Nurturing Intercultural Theological Education towards Social Justice Ideals in South Africa

Abstract

Post-apartheid South Africa, almost three decades into the democracy, is a society in crisis, facing burgeoning economic and social challenges. Religion is seen as a potential force in supporting social cohesion and nation building. Theological education in its handling of diversity and decoloniality reveals complicity and avoidance. A significant task is to embrace the ‘other’ and to affirm the equality and dignity of all people, bearing in mind there is sufficient theological impetus for this. A key question for this study is how theological education can engage in an intercultural ideal towards authentic participation in the development of society. This article reveals the resources and process of embodied formative education within a mediated learning environment to create a hospitable space for learning about differences. It also allows for antiracist pedagogies to be realised within this safer community. Attention is also given to on how epistemological justice and decolonisation is engaged, envisioning a less domineering approach to theological education that makes space for other voices. This contextual case study affirms African identity, revealing humanising education that can support political change at an interpersonal level, as well as at a geo-political level, in its decolonial agenda of creating an engagement of equals.

1. Background to the Context

Post-apartheid South Africa almost thirty years on does not reflect a ‘normal’ society, instead revealing ‘unresolved tensions built into persons, interpersonal relationships and communal and institutional identities’ (Jansen 2009, p. 11). A critical task of the nation-building project was the construction of an inclusive national identity captured by Archbishop Tutu’s ‘rainbow nation’, which for various reasons has not materialised. As a nation in transition, South Africa remains in a luminal space with overwhelming economic, social and race-based inequality. Even though profound changes have materialised, like redress throughout all sectors of society, known as ‘transformation’, social divisions have deepened.

Within higher education, there have been significant efforts to re-evaluate and reform, issues such as ‘decolonizing, deracialising, demasculanising and degendering’ (Higher Education South Africa Report 2014, p. 7) including epistemological and ontological issues that have been ignored in curriculum design and in pedagogical practice (Le Grange 2016). In 2015 and 2016, national student protests known as #FeesMustFall (Amery et al. 2022; Zembylas 2018) called for a decolonised curriculum and equal access to education. This was a wake-up call that reforms needed to happen more urgently, highlighting strong links between social justice and decolonising education. The focus in public education is inclusive education, which then needs to affirm and include students from different cultures and backgrounds, for example, who ‘study at historically White universities with historically uprooted cultural traditions and practices’ (Badat and Sayed 2014, p. 129).

Amongst the radical changes towards democracy, religious communities have played key roles, especially the majority faith, Christianity, which has made significant adaptations from being the official state religion to embracing religious plurality. One of the reforms that impacts the church is the new Religion Education Policy (DoE 2003) in public schooling focused on teaching about religions with a non-confessional approach. In higher education, theological education continues to be offered at public universities as the academic study of Christian theology, but with a non-confessional approach which is new. Theological education is also offered by private denominational seminaries focused on clergy leadership development but only recognised by the government if the institution offers accredited programmes. The restructuring of university and church-based theological education, which historically was racially segregated, has now resulted in growing multicultural student bodies representing differing theological commitments, race, age, language, sexual orientation, and personal histories. In addition, theological education has experienced the oppression of colonialism with inherited foreign frameworks and imported categories and methodologies that are in common use. Considering that the apartheid church’s well-treasured pursuit was the study of theology at university, theology remains linked with European knowledge as foundational in theological disciplines. Venter’s analysis points to issues requiring attention: ‘the disciplinary entanglement with apartheid; the social responsibility of theology; the engagement with the crisis of the post-apartheid context; the nature of theological knowledge and theology’s potential contribution to human flourishing’ (Venter 2015, p. 181).

Given this transition from a divided past into a democracy, like other places of learning, theological training institutions have not been places of cultural affirmation; rather, they have been alienating. The side-lining of culture as a category of difference in educational policy is because this socially constructed marker is used within power imbalances closely linked to race and culture. ‘Culture’ has been linked to apartheid, where cultures are viewed as homogenous and could serve to ‘entrench the marginalisation of groups who are subordinated on other grounds’ (Soudien 2009, p. 150). This awareness is important for the context as well as recognising how oppressions ‘intersect, co-construct and constitute each other’ (Steyn 2011, p. 9), together with the potential for excluded groups to reframe their situations.

Since the cultural aspect has been neglected in pedagogical practice, intercultural education is an approach that can disrupt learnt behaviour and ways of seeing the other, although culture represents other kinds of difference as well (Martin and Nakayama 2000). Intercultural education involves the relationships, processes and negotiations between culturally different groups, that ‘go beyond passive coexistence, to achieve a developing and sustainable way of living together’ (UNESCO 2006, p. 18). It ‘seeks to integrate in the interrogation on the educational space, the data of psychology, anthropology, social sciences, politics, culture and history’ (Cucoş 2000, p. 148). It is part of interpersonal, microlevel change that can support broader political change. In reality, more is needed to deal with social inequities in the educational environment, but embracing the other can reflect religious values and serve as a model for constructive exchange. In addition, developing these competencies can help students to nurture multicultural religious spaces in a mostly monocultural religious landscape.

Even though an intercultural approach is a newer idea, it is evident in some sectors of theological education, yet more can be done to offer a liberatory vision (Cartledge and Cheetham 2011) about how people relate towards a reconciled humanity. This article highlights the nature and process of formative education, which is unique to theological education, that creates space for learning that is open or hospitable to the other. This learning environment also makes antiracist pedagogies a possibility, as a solution to conflict in the context. This happens within a mediated learning environment that allows for students to respond to particular existential questions and to reflect on learning within quality interactions. The article also highlights the decolonial as a call for political liberation, revealing how valuing African indigenous knowledge is necessary for subverting colonialism and universal Western knowledge to ensure an engagement of equals.

2. Diversity in Theological Education

Diversity involves ‘valuing the uniqueness of what different cultures bring to the collective, while also maintaining cohesive societies’ (Steyn 2011, p. 7). Christian communities have not adequately dealt with diversity issues like race, gender, class, and sexuality in a productive way so as to bring about a constructive dialogue (Naidoo 2016a). For example, there has been a pronounced silence on the race issue from churches, partly because unity discussion and reconciliation have not been sufficiently explored and acted on to be internalised in a sustainable way. Additionally, the complicity of churches in apartheid (Chapman and Spong 2003; Kuperus 2011) resulted in the historical White universities and their faculties of theology being resistant to transformation. As Venter states, ‘the problematic nature was found in the Reformed confessional dominance, the role of church oversight, racialised staff and student profiles, as well as subtle curricular legitimization’ (Venter 2015, p. 183). Even though there is sufficient theological impetus focused on equality and unity, research has shown that institutions of Christian higher education are challenged in educating for diversity, partly because this education is also attached to religious dogma (Fubara et al. 2011).

Within theological education, multiculturalism is still seen as the gold standard for re-valuing diversity, where culture is viewed with an essentialised understanding (Hemson 2006), acting on cultural stereotypes that are racially based. With desegregation and the opening of learning spaces, incoming African students were most disadvantaged as they had to assimilate White middle-class norms. Even though the idea of multiculturalism involves celebrating cultural differences, culture was viewed as static. Theological education was about teaching ‘them’ to be like ‘us’ and hence not like themselves. The idea was that to be successful, the ‘other’ must unlearn aspects of themselves, to become part of ‘us’ who know how things should be.

This focus of multiculturalism comes from the rhetoric of the rainbow nation (Gqola 2001), which is about engaging a politics of difference and somehow transcending race and ethnicity, yet it remains incapable of challenging (neo)liberal individualism. This colour-blind approach provides the idea that all cultures are equal in the classroom, which neutralises the pedagogical process. These are add-on approaches to diversity management that do not disturb the underlying framework that sustains discrimination (Fraser 2009, p. 23). Cross states that to strengthen the South African diversity discourse, there is a need ‘to integrate the politics of cultural and identity recognition with the politics of social justice and equity’ (Cross 2004, p. 389). Yet in working towards social justice, there is also the recognition that in education, racialised categories are used in institutional development, teaching, and research, and higher education engages ‘both with and against conceptual tools that have yet to be effectively replaced’ (Warmington 2009, p. 296).

Beyond changing student and teacher demographics in universities, little structural change has materialised (Zembylas 2018). This was evident for example, in student protests in 2018 at the historically White Faculty of Theology at Stellenbosch University. Black students made demands for belonging and inclusion, since the institutional culture had made inadequate adaptations to include black bodies. ‘Students still experience that black people are socially, economically and psychologically abused by the white systems, including university campuses’ (Nell 2018, p. 1). These incidents brought on helplessness and distrust among staff and students and management. Denominational seminaries and colleges, as well, are deeply embedded in colonial mission history with European knowledge and traditions in place and still need to indigenise church praxis (Kritzinger 2012). Truer is that theological training is a microcosm of society reflecting its social and cultural divisions (Naidoo 2016a), most times taking on an un-reflected social cohesion, a ‘culture of niceness’ or Christian piety without deconstructing ongoing discriminatory practices.

3. The Resource of Theology in Intercultural Engagement

Theology has an intercultural potential since its religious claims can become foundational for humanising the other and finding common ground. This is evident during theological training when students internalise their professional role through a particular type of professional development known as ministerial formation (Foster et al. 2006), a holistic development made up of theological knowledge, various skills development, spiritual formation, and the development of religious identity. The training is different from other forms of professional education, as the students’ knowing is about the embodied and embedded self in knowing (Cahalan 2011). The work of formation involves an active re-examination of assumptions as students form their theology and worldview, leading to an expansion of consciousness involving ‘an active/reflective dialectic between intention and extension of experience’ (Kolb 2015, p. 65). This takes place in a mediated learning environment which is about ‘human interactions that generate the capacity of individuals to change, to modify themselves in the direction of greater adaptability and toward the use of higher mental processes’ (Freuerstein and Freuerstein 1991, p. 6).

The value of mediated learning is that it works towards the inner coherence of the student, providing opportunities for ‘unlearning, learning and relearning’ (Freuerstein and Freuerstein 1991, p. 12). Students are shaped by personal and communal (habitus) formation (Bourdieu 1993) where educators and students have common religious beliefs and values situated within a particular tradition. This type of learning is more evident in seminary education, where students are training for ordination, but students studying at universities can and do (in some historically White universities via the ‘kuratorim’, a devotional space focused on vocational training) supplement their intellectual formation and work-integrated-learning with a broader formation in churches and community service. This type of training was especially evident in the 1990s, when a new South African nation was becoming a reality and denominational theological colleges within ecumenical partnership (Duncan 2000) used formative education to work through issues of race and identity to support the national building project.

A first step in formative education is working with the lifeworld of students and connecting with their lived experiences. Classical theological methodology has always looked to scripture, tradition, and reason and found the person largely irrelevant. Yet values, memories, and experience are key to students’ theologising and the conceptual work. Here student’s experiences, life stories, and narratives are interpreted and are used in knowledge production. To access this experiential knowledge, educators help students reflect on their social locations and identities in making interpretations (Hill et al. 2009). As students reflect on the many intersections between their social reality, their theological construction, and their faith, they come to see how they are predisposed to think about issues from their particular location. The process also helps students to realise that geographic positioning is intertwined with social and political position. For example, the way scripture is interpreted and acted upon depends on a person’s lived reality, their experiences of people like and unlike them, even their perceptions of social inequality and justice. Andraos suggests that as students begin to reflect and value their cultural knowledge before engaging ‘classical’ theoretical frameworks (Andraos 2012, p. 6), this moves the student away from creating theories based on purely abstract thought, which can disconnect them from their social contexts. These cultural understandings which underpin pedagogies are authoritative tools to meaningful education. This sociocultural consciousness views ‘resources for learning in all students rather than viewing differences as problems to be overcome’ (Villegas and Lucas 2007, p. 28).

Through habitual ways of being, through the formal and informal curriculum, the development of character and perception takes place. Through deconstruction–reconstruction processes, students become grounded, forming religious identities made up of various aspects of identity development. In deconstructing aspects of cultural identity, because spiritual knowing is deeply cultural, according to Hurtado, students can reclaim aspects of culture by ‘learning from their histories, reclaiming what has been lost or unknown to them, and reframing what has often been cast subconsciously as negative in more positive ways’ (Hurtado 2005, p. 606). In working through racism for example, working through the affective and intellectual aspects of race and theological anthropology students can explore their humanness in the image of God. This allows the student the unique identity to be recognised, as Tisdell and Tolliver state ‘the freedom to make known who I am, to construct and make known my individual life-story as identity, affords me the right to be somebody’ (Tisdell and Tolliver 2003, p. 375). This grounding is helpful when engaging in intercultural dialogue, as students know themselves and understand their socialised biases through self-awareness. This supports the cultural exchange as student develop the ability to relativise their belief systems and behaviours and not romanticise their cultural traditions and culturally shaped blind spots.

Formation also happens in the sociocultural processes of the hidden curriculum. Transformation is holistic in that there is an ongoing adjustment to new encounters, ideas, perspectives, and otherness within and outside of the individual. As students relate with others, they come to realise that ‘who you are becoming shapes crucially and fundamentally what you know’ (Lave and Wenger 1991, p. 64). Hermans and Hermans-Konopka speak of the theory of dialogical self, where the person takes on the others perspective ‘in order for one’s own self to be discovered more fully’ (Hermans and Hermans-Konopka 2010). This mediating space can break down negative stereotypes and re-internalize different norms which are integrated into the person. In this way, relationships can be built on real difference than being created superficially. Here, a relational epistemology (Martin and Griffiths 2014) is used with mutual sharing as borders are crossed into a new space or third space (Bhabha 1990; Kramsch 1993). However, the socially constructed nature of perspectives and identities does add to the challenge of communicating and educating (Martin and Griffiths 2014). Yet even occasions of miscommunication can be used as teachable moments and requires intentionality in the pedagogical process.

Through mediated learning, community is reinforced through collaborative risk-taking and learning where educators and students are invested in learning together. Scholars have critiqued the notion of safe space (Leonardo and Porter 2010; Ellsworth 1989) and have rather advocated for a pedagogy of disruption and experimentation. On the other hand, because what is taught is modelled in the community, this to some extent removes some dimension of risk, and safety becomes a possibility. Here, the focus is on the learning process and not on prescribed results, ‘what is most significant intellectually is not where we end up but how we go about getting there’ (Wagner 2005, p. 263). This process of face-to-face work can be a humanising experience of struggle. Here, culture is seen as ideology, where ‘culture is not just a variable, nor benignly socially constructed but a site of struggle where various communication meanings are constructed’ (Martin and Nakayama 2000, p. 81). Personal vulnerability is also at stake in border crossing (Giroux 1992); however, the integration of new learnings does not equate to assimilation to the dominant culture, nor does it refer to indifference or ‘tolerance’ where the other remains independent. Theologian Lartey (1997) speaks of a particular quality of intercultural exchange that shows concern for the well-being of the other.

Within this learning environment, antiracist education becomes a natural progression where injustices are interrogated. Critical race theory highlights the intersections of oppressions that marginalise some while giving privilege to others. The idea is to interrogate ideas of race and associated concepts of whiteness, blackness, power, etc. so that it is not perceived in a threatening way. The dialogue engaged here is about the possibility of challenging ideas that embed unequal relationships. The focus on the analysis of power requires a critical theoretical sense making (Halualani et al. 2009). Here, religious values and norms can be interrogated and deconstructed to point to the underlying theological criteria supporting these concepts. Awareness is needed also not to essentialise categories of ‘black’ and ‘white’ as there is great contextual complexity in diversity. In this process, as students uphold their cultural identities, their multi-faceted selves, and begin to question their own points of difference, it then become difficult to label others with stereotypes.

Using empathy, antiracist pedagogies can help students challenge their presumed rootedness in their culture or society. Through structured dialogue in small groups, sufficient safety is found for students, and storytelling can become a way of emotionally unpacking histories. One thing that is important to recognise is that it is difficult to speak in racialised space because of how people can be perceived racially, and thus, sensitivity is required to identify who speaks and who is silenced in discussions. This may involve facilitating a learning environment that encourages the silent to speak or realising that everyone does not communicate in the same way. With the awareness of the psychological scarring of racism, educators should not judge prejudiced responses from students; rather they should create opportunities to discuss where the ideas originated. It is also important for educators to validate the intellectual potential of students and work through emotional blocks so that students can make the links between their personal experiences and theories. Again, there should be fluidity and compassion and no fixed positions in understanding identities, which requires collaboration and solidarity from the group (Dei 2000). This requires skilful facilitation, ideally by a multi-cultural team of educators to unpack the idea of racism; how it is constructed and operationalised and continues to matter. Another pedagogical resource that can be used is the history of White protest in South Africa and the support of fellow white students. As hooks states, ‘their heroism goes unnoticed where the overall assumption is that all white people are racist … Dangerous and detrimental, this thinking maintains and reinforces White supremacy’ (hooks 2003, p. 56).

This mediation can further deconstruct racism by critically considering what a non-racial society could look, engaging students in antiracist organising. Here, changing attitudes must be complemented with social actions (Banks 2004, p. 253) that attempt to change structural oppressions. Practical community outreaches are used as ways of seeing issues objectively, a re-envisioning of how we ‘see’ what is and what might yet be in the example. This could help overcome superficial commitments and help students explore barriers that prevent them from confronting behaviours and attitudes around oppression. This is because the intellectual acknowledgement of difference does not always imply the existential awareness of it. In this context, it is not enough to know about the other: we need to commit to being in relationships with people of different cultures. We also cannot rationalise our way into other people’s social conditions, we need to go there and be there. Day (2020, p. 30) suggests ‘we do not desire each other’ and this kind of intentionally is needed for intercultural praxis. Because students come from very different racial worlds, they can benefit from understanding where people come from and learn to see things through the eyes of others. In this way, students develop their own theology for their own contexts while challenging their presuppositions around difference, ensuring that these learnings lead to more effective Christian work.

However, many theology educators have not been trained to work across cultures, with its complexities and within mediated learning environments. Educators will need assistance with how to provide feedback that is appropriate or how to create opportunities for experimentation. Educators also may be reluctant to deal with contentious issues around power imbalances, especially since theology students may not accept that they have prejudices against others since it may be perceived as unchristian, and hence it could be difficult to engage issues. Teaching also takes place with both conscious and unconscious assumptions from the educator’s cultural perspective (Amery et al. 2022). Professional development is needed to traverse these multi-cultural contexts (Szelei et al. 2020). Theological education itself must be challenged for the systems of oppression like racism and sexism embedded in its institutions. Inclusion is key to intercultural communication and noticing how exclusion is expressed and normalised will help educators to respond accordingly.

4. Decolonialising Theological Knowledge

Theology is always from a particular context rooted in one’s culture, and contextualising theology is itself an intercultural act. The negative impacts of the missionary enterprise via colonialism, plurality of all kinds through globalisation, and migration and the discovery of the cultural and religious other has all brought on profound theological interpretations. Within South African theological education, non-dominant or indigenous knowledge has been treated in a tokenistic way, whereas engaging interculturalism involves recognising the demographic, historical, and political contexts from which knowledge is produced. Recognising multiple ways of knowing and that knowledge can be represented in varied forms is part of the knowledge democracy (Hall and Tandon 2017). Epistemological violence is the ‘reproduction of epistemological blindness that silences other knowledges and ways of creating knowledge’ (Motta 2013, p. 98). de Sousa Santos (2018, pp. 36–40) argues for global justice through urging epistemic diversity by ‘critiquing the marginalisation, silencing, and delegitimating of Southern and indigenous knowledges’. Epistemological justice involves targeting universal Eurocentric knowledge and recentring to create a path for local knowledge and voices of others to be seen as equals in theological dialogue.

In South African theological education, decoloniality as an analytical category is currently a key focus in advocating for the inclusion of marginalised knowledge and challenging the racialised undertones of theological interpretations that have developed as white and normative. Some discussion on Africanising theological education (Duncan 2000; Naidoo 2016b) has involved ‘rethinking the entire ideological church apparatus of theological education from the standpoint of African questions and answers’ (Antonio 2006, p. 20). The disciplinary involvement with the apartheid church, colour-blindness, and meritocracy has resulted in contestations with the idea of African knowledge and methodologies. Reflecting on the state of local theological practice, Venter states, ‘to what extent curricula, and the underlying epistemological foundations have been re-imagined is an open question. The same applies to research agendas’ (Venter 2015, p. 183). In setting the agenda for theological education, then, it is important to establish how disciplinary knowledge is organised, who the gatekeepers are, and whose interests are being served.

Interculturality does not accept universal definitions of knowledge since people themselves are the actors and the subjects as they engage in dialogue (Halualani et al. 2009). Knowledge production is dependent on the historical context of each culture and on the challenges of that context. Theology students should not feel pressured to use foreign concepts to make sense of their cultural reality simply because it is the dominant paradigm. Knowledge does come from anywhere, but it must be useful to addressing African realities (Dei 2000). Universal understandings are linked to binary discourses, that projects a ‘us’ and ‘them’ and dismisses the ‘possibility of hybridity’ (Andreotti 2011, p. 10). From a decolonial perspective, it is important to acknowledge the interconnections between local cultural entities and larger geopolitical relations as these impacts power relations in unequal ways (Halualani et al. 2009). Noting the geopolitics of knowledge production helps students to see coloniality in its many manifestations and to work towards unmasking it.

In intercultural praxis, the deconstruction of Western epistemic systems should start by questioning ‘the social and cultural relevance of the grammar, rhetoric, and content of western theology in non-western contexts’ (Antonio 2006, p. 16) looking for a deconstruction of a political nature using local metaphors, models, and idioms. As Mignolo (2007, p. 450) suggests, uncovering dominant paradigms by delinking which is a ‘de-colonial epistemic shift leading to other-universality’ and other epistemologies, other politics, other ethics. Some ways in which the context is moving to become fundamentally less Eurocentric and intercultural is the growing scholarship that makes an analysis of leading Africa texts and intellectual voices on the generation of knowledge and conceptualisations of decolonisation (Duncan 2000; Maluleke 2006; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018). Curriculum transformations have begun that consider the social positioning of those doing theology, using indigenous knowledge and alternative methodologies (Higgs 2015; Chilisa 2016; Naidoo 2016b). Attempts are being made towards epistemological inclusion by scholars working together against discrimination and accounting for their positioning in academic discourse (Goto 2016).

Intercultural theology as well seeks ‘appropriate language, categories (‘experience and culture’), and methods to assist believers in their hermeneutical quests here and now’ (Küster 2001, p. 67). As we know, values and beliefs are deeply impacted by the culture and social context. This recognition has resulted in new theological interpretations of the many Christian expressions emanating from various cultural contexts. In South Africa, contextual theologies mostly of liberation are the nucleus of intercultural theology meeting the universality–particularity dilemma. They have been helpful in decolonisation as they give voice and expose subjugated knowledge. For example, Black theology asks questions and raises critical awareness of various form of injustices that impact Black people, challenging normative ideas of Western Christianity that marginalise the Black experience. This happens through ‘conscientising and empowering Black students through Biblical hermeneutics and Black theological reflection, a critical re-reading of African histories together with the notion of Black self-determination’ (Cone 1986, p. 45). This theological approach helps students to analyse power relations, in this way understanding and affirming their identities.

5. Conclusions

This article reviewed the theological education landscape in South Africa, highlighting the challenges of dealing with diversity and considered an intercultural approach against historical legacies of racism and intellectual colonisation. Theological education has a moral responsibility to decolonise harmful patterns of relating. Intercultural education ‘seeks to integrate in the interrogation on the educational space, the data of psychology, anthropology, social sciences, politics, culture and history’ (Cucoş 2000, p. 148) and is aligned to formative education. Through a mediated learning environment, theological education engages students’ lived experiences, providing a foundation for humanising the other while providing a positive example of living and learning together. This helps to change the overwhelming belief that different races and cultures cannot overcome their differences. This environment provides space for experimenting, reflecting and strengthening nonracist and transformative practices that are aligned with Christian values. In this way, another way of being can be symbolically presented, ‘a mental revolution, a transformation of one’s whole vision of the social world’ (Maton 2009, p. 61). Within this safer space, antiracist education because an organic progression where stereotypical understandings of the other can be interrogated and transformed. Finally, African ways of knowing needs to be respected and to become mainstreamed for meaningful theological education within the context. By recognising the epistemic violence and the marginalisation of African knowledge, theological education is engaging interculturally by challenging universal knowledge. This contextual reflection reveals how theological education, through developing intercultural competencies, can support political change at an interpersonal level as well as supporting a decolonising agenda and its liberative goal.