October 28-31, 2019 (Öhlmann and Stork, 2024, p. 14). The book is a result of global engagements such as the International Conference on Religion and Environment held in India during 2024 and the Interdisciplinary Conference on Sustainability and Climate in Religion held in Norway during 2020, therefore presenting a contribution to ongoing debates by bringing a voice from an African religious space. The editors of the volume, who are renowned scholars in the field, make an important observation that ‘[r]eligion shapes social imaginaries and people’s values’ (Öhlmann and Stork, 2024, p. 9). As a need to explore the role that religious communities play in ecological sustainability is critical, this book is timely. At the back of our minds we understand that most religions have a strong anthropocentric orientation and Christianity has been accused of such (Mylius, 2018; Setume and Phili, 2020), which has unfortunately contributed to the degradation of the environment. This book raises an important question: What are religious communities doing to attain ecological sustainability in Southern Africa? Given the extent to which the relationship between human beings and the environment has deteriorated over decades, a book that explores the role that religious communities are playing or could play better is very important. Global warming and its effects serve as good indicators of this broken relationship.
Copyright (c) 2025 Senzokuhle Doreen Setume https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Religious Communication in the Digital Sphere: Framing Prophet Bushiri’s YouTube Sermons
One of the African Pentecostalism scholars, Mookgo Kgatle, has described Prophet Shepherd Bushiri as one who has mastered Pentecostal prophecies and is famous for ‘Prophet-preneurship’. This study investigates that claim by examining Bushiri’s YouTube sermons through the lens of Paul Gee’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework. The framing theory illumines this study while using ATLAS.ti to code texts into themes. It explores frames in Bushiri’s sermons and his dependence on the new media’s capacity to expand influence. While CDA is commonly applied to political texts, this research extends its reach to religious discourse, revealing the ideological dimensions embedded in Bushiri’s rhetoric. Findings reveal frames such as cultic tendencies, self-promotion, prosperity gospel, and extra-biblical teachings. These frames and the themes that they generate enhance scholarly understandings of the dynamics of digital evangelism and the commodification of religion in the digital world, offering insights into the non-neutrality of some religious narratives. (The term ‘non-neutrality’ is used here to illustrate that religious narratives like every form of communication is designed to achieve a particular aim – intended or otherwise.)
Copyright (c) 2025 Ambrose Kolawole Dada, Janelle Vermaak-Griessel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Sanctifying Settler Colonialism: An Intersectional Discursive Analysis of a South-African Christian Zionist Media Statement
This paper presents an intersectional discursive analysis of a web statement issued on January 10, 2024 by a group of self-identified South African Christian leaders opposing the South African government’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Using a critical discourse analytic framework informed by Michel Foucault’s theorization of discourse and power, the paper examines how the statement’s pragmatic, ethical, and theological dimensions work together to encourage and legitimize support for Israel through the language of moral and spiritual authority. Across three identified fronts, the statement deploys distinctive rhetorical strategies. On the pragmatic front, it invokes national interest and religious freedom to construct a regime of ‘moral reasonableness’. On the ethical front, it appropriates feminist and liberationist vocabularies such as ‘victim blaming’ to reframe Israel as the victim and Palestine as the aggressor. On the theological front, it redeploys the language of peace characteristic of apartheid-era church theology, sanctifying inaction under the guise of neutrality. Additionally, read alongside the Kairos Document of 1985, the analysis situates the 2024 statement within a changing media ecology that transforms how religious authority is produced and circulated. Whereas the Kairos Document emerged from a slow, consultative print culture rooted in collective discernment, radical pedagogy, and liberation theology, the 2024 statement belongs to the fast, affect-driven environment of digital media. Its authority derives not from theological rigor but from rhetorical immediacy and emotional resonance. Drawing on Mitri Raheb’s notion of empire’s theological ‘software’, the paper argues that the statement exemplifies how digital media now function as moral infrastructure, transforming emancipatory theologies into instruments of ideological power. In doing so, it advances scholarship on religion and media by tracing the shift from the deliberative textuality of Kairos to the affective immediacy of digital circulation, revealing how the Christian Zionist discourse in South Africa performs a distinct kind of theological labor that both mediates and moralizes empire in the 21st century.
Copyright (c) 2025 Thandi Gamedze, Sarojini Nadar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Religion and its Integration in Everyday Life: Public Discourse, Ethical Reasoning, Economic Survival, and Digital Mediation in Contemporary Societies
It is with great pleasure that we present this edition of the Journal for the Study of Religion (JSR) which focuses on religion as embedded in everyday life, public discourse, ethical reasoning, economic survival, and digital mediation. Since its founding in 1993, the journal has occupied a distinctive and valued place in the academic study of religion in Southern Africa. As a bi-annual, open-access journal affiliated with the Association for the Study of Religion in Southern Africa (ASRSA), JSR remains committed to fostering accessible, rigorous, and contextually grounded scholarship, particularly from and about the Global South. In a scholarly landscape still largely shaped by Global North priorities, this commitment is not only significant, it is urgent and essential. From its inception, JSR has sought to provide an academic home for work attentive to the diversity of religious traditions, movements, and formations in Southern Africa and beyond. The journal has consistently fore-grounded lived realities, comparative perspectives, and critical engagements with religion as it intersects with social, political, economic, and cultural life. This orientation continues to guide the journal’s editorial vision, even as the terrain of religion and scholarship shifts in response to changing social conditions, media environments, and global challenges.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lee-Shae Salma Scharnick-Udemans https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A Religious Minority in Post-Apartheid Political Secularism Muslim Active Citizenship
Cape Muslims perform an active sense of citizenship rooted in their history of political and civic involvement, from slavery and apartheid to the current post-apartheid period. Their active citizenship and sense of national belonging have been fostered by post-apartheid political secularism, which encourages pluralism and inclusive multiculturalism, accommodating a vibrant social life of religion. The post-apartheid era has favored a model of political secularism grounded in inclusive multiculturalism, based on equal human rights and citizenship. Notably, Muslims perceive Islam not just as a cultural difference for a religious minority in South Africa seeking recognition, but as an integral part of this country’s culture. This article fosters an understanding of the performance of Muslimness as the Muslim culturalization of citizenship – negotiating and reconciling multiple, intersecting local, national, and transnational belongings without compromising active citizenship and integration within Cape Town’s broader multicultural society. Motivated by Islamic ethics, Muslims demonstrate an active sense of citizenship, belonging, and social commitment both within South Africa and internationally. The article presents two main points: First, that the Muslim integration of multiple belongings, active citizenship, and societal engagement offers a model for Muslim minorities navigating identity politics in multicultural societies; second, that post-apartheid political secularism, founded on inclusive multiculturalism and equal rights, provides lessons for how other modern multicultural states can integrate religious minorities as equal citizens.
Copyright (c) 2026 Ala Rabiha Alhourani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Pentecostal Moral Bricolageand Women’s Survival in Zimbabwe’s Kukiya-Kiya Economy: Lessons from Beitbridge Border Post
This study examines the ethical considerations of Zimbabwean Pentecostal women in cross-border trade. I examine how they navigate the ethical tensions between religious convictions, which value hard work and moral discipline, and the survival imperatives of an informal economy marked by systemic corruption and punitive policies that penalize the poor. Using a hybrid ethnographic methodology, this study combines in-person and online interviews and participatory observations to gather data from 22 traders. The key finding is that these women do not abandon their faith-based ethics; instead, they engage in moral bricolage. They reinterpret morally ambiguous practices such as bribery and smuggling, through a Pentecostal lens, framing these as divine tests and forms of sowing seeds for future improvisation (kukiya-kiya) in a corrupt system. The study’s primary contribution is a nuanced theorization of how Pentecostalism provides a language of justification, enabling agency, and critiquing the state’s failure. It moves beyond the binaries of piety and corruption or formality and informality, offering a critical understanding of religious ethics, gendered power, and economic survival in Zimbabwe’s crisis.
Copyright (c) 2026 Tsitsidzashe Bvute https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Kingdom Come: The Politics of Faith and Freedom in Segregationist South Africa and Beyond
In this review, I engage Tshepo Chéry’s Kingdom Come: The Politics of Faith and Freedom in Segregationist South Africa and Beyond as a powerful and necessary intervention in the fields of African religious history and postcolonial political thought. I highlight how Chéry reframes South African liberation history by centering African Christian actors, especially Black clergy and African-initiated churches, not as passive inheritors of Western theology but as architects of a distinctly African theology of resistance. I draw attention to her compelling argument that religious belief, far from being a colonial residue, served as a generative site for political imagination, anti-colonial struggle, and the redefinition of identity. In tracing spiritual insurgency well before formal apartheid resistance, Chéry challenges secular teleologies and opens space for a richer understanding of the theological dimensions of African nationalism. I also underscore her attention to gender, particularly the overlooked roles of African women in shaping prophetic and communal life. Through this review, I aim to foreground the book’s methodological depth, emotional resonance, and its contribution to rethinking the place of theology in African and diasporic freedom movements. Kingdom Come, I argue, is an essential text for scholars of religion, African history, and liberation politics.
Copyright (c) 2026 Alapa Odugbo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Women’s Engagement in Decision-Making Processes in Pentecostal Church Leadership in Laikipia County, Kenya
Women are often underrepresented in leadership roles in churches due to structural, cultural, and theological factors, and face significant obstacles such as patriarchal norms and limited participation opportunities. Using the context of Pentecostal Churches, this article addresses three objectives, namely 1) to evaluate the influence of women’s participation in decision-making in Pentecostal Church leadership in Laikipia County; 2) to determine women’s consultation on decision-making; and 3) to evaluate the incorporation of women’s voices in decision-making processes of choosing leaders in Pentecostal Church leadership in Laikipia County. Guided by the female leadership theory of Warren Bennis, the article draws on a quantitative descriptive research design which utilized questionnaires to analyze women’s engagement in the decision-making processes in Pentecostal Church leadership. The target population was 150 Pentecostal Church leaders within Laikipia County, and the sample size was 45 respondents, representing 30% of the total population who was selected, using the stratified random sampling method. The quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 25 while descriptive statistics were used to make meaning of women’s engagement in decision-making processes in Pentecostal Church leadership. The article indicates that while the majority of the respondents (60%) agreed that women’s participation in the decision-making processes was important, 62% of the women were excluded from consultation from church leadership’s decision-making processes (while only 38% were consulted). Additionally, most respondents (73%) agreed that women’s voices were included in choosing church leadership processes. Given that women’s participation in decision-making processes largely revolved around choosing leaders, the article calls for an enhancement of women’s representation and implementation of gender inclusive policies in Pentecostal leadership decision-making processes. This can be achieved through mentorship programs, leadership training, and fostering equal opportunities for both men and women in leadership appointments, and promoting inclusive decision-making processes through advisory councils or forums, establishing structured consultation mechanisms in Laikipia County.
Copyright (c) 2025 Catherine Mwihia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Editorial Special Issue: Religion at the Intersection of Gender, Health, and Leadership in Contemporary Times
There is a growing recognition of the need to foster gender equality, health and leadership in diverse spheres in contemporary times. However, numerous factors continue to impede gender equality, health, and leadership. The outbreak of the global pandemic, COVID-19 also disrupted the gains, which had been made in advancing gender equality, health, and leadership. As part of a larger societal context, religion is both shaped by, and has an effect on the health, gender, and leadership dynamics in society. This interaction often manifests in the role that religion plays in shaping the ways in which a society promotes gender equality, health, and leadership within and beyond religious circles. This Special Issue of the June edition of the Journal for the Study of Religion navigates the ways in which religion has shaped the gendered narratives of resilience in relation to health and leadership positions. This interaction of religion with gender, health and leadership can either result in positive or negative outcomes as articles in this volume will show.
Copyright (c) 2025 Dr Nelly Mwale https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Trance and Transfiguration in Rock Art and literature, Unisa Press/Routledge 2025
Academic courses on psychedelic drugs and religion are very popular among Ivy League universities, notably, Brown University, Berkeley, Duke, and Harvard University. Current research articles and books abound on the topic (see for example Johnson (2022), Richards (2016), Cherniak et al (2022)). The prevalence of the field speaks to its acceptance by mainstream academia. Medical research is also recognising the benefits of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of depression and addiction (Kuypers 2020).
Copyright (c) 2025 Prof. Garth Mason https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Mission from the Margins in the Context of HIV and AIDS: Grandmothers’ Narratives of Transforming Religious Communities in Maai Mahiu, Kenya
Using the narratives of grandmothers in Maai Mahiu, Kenya, this article demonstrates how the grandmothers from different Christian denominations and ministries were stigmatised within their religious communities, how they responded to the stigma meted on them and their contributions towards the transformation of the religious communities in the context of HIV and AIDS. By revisiting the theme of HIV and AIDS in religious communities, the article affirms that HIV and AIDS is still one of the biggest challenges facing the world. The situation of children orphaned by AIDS continues to be a serious issue in high prevalent areas and 80% of these children are found in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). When AIDS kills parents, the grandparents especially grandmothers usually assume the parenting role of the orphans. This article utilises the data collected for my unpublished PhD thesis, which was conducted to examine the source of strength, faith and hope exhibited by the grandmothers’ parenting grandchildren orphaned by AIDS amidst the intense stigma they faced. The study employed qualitative and grounded theory research approaches. In particular, sixteen people were recruited as study participants (15 grandmothers and 1 health worker) and later into the study three pastors were recruited. The article shows that the grandmothers’ responses to the stigma from their religious communities resulted into them gaining and promoting accurate knowledge on HIV and AIDS, positive living, improved standards of living and more importantly, the transformation of the religious communities. The grandmothers largely responded in a way that would positively transform their own lives, their community and their religious leaders. Based on this, the article concludes that by being proactive in their responses to the stigma and ostracism meted on them, the grandmothers were practically engaging in mission, but doing it from the margins of the community where they had been pushed by religious communities.
Copyright (c) 2025 Dr Pauline Wanjiru Njiru https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Mother Earth, Pandemics, and Women’s Reproductive Health in African Apostolic Indigenous Churches in Nyanga, Zimbabwe
Using the context of HIV and AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics, this article explores how the African Apostolic Indigenous churches (AAICs) of Nyanga in Zimbabwe responded to pandemics, particularly regarding women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). It is informed by findings from a qualitative research design in which in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were employed to gain insights from purposively sampled participants in the three AAICs of Nyanga. The article shows that the AAICs’ stances on women’s SRHR during pandemics were characterized by forbidding women from accessing modern biomedicines and healthcare services, which has significantly endangered women’s health, especially during pregnancy and childbirth. The churches encouraged reliance on spiritual healing, preventing women from accessing necessary medical treatments such as Anti-Retroviral Drugs (ARVs) for HIV and vaccinations for COVID-19. The article argues that addressing the challenges faced by women in AAICs concerning their SRHR during pandemics requires a multifaceted approach for empowering women, promoting stakeholder dialogue, and integrating respectful, culturally sensitive healthcare services that acknowledge women's critical role as 'Mother Earth.' The article also calls for a shift in decision-making power within the churches to better protect women’s health during pandemics. Beyond the scholarly contribution, the article contributes to improving health outcomes for women in AAICs during the global health crisis and equips religious leaders with the benefits of integrating modern medicines with spiritual care for the betterment of women’s sexual and reproductive health rights.
Copyright (c) 2025 Dr Lindah Tsara https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Icisungu – Divining Mother Earth in the Bemba Puberty Rite
Bemba culture celebrates two distinct rites for young women. The first rite is celebrated at puberty (icisungu) and the second is celebrated at marriage (imbusa). This article focuses on the first rite called icisungu when the girls reach puberty. The significance of icisungu rite is its centrality in possible promotion of female agency and reproductive health awareness among Bemba girls. This is vital as it establishes a solid connection between the cultural practices and their relevance in contemporary discussions about sexual reproductive health. Young girls are separated during icisungu in order to receive instruction on their journey into womanhood and how to safeguard themselves from early childhood debut into sexual activity. Icisungu is a safe space for young girls to learn agency and comprehensive sexuality education. Using African feminist cultural hermeneutics and mothering as a framework, this article demonstrates how the divine, mother earth and Bemba women offer agency.
Copyright (c) 2025 Dr. Mutale Mulenga Kaunda https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Social research methods for students and scholars of theology and religious studies
This published work by Joshua Iyadurai is very timely and relevant for theologians, scholars in the field of religious studies, and students of different cultures and institutions. In this work, Iyadurai proposes multidisciplinary approaches in the study of religions that consider strategies rooted in social sciences.
Copyright (c) 2024 Journal for the Study of Religion https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Stifling Human Responsibility? Human Agency and Transcendency in African Spirituality and Cultural Idioms
This article is an African traditional religious and cultural analysis of human responsibility as expressed in proverbs and idioms that demand human agency and transcendence in chiShona, Zimbabwean isiNdebele, and isiZulu languages. The analysis is done in line with the common spiritual belief that material wealth is a product of spiritual or magical power. The article analyzes selected proverbs and idioms from the three languages that demand or express agency and transcendence. This demand for agency and transcendence is juxtaposed with a religious belief of wealth as a product of spiritual and magical powers. Spiritualizing material wealth promotes a blame syndrome that is detrimental to human responsibility. A framework of human agency and transcendence that promotes human responsibility in African contexts of poverty is proposed. The article aims to contribute with an African response to poverty that promotes human responsibility and avoids a defeatist and escapist reliance on magic and spiritual solutions.
Agency in Community: Understanding Gender-Based Violence from within a Muslim Community in Lenasia, Johannesburg
This qualitative study examines how a group of Muslims in a conservative community in Lenasia, Johannesburg, engaged with Islam and gender-based violence (GBV). Drawing on the framework of lived religion and Saba Mahmood’s conceptualization of agency and embodiment, the article highlights how the 13 interviewees actively negotiated their perceptions of and approach to GBV within their religious and cultural environment. First, the participants actively chose their religious authorities and illustrated how these authorities portrayed an Islam that is gender-just. Second, while largely opting to rather ignore than criticize probable patriarchal tones in their religion, participants freely expressed their critical views on patriarchy and GBV in relation to their culture. Through highlighting the agency and logic in the participants’ engagement with GBV, the article underscores the importance of involving conservative religious communities in combating GBV in their own terms.
Pentecostal Reinventions of the Passover: Contextual Reflections on the End of Year Night Worship Festivals in Uganda
Pentecostal scholarship in and about Africa is a vibrant arena in world Christianity, with an upswing in the proliferation of scholarly works on Pentecostal Churches and its centrality in the political and social fabric of African societies. Pentecostalism has been hailed for revival of Christian conservatism in Sub-Saharan Africa, predominated by the nominal Roman Catholics and Protestant Christianity. While some authors have studied African Pentecostalism with prejudgments based on other Christian traditions, some have hailed the theological innovations in healing and evangelism. The study of the Pentecostal end of year worship festivals unravels one of the innovations that justifies the uniqueness of African Pentecostalism, promulgating theologies and traditions on the one hand, and reinventing Judeo-Christian practices in African perspectives, which in a sense give African Pentecostal Churches a claim to divine originality, on the other. In another way, theologies, traditions, and practices emerging from the observance of the annual Pentecostal worship festivals place African Pentecostal Churches among the towering African Christian traditions, which then borrow rather than debunk such Pentecostal theological innovations. This article therefore discusses the Pentecostal Church reinvention of the ancient Jewish Passover festival to mirror the lives of African Christians in contemporary contexts. The ‘contextual theology’ analysis is employed to reflect on both the Jewish Passover and annual Pentecostal worship festivals, with a view of establishing how Passover (non-)parallels and reinventions have produced African Pentecostal theologies, traditions, and practices defining the uniqueness of African Pentecostalism.
Religion Behind Bars: Faith-based Programs in the Rehabilitation of Offenders in the Medium B Westville Correctional Center, Durban
In order to maintain social control and order, several authors perceive religion to be a significant aspect of societal life (Akhverdiev & Ponomarev 2008:1; Stark & Bainbridge 2012:1; Welch, Tittle, & Grasmick 2006:1605). The right to religious practice is considered vital in almost all societies. There is a body of research that suggests that a decline in religious conformity erodes the moral fabric of society and hence perceives its decline to contribute to social degeneration leaving society in a state of disarray (Nwube & Edigbo 2023; Ezeonwumelu 2021; Sekhaulelo 2021; Dick, Ede, & Chiaghanam 2020; Nikolova 2018). A deviation from religious norms and values at an individual level is known to result in anomic behavior ensuing conflict with the law. On the contrary, religious fundamentalism is also known to be contributing to hostility, violence, lawlessness, harmful behavior, and social instability (Gorur & Gregory 2021; Wright & Khoo 2019; Sulaiman 2016; VanAernum 2014). It is in this context that this article reviews religious practices and beliefs among male offenders and its role in rehabilitating their deviant behavior so that they may self-actualize to become good citizens upon release in the South African society. Notwithstanding, the study provides very little support on the notion that correctional centers’ inspired faith-based programs indeed impact prosocial behavior as offenders engage with their respective religious belief systems as individuals. This finding refutes the notion contained in the literature study that avers that correctional centers’ inspired faith-based programs do in fact yield prosocial behavior.
Religion and its Role in Addressing Three Critical Social Issues in Africa: Gender-Based Violence, Crime, and Poverty
This December edition of the Journal for the Study of Religion problematizes the role and influence of religion on societies in Africa as they navigate three of the most challenging social issues in Africa, namely gender-based violence (GBV), crime, and poverty. The articles in this edition look at Muslim communities, Christian communities, southern African language communities, and prison communities exploring what role religions play in helping ordinary people to deal with the challenges of GBV, crime, and poverty. The findings of these articles suggest that religious interventions have little effect on practically reducing crime or the lowering of GBV. The articles by both Banda and Isiko and Kisekka indicate the different ways in which scholars think about the role that many people in Africa believe religion can or does have on addressing poverty.
The paradox of becoming: Pentecostalicity, planetarity, and Africanity
In this book, Chammah Judex Kaunda, a Zambian scholar based at Yonsei University in the Korean Republic, and a professor of world Christianity, pre-sents an African Pentecostal theology of humanism. In this innovative trajec-tory, he utilizes the Bemba (Zambian) concept of Muntu (humanism) in a manner akin to the Ubuntu (humane) philosophy that is rooted among the Nguni speakers of East, Central, and Southern Africa. As will be noted in this review, Kaunda’s Muntu concept also compares with the Igbos’ community-driven African philosophy (Igwebuike). The Igwebuike ideology, as a concept among the Igbo linguistic speakers of Nigeria, and as an indigenously lived philosophy, builds on the strength in numbers, a phenomenon where togeth-erness and the spirit of being in one accord, and being in a state of engage-ment, are the watchwords. Kaunda (2023:16), like other Africanist scholars finds the African resources as a critical partner in enriching the Pentecostal theology or any other Christian theology for that matter. Hence, Muntu finds its terminological parallels in Igwebuike, U-buntu, and Utu (humanness) of the East African Swahili peoples. These concepts and/or African philosophies argue for the case of the human community as the exact locus in developing any Christian theology in tropical Africa, including the African Pentecostal theology.
Christian Learners’ and Parents’ Choice of Faith-Based Homeschooling
Currently, the South African Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill (BELA) (Clause 37) replaces and adds provision to the South African Schools Act including regulating homeschooling. Home education research found that more and more parents appreciate/opt for the benefits of faith-based home-schooling, in this case, the Christian faith. The main reason is that since COVID-19, many Christian parents had the urge to preserve their Christian principles, Christian worldview, and quality education by opting for Christian faith-based homeschooling. This is a qualitative study and the purpose of this research was to determine which driving forces propel the choice of parents and their children to do homeschooling. The findings suggest that Christian faith-based homeschooling is a process facilitated by a triadic relationship consisting of the pastor, the parent/s, and the learner/s. In addition, based on the factors identified, their faith is paramount as they believe/think they are led by the Holy Spirit. Recommendations are offered regarding Christian faith-based homeschooling.
A Postcolonial and Material Theory of Knowledge for the Study of Religion
This article addresses the fundamental question of how knowledge about reli-gion is acquired in the academic study of religion. It does so by means of a comparison of the answers to the question by Emile Durkheim and David Chidester. Durkheim, in engaging with the conventional distinction between rationalist and empiricist theories of knowledge of his time, as well as their combination by Kant, argues that categories of thought (such as space, time, causality, number, and classifications) are not mere abstract conditions of understanding, but are to be conceptualized as constructs of particular socie-ties. This social-anthropological shift in the theory of knowledge has been of decisive influence since the beginning of the 20th century, among others on the late 20th-century and beginning of the 21st-century South African scholar of religion, David Chidester. From a comparison of Durkheim’s epistemolo-gy with that of Chidester it is, however, clear that the latter brings new in-sights to the epistemological question by insisting on a postcolonial and ma-terial approach to the study of religion. The comparison of the two episte-mologies that I provide here should give substance to this point by comparing ways in which they deal with a selection of categories and concepts in their study of religion.
Orientalism and Monotheism in Studies of Early Japanese Christianity
In the wake of Said’s landmark work, Orientalism (Said 1979), scholars have been widely concerned with countering the value-laden interpretations which have historically traveled with ‘colonialist’ or ‘Orientalist’ analyses of reli-gions in Japan. However, modern studies of early Japanese Christianity, i.e., Japan’s Kakure Kirishitan (hidden Christians), despite their emergence in the ‘post-colonialist world’, have often maintained a subterranean, Orientalizing tendency to generalize and abstract an inauthentic or compromised Christi-anity of early modern Japan against that of a more genuinely Christian West. Kakure interpretations of monotheism, the doctrine of the Trinity, and certain worship practices are portrayed as ‘polytheistic’, ‘syncretistic’, and as uniquely serious misunderstandings or abrogations of both ‘Christian theolo-gy’ and the very concept of monotheism. Meanwhile, Western Christianities, despite their own analogous and statistically-demonstrable penchant for mis-conception and theological imagination, are subsequently implied to be more authentically or quintessentially monotheistic or Christian. This essentializing configuration betrays an a priori separation of ‘Japanese’ and ‘Western’ reli-gions and raises the question as to whether analysts operating in the ‘post-colonial era’ have yet to become fully aware of the basic warning of Said’s Orientalism – a still-timely message which is not, as some seem to believe, centered on the errors of a specifically Western hegemony, but on the dangers of otherizing in general as a form of devaluation.
How do we know? More specifically: how do we know about religion? Taking this as the fundamental epistemological question, this paper intends to shed light on this question by means of a comparison of Emile Durkheim and David Chidester’s answers to it in their study of religion. Durkheim, in engaging with the conventional distinction between rationalist and empiricist theories of knowledge of his time, as well as their combination by Kant, argued that categories of thought (such as space, time, causality, number, and classifications) are not mere abstract conditions of understanding, but are to be conceptualized as constructs of particular societies. This social-anthropological shift in the theory of knowledge has been of decisive influence since the beginning of the twentieth century, amongst others on the late twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first century South African scholar of religion, David Chidester. From a comparison of Durkheim’s epistemology with that of Chidester it is, however, clear that the latter brought new insights to the epistemological question by insisting on a postcolonial and material approach to the study of religion. The comparison of the two epistemologies that I provide here should give substance to this point by comparing ways in which they deal with a selection of categories and concepts in their study of religion.
Copyright (c) 2024 Johan Strijdom https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Life and Contribution of Reverend Doctor Obed Ndeya Obadiah Kealotswe
The article presents the life, accomplishments and contributions of Dr Obed Ndeya Obadiah Kealotswe to the community, profession, governance, teaching and learning as well as to research and publication. Dr Kealotswe’s contribution and accomplishment in various spheres of life are outstanding.
Examining the Introduction to Religion (RELG 101) module below, offered at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) reveals a rigid adherence to the World Religions Paradigm (WRP) in structure and content. This article assesses the alignment of the RELG 101 module with Clingerman and O'Brien's (2015) content, context and intellectual growth objectives. It also highlights the limitations of the current framework in meeting the specified objectives, providing insights into the challenges the students face and proposes a shift from the current adapted World Religions Paradigm to a thematic approach.
The Marital Sexual Experiences of South African Muslim Wives of Indian Descent
This article explores South African Muslim Indian wives’ sexuality in monogamous marriages, analyzing the effect of religious teachings and cultural norms on sexual experiences using hermeneutic phenomenology. Twelve participants were selected, employing purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Semi-structured interviews were conducted online and in-person using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis methodology. Results highlight emotional and psychological challenges faced by Muslim women during marital sexual initiation due to religious teachings and limited sex education. The study underscores perpetuated traditional gender norms and patriarchal structures through cultural conditioning. Muslim wives experience sexual desire discrepancy, negatively impacting their mental health and self-esteem. Despite challenges, transformative potential in marital relationships is indicated through understanding, communication, and mutual sexual satisfaction.
The Catholic Church’s Dialogical Method and Engagement with the Zimbabwean State between 2000 and 2010
The Catholic Church’s advocacy against bad governance in Zimbabwe (the country’s name was Rhodesia till April 18, 1980) can be traced back to its colonial days. The nature of the Catholic Church’s participation in the strug-gle towards good governance is focused on ensuring that the needs of the people are catered for by the responsible governmental structures. As the Catholic Church defends the people’s rights, such a defense inevitably forces it to confront and challenge structures responsible for bad governance. Such confrontation or challenge of political or social structures (which it deems responsible for bad governance) is dialogical in nature as the Catholic Church expects a response towards their anticipated change. This article examines the nature of the Catholic Church’s dialogical method by using an ‘Empathetic Dialogical Method’ focusing specifically on three Catholic Bishops’ pastoral letters which were written between 2000 and 2010. A critical reflection of these letters reveals the contribution made by the Catholic Church during the post-independence period. In terms of dialogue, the article reveals that the Catholic Church’s dialogical method is predominantly non-empathetic. It further understands the dialogical method of the Catholic Church as highly prescriptive and in most cases non-consultative. This position, as the article argues, is influenced by the Catholic Church’s religious and political structure.
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Life Trajectories in the Language Games of Islamic Reform and Pentecostalism in Cape Town
I present two individuals in Cape Town as they became religious leaders in Islamic reform and Christian Pentecostalism respectively. This essay pays attention to the place of charisma generated in their practices, how they relate to existing traditions and institutions, and how they introduce innovations over their life trajectories. Unlike most studies on Pentecostalism and Islamic reform, this essay analyses lesser-known leaders in their respective congregations and communities to illustrate what Wittgenstein has called a ‘language game’. The latter offers a perspective on how individuals inhabit a movement without being constrained by it. The language games of these movements come alive in the life trajectories of my subjects.