The black church as the womb of black liberation theology?: Why the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) is not a genuine black church?

My small tribute to a great person I was introduced to Prof. Vuyani Vellem by our mutual friend, Prof. Graham Duncan, when I started my postdoctoral fellowship at the (then) Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, in 2013. The day I first met him, I remember being somewhat intimidated by his profound voice, loud laughter (he was one of the few at the Faculty who could compete with my then mentor, Prof. Duncan, in this regard) and his earthy jokes about white racists controlling the church. But, unlike in some other cases, I did not feel judged by him. Professor Vellem, whilst being candid and upfront, embraced me the way I was back then: a bit scared, a bit too serious and ambitious about my academic career, and perhaps a bit too self-righteous about my commitment to 'things black'. I knew I met a real person, well-grounded in his cultural and theological heritage.Every inch a Xhosa man and, despite all his criticism of church politics, every inch a committed Presbyterian churchman, unpretentious and authentic as he was, Prof. Vellem simply did not need to wear masks. But I believe it was also part of his deliberate choice, as one of the relatively few black academics at the Faculty at that time. In my eyes, that was his way of bearing a prophetic witness on the edge of the inside (Rohr 2014:34), particularly vis-à-vis racism in the church and in the academy. To recall the phrase Prof. Maluleke used in his eulogy, it was in such a context that Prof. Vellem's anger -this 'raging fire … put out so suddenly and, to our mind, so prematurely' (Maluleke 2020), would leave some feeling challenged or even threatened, and others -inspired and empowered to confront and name the (often ugly) reality of our hugely untransformed society.It would be fair to say, I guess, that Prof. Vellem has become something of an informal mentor to me, even though he has always treated me like an equal -a colleague and a research collaborator The modest goal of this article is to creatively unpack and render more accessible (mainly by means of cultural illustrations) Vuyani Vellem's account of the virtual spirituality of Empire. Geared towards the maximisation of the economic profit by the elite at the expense of the poor, today's Empire is a result of the unprecedented convergence of the military, political, economic and cultural powers, along with advanced sciences and technologies. All these forces are mediated through a particular kind of deadly spirituality, which is propelled chiefly through virtual images. Whether it manifests itself through an act of a political manipulation or through unconscious assimilation of the historically oppressive forms of religiosity, an imperial logic invariably leads to the 'capture' of the spiritual assets for political and/or economic ends, instead of God. As such, it reveals the fundamental incompatibility of these resources with their source of inspiration. What Vellem refers to as virtual spirituality appears, then, as a fatal disequilibrium of powers between the innermost being and the exterio...

“…10.See, inter alia, Kobo (2016Kobo ( , 2019, Vellem (2014aVellem ( , 2015bVellem ( , 2016Vellem ( , 2017, Tshaka (2010Tshaka ( , 2014Tshaka ( , 2015 and Maluleke (2010Maluleke ( , 2015.…”

Section: Virtual Spirituality and The Disequilibrium Of Powers: The Workings Of Empire In An Age Of Informaticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking the meanings of ‘virtual spirituality’ in Vuyani Vellem’s critique of Empire

Urbaniak

2020

“…13.Cf., among others, Kobo (2016Kobo ( , 2018; Vellem (2014Vellem ( , 2015Vellem ( , 2016Vellem ( , 2017; Tshaka (2010Tshaka ( , 2014Tshaka ( , 2015; and Maluleke (2010Maluleke ( , 2015. For instance, Vellem (2016:2), in one of his articles, elaborates on the isiXhosa notion of Imvuselelo (loosely meaning revival or renewal) as 'part of the heritage of black theology of liberation bequeathed by the father of blackness and Africanity in South Africa', Tiyo Soga.…”

Section: Engaging African Religiosity From a Decolonial Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

James Cone vis-à-vis African Religiosity: A decolonial perspective

Urbaniak

2019

This article builds on my recent engagement with James Cone’s binary view of Africanness and Christianity which focused on his Western locus of enunciation and the criticism he received from his African American colleagues. I believe that analogical questions regarding Christian theology’s attitude towards Africanness in general and African religiosity in particular present themselves to us who live in and try to make sense of South African reality today, including white people like myself. I start by introducing a decolonial perspective as it manifests itself through the recent #MustFall student movements. In this context, I offer three theses regarding the decolonial perspective on African religiosity, each of which constitutes a more or less direct critique of Cone’s ambivalent attitude towards Africanness, and African Traditional Religions in particular. The first thesis concerns the distinction between postcoloniality and decoloniality; the second thesis concerns engaging African religiosity as a requirement for decolonising Christian theology; and the third thesis concerns problematising the relationship between the categories of blackness and Africanness.

“…(3) Tshaka (2015) criticises the dependency syndrome which was brought about by the white benevolence of the Dutch Reformed Church as a silencing tool to prevent black people from lifting their voices against the injustices of the white people. We also see this within our Reformed Churches in South Africa: those who are dependent on 'white money' will always sing for their bread.…”

Section: Prof Rothney S Tshakamentioning

confidence: 99%

Unshackling the chains of coloniality: Reimagining decoloniality, Africanisation and Reformation for a non-racial South Africa

Mashau

2018

Racial divisions, polarisation and tensions are on the rise in South Africa today. A democratic dream of a rainbow nation remains just a dream with racism continuing to raise its ugly head in the democratic South Africa, to the detriment of the rainbow dream of a united South Africa. This article seeks to probe whether South Africans should continue to sing the song of racial reconciliation in the light of the continued racial tensions and post-colonial and post-apartheid legacies and stereotypes that continue to manifest in our private and public spaces. Based on an examination of the decoloniality project, Africanisation and Reformation, through literature study, the article calls for the decoloniality of faith in an effort to craft a vision for a non-racial society. This vision not only takes the importance of the redeeming memories of the 500 years of Reformation seriously, but also the notion of Africanisation and, in particular, the use of the African value systems in shaping and reconstructing a non-racial South Africa. This article taps into the resourcefulness of the Reformed faith in South Africa, as articulated in the theologies of Snyman, Tshaka and Botha, and applies them to South African discourses of decoloniality.