Reimagining the Human?

350 Pages·2016·2.46 MB·English

Reimagining the Human?
The role of the churches in building a liberatory
human rights culture in South Africa today

by
Selina Palm

2016

Thesis presented for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in the Program of Theology and Development
School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics
University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa

Promotor: Dr Clint Le Bruyns
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DECLARATION

Submitted in fulfilment / partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy, in the Graduate Programme in Theology and Development, School of Religion,
Philosophy and Classics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

I, Selina Hazel Palm, declare that

1. The research reported in this thesis, except where otherwise indicated, is my
original research.

2. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other
university.

3. This thesis does not contain other persons’ data, pictures, graphs or other
information, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other persons.

4. This thesis does not contain other persons' writing, unless specifically
acknowledged as being sourced from other researchers. Where other written sources
have been quoted, then:
a. Their words have been re-written but the general information attributed to
them has been referenced
b. Where their exact words have been used, then their writing has been placed
inside quotation marks, and referenced.

5. This thesis does not contain text, graphics or tables copied and pasted from the Internet,
unless specifically acknowledged, and the source being detailed in the thesis and in the
References sections.

Student name: Selina Palm

Date 14/12/15

Dr Clint Le Bruyns - Name of Supervisor

_______________
Signature

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Dedication
To all the ambassadors of “anthropologies of trouble” in our world who refuse to submit to
subjugation or be seduced into its many dominating modes.
May they destabilise its unjust patterns to envision, embody and enact mutually vulnerable
ways of becoming human together.

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List of Abbreviations
AAA American Anthropology Association
AIC African Independent/Initiated/Indigenous Churches
ANC African National Congress
CCAWT Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians
CI Christian Institute
CPRs Civil and Political Rights
DRC Dutch Reformed Church
ESCRs Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
FHR Foundation for Human Rights
LGBTIQ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer
NAP National Action Plan on Human Rights
PCR Program to Combat Racism
RDP Reconstruction and Development Program
SACC South African Council of Churches
SAHRC South African Human Rights Commission
SAIIA South African Institute for International Affairs
TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission
UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights
UN United Nations
WARC World Alliance of Reformed Churches
WCC World Council of Churches
WCRC World Communion of Reformed Churches
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Abstract
The relationship between religion and human rights is receiving renewed attention by many
scholars today who emphasise the need for practical collaboration around building a human
rights culture. This shapes my research question as to how churches in South Africa can play
a more active role as authentic allies in building a liberating human rights culture today. I call
them beyond offering social capital to find liberating spiritual capital to build internal
religious legitimacy for human rights that places the currently rightless and a right relation to
one another as vulnerable human beings at the heart of this culture. This thesis offers an
interdisciplinary lens for this task in current day South Africa where the gap between legal
visions and social realities remains significant. It brings together human rights scholarship
with theological reflection and historical contextualisation in a post-foundational approach.
My thesis is shaped by the methodology of Abdullahi An-Na’im to convene a constructive
conversation on South African soil for improved human rights realisation in the lives of the
most vulnerable. This requires critical attention to both the abuse of dominating power at the
heart of human rights and the paradox of the power of human rights themselves. I translate
this concern into a theological key through the work of Jürgen Moltmann to suggest that his
Trinitarian praxis for human rights and imaginative search for a liberating anthropology offer
a counter to the power-laden images of God that can legitimate abuse. It reconnects human
rights into radical relational responsibility to offer a liberating Christian hermeneutic for
human rights and shows its creative appropriation by South African theologians. It concludes
that the hermeneutical retrieval of prophetic voices of dissent is needed to nurture theologies
for human rights that can be embodied and enacted by local churches as a core part of their
identity. This can play an irreplaceable role in nurturing a human rights culture here located
in Christological solidarity with those who suffer and allied in Spirit with many who hope.
Keywords: Human Rights, Moltmann, An-Na’im, Human Dignity, Liberation, Culture.
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Acknowledgements
My three year PhD journey owes a large debt of gratitude to many people who have helped
with conversations along the way which have shaped my own thinking. For early exposure to
a Christian ecumenical ‘prophetic’ tradition of justice, I owe thanks to the Amos Collective.
For introducing me to my first book by Moltmann and other liberation theologians when
living in the Philippines, I owe thanks to Craig Burrows. To my supervisor Clint Le Bruyns
for talking me into a PhD in the first place and for faith and late night support through the
process as well as reminding me that nothing is more practical than a good idea. To Jürgen
Moltmann for meeting me in person as I embarked on my project and for embodying a
commitment to relation and theology in dialogue and to Abdullahi An-Na’im. I feel
privileged to have these scholars, with their passion for social transformation, as conversation
partners. To Mutuma Ruteere for gently offering me another trajectory on human rights than
the liberal West and helping my own African journey of “conscientization” to begin.

Profound thanks to my husband Russell Davies for his loving accompaniment, living day by
day with my PhD and creating the ‘space’ and the ‘time’ for me to complete this journey as
well as his faith in its relevance for our times. Without him, this journey would not have been
possible. Also for the support and interest of my family, who made the mistake one day at
breakfast of asking me what relevance the idea of the Trinity could possibly have for real life.

To my church community, Rondebosch United Church in Cape Town and its minister Dr
Robert Steiner who have supported my journey in so many ways with prayer, concern and
interest. Whenever I have felt despairing of many of the realities of the church in our world,
my concrete community has given me hope by modelling so much of what has been argued.
Also to theologian John De Gruchy who invited me as a young scholar into his personal
research community and whose early table talks helped inspire me to study theology. Finally
my thanks go to Michael Van Breda for working his way through my whole PhD draft in just
a few days at the end of the process and for the many others who blazed a PhD trail for me.

Finally I want to acknowledge my sense of accompaniment by the Source of all Life, with,
within and amongst us as the lure of hopeful possibility in solidarity with our suffering world.

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Personal Foreword
All researchers carry what Hogan (2015:206) terms “the baggage of belonging” which
inevitably shapes their assumptions, questions, approaches and contributions. My identity as
a Western woman ‘located’ somewhere between Europe and Africa and holding many layers
of privilege including that of ‘whiteness’ is enmeshed in this thesis. I grew up in a mixed race
South African/ English family and received a Western middle class education in the UK1. My
own ‘cultural hybridity’ resonated early on with the inclusive visions of those like King Jnr
and Tutu and took me on a journey as a young adult to live in communities of the ‘South’. I
have lived, worked and studied at post-graduate level in South Africa for the last ten years.
I came as a mature student to the formal study of theology and my academic background has
been shaped primarily by the social sciences. My ecumenical Christian journey has been
shaped by years of experiences working and, at times, living with the ‘poor and marginalised’
within societies, both in Western contexts and increasingly in cross-cultural Southern
contexts. This exposure and my studies in business give my theology an ‘economic’ lens but
at the same time, I have focused on groups (orphans, widows, people living with HIV, street
children, sex workers) who are often further socially marginalised within poor communities.
These make me aware of the intersectional hierarchies of social and cultural abuse, stigma
and domination which take place in all communities, rich, poor, North, South, East and West.
While my own social location is from a centrist position in many ways, I seek to work as an
‘ally’ with those on the periphery and my theological questions and approach emerge in
response to this. This thesis is committed to a form of emancipatory engagement where my
theoretical reflection emerges from and reflects on concrete lived experience whilst accepting
my privileged location and the danger of speaking “on behalf” of the poor. Engaged
scholarship seeks to contribute towards concrete social change and to reflect the need for
interdisciplinary and multi-faith reflection on complex human challenges. As a feminist, I
read my Christian tradition ‘against the grain’ adopting a hermeneutic of suspicion to its often
ambivalent Scriptures and dogmas2. My thesis takes place in the light of this background.

1
My ‘coloured’ father left South Africa aged 18 in 1959, due to the increasing impact of apartheid on his life. My interdisciplinary tertiary
education in business, human rights and development took place in the West, while my theological education has been within the South. An
interest in human rights as a shared ‘language of struggle’ for the marginalised began with exposure to Martin Luther King Jnr at school.
This instilled an early conviction in me of how religious belief could be a core part of action-calls to value human beings everywhere.
2 While feminist analysis is not the explicit ‘theoretical lens’ in this thesis, the subordination of women forms one of the ‘theologies of
domination’ that needs urgent and ‘theological’ contestation from within, embedded in socially conservative, individualistic narratives that
fail to connect with prophetic justice strands. Church dogmas were often complicit in perpetuating homophobia, sexism and prejudice .
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Table of Contents
Introduction - Study focus and research outline ........................................................................ 1
Study Background .................................................................................................................. 1
Study Motivation .................................................................................................................... 5
Study Context ......................................................................................................................... 6
Research Aim, Question and Objectives .............................................................................. 12
Research Methodology ......................................................................................................... 13
Theoretical Framework: A liberation approach ................................................................... 15
Core Conversation Partners .................................................................................................. 17
Research Design and Chapter Layout .................................................................................. 18
Significance of the study and its delimitations..................................................................... 19
Chapter 1 - Introducing human rights ...................................................................................... 20
1.1 What are Human Rights? .......................................................................................... 20
1.2 What is Culture? ........................................................................................................ 22
1.3 What is a Human Rights Culture? ............................................................................. 24
1.4 What is the Church? .................................................................................................. 24
1.5 Exploring the paradox of human rights ..................................................................... 26
1.5.1 Taking responsibility for rights ............................................................................. 28
1.5.2 Locating my human rights approach in this thesis ................................................ 29
Chapter 2 - Human rights in South Africa: Reclaiming a local trajectory of struggle ............ 34
2.1 The history of human rights in South Africa............................................................. 35
2.1.1 The emergence of human rights in the 1800s ........................................................ 36
2.1.2 Human rights in 20th century South Africa: journeying to 1948. .......................... 37
2.1.3 The apartheid years - 1948-1990 ........................................................................... 42
2.1.4 The 1990s - moving towards a human rights culture ............................................ 45
2.2 Building a human rights culture in post-apartheid South Africa .............................. 47
2.2.1 The 1998 National Action Plan on human rights .................................................. 49
2.2.2 Going beyond policy into culture: the TRC years ................................................. 50
2.2.3 New struggles for human rights in 21st century South Africa ............................... 52
2.2.4 Critiquing the human rights culture in South Africa ............................................. 53
2.2.5 Lessons learned from South Africa’s history of human rights ................................. 54
2.3 Human rights in current day South Africa ..................................................................... 56
2.3.1 Recognising the realities of abuse ......................................................................... 56
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2.3.2 The ongoing gap between legal ideals and social practice .................................... 60
2.3.3 A human rights culture from below – still under construction? ............................ 62
2.3.4 The call for a ‘bottom up’ human rights culture .................................................... 64
2.3.5 Summary of current day situation on human rights .............................................. 67
2.4 Chapter 2 Conclusion ................................................................................................ 68
Chapter 3 – Exploring Christianity and human rights in South Africa .................................... 69
3.1 Situating this relationship globally ............................................................................ 69
3.2 An overview of Christianity in South Africa ............................................................ 73
3.3 The history of Christianity and human rights in South Africa .................................. 76
3.3.1 Christianity and Human Rights: An early South African history .......................... 78
3.3.2 The rise of human rights in 20th century South Africa .......................................... 82
3.4 Navigating post-apartheid spaces: Christianity and Human rights today ................. 91
3.5 Building a human rights culture – A theological call to action ................................. 97
3.5.1 A liberating paradigm for human rights ................................................................ 98
3.5.2 Seeking prophetic relational embodiment for human rights ............................... 100
3.5.3 Securing a church for human rights ..................................................................... 102
3.6 Chapter 3 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 106
Chapter 4 - Building legitimacy with An-Na’im’s liberating hermeneutic ........................... 108
4.1 A human rights culture – taking an anthropological lens........................................ 108
4.2 Introducing Abdullahi An-Na’im ............................................................................ 114
4.2.1 Going ‘beyond the law’ into culture .................................................................... 116
4.2.2 An-Na’im’s three core strategies ........................................................................... 121
4.2.2.1 Internal religious and cultural legitimacy.................................................... 121
4.2.2.2 A framework of synergy and interdependence ........................................... 123
4.2.2.3 Towards a liberating hermeneutic for human rights ................................... 125
4.2.3 Transcending Imperialism: Towards a people-centred culture of human rights . 128
4.2.4 Relating these strategies to South Africa ............................................................. 130
4.5 Chapter 4 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 133
Chapter 5 – Jürgen Moltmann: A liberating anthropological lens ......................................... 134
5.1 Introducing theological anthropology ..................................................................... 134
5.2 Introducing Jürgen Moltmann: A public prophetic voice ....................................... 135
5.2.1 Moltmann’s background - Prisoner, Pastor, Professor ........................................ 139
5.2.2 Moltmann’s social context and key theological influences ................................. 142
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5.2.3 Moltmann’s core theological themes ................................................................... 147
5.3 Moltmann’s hermeneutical key: a liberating anthropology .................................... 153
5.3.1 Created for freedom - reforming our understanding. .......................................... 157
5.3.2 Understanding sin – a deformed relation in five vicious circles ......................... 160
5.3.3 Towards a transformational Christo-Trinitarian praxis ....................................... 164
5.3.4 A vulnerable methodology of relation ................................................................. 168
5.4 Chapter 5 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 170
Chapter 6 - Moltmann’s theology of human rights: a Christo-Trinitarian praxis .................. 172
6.1 His historical role on human rights theology .......................................................... 173
6.2 His theological approach to human rights ............................................................... 175
6.2.1 A Trinitarian model for human rights .................................................................. 181
6.2.2 Human dignity as the source of human rights ..................................................... 183
6.23 Created in the relational image of God ................................................................ 187
6.2.4 Solidarity Christology: a cruciform, kenotic language for rights ........................ 191
6.2.5 A ‘hope-full’ pneumatology - in search of concrete utopias ............................... 193
6.3 A church for human rights - the call to open fellowship ......................................... 195
6.3.1 A Christ-shaped church located on the suffering margins .................................. 197
6.3.2 An exodus church orientated to the future by hope ............................................. 198
6.3.3 A pneumatologically-broadened relationality ..................................................... 199
6.3.4 Moltmann’s human rights tasks for the church ................................................... 200
6.3.5 Being Trinitarian people - summarising church action ....................................... 202
6.4 Chapter 6 Conclusion .............................................................................................. 203
Chapter 7 - Appropriating Moltmann: In conversation with South African theologians ...... 207
7.1 Germany and South Africa - making the connections ............................................ 207
7.2 Responding to Villa-Vicencio’s human rights call ................................................. 209
7.3 Reformed engagement on human rights with Koos Vorster ................................... 210
7.4 The Trinitarian Reformed engagement of Nico Koopman ..................................... 212
7.5 Desmond Tutu – enacting human rights in practice. ............................................... 218
7.5.1 A liberating ubuntu theology of Trinitarian relation ........................................... 219
7.5.2 Freedom-for-relation, power and the liberation of the oppressor ........................ 224
7.5.3 An eschatological dream and an activist ecclesiology ........................................ 227
7.6 Feminist theology in South Africa– a concern with embodiment ........................... 229
7.6.1 Denise Ackermann - a feminist theological anthropology .................................. 230
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