scholarly journals An ethical analysis of the implementation of poverty reduction policies in South Africa and Chile and their implications for the Church

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Kretzschmar
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Ethical Analysis ◽  
The South ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
South Africans ◽  
The Church ◽  
Practical Implications

The focus of this contribution is the issue of poverty reduction within the South African and Chilean contexts. It is rooted in the academic field of Christian Ethics and also draws on several texts from the human and economic sciences. Policies adopted and practical steps taken to overcome poverty by the respective governments between 1990 and 2012 are evaluated and the theological and practical implications of poverty for the church are briefly highlighted. Despite differences between these two countries, South Africans can learn much from the Chilean policy and its implementation.

Tracing the Theological Development of the South African Baptismal Rites: The Journey to An Anglican Prayer Book 1989 and Beyond

2017 ◽  
Vol 99 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-64
Author(s):  
Andrew-John Bethke
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Church Membership ◽  
The South ◽  
Valuable Source ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Church Unity ◽  
Common Prayer ◽  
The Church

This essay analyzes the theological changes which are reflected in successive revisions of Southern Africa's Anglican liturgy from 1900 to 1989. The following liturgies are examined: A Book of Common Prayer—South Africa (1954); Proposals for the Revision of the Rites of Baptism and Confirmation (1967); the Church Unity Commission's ecumenical liturgies in the 1970s; Birth and Growth in Christ (1984); and An Anglican Prayer Book 1989. The article also includes valuable source material which influenced the revised liturgies, including two official reports on the theology of baptism and confirmation. The author finds that theological uncertainty surrounding the underpinning of current rites brings into question whether full church membership is actually granted during baptism.

scholarly journals Rapid and Successful Implementation of a COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Programme—The South African Experience

Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 2050
Author(s):  
Tanya Nadia Glatt ◽  
Caroline Hilton ◽  
Cynthia Nyoni ◽  
Avril Swarts ◽  
Ronel Swanevelder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
The South ◽  
South Africans ◽  
African Experience ◽  
Antibody Titres ◽  
Investigational Therapies ◽  
Set Up

Background: COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) has been considered internationally as a treatment option for COVID-19. CCP refers to plasma collected from donors who have recovered from and made antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. To date, convalescent plasma has not been collected in South Africa. As other investigational therapies and vaccination were not widely accessible, there was an urgent need to implement a CCP manufacture programme to service South Africans. Methods: The South African National Blood Service and the Western Cape Blood Service implemented a CCP programme that included CCP collection, processing, testing and storage. CCP units were tested for SARS-CoV-2 Spike ELISA and neutralising antibodies and routine blood transfusion parameters. CCP units from previously pregnant females were tested for anti-HLA and anti-HNA antibodies. Results: A total of 987 CCP units were collected from 243 donors, with a median of three donations per donor. Half of the CCP units had neutralising antibody titres of >1:160. One CCP unit was positive on the TPHA serology. All CCP units tested for anti-HLA antibodies were positive. Conclusion: Within three months of the first COVID-19 diagnosis in South Africa, a fully operational CCP programme was set up across South Africa. The infrastructure and skills implemented will likely benefit South Africans in this and future pandemics.

South Africa and Scotland in the First World War

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Hyslop
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
British Empire ◽  
The South ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
South Africans ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Battle Of The Somme ◽  
First World

This chapter discusses the powerful and long-lasting impact Scottish military symbolism on the formation of military culture in South Africa. Drawing on the work of John MacKenzie and Jonathan Hyslop’s notion of ‘military Scottishness’, this chapter analyses how Scottish identity both interacted with the formation of political identities in South Africa, and ‘looped back’ to connect with changing forms of national identity in Scotland itself. In particular, it addresses how the South Africans’ heroic role at Delville Wood, during the Battle of the Somme, became a putative symbol of this racialised ‘South Africanism’. The South African Brigade included a battalion of so-called ‘South African Scottish’ which reflected the phenomenon of military Scottishness. Overall, the chapter looks at the way in which the representations of the role of the South African troops involved an interplay between British empire loyalism, white South African political identities, and Scottishness.

scholarly journals Reformed Churches in South Africa’s strategies for poverty reduction in urban communities

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Motshine A. Sekhaulelo
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
South African ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Urban Community ◽  
Prosperity Gospel ◽  
The South ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
Reformed Churches ◽  
The Church

This article investigates and outlines the strategies, which the Reformed Churches in South Africa (RCSA) can employ for poverty alleviation in the South African urban communities. By RCSA, the author refers to the local churches that constitute a familyof churches or church organisation. It is important to note that, historically, the churches stood at the forefront of giving freely to the poor, caring for widows, taking in destitute orphans, visiting the sick, and caring for the dying. Despite this long and often appreciated legacy of support for the poor and the needy, the church ceased or slowed to provide such ministry. This was probably due to the emphasis on the ’social gospel’ in liberal theology,which many churches began to view with deep suspicion. In talking about the church’s stance towards poverty, it should also be noted that, historically, the poor have suffered due to those churches that, without warrant, preach the health, wealth and prosperity gospel, incorrectly stating that God wants everyone to be equally rich. By promoting false hope about the prospects for overnight success through prayer and tithing, some of these churches take advantage of a vulnerable congregation that is often desperate for an improvement in their economic circumstances. This article investigates not only the complex of poverty and inequality in the South African (SA) urban community, but also the prophetic calling of the RCSA with respect to poverty today. The conclusion arrived at is that poverty and inequality persist in the urban community whilst the church, both as institution and organism, should be able to study and respond positively to the dynamics involved in urban poverty.Die Gereformeerde Kerke in Suid Afrika (GKSA) se strategieë vir armoedeverligtingin stedelike gebiede. Hierdie artikel ondersoek en skets die strategieë wat die GKSA kan benut om armoede in stedelike gebiede te verlig. Die GKSA verwys na plaaslike kerke wat ’n familie van kerke of kerkorganisasies uitmaak. Dit is belangrik om kennis te neem van die feit dat die kerk, reg deur die geskiedenis, op die voorpunt was om vryelik aan armes te voorsien, vir die weduwees te sorg, weeskinders in te neem, siekes te besoek en sterwendeste versorg. Ten spyte van hierdie lang en meestal gewaardeerde nalatenskap aan armes en behoeftiges, het hierdie bediening deur die kerk afgeneem en is in baie gevalle gestaak. Dit is waarskynlik as gevolg van die klem wat in die bevrydingsteologie op die ‘sosialeevangelie’ geplaas is en tans deur baie kerke met agterdog bejeën word. Wanneer die kerk se houding teenoor armoede ter sprake kom, moet ’n mens in gedagte hou dat, histories gesproke, die armes as gevolg van die kerk ly – kerke wat sonder waarborg die gesondheidsen voorspoedteologie verkondig het en wat valslik voorgegee het dat dit God se wil is dat almal ewe ryk moet wees. Deur die vals vooruitsigte voor te hou om oornag deur gebed en uit offergawes ryk te word, is kwesbare gemeentelede wat desperaat was vir die verbetering van hulle ekonomiese omstandighede uitgebuit. Hierdie artikel ondersoek nie net die kompleksiteit van armoede en ongelykhede in die stedelike gemeenskappe van Suid-Afrika nie, maar ook die profetiese roeping van die GKSA met betrekking tot armoede vandag. Die gevolgtrekking is dus dat armoede en ongelykheid voortduur in stedelike gebiede terwyl die kerk as instituut sowel as organisme die bevoegdheid moes hê om die dinamiek wat deel van stedelike armoede uitmaak, te bestudeer en positief daarop te reageer.

scholarly journals Die oorgeblewe sendingtaak in Suid-Afrika

1987 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-205
Author(s):  
J. J. Kritzinger
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
The South ◽  
Research Project ◽  
University Of Pretoria ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Task ◽  
Contemporary Situation ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church

The remaining missionary task in South Africa This article is based on the results of a research project of the Institute for Missiological Research at the University of Pretoria which was recently concluded. The author and a team of co-workers researched practically the whole of South Africa in an endeavour to describe the contemporary situation of its population and the unfinished task of the church. The understanding of the missionary task which formed the basis of this project, and a sample of the kind of results obtained are illustrated in this article by means of 12 representative or typical scenarios which together indicate the dimensions of the future task for the South African church.

scholarly journals Whatever happened to God’s holiness? The holiness of God and the theological authenticity of the South African neo-Pentecostal prophetic activities

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Collium Banda
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The South ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Theological Perspective ◽  
Doctrine Of The Church ◽  
The Church

The controversial activities of the neo-Pentecostal prophets (NPPs) in South Africa raise many theological questions. From a systematic theological perspective that affirms the importance of Christian doctrines in regulating church worship and practice, this article uses God’s holiness to evaluate the theological authenticity of the NPPs’ controversial activities. The research question answered in the article is: how can an understanding of the holiness of God empower Christian believers to respond meaningfully to the controversial practices? The article begins by describing the theoretical framework of God’s holiness. This is followed by describing the NPPs’ shift from prophecy focusing on holiness to one focused on human needs. Furthermore, this shift among the NPPs from holiness to human needs is attributed to celebrity cultism through which the prophets thrust themselves as powerful figures who are able to solve people’s problems. Afterward an analysis is made of how the holiness of God is violated by the NPPs’ controversial practices. Finally, some steps are suggested for NPPs and their followers to take to align their activities with God’s holiness. The contribution of the article lies in highlighting the importance of God’s holiness as a standard of measuring the Christian authenticity of the controversial activities of the NPPs in South Africa.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article uses insights from the doctrine of God’s holiness, the role of biblical prophecy and the doctrine of the church, to critique the controversial activities of the NPPs in South Africa.

scholarly journals Where is the church on Monday? Awakening the church to the theology and practice of ministry and mission in the marketplace

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dion A. Forster ◽  
Johann W. Oosterbrink
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Missio Dei ◽  
The South ◽  
Theology Of Work ◽  
The World ◽  
Missional Theology ◽  
The Church

Recent research by the Call42 group has shown that South African Christians experience that they are not adequately prepared or equipped for Christian living and discipleship in the world of work – here called the marketplace. This article has argued for the importance of a rediscovery of a theology of work that can empower and equip the church and individual Christians for ministry in the marketplace. The article traces why such a theological deficiency exists in the South African church by considering areas such as an inadequate theology of work and mission, a dualism between faith and work, and an unbalanced emphasis on the role of clergy and a lesser focus on the role of the laity in themissio Dei. Having considered these challenges to the mission and theological identity of the church, the article discusses the three general theological views of the church in South Africa as presented by Smit and adapted by Forster. It considers how the church could become an agent of mission and transformation in the marketplace in each of these three forms. The article comes to the conclusion that the church will need to revisit its missional theology, refocuses its efforts on broader society, and empowers and equips its members for ministry in the marketplace in order to be faithful in partnering with God in the missio Dei.Waar is die kerk op Maandag? Ontwaking van die kerk tot die teologie en praktyk vanbediening en sending in die markplein. Onlangse navorsing deur die Call42 groep het bevind dat Suid-Afrikaanse Christene ervaar dat hulle nie voldoende voorbereid en toegerus is vir die Christelike lewe en dissipelskap in die arbeidsmark - hier genoem die markplein – nie. Hierdie artikel poog om aan te toon dat ’n herontdekking van ’n teologie van werk belangrik is ten einde die kerk in die algemeen asook individuele Christene te bemagtig en toe te rus vir die bediening in die markplein. Hierdie artikel poog dus om die kwessie van die sodanige teologiese leemte in die Suid-Afrikaanse kerk na te vors. Terreine soos onvoldoende teologie van werk en sending word ondersoek, ’n dualisme tussen geloof en werk word uitgewys, en daar word aangetoon dat ’n oorspeling van die predikant se rol en ’n onderspeling van gewone kerklidmate se rol die kerk se betrokkenheid by die missio Dei benadeel. Met inagneming van hierdie uitdagings aan sending en die kerk se teologiese identiteit, bespreek die artikel drie algemene teologiese standpunte van die kerk in Suid Afrika, soos deur Smit aangebied en deur Forster aangepas. Die artikel besin hoe die kerk in elk van hierdie drie bestaansvorme ’n agent van sending en transformasie in die markplein kan wees. Die gevolgtrekking word gemaak dat die kerk die missionale of sendingteologie moet heroorweeg, opnuut moet fokus op die uitreik na die breër gemeenskap en lidmate vir bediening in die markplein moet bemagtig en toerus. Sodoende sal die kerk getrou wees aan die medewerking met God in die missio Dei.

‘Bending the rules’: South African Refugees in the UK, 1960–1980

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shula Marks
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Educational Environment ◽  
Highly Qualified ◽  
The South ◽  
African Refugees ◽  
South Africans ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Uk

In this chapter, the author reflects on her long personal association with the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL)/Council for Assisting Refugee Academics and many of its South African grantees. The academic refugees who came to the SPSL's notice in the 1960s, specially the South Africans, bent the ‘rules’ and signalled the new ways in which the SPSL was going to have to work in a very changed social and educational environment in Britain, and equally great changes in the nature of the academic refugees. Before the rise of Hitler, German scholars had advanced the frontiers of knowledge in the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. And in many of these fields the Jews of Central Europe had played a crucial role. Increasingly from the 1960s, however, many of the refugee academics to the UK were from the so-called ‘third world’, especially Latin America and countries just emerging from colonialism in Africa. Academic refugees from South Africa formed something of a bridge between the old and the new. While most of the South African grantees were white and from institutions modelled on British universities, they were on the whole younger and less highly qualified than the earlier generation of grantees. The very small number of Africans assisted at this time were in fact far more eminent; significantly, however, they were the very first Africans to be assisted by the Society.

The Comintern, South Africa and the Black Diaspora

1975 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheridan Johns
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Black Diaspora ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
The South ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Significant Wave

In late 1927 the Communist Party of South Africa learned with surprise and shock that the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow had drafted a radical new policy for its distant affiliate in southernmost Africa, the only communist party south of the Sahara. The new policy, focused upon the slogan, “an independent native South African republic, as a stage towards a workers' and peasants' government with full, equal rights for all races, black, colored, and white” seemed to a majority of the small multiracial membership of the South African party to be directly counter to the old policy which, after a difficult process of internal disagreements and tactical reorientation, was bringing its first significant wave of recruits and support among the black majority of the country. The slogan proposed from Moscow, quenching dreams of socialism, generated widespread opposition within the party, but an unhearing Comintern decreed in October, 1928, that the South Africans must accept the new line. The consequences of the imposition of the new slogan and the subsequent bolshevization of the party shook the Communist Party of South Africa to its roots.

Religion as Race, Recognition as Democracy

2011 ◽  
Vol 637 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah Tamarkin
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
African State ◽  
The South ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black Jews ◽  
Politics Of Race ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
Past Injustices

Apartheid South Africa enacted physical, structural, and symbolic forms of violence on racially marked South Africans, and postapartheid South Africa has enacted ambitious—though also limited—laws, policies, and processes to address past injustices. In this article, the author traces the South African political histories of one self-defined group, the Lemba, to understand how the violence they collectively experienced when the apartheid state did not acknowledge their ethnic existence continues to shape their ideas of the promise of democracy to address all past injustices, including the injustice of nonrecognition. The Lemba are known internationally for their participation in DNA tests that indicated their Jewish ancestry. In media discourses, their racialization as black Jews has obscured their racialization as black South Africans: they are presented as seeking solely to become recognized as Jews. The author demonstrates that they have in fact sought recognition as a distinct African ethnic group from the South African state consistently since the 1950s. Lemba recognition efforts show that the violence of nonrecognition is a feature of South African multicultural democracy in addition to being part of the apartheid past. The author argues that the racialization of religion that positions the Lemba as genetic Jews simplifies and distorts their histories and politics of race in South Africa.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document