scholarly journals Pentecostals and apartheid: Has the wheel turned around since 1994?

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelebogile T. Resane
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Assemblies Of God ◽  
Church Of God ◽  
Governance Structures ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Full Gospel ◽  
Apostolic Faith Mission ◽  
Racial Lines ◽  
Church Governance

The article gives a brief origin of the three classical Pentecostal denominations in South Africa, namely the Apostolic Faith Mission, the Full Gospel Church of God, and the Assemblies of God. The aim is to demonstrate the Pentecostals’ docility in the socio-political space in South Africa due to their church governance, structures and polity designed along racial lines. The main question is: Has the wheel in these churches turned around since 1994 after the dawn of democracy in South Africa? The conclusion suggests that these churches should demonstrate intrinsic reformation by continuing with proclamation and participation activities to demonstrate their alignment with the new democratic dispensation. A brief summary is given of these churches’ current activities in answer to the main question.

scholarly journals A Quarter Century of Structural Unity in the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa: A Socio Historical Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mookgo Solomon Kgatle
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Assemblies Of God ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
White People ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Full Gospel ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
Apostolic Faith Mission ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

The Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) of South Africa is one of the largest Pentecostal churches in Africa, with other denominational Pentecostal churches like the Full Gospel and the Assemblies of God. Since its inception in 1908, the AFM of South Africa has been divided into four main sections, namely: black, white, mixed race and Indian, for about 88 years. The church followed the divisions under apartheid in South Africa that divided people according to race, colour and ethnicity, with white people at the forefront of that division. It was only in 1996 that the AFM of South Africa decided to unite under one umbrella, with one constitution governing the structures and the members of the church. The 25 years of unity within the AFM of South Africa call for an evaluation of both the successes and the failures of this unity. Through a socio-historical analysis, it will be possible to identify the achievements of this unity on the one hand, and the loopholes on the other. The paper will show that the identified loopholes are detrimental to the unity of the church and its future. Therefore, in order to experience true unity, the church should address the challenges that compromise this unity by returning to the biblical basis of unity, dealing with structural impediments and encouraging multicultural fellowships. When the above is done, not only will the church experience true unity, but also maintain its growth that the church has experienced over the years of its existence.

scholarly journals �The hastening that waits�: A critical assessment of the tangebility of unity within the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rothney S. Tshaka ◽  
Peter M. Maruping
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Church Of Christ ◽  
The Political ◽  
Racial Categories ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Racial Lines ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

The tale of the Reformed Church tradition in South Africa remains conspicuous with challenges also within the current democratic context. Whilst the political past of South Africa contributed towards a Reformed church divided along racial lines, a struggle continues for a genuinely unified Reformed church today. Conceding to the present discussions about the possibility of uniting all Reformed congregations that were divided along racial categories of Black, Coloured, Indian and White, this article aspires to delve into the intricacies pertaining to the already achieved unity between the �Coloured� and a huge portion of the �Black� Reformed congregations, that is to say, the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa. This article will argue that although it is fundamental that the church of Christ must be united, it is equally imperative that the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) waits and assesses whether it has already achieved tangible unity.

scholarly journals Yes, John G Lake was a Con Man: A Response to Marius Nel

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Morton
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Apostolic Faith Mission

This response to Marius Nel’s 2016 article (in Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae no. 42, 1, 62-85) uses primary source material to refute his claims that John G Lake, the initiator of Pentecostalism in southern Africa, was an upstanding man of God. A wide array of American and South African sources show that Lake invented an extensive but fictitious life story, while also creating a similarly dubious divine calling that obscured his involvement in gruesome killings in America. Once in South Africa, he used invented “miracles” to raise funds abroad for the Apostolic Faith Mission. Before long, he faced many accusations of duplicity from inside his own church.

scholarly journals A Path Dependency Approach to Governance Practices at a Public University of the Western Cape, South Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 110
Author(s):  
Tom Mark Brown
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Path Dependency ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Governance Structures ◽  
Western Cape ◽  
Governance Practices ◽  
Student Unrest

This paper investigates the governance practices embedded within governance structures at the disposal of students at a public tertiary education institution, and student unrest as a mechanism to sway decision-making and reform policy at the case study institution of higher learning. In particular, the study is guided by a qualitative research paradigm using a structured interview tool to gather primary data using the University of the Western Cape (UWC) situated in Cape Town, South Africa, as a bounded case study, against the backdrop of the 2015-2016 #FeesMustFall (FMF) protests. It is suggested in this paper that student unrest is not the main reason, but rather a symptom of the broader inadequacies of the current participatory mechanisms available in university governance structures in general, and at the UWC. Employing a Path Dependency Theoretical (PDT) Approach. The article concludes by analyzing the findings of the empirical research, by identifying several themes and sub-themes.

Civics, civility and race in post-apartheid South Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 296-325
Author(s):  
Thomas Blom Hansen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Major Obstacle ◽  
Civic Responsibility ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Racial Boundaries ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
History Of ◽  
Racial Lines

This article explores how, and why, the capacity for civic responsibility and civility of conduct became a central discursive and practical battleground in the colonial world. Nowhere was this more pronounced than in colonial and apartheid South Africa, where the putative benefits of self-government along separate racial lines became a crucial component of apartheid. Starting from a brief conceptual history of civility and colonialism, I argue that the principle of self-government was a central pivot of apartheid. I explore how the celebrated Civics movement that eventually brought apartheid down fostered civic ties and “ethno-civility” in a formerly Indian township in Durban from the 1970s to the 1990s. This legacy of ethno-civility has, however, turned out to be a major obstacle to the forging of relationships across racial boundaries in post-apartheid society. Deploying two ethnographic vignettes from this township, I argue that the ideals of global religious community today have taken the place as a promise of universality of mediation between groups and racial communities that the Civics movement used to occupy during the apartheid era. Yet, religious identities are unable to overcome deeper formations of racial and social difference.

scholarly journals A practical theological approach to the challenge of poverty in post-1994 South Africa: Apostolic Faith Mission as a case study

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mookgo S. Kgatle
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
National Development ◽  
Development Plan ◽  
African Government ◽  
Reconstruction Strategy ◽  
Apostolic Faith Mission ◽  
Growth Initiative ◽  
Practical Theological

This article demonstrates a practical theological approach to the challenge of poverty in post-1994 South Africa by using Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) as a case study. It argues that while the Reconstruction Development Plan, the Growth Employment and Reconstruction strategy, Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa, New Growth Path and the National Development Plan have achieved some level of economic growth, the majority of people in South Africa still live in poverty. To establish this argument, the article starts first by describing the challenge of poverty in post-1994 South Africa. The different economic approaches to the challenge of poverty in post-1994 South Africa are also explained in detail. Lastly, the article elaborates on the ways in which the AFM through its local assemblies can alleviate poverty. The article concludes that the AFM is a collaborator to the post-1994 South African government.

Namibia’s Foreign Policy and Its Impact on Peace and Security in the Southern Africa Region: A Framework of Liberalism as a Theory of International Relations Studies

2020 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-586
Author(s):  
Peya Mushelenga
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Main Question ◽  
International Peace ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace And Security

This article discusses aspects of Namibia’s foreign policy principles and how they impact on the values of democracy, and issue of peace and security in the region. The article will focus on the attainment of peace in Angola, democratisation of South Africa, and security situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Madagascar and Lesotho. The main question of this article is: To what extent has Namibia realised the objectives encapsulated in her foreign policy principles of striving for international peace and security and promote the values of democracy in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region? The assumption is that though relatively a newly established state, Namibia has made her contribution towards democracy, peace and security in the Southern Africa region and the world at large.

Economic Growth and Political Change: the South African Case

1981 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 667-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley B. Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Capital Requirements ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Class Formation ◽  
Living Standard ◽  
Business Enterprise ◽  
Racial Lines

People of quite diverse social position and perspective have turned to economic growth as a source of political change in South Africa. Contained within the concept of growth, they maintain, are processes — capital accumulation and class formation, business enterprise and markets, changing skill and capital requirements – that, at the very least, allow some blacks a more secure and higher living standard, that may bring greater equality between the races, or more profoundly, confound traditional racial lines and privileges of quite diverse social position and perspective have turned to economic growth as a source of political change in South Africa. Contained within the concept of growth, they maintain, are processes — capital accumulation and class formation, business enterprise and markets, changing skill and capital requirements – that, at the very least, allow some blacks a more secure and higher living standard, that may bring greater equality between the races, or more profoundly, confound traditional racial lines and privileges. Indeed, some argue that growth undermines the foundations of the racial state. Many of those who posit a relationship between economics and politics, take the next logical step: supporting actions, including foreign investment, that foster economic growth and, presumably, political change in South Africa.

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