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An unexpected outcome of the work of the Ujamaa Centre for Community Development and Research with marginalised sectors is their sense that Contextual Bible Study resources provide them with an interpretive resilience that enables them to... more
An unexpected outcome of the work of the Ujamaa Centre for Community Development and Research with marginalised sectors is their sense that Contextual Bible Study resources provide them with an interpretive resilience that enables them to return to the churches that have marginalised them because they are unemployed, HIV-positive, or queer. This article explores the notion of ‘interpretive resilience’ and reflects on its capacity to reintegrate those who have been marginalised by dominant theologies. “Interpretive resilience” may have the capacity to construct forms of communal peace, but the article asks, what if what is required is ‘interpretive resistance’, which puts the sword to dominant interpretations in the quest for a more just peace? A particular case study, to do with issues of homosexuality, gives shape and substance to the theoretical reflections.1
Using the notion of ‘entanglement’ this article analyses two distinctive features of African biblical scholarship. The first form of entanglement is African biblical scholarship’s entanglement with the colonial realities that brought the... more
Using the notion of ‘entanglement’ this article analyses two distinctive features of African biblical scholarship. The first form of entanglement is African biblical scholarship’s entanglement with the colonial realities that brought the Bible to Sub-Saharan Africa. The second form of entanglement is an intentional ideo-theological dialogue between African contexts and biblical texts. African biblical scholarship is only accountable, this article argues, in so far as it engages directly with these forms of entanglement.
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There is a long history of collaboration between “popular” or “contextual” forms of biblical interpretation between Brazil and South Africa, going back into the early 1980’s. Though there are significant differences between these forms of... more
There is a long history of collaboration between “popular” or “contextual” forms of biblical interpretation between Brazil and South Africa, going back into the early 1980’s. Though there are significant differences between these forms of Bible “reading”, there are values and processes that cohere across these contexts, providing an integrity to such forms of Bible reading. This article reflects on the values and processes that may be discerned across the Brazilian and South African interpretive practices after more than thirty years of conversation across these contexts.
From the time of the Reformation, the Bible has always been among the primary sources for Anglicanism. Through a close study of biblical hermeneutics, this chapter reflects on how ‘scripture’ has been located among the other primary... more
From the time of the Reformation, the Bible has always been among the primary sources for Anglicanism. Through a close study of biblical hermeneutics, this chapter reflects on how ‘scripture’ has been located among the other primary sources, tradition, and reason, at various stages and in different places within Anglican history. The chapter then goes on to argue that context ought to be considered a fourth primary source for Anglicanism. Drawing on postcolonial Anglican biblical interpretation and the experience of various stages of imperial expansion, particularly from a Southern African Anglican context, the chapter analyses how context reconfigures the other three primary sources.
Abstract: Isaiah Shembe constructed his Christian community, Ibandla lamaNazaretha, using strands from at least three narratives: the narrative of Zulu traditional religion and life, the narrative of his particular colonial context in the... more
Abstract: Isaiah Shembe constructed his Christian community, Ibandla lamaNazaretha, using strands from at least three narratives: the narrative of Zulu traditional religion and life, the narrative of his particular colonial context in the early 1900s, and the narrative of the ...
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What sense does it make to speak of "indigenous exegesis"? In some sense this article is an exegesis of this question and this phrase. While acknowledging the presence and importance ٠٢ ordinary African... more
What sense does it make to speak of "indigenous exegesis"? In some sense this article is an exegesis of this question and this phrase. While acknowledging the presence and importance ٠٢ ordinary African "readers" of the Bible in the formation of African biblical scholarship, African biblical scholarship has said very little about the textual interpretative interests of ordinary African "readers" and the place of these inte^retatlve interests in the academy. This article addresses and redresses this anomaly, arguing that it does make sense to speak ٠٢ "indigenous exegesis" and that indigenous exegesis does have a place in the academy alongside the more familiar forms ٠٢ exegesis.
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... But this 4 Ukpong, "Developments in Biblical Interpretation in Africa: Historical and Hermeneutical Directions," 17. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid., 1718. 7 Ibid., 18. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 24. 3 ... 15 Albert Nolan, God in South Africa: The... more
... But this 4 Ukpong, "Developments in Biblical Interpretation in Africa: Historical and Hermeneutical Directions," 17. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid., 1718. 7 Ibid., 18. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 24. 3 ... 15 Albert Nolan, God in South Africa: The Challenge of the Gospel (Cape Town: David Philip, 1988), 149. ...
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This article explores how religion possesses and is possessed by Africans. It does this by recognising both the power of religion to configure and of Africans as agents who reconfigure what they encounter in their African contexts. The... more
This article explores how religion possesses and is possessed by Africans. It does this by recognising both the power of religion to configure and of Africans as agents who reconfigure what they encounter in their African contexts. The central question of this article is how placing African agency and context in the forefront reconfigures talk of Islam and Christianity in Africa. The question is taken up through an analysis of two African religious leaders, Shaykh Ahmadu Bamba from West Africa and Isaiah Shembe from South Africa.
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... 1997. Childlessness and womentowomen relationships in Genesis and in African patriarchal society: Sarah and Hagar from a Zimbabwean woman's perspective (Gen 16:116; 21:821). ... 1993. A materialist reading of Micah. ... Sundkler,... more
... 1997. Childlessness and womentowomen relationships in Genesis and in African patriarchal society: Sarah and Hagar from a Zimbabwean woman's perspective (Gen 16:116; 21:821). ... 1993. A materialist reading of Micah. ... Sundkler, Bengt, and Christopher Steed. 2000. ...
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<title> Abstract </title>The comparative... more
<title> Abstract </title>The comparative paradigmisthemostpervasiveinterpretive framework in Africanbiblical scholarship.Recent work hasattempted to chart the contours of this paradigm and tonote its historicalandhermeneutical development.This articlejoinsthediscussion, by locating SouthAfricanbiblicalscholarshipwithinthis paradigm and by offering an analysis of the comparativeparadigm interms ofits understandingof colonialism.The argument put forwardisthat amore nuancedand complexunderstandingof colonialism may provide new angles of analysis both of the comparative paradigm itself and of the task of African biblical scholarship.
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This article argues that context is an important fourth factor, alongside the more familiar three, in understanding Anglicanism in (Southern) Africa. As imperialism was an important part of the early context of the Bible’s presence within... more
This article argues that context is an important fourth factor, alongside the more familiar three, in understanding Anglicanism in (Southern) Africa. As imperialism was an important part of the early context of the Bible’s presence within Southern African Anglicanism, the bulk of the present article charts the contours of imperial Southern African Anglicanism. Having mapped this territory, the article then probes what a postcolonial analysis of Southern African Anglican biblical interpretation might look like, outlining two related components: a descriptive component and an interventionist component. The descriptive task asks how Southern African Anglicans have read the Scriptures, and the interventionist task asks how Southern African Anglicans should read the Scriptures. The former requires a careful Foucault-like ‘archaeological’ analysis and the latter a recognition of the contextually-related resources of African biblical scholarship.
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"I would rather come to Bible study than go to church," she said. She is one of the many, mainly women, who participate in the solidarity programme for people living with HIV/AIDS of the Institute for the Study of the... more
"I would rather come to Bible study than go to church," she said. She is one of the many, mainly women, who participate in the solidarity programme for people living with HIV/AIDS of the Institute for the Study of the Bible and Worker Ministry Project (ISB&WM). This programme is one ...
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Abstract: Isaiah Shembe constructed his Christian community, Ibandla lamaNazaretha, using strands from at least three narratives: the narrative of Zulu traditional religion and life, the narrative of his particular colonial context in the... more
Abstract: Isaiah Shembe constructed his Christian community, Ibandla lamaNazaretha, using strands from at least three narratives: the narrative of Zulu traditional religion and life, the narrative of his particular colonial context in the early 1900s, and the narrative of the ...