Toward justice and social transformation? Appealing to the tradition against the tradition

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Toward justice and social transformation? Appealing to the tradition against the tradition
 
Creator Naude, Piet J.
 
Subject Church History Protestant Reformation; Social transformation; John Calvin; Karl Barth; Dirk Smit; Belhar confession; Christian ethics; Re-reading Scriptures
Description This article starts with a brief statement on the well-known contradictory nature of the Reformed tradition in South Africa, defending injustice and struggling for justice in the name of the same tradition. By following the work of Reformed systematic theologian D.J. Smit, it argues that the justice-affirming potential of the Reformed tradition is a hermeneutical task built on three specific re-interpretations: (1) the reinterpretation of Scripture from the perspective of the weak, the poor and the oppressed (against a hermeneutic of creation orders and God-willed division of people) (2) a rereading of John Calvin to affirm the dignity and freedom of all humans (against the grain of neo-Calvinist interpretations) (3) a rereading of Karl Barth with a focus on God’s inclusive grace, Christian confessions and the nature of the Christian life (against the limitation of his influence because of his perceived actualistic view on Scripture or unscientific, foundational methodology). The article closes with a brief look into the agenda for social transformation faced by us in the second decade of the 21st century, and under what conditions the  Reformed faith will be able to make an enduring contribution to public life in (South) Africa.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2017-05-31
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hts.v73i3.4350
 
Source HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies; Vol 73, No 3 (2017); 8 pages 2072-8050 0259-9422
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/4350/9504 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/4350/9503 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/4350/9505 https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/4350/9494
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2017 Piet J. Naude https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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