Recent statements by South African political leaders emphasize differences between citizens rather than highlight similarities.

Contribution: This article represents a systematic and practical reflection within a paradigm in which the intersection of philosophy, religious studies, social sciences, humanities and natural sciences generate an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary contested discourse.

This article starts with a review of the trends in religion and migration in South Africa, before thematically discussing recent developments in the field of religion and migration studies. The article argues that migration of people has untapped resources for development and social transformation. We also argue that engagements with migration serves as a barometer for social cohesion and social responsibility in South Africa. Through an interdisciplinary review of the developments in the field, we suggest that despite an increase in interests in human mobility, policy makers, researchers and civil society activists have not taken migration flows within the South African context seriously. We conclude that although there has been significant civic and academic interest in understanding xenophobia as a symptom of a fractured civil society, most scholars have ignored the role of religion harnessing socially responsible cultures of reception and hospitality. In this regard, we hold that religion emerges as a necessary ingredient in shaping social responsibility that is characterised by cultures of receptions and hospitality towards migrants in South Africa.

The disruptions of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the year 2020 reshaped all aspects of life, including religious practices and rituals. As more religious activities shifted to digital space during the lockdown periods, there was a growing need to examine the link between religion and digital media. Using the model of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (UPCSA), this article draws on the notion of transversal rationality and concepts of rationality, cognitive, evaluative and pragmatic to posit that COVID-19 has configured traditional missional and liturgical spaces in ways that locate the agency of the marginalised at the centre. The article highlights how COVID-19 configured Christian mission as it disrupted power dynamics through religious digital spaces, which emerged as a new way of reimaging a missional church. These new digital spaces mediate between interaction and ‘telepresence’, embodied in the representations of the sacred available through online religious systems in practices where users are no longer ordinary believers – but religious participants who have power and freedom to choose. Although this is not a new phenomenon, the article concludes that such spaces created by COVID-19 shifts in power dynamics present opportunities for ordinary members to reinvent new meanings on what it means to be present or absent, to name, narrate and reinterpret the divine and forge new meanings towards participating in the mission of God.Contribution: Although this is not a new phenomenon, this article represents a systematic and practical reflection within a paradigm in which the intersection of philosophy, religious studies, social sciences, humanities and natural sciences generate an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary contested discourse.

Human migration has been on the rise globally and it has fuelled xenophobia and growing intolerance towards migrants in the receiving communities. This article draws from data collected for a PhD thesis and highlights the experiences of African migrants in religious spaces and congregations in Johannesburg, South Africa. The PhD project this article draws from identified Christian religious identities as a form of belonging and explored models for providing care to migrants and refugees by appreciating their agency and ensuring that cross cultural and socio-religious encounters enrich the developmental agenda within host communities. I argue that instead of being hostile to African migrants, host congregations and communities should engage in mutually transformative mission with migrants and appreciate how migration encounters enrich human relations. They give birth to hybrid contextual theologies through the construction, or de-construction, of congregations by missio-ecclesiological and intercultural forces of migration that challenge their vocation and witness.