The colonial matrix of power: Image ontology and the question of blackness

The question of blackness has always featured the intersectionality of race, gender, sexuality and class. Blackness as an ontological speciality has been engaged from both the social and epistemic locations of the damnés (in Fanonian terms). It has thus sought to respond to the performance of power within the world order that is structured within the colonial matrix of power, which has ontologically, epistemologically, spatially and existentially rendered blackness accessible to whiteness, while whiteness remains inaccessible to blackness. The article locates the question of blackness from the perspective of the Global South in the context of South Africa. Though there are elements of progress in terms of the conditions of certain Black people, it would be short-sighted to argue that such conditions in themselves indicate that the struggles of blackness are over. The essay seeks to address a critique by Anderson (1995) against Black theology in the context of the United States of America (US). The argument is that the question of blackness cannot and should not be provincialised. To understand how the colonial matrix of power is performed, it should start with the local and be linked with the global to engage critically the colonial matrix of power that is performed within a system of coloniality. Decoloniality is employed in this article as an analytical tool.Contribution: The article contributes to the discourse on blackness within Black theology scholarship. It aims to contribute to the continual debates on the excavating and levelling of the epistemological voices that have been suppressed through colonial epistemological universalisation of knowledge from the perspective of the damnés.

Moltmann’s theology in dialogue with liberation theologians revives the role of Black Theology in democratic South Africa

The theme for Liberation Theology has always been about concerns for the marginalised masses and socio-political liberation for the economically disadvantaged. Its mandate is to seek to guide towards the discovery of being human without references to historical divisions between the haves and have-nots created by socio-economic imbalances promoted by political regimes. Moltmann’s content of theology, its revision, its innovation rather than the theological method has marked his restless imagination. His method of exploration in doing theology has brought him into dialogue with philosophers and theologians of different persuasions. In this study, he is evaluated in his dialogue with the liberation theologians. The focus is on Moltmann’s theological approach to ecumenism, built around the Kingdom of God concept, and ecclesiastical analysis and political theology. These three areas are the transitional arguments on how Moltmann enters into dialogue with the liberation theologians. The argument moves on to point how Liberation Theology has exerted itself as Black Theology in South Africa during the apartheid time. Black Theology is a theology of liberation because of its resistance and endeavours of eradication of all forms of oppressive systems. The two injustices (socio-cultural misnomers) in the democratic South Africa are discussed as a calling for Black Theology’s voice. These are corruption and human rights abuses. Black Theology brings religion into the secular world as a way of aborting all forms of discrimination based on race, sex and economic class.Contribution: Black Theology is invited to revisit Moltmann’s ecumenical, ecclesiastical and political theological understanding, as a way of reviving itself back to the centre stage of prophetic role within the corrupt and human rights and dignity abuse society.

Black theology versus black spirituality and black faith: The centrality of spirituality and faith in black theology of liberation in the South African context

Black theology, which is linked to black power in the context of the United States of America and black consciousness in the context of South Africa is often regarded as having nothing to do with spirituality, faith and salvation. It is often regarded by critics as radical, militant and political. In some circles its theological character is questioned. Advocates of liberation theology, past and present are accused of mixing religion with politics. The article traces the history of black theology, as part of liberation theology, which started in the 1960s in three contexts, namely Latin America, United States of America and South Africa. The article argues that spirituality, faith and salvation are central to black theology of liberation. The critical theological reflection that black theology of liberation is all about happens in the context of the spiritual journey of the poor believer and oppressed.Contribution: The contribution that this article makes is to serve as a corrective discourse that rebuts the mistaken accusation that black liberation theology has nothing to do with spirituality and faith. The article makes a direct link between spirituality and faith on the one hand and on the other hand liberating Christian praxis of the poor in their spiritual journey, in the context of South Africans as they struggle to liberate themselves amid poverty, service delivery struggles and COVID-19 and its implications.

A Decolonial (Re)turn to Class in South African Biblical Scholarship

South African Black Theology of the 1960-1980s characterised its primary site of struggle as the racial capitalism of apartheid. Intersecting race and/as class has been a distinctively South African contribution to African biblical scholarship. Less common, but equally significant, is the intersection of culture and/as class. This article analyses this trajectory, reflecting on how three South African biblical scholars (Gunther Wittenberg, Makhosazana Nzimande and Hulisani Ramantswana) have discerned the need for the African decolonial project to recognise and recover the class divisions within a culture. A recurring cultural trope across the three scholars is their use of proverbs to discern class distinctions within culture. The works of each of these three scholars and their dialogue partners in South African Contextual Theology and South African Black Theology are interrogated for how they intersect notions of class and culture.

Black Consciousness, Black Nationalism and Black Theology: Is there a possibility for theology of dialogue?

This article gives some historical development of Black Consciousness, Black Nationalism and Black Theology during the colonial and apartheid eras. The three worked symbiotically to address the racial injustices of the past. Each tenet is historically explained and ideologically defined. Black Consciousness and Black Nationalism are still prevalent in the South African sociopolitical landscape. This is expressed through the current political parties that are the minorities in the National Assembly. However, the ruling party, African National Congress (ANC), as a ‘broader church’ also possesses some constituents and adherents who are the Black Consciousness and Nationalistic aspirants. South Africa is developing into a peasant society regardless of capitalistic embraces of development. Poverty and equality are visible in societal structures. Those who were formerly equality aspirants are now in sociopolitical and economic circles and had forgotten their aspirations of justice and equality. Corruption, maladministration, bad governance, etc., are the menaces that cause imbalances and create a wider gap between the rich and the poor.Contribution: Black Theology is invited to lead dialogical deliberations to assess and ascertain how to bring justice into the volatile situation where people’s security and safety is uncertain and warped ideologies such as ethnic cleansing are promoted. Black Theology should resort to the theological mandate of speaking for the poor and oppressed and promote the sense of the New Testament spirit of communality.

Why not Belhar? Some Reflections on the Foremost Barrier in the Process of Church Reunification

The Belhar Confession is perhaps the most significant barrier in the process of church reunification in South Africa. This article reflects upon the critique voiced against Belhar by the DRC and opponents of the confession. The critique against Belhar mainly focuses on the issues that it confesses no new beliefs, the setting of its origin and its connection with black theology. This study indicates that Belhar, like the other Reformed confessions, confessed no new beliefs and originated within a particular context, but is not bound to that context. The study further indicates how Belhar embodies the black experience through the hermeneutical elements of black theology.