Faith community as a centre of liberationist praxis in the city

Abstract

Theologians speak of the silence of churches’ prophetic voice in the ‘new’ South Africa, whilst the country features amongst the socio-economically most unequal countries in the world, and the urban areas in particular continue to be characterised by segregation. In this context I ask: where is liberation theology? I spell out my reading of some of the recent voices in the liberationist discourse. In dialogue with these scholars I, firstly, argue for the faith community to be made a conscious centre of liberationist debates and praxis. Secondly, I do this by suggesting two theoretical building blocks (i.e. critical deconstruction and radical friendship) for local faith communities that wish to grow in a liberationist fashion.

Faith-based agency and theological education: A failed opportunity?

“…This article proposes an over-all purpose of theological education at public universities in South Africa today, a desire to contribute towards broad-based social transformation, flourishing communities and the common good. This would be required of theological curricula to have both a liberationist (deconstructive) (Gutierrez 2013a(Gutierrez , 2013bHankela 2014c;Meylahn 2016) and transformational (reconstructive) (Graham 2011;Jennings 2011;Katongole 2010;Mugambi 1995;Volf 2015) dimensions -naming and unpacking that hinders social transformation, depletes the common good, and deals death to communities; and also that might contribute to social transformation, serve the common good and contribute to human, communal and societal flourishing. 2.…”

City-making from below: A call for communities of resistance and reconstruction

“…3 Liberation theologies, opting for poor and oppressed communities, critiqued developmental approaches that create dependency and under-development. Scholaractivists such as Shannahan (2013), Hankela (2014) and Nixon (2014) have appropriated liberation theologies for the struggles of local urban communities.…”