Browsing by Author "West, Gerald Oakley."

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An analysis of the interpretation and celebration of the three pilgrimage festivals in Messianic Jewry and their impact on Christian practice.
(1999) Brandt, Newton.; West, Gerald Oakley.
The Christian canon comprises of sixty six book. Of these the majority, thirty nine to be precise, stem from the Jewish religion. These books, comprising the Hebrew Bible direct or guide the adherents of Judaism till today. Christians consider the Hebrew Bible as the Old Testament in the light of a new revelation in Jesus Christ. This thesis questions the last premise, firstly in the light that Messianic Jews or present day Jewish Christians, also still adhere to their heritage as stemming from the Old Testament. Secondly, it should be noted that due to missionary influence both the Old Testament (Hebrew) culture and African culture were discarded. In the light of so many correlations between the Old Testament values and culture and African values and culture I set out to trace whether there is more to the Old Testament than the deductions we, Africans, have inherited from the Western minds down the centuries, as we in the process could have tapped into their (unconscious?) anti-Jewish motivations. As a start in this wide field, I focus on the three pilgrimage festivals, Passover, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles, prescribed in the Old Testament. I go back in history, through the eyes of Messianic Jews, to learn about the celebrations and interpretations that surround these festivals. Once I have gained that insight I contrast it with the general Christian interpretations and celebrations and where there is room for implementation of Messianic Jewish insight I put these forward towards liturgical enrichment and worship enhancement in the Lutheran Church.
The beginning of African biblical interpretation: The bible among the Batlhaping.
(University of the Free State., 2009) West, Gerald Oakley.
Prior to the translation of the Bible in Africa, Africans were already engaging with the Bible, initially as an iconic object of power and then as an aural object. In the first section of this article I attempt to detect elements of the early reception of the Bible among the BaTlhaping people. The second section of the article then analyses the theology that lies behind Bible translation, for rendering the Bible into local vernaculars is not a self-evident impulse. The translation of the Bible into local languages must be understood as an aspect of a larger theological project. Finally, the third section of the article reflects on the capacity of the Bible ‘to speak for itself’, arguing that once the Bible has been translated into a local language it slips, at least partially, out of the grasp of those who translated it.
Between remembering and forgetting: a theological and contextual investigation of nation-building in Deuteronomy and how it intersects with nation-building in Zimbabwe=Phakathi kokukhumbula nokukhohlwa: uphenyo lwemfundiso yenkolo nokwesimo sendawo yokwakhiwa kwesizwe kuDutheronomi nokuthi luhlangana kanjani nokwakhiwa kwesizwe eZimbabwe.
(2021) Moyo, Andrew.; Decock, Paul Bernard.; West, Gerald Oakley.
This work seeks to highlight a biblically inspired notion of nation-building which advocates the unity of all the people as an imagined political community, with a sovereign role in the land. The definition of nation-building will be based on Benedict Anderson’s terms ‘imagined political community’ and the ‘sovereign role of the people’ in order to emphasize the notion of nation-as-people which is most appropriate for this work. The emphasis of this work is influenced both by the ideo-theological perspective to read the Bible from the perspective of the poor and from a liberationist perspective which privileges the ‘dangerous memories’ of the subjugated communities in order to work for a future that is better. Within this framework it is possible to bring the use of memory in the ancient community of Israel into dialogue with the modern post colonial state of Zimbabwe. The research will use literary narrative and rhetorical analysis to compare the use of a liberation memory to construct the imagined political community in the book of Deuteronomy and in post-colonial Zimbabwe. The biblical model of nation-building, as motivated by the pacifying memory of divine deliverance and the dangerous memory of the oppression of the people, advocates the ethical liberation categories of freedom, justice and equality to build the unity and sovereign role of the imagined communities. A tripolar analysis will bring the text of Deuteronomy into dialogue with the context of postcolonial Zimbabwe, to highlight the differences in the use of the pacifying and dangerous memories of liberation. The focus will be on the realization of unity and freedom for the people through the ethical use of the memory of liberation. This work concludes that the dangerous memories of the people are fundamental to the construction of a nation-as-people and that the ethical use of the pacifying and dangerous memory of liberation can be a unifying factor for postcolonial countries and a fundamental resource for the construction of a nation-as-people. IQOQA Lo msebenzi uhlose ukuqhakambisa umbono wokwakha isizwe kulandelwa indlela yebhayibheli, ngenhloso yokwakha ubumbano kubona bonke abantu kwezepolitiki, babe namandla okuzimela ezweni abalakhele. Incazelo yokwakhiwa komphakathi izobe igxile kulawa matemu kaBenedict Anderson ‘omphakathi wezepolitiki esiwufisayo’ kanye ‘namandla abantu okuzimela’ ukuze kuqhakanjiswe umbono wesizwe esihambelana ncamashi nezinhloso zalo msebenzi. Lo msebenzi ugcizelela ubumqoka bombono oncike enkolweni wokufunda ibhayibheli ngendlela ebalula imizwa nosizi lwabampofu futhi ehlose ukubakhulula nokuthi bangakulibali ukuhlupheka kwabo ukuze balwele ikusasa elingcono. Ngokulandela le ndlela yokucabanga, kuba lula ukujeqeza emuva emlandweni wabantwana bakwa-Israyeli uma kudingidwa lolu daba, kuqhathaniswe nesimo esikhona eZimbabwe manje emva kohulumeni wengcindezelo. Lolu cwaningo luzosebenzisa indlela yokucubungula imibhalo kanye nokucubungula okubheka zonke izinhlaka zemicabango ukuze kuqhathaniswe ukusebenza kokujeqeza emuva elwazini olukhona ukwakha umphakathi wezepolitiki esiwufisayo ngokwencwadi kaDutheronomi kubhekwa isimo esikhona eZimbabwe manje emva kohulumeni wengcindezelo. Ukwakhiwa kwesizwe okulandela imigomo yebhayibheli, njengoba kuqhakambisa umehluko phakathi kokwakha uxolo nolwazi oluyingozi ngokucindezelwa kwamalungelo abantu, kuphakamisa indlela elungile yokulwa nengcindezi ukuletha inkululeko, ubulungiswa nokulingana ukwakha ubumbano kanye namandla okuzimela komphakathi wezepolitiki esiwufisayo. Indlela yokucubungula enxantathu izokwazi ukuhlaziya incwadi kaDutheronomi kubhekwa isimo esikhona eZimbabwe manje emva kohulumeni wengcindezelo, ukugcizelela umehluko ekusetshenzisweni kwemizamo yokwakha uxolo kanye nolwazi oluyingozi ngomzabalazo wenkululeko. Inhloso ukwakha ubumbano nokuzuza inkululeko yabantu ngendlela elungile yokujeqeza emuva olwazini lomzabalazo wenkululeko. Lo msebenzi uphetha ngokuthi ulwazi lwangaphambilini ngomzabalazo wenkululeko lubaluleke kakhulu ekwakhiweni kwesizwe nabantu futhi nokuthi ukusetshenziswa ngendlela efanele kwemizamo yokwakha uxolo nolwazi lomzabalazo wenkululeko kungaba ngenye yezindlela zokuletha uxolo emazweni asephumile phansi kwengcindezelo, kanti futhi kungaba yindlela enhle yokwakha isizwe nabantu.
"Born this way" - a gendered perspective on the intersectionality between same-sex orientation and the Imago Dei : a case study of men who love other men in Lusaka, Zambia.
(2013) Phiri, Lilly.; West, Gerald Oakley.
This study explores how Christian MLM in Lusaka-Zambia understand their sexual orientation and the imago Dei amidst the general teachings of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia, Zambia Episcopal Conference and the Council of Churches in Zambia on same-sex orientation and the imago Dei. A plethora of literature about same-sex orientation and the imago Dei reveals that the heterosexism is generally regarded as the authentic image of God while same-sex orientation continues to be regarded as an affront to the image of God. Hence the need to merge the two terms “same-sex orientation” and “imago Dei” in order to deconstruct and reconstruct how sexuality and God are understood within prevailing theologies, using emerging theologies from Zambian Christian Men who Love other Men. This study is framed within postcolonial and queer theories. Focus group discussions were audio-taped and transcribed and field notes taken. Themes are determined, analyzed and interpreted using recurring and unanimously held incipient voices of Christian MLM. Study participants’ views bring to fore that they understand their sexual orientation as being inborn and that they are wonderfully and fearfully created in the image of God. They also view themselves as being the image of God since they love other men, thereby, exhibiting God’s qualities which are love, justice and mercy. The study also found that Christian MLM do not feel welcome in affluent churches, unlike in churches on the outskirts, due to anti-same-sex messages preached in affluent churches. Furthermore, the study discovered that the churches use the Biblical creation accounts to condemn the practice of same-sex orientation and regard persons of same-sex orientation as sinful, satanic and sick. The study concludes that Christian MLM are created in the image of God, and hence recommends revisiting the theology of complementarity and an inculcation of hermeneutics of love in understanding sexuality and God.
The characterisation of Judah in Joseph narrative : Genesis 37:1-47:27.
(2012) Ellison, Dylan.; West, Gerald Oakley.
No abstract available.
The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians : HIV and the bible.
(2013) Landsberg, Charl.; West, Gerald Oakley.
No abstract available.
Confronting coloniality: the potential for a South African decolonial theology of whiteness.
(2022) Elliott, David.; West, Gerald Oakley.
This dissertation seeks to offer a potential theoretical framework within the discipline of African theology for engaging, subverting and transforming the phenomenon of Whiteness in the post-colonial, post-Apartheid South African context. This framework is developed through bringing three theoretical frameworks into dialogue with one another. These theoretical frameworks are South African Black Theology, Decolonial theory, and South African Whiteness Studies. Through the use of dialectical analysis I produce a South African Decolonial frame for theological reflection on Whiteness. Throughout this dissertation a selfreflexive method of study is also used. As a white scholar I regularly situate myself and my own Whiteness in the context of the discourse, allowing myself both as a scholar and as a person to be informed by black-led theory and black scholarship.
A convocation house (Prrngawan) biblical interpretation and TYCM tribal postcolonial concerns reading Genesis 2:4b~25 with TYCM ordinary tribal readers.
(2012) Chang, Walis Chiou-hsioung.; West, Gerald Oakley.
The thesis is concerned about the postcolonial context of the minority tribal people, the Taiwan Yuen-Chu-Min (台灣原住民, TYCM), in Taiwan. The argument of this thesis includes two parts: Part one provides the background to develop the foundation for the contextualization of the TYCM tribal people’s colonized experience and postcolonial discourse in light of their contextual concerns－tribal mother tongue, tribal texts, and ordinary tribal people; Part two draws connections between these TYCM tribal people’s postcolonial concerns and biblical interpretation, which is called “TYCM Tribal Biblical Interpretation”, and practices reading Gen 2:4b-25 with the subaltern people, TYCM ordinary tribal people, through the Five Step Reading Process in a group collaborative effort with 14 tribal reading groups. The project of TYCM Tribal Biblical Interpretation, as practiced through the Five Step Reading Process, is committed to create decolonization strategies to connect with the colonized experience of tribal people to help them play their traditional role of the Prrngawan to facilitate ordinary tribal people to become the “real” and “flesh-and-blood” readers of their tribal texts and biblical texts through their mother-tongue to freely participate in constructing and in continuing to restore their tribal spirituality, worldviews, and appropriation readings to highlight de-colonized biblical readings in their struggles of their postcolonial context in present day Taiwan.
Developing a holistic educational programme through contextual Bible Study with people with disabilities in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo : IMAN'ENDA as case study.
(2013) Kamba, Micheline Kasongo.; Bruce, Patricia Frances.; West, Gerald Oakley.
This research uses Contextual Bible Studies as the main approach in searching for ways in which the Bible may be used as a resource to contribute to a holistic education for people with disabilities (PWDs). It explores the situation of PWDs in the DRC and demonstrates how the image of PWDs has been negatively portrayed, and how PWDs’ situation has been perceived as a misfortune. Consequently, the socio-cultural concept of disability has influenced the biblical interpretation of disability making PWDs seem to be “lesser human beings”. Therefore, the use of three biblical texts, which are Exodus 4, 1-17; 2 Corinthians 12, 1-10 and Acts 3, 1-11, in this study serves to re-read the Bible in a constructive way from the disability perspective. Each Bible study has its main focus related to the question of this study mentioned above: the first biblical text, Exodus 4, 1-17 is designed for IMAN’ENDA members with the aim of helping PWDs to discover their real identity in the light of Bible study. The core verse of this study is verse 10, in which I focused on, “How God views disability”. The second text, 2 Corinthians 12, 1-10, is designed for PWDs as well as for ablebodied people in order to understand suffering as another way of discovering oneself. The main focus of this Bible study is on v. 9, in which I dealt with “Power through weak body”. The third biblical text is Acts 3, 1-11, and is designed for church leaders from the Presbyterian Church in Kinshasa with the aim of helping church leaders to widen their understanding of healing for better integration of and support for PWDs in society. The text focuses on healing that I referred to as “Holistic Healing”. The study also offers a theological reflection on disability in the Bible. This is based, on the one hand, on findings from Bible studies with PWDs and Presbyterian Church leaders and lecturers; and, on the other hand, on interviews conducted with Protestant Church leaders and religion lecturers, and Catholic high school pupils. These investigations were conducted in order to develop a holistic educational programme for PWDs in the DRC, which is proposed as a programme in Social Transformation.
Early engagements with the Bible among the Gogo people of Tanzania : historical and hermeneutical study of ordinary "readers" transactions with the Bible.
(2004) Magomba, Mote Paulo.; West, Gerald Oakley.
This study falls within the area of the Bible in African Christianity, particularly ordinary readers' appropriation of and interpretation of the Bible. It seeks to explore, firstly, the processes of the encounter between the Bible and the indigenous people of Tanzania, specifically the Gogo in central region. Secondly, this thesis seeks to identify some interpretative resources and emerging interpretative practices that have continued into the present of ordinary readers of the Bible. This exploration is done by tracing the mission activities of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in Tanzania, which began in 1844. The work of the Universities Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) is also examined, particularly the role it has played in making the Book "open" to the indigenous, through translation. Although there is continuity between past and present readings, this thesis demonstrates that ordinary readings are not static, they are dynamic; and over the years neo-indigenous interpretative moves have emerged which are a combination of both missionary and indigenous interpretative resources and methods. This reality is evident in the contemporary phenomenon of women and youths' songs in central Tanzania. These songs are creative interpretations of the Bible from an ordinary readers' perspective. There is a challenge to trained readers of the Bible to realise that biblical interpretation is not the preserve of the "professionals"; ordinary readers in the parishes, in cities, towns and villages, do interpret the Bible as well. To be relevant to the Tanzanian context, academic interpreters have to consciously take into account the resources and strategies of ordinary readers, which are demonstrated in their vernacular languages, oral narratives, religious experience, songs, proverbs and wise sayings. This will mean deeply understanding the local languages, Cigogo and others, listening to ordinary interpretations of the Bible, listening to the music and tunes of ordinary readers, as well as reading the vernacular Bible. Lastly, this study offers some suggestions for further research which, I hope, will bring refr study falls within the area of the Bible in African Christianity, particularly ordinary readers' appropriation of and interpretation of the Bible. It seeks to explore, firstly, the processes of the encounter between the Bible and the indigenous people of Tanzania, specifically the Gogo in central region. Secondly, this thesis seeks to identify some interpretative resources and emerging interpretative practices that have continued into the present of ordinary readers of the Bible. This exploration is done by tracing the mission activities of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in Tanzania, which began in 1844. The work of the Universities Mission to Central Africa (UMCA) is also examined, particularly the role it has played in making the Book "open" to the indigenous, through translation. Although there is continuity between past and present readings, this thesis demonstrates that ordinary readings are not static, they are dynamic; and over the years neo-indigenous interpretative moves have emerged which are a combination of both missionary and indigenous interpretative resources and methods. This reality is evident in the contemporary phenomenon of women and youths' songs in central Tanzania. These songs are creative interpretations of the Bible from an ordinary readers' perspective. There is a challenge to trained readers of the Bible to realise that biblical interpretation is not the preserve of the "professionals"; ordinary readers in the parishes, in cities, towns and villages, do interpret the Bible as well. To be relevant to the Tanzanian context, academic interpreters have to consciously take into account the resources and strategies of ordinary readers, which are demonstrated in their vernacular languages, oral narratives, religious experience, songs, proverbs and wise sayings. This will mean deeply understanding the local languages, Cigogo and others, listening to ordinary interpretations of the Bible, listening to the music and tunes of ordinary readers, as well as reading the vernacular Bible. Lastly, this study offers some suggestions for further research which, I hope, will bring refreshment and renewal to Tanzanian African biblical and theological scholarship.
The effect of semitic primal religion on Israelite religion: a pattern for a contextual biblical interpretation in Nigerian Christianity.
(2016) Babatunji, Foluso Olugbenga.; West, Gerald Oakley.
This research adds to the many voices from African Biblical scholarship, contributing towards an analysis of how Africans relate to the Bible in the way they do. While social, political, and even cultural factors are important, this thesis examines the role of primal religion in African interpretation of the Bible. The perception of Western scholars of African primal religion has not always been that wholesome. But this study has brought to light how significant a role primal religion has played in African interpretation of the Bible, particularly for those to whom the Bible is a key resource in their struggle for basic existence. Primal religion in Nigeria (specifically among the Yoruba) serves as a fundamental tool in the interpretation of the Bible. The enduring effectiveness of primal religion, this thesis argues, can be found in the weekly sermons preached in Nigerian churches, churches that are growing in membership. In other words, this kind of interpretation appeals to the African person in ways that missionary and colonial forms of biblical interpretation do not. The effectiveness of the primal religion is an anthropological phenomenon; therefore it goes beyond the African context. The thesis analyses how the primal religious beliefs of the biblical Israelites too had had an effect on their religious thought, and in the thesis I argue that this is analogous to the African situation in Nigeria among the Yoruba. Therefore the research juxtaposed how the ideo-theological orientation of the writers of certain texts in the Old Testament (affected by the Semitic background, and their perception of God’s message to them and their context), and the manner the ideo-theological orientation of the Nigerian preacher/Christian (affected by his/her primal religion) and his/her perception of the Bible affects his/her interpretation. The thesis analyses the enduring effect of Near Eastern religious thought on the Old Testament, and then goes on to analyse the effect of African primal religion on how a selection of Yoruba preachers/Christians interpret the Bible. These two sets of analysis are then brought into critical dialogue, with a view to revealing a similar pattern. Apart from presenting a comparison between the role of primal religion in the Israelites’ religion and Yoruba Christianity, this research also examined briefly how the biblical interpretation peculiar to these Yoruba preachers plays a role in the nation-building. I believe the Church has a role to play in the community in which it is professing its faith. In some other African nations, there had been cases or contexts whereby the Church rose to its occasion in fighting for independence, or/and even standing against dictatorship in every form. This thesis concludes with a reflection on how the kind of interpretation preachers are giving to the Bible today in Nigeria effects positive change in the values and orientation of civil society more generally. Can this type of Christianity offer a push in the right direction in the practice of politics and governance in Nigeria?
From the Lüneburger Heide to northern Zululand : a history of the encounter between the settlers, the Hermannsburg missionaries, the Amakhosi and their people, with special reference to four mission stations in northern Zululand (1860-1913)
(2002) Zulu, Prince Bongani Kashelemba.; Denis, Philippe Marie Berthe Raoul.; West, Gerald Oakley.
Abstract not available.
God in context : a comparative study of the images of God in three select local Christian groups of women.
(2000) Thurlow, Judith Mary Buller.; West, Gerald Oakley.
This thesis, grounded in a select group of women's experience, critiques the exclusive images for God presented by the Church in its language and liturgy. My contention in this thesis is that in an emerging democracy such as South Africa, the metaphors and language used are increasingly restrictive - in terms of both the empowerment of women and the enrichment of men. I look at how feminist scholarship has focussed on the implications of patriarchy for women and the claim by feminist theologians that the ensuing symbols have been damaging for women The analysis includes means to recover traditional images for God and suggestions of ways to discover alternative images. Following the feminist analysis, I argue for a hermeneutic which locates the meaning of the tradition within the experience of three local, select groups of women.
Internal and external imperial dynamics in Habakkuk : a contextual study of the Book of Habakkuk from a Malawian socio-economic and political viewpoint.
(2015) Chitsulo, Takuze Saul Gedeon.; West, Gerald Oakley.
This study is an economic reading of the book of Habakkuk from Malawian socio-economic and political viewpoint. It is a good example of scholarly study of Scripture not done as „art for art‟s sake,‟ but undertaken because of the recognition that the Bible has something essential to say to a critical human situation. Designed as a dialogue between an ancient biblical text of Habakkuk and a modern context of Malawi, the study examines the internal and the external imperial dynamics in effort to better appreciate the shared relevance of these two chronologically disparate contexts. The two contexts share the common reality that both are socially, economically and politically shaped by the challenges of devastating imperialism. The dialogue is facilitated through a contextual biblical studies framework – using the tri-polar model or the African contextual biblical hermeneutics model – that recognizes the importance of our contexts in the interpretation of the biblical text. Since we cannot measure the people‟s well-being through the eyes of the elite but of those who suffer and struggle in life, this study deliberately chose the context of the poor and marginalized to be the subject of interpretation. To truly understand the Bible is to read it through the eyes of the oppressed, since the God who speaks in the Bible is the God of the oppressed (Fiorenza, 1981:100). The study will use liberation and postcolonial biblical hermeneutics belonging to the wider context of biblical interpretation in theology of liberation as sub-theoretical frameworks. The two frameworks are ideo-theological orientations where potential lines of connection between the biblical text with its contexts and today‟s readers and their contexts are drawn. This study is concerned with why Malawi is still rated among the ten poorest countries in the world with over half of its populace still living below the poverty line despite having been independent for fifty-one years? Malawi continues to face many socio-economic and political problems, which are caused by economies of extraction – a particular form of capitalism that African states inherited upon gaining independence from colonial masters. It is exploitive as it involves those who do not labour gaining from those who labour. In this study, economies of extraction are a useful link between economic dimensions of Habakkuk and those of Malawi. The study therefore aims at exploring what is contained in both Habakkuk and Malawi that assists us to understand and value both contexts. Such an interpretation within the context of a critical situation, theology of liberation offers a message that has as its aim emancipatory effects on the poor and marginalized (Fiorenza, 1981:109).
The local church is a visible hermeneutical community.
(1996) Mngadi, Thembinkosi Themba Paul.; West, Gerald Oakley.
"No abstract available in the pdf"
Mission possible? : power, truth-telling, and the pursuit of mission as accompaniment.
(2010) Konkol, Brian Edward.; West, Gerald Oakley.
No abstract available.
Moses and leadership struggles in the Exodus narrative.
(2007) W'ehusha, Lubunga.; West, Gerald Oakley.
Through a contextual reading of the exodus narrative, this study explores various struggles that Moses faced as he led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. During the journey the people complained, not only because of the hardship in the wilderness, but, at a time, they rebelled against Moses' leadership and challenged the institutions he put in place. Moses responded to these rebellions, either by earnest intercession in favor of the community or by letting God's wrath suppress violently the contention. The narrative raises a number of issues related to the exercise of leadership, especially leadership contest that many leaders today still wrestle with.
"Now my eyes have seen you": re-visioning Job's wife in the Book of Job.
(2016) Scholtz, Roger John.; West, Gerald Oakley.
This thesis argues that the book of Job charts the journey of transformation undertaken by Job to a new vision of God and a liberated experience of faith; and that a key catalyst in this journey was his wife. This view of Job’s wife is laid against the backdrop of the three broad interpretive traditions that can be discerned in the reception history of Job’s wife – seen in the Septuagint, the Rabbinic corpus, the Testament of Job, Christian tradition, art history and modern biblical scholarship. The first tradition presents an unambiguously negative picture of her as the agent of Satan who demonstrates her unfaithfulness as a wife by tempting her husband to betray his faith. The second presents a more sympathetic picture by acknowledging that she was also a victim of great suffering with her own story of loss and grief to share. The third focuses on the productive effect of her words on Job. One of the exceptional receptions of Job’s wife is found in William Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job, a work that offers a stunning visual exposition of Job’s journey of transformation and imagines Job’s wife as being faithfully present with him throughout it. Blake’s radical re-visioning of Job’s wife invites a return to the biblical text to consider afresh her prominence and influence within the book as a whole. Insights from within and behind the text indeed establish the central place and indispensable part that Job’s wife occupied within the social and economic fabric of Job’s world. A detailed analysis of the words of Job’s wife reveals the inherent ambiguities within them that have given rise to a range of diverse interpretations of the meaning of her speech. The particular reading suggested in this study hears in her words a biting critique of the organising paradigm of Job’s world, as well as the offer of a bold alternative to the rigid order and control that marked his anxious existence. It will be argued further that each of the core elements that make up her speech – the inadequacy of Job’s worldview; the (paradoxical) posture of contestation; the experience of otherness; and the centrality of unitive consciousness – finds a sublime echo in the divine speeches. In response, Job’s own ambiguous and subversive use of language – like that of his wife and Yahweh – testifies to the renewed perspective within him, and the genuine transformation that can occur at the threshold of speech and silence.
Performance, power and agency : Isaiah Shembe's hymns and the sacred dance in the Church of the Nazarites.
(2010) Sithole, Nkosinathi.; West, Gerald Oakley.; Brown, Duncan John Bruce.
This study examines the sacred dance in the Nazaretha Church and Isaiah Shembe's hymns as “agency” and not “response” (Coplan, 1994: 27). A number of studies on the Nazaretha Church and Isaiah Shembe posit that Shembe created his popular texts (especially the sacred dance) as a response to colonialism and the oppression of black people. In countering such a proposition I argue that in exploring the sacred dance we need to look at the motivation for members to participate in the dance. With that view in mind, I examine the sacred dance and the hymns as examples of a popular culture which is both „transnational‟ and „transglobal‟, to use Hofmeyr‟s terms (2004). This is because it is common in the Nazaretha Church that members taking part in the sacred dance claim to be doing so on behalf of their dead relatives, as it is believed that ancestors are able to participate in those dances through the bodies of their living relatives. In return, those in the ancestral realm will reward the living performers by offering them „blessings‟. In the Nazarite Church, and through performances like the sacred dance, the physical and spiritual worlds are perceived to be integrated. I therefore examine these hymns and performances as examples of popular culture “that is more than sub- or trans-national, [that] is trans-worldly and trans-global” (Hofmeyr, 2004: 9). In other words, I examine the sacred dance as performances and the hymns as texts whose audience is not only living people but also people in heaven. This means my study goes beyond the view that Nazarite performances are rituals of empowerment for the members, a majority of whom are economically, socially and politically marginalised (Muller, 1999), to look at them as significant on their own account. In undertaking the abovementioned task, I examine these hymns and performances in relation to “oral testimony of their significance to the people who [perform] and [listen] to them” (White, 1989: 37). Oral testimony of dreams and miracles suggests that Nazarite members who take part in the sacred dance do so primarily because of the imagined relationship between the individual and divine power. As Mbembe states, “it is the subject‟s relation to divine sovereignty that serves as the main provider of meanings for most people” (2002: 270). I argue that Nazarite members take part in the sacred dance mainly as an attempt to “manage the „real world‟ on the basis of the conviction that all symbolisation refers primarily to a system of the invisible, of a magical universe, the present belonging above all to a sequence that opens onto something different” (270).
Political economies of terror? Ancient monarchic Israelite and post-colonial Zimbabwean political economies in dialogue towards an inclusive economic ethics.
(2019) Taruona, Honoured.; West, Gerald Oakley.
This work is an attempt at Marxist biblical scholarship. It seeks to add to a growing list of works from African biblical scholars that employ insights from the social sciences, Marxist analytical categories in particular, to shed light on, and better understand the social life of ancient Israel. It uses Marxist analysis to facilitate a dialogue between the political economy of ancient monarchic Israel and that of post-colonial Zimbabwe, with a view to an inclusive economic ethics. A Marxist reading of social life in ancient monarchic Israel reveals a class divided society in which the upper classes seized the institution of the state to further their own class interests. A picture that emerges from that society is of a tiny elite parasitically living off the sweat and toil of the peasants. Physically devastated by corvée labour, impoverished by onerous tribute and taxation, and having lost property and family to debt instruments, the hardworking peasants rue the day their ancestors accepted the tributary state, with its monopoly of the legitimate use of violence and ideo-theologies that support and legitimate the status quo; that support and legitimate the luxury that they see being displayed wantonly by their rulers. Like the sons and daughters of Israel they read about daily in their bibles, without stopping for a moment to reflect on their social life, the peaceful hardworking Zimbabwean masses, decimated by poverty, fear and state-sponsored brutality, yet unable to change their story, unwilling to mobilise and stage a citizen’s revolution, have resigned to fate, hoping that the God of the Hebrews will listen to their cries and avenge their blood, sweat and tears. From the highs of the defeat of white racist supremacy to the lows of recording the second highest rate of inflation in recorded history, from being the second most advanced economy on the continent south of the Sahara, to rank among the poorest on earth, from its citizens being proud white collar employees, to beggars and vendors on the streets of neighbouring countries, yet their rulers and patronage networks unashamedly display their extortionate wealth in broad day light, no one in their wildest imagination would have thought that just two decades into independence, the country would descend into a predatory and brutal police state in which its leaders would join hands with the military to terrorise any form of dissent, torture tens of thousands, murder thousands of their own people who hold a different opinion from theirs, as the country tethered on the brink of becoming a failed state. Regarded as a pariah by the international community, industry having been decimated by hyperinflation and shortage of foreign exchange, the country would be abandoned by more than half of its skilled workforce, but only after the ruling politico-military elite and its patronage networks had looted the state coffers empty. With social services having virtually collapsed, citizens would die of avoidable diseases such as cholera. The picture that emerges from Zimbabwe is of a defeated and confused citizenry, scratching their hands trying, but failing, to get answers to what has led them to be in this sorry state. Although separated by millennia, a Marxist reading of the two political economies shows striking similarities in terms of stratification, primitive accumulation of wealth by the upper classes and their apparent insensitivity to the plight of the masses. A biblically-inspired economic ethics that extols community and advocates an option for those who have fallen on the wrong side of the political economy is what the exploited in both contexts want to hear.