Ernst M. Conradie

How can we help to raise an environmental awareness in the South African context

This article reflects on the question formulated in the title, i.e. “How can we help to raise an environmental awareness in the South African context?” It analyses some of the assumptions underlying this question. It argues that environmental problems cannot be addressed only through information and education, through science and technology or through governments and the laws that they promulgate. Christians can contribute to an environmental ethos through helping to articulate a moral vision for society, by practicing ecological virtues and by engaging in moral decision making in every sphere of public life.

Healing in Soteriological Perspective

This article offers some theological reflections on healing from a soteriological perspective. This is based on a conceptual map for soterio-logical discourse, which adapts Christological debates on theories of atonement for pneumatological discourse on salvation. The implications of such an analysis for a theology of healing and the significance of such discourse within the (South) African context are discussed.

THE ROAD TOWARDS AN ECOLOGICAL BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS

This article builds on a review essay on the Earth Bible project (Scriptura 85, 125133). It defends the creative role, indeed the necessity and inevitability of doctrine in biblical exegesis. It argues that the Earth Bible project assumes its own set of doctrinal presuppositions, that this forms the very core of its critical and creative impulse and that such presuppositions should be recognised and subjected to further critical reflection. This can provide a meeting place where mutually critical collaboration between biblical hermeneutics and constructive theology can become possible.

Towards a Theology of Place in the South African Context: Some Reflections from the Perspective of Ecotheology

A theology of place has deep roots within the Jewish-Christian tradition. However, a theology of place has become obscured as a result of various trends in modernity. It has re-emerged through a number of theological strands over the past few decades, including various branches of ecotheology. Indeed, it would not be inappropriate to identify a widespread “spatial turn” in current intellectual discourse, including Christian theology. Such developments are specifically important within the South African context where, in the theme of the 2008 annual meeting of the Theological Society of South Africa, “grace, race and space” have become deeply entangled with each other.

Dominante teologiese sleutels in die Ned Geref Kerk na 1974

This article [follows upon a] forms a sequel to a previous contribution in which the points of divergence between apartheid theology and the critical voices of Ben Marais and Beyers Naude within the Dutch Reformed Church were analysed, especially with reference to the different “theological keys” employed up to the publication of Human Relations and the South African scene in the light of Scripture (1974). This contribution offers hypo theses for further research on subsequent developments within the Dutch Reformed Church. Three questions are addressed: 1) What happened to the dominant theological keys employed in apartheid theologyafter 1974? 2) Which theological keys became dominant in the Dutch Reformed Church after 1974 and again after 1994? 3) How can the theological points of divergence within the Dutch Reformed Church be understood after 1974 and especially after 1994? Some concluding comments are offered on the significance of such hypotheses for ecumenical relations, especially within the family of Dutch Reformed churches.

Ecumenical Discourse on Pneumatology and Ecology

Christian ecotheology may be regarded as an attempt to retrieve the ecological wisdom embedded in the Christian tradition as a response to ecological destruction and environmental injustices.1 At the same time, it is an attempt to reinvestigate, rediscover and renew the Christian tradition in the light of the challenges posed by the environmental crisis and the critique that the root causes of the crisis are related to the impact of Christianity. Just as feminist theology engages in a twofold critique, that is, a Christian critique of sexist or patriarchal culture and a feminist critique of Christianity, so ecotheology offfers a Christian critique of the economic and cultural patterns underlying ecological destruction and an ecological critique of Christianity. In other words, ecotheology is not only concerned with how Christianity can respond to environmental concerns; it also offfers Christianity an opportunity and a challenge for renewal and reformation. James Nash suggests that an ecological reformation of Christianity implies that there are signifijicant flaws in the Christian tradition—otherwise a reformation would not be necessary. It also implies that these flaws can be corrected—else a reformation would not be possible. He adds that reformation is not something alien to the Christian faith—as the protestant axiom of ecclesia reformata semper reformanda indicates.2

The Salvation of the Earth from Anthropogenic Destruction: In Search of Appropriate Soteriological Concepts in an Age of Ecological Destruction

This article offers a conceptual map of soteriological discourse in the field of Christian ecotheology. On the basis of an adaptation of Gustaf Aulen’s famous analysis in Christus Victor of three types of atonement, the following three soteriological models are identified and made relevant for Christian ecotheology: a) God’s victory over the forces of evil, death and destruction; b) Reconciliation amidst alienation; and c) Moral influence in the form of environmental policy making. It is proposed that these may be related on the basis of discerning the present consequences of human sin in the many forms of evil, the deepest (past) roots of such evil in human sin and the need to limit the future consequences of evil.

From land reform to poo protesting : some theological reflections on the ecological repercussions of economic inequality

This article consists of three distinct parts. The first part offers a number of observations on land as a lens to interpret economic inequalities in South Africa. The second part extrapolates such observations to explore the ecological dimensions of urban land reform with specific reference to the ongoing service delivery protests over sanitation (dubbed ‘poo protesting’) as reported in the media and more specifically in the Cape Times. The third part offers some theological and ethical reflections on the human need for sanitation as a form of internal critique of the engagement with such service delivery protests by the so-called ‘Concerned Citizens Group’ in which the author was involved.

Land, Liturgy & Life: overture to the "comma" and the "and" in a very small dogmatics

This contribution observes a Trinitarian logic in the theme of ‘Land, Liturgy and Life’ addressed at the 2013 annual meeting of the Theological Society of South Africa. The Trinitarian mystery needs to be protected with the doxological language of the liturgy. In this contribution I will offer an overture (or prolegomena) to such a doxology, by weaving together four themes pertaining to the nature of the Christian confession of faith in the triune God. In a rather unreformed move I will give a certain priority to seeing instead of hearing and suggest a) that the Christian confession offers a way of seeing the world, b) that it sees the world (the land) as the beloved household of God, c) that this is best understood as a liturgical vision and d) that it is this vision that enables the resurrection of life.

DETERMINING RELATIVE ADEQUACY IN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION

1. Introduction Plurality is an inevitable and necessary result of Biblical interpretation. There can be no single fully adequate interpretation of any Biblical text. This is partly due to the polisemy inherent in the text itself, but also to the different historical, geographical, and ecclesial contexts within which the meaning of a text is continuously being appropriated. Interpretation is necessarily an ongoing task if this implies the need to embody the significance of the text in and for ever changing circumstances.