‘My city of ruins’ : a city to come

‘My city of ruins’ is the title of a song by Bruce Springsteen and will accompany a public theological reflection of imagining alternative cities. A city of ruins is either a city of ruins in the sense that it is a city in ruins. Alternatively it is a city of ruins in the sense that it is a city that is built from ruins, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. The article will reflect on the second alternative namely the poiesis of a habitable, sustainable and political space (polis) in a time when all the meta-discourses of constructing and social engineering lie in ruins (have been deconstructed). The article will focus on Derrida’s ideas of deconstruction and the hope and prayer of perhaps. Springsteen’s song includes the prayer: ‘come on, come on, rise up!’ A city of ruins prayed into existence, rising up by the call (prayer) of those longing for a liveable, sustainable city to rise up from the ruins of too many empty promises of the various political agendas. Creating and imagining a city of prayer, which involves the prayers for justice incarnate in the broken language (ruined language) of revolutions, and transformations and political construction, thus calls a city of promise into existence.This article forms part of the special collection on ‘Doing urban public theology in South Africa: Visions, approaches, themes and practices towards a new agenda’ in HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies Volume 70, Issue 3, 2014.http://www.hts.org.zatm201

Horkos [oath] and the sacrament of language – the purloined letter

The article will bring a reading of Agamben’s interpretation of horkos [oath] in the Sacrament of language, a reading of Derrida’s faith as the grammar of language, into conversation with Lacan’s interpretation of Poe’s ‘The purloined letter’ by taking into consideration the context of this reading: South Africa. South Africa is a multilingual context in the fullest sense of the word ‘multilingual’, and as such, it is faced with the dilemma of a corrupt postal system. The postal system is a metaphor for the system of communication where messages are sent and received. This postal system is corrupt as the sender and receiver of messages are not sacramentally bound by the same oath, and therefore the letters are doomed to be purloined. Derrida’s différance and the grammar of faith transcends the various languages and the various oaths as the quasi-transcendental condition for the sacrament of language, thereby opening a sacred space to encounter the inevitable corruption of the postal service.http://www.hts.org.zaam201

Religion and modernity in a secular city : a public theology of différance

Seeking the good often authorises and legitimises certain forms of violence: violence that defines the state (Benjamin’s law-founding violence) by the exclusion of others and the violence that coerces or binds (religare) the public into a common understanding of the good at the exclusion of other interpretations of that good (Benjamin’s law-maintaining violence). The secular modern state has never been without religion functioning as religare. The modern state, often seen as a peacemaker, is founded on these two forms of ‘legitimate’ violence against what is other or different, just as the peace, prosperity and good of the state is sought through the elimination of the different and a unification of the state under the banner of a ‘common’ good. This ‘legitimate’ violence will always produce the counter-violence of difference (i.e. excluded others) seeking a legitimate place within the common space of the republic (Benjamin’s divine violence). With the rise of religious fundamentalism, institutionalised religion has been allowed to return to the public debate. Is the call for this return one that further sanctions legitimate violence by eating and sharing the fruit of knowledge of good and evil? Is the call the church is hearing one that seeks to clarify and clearly define the good that will bind us (religare) into a stronger and more prosperous and peaceful city – onward Christian soldiers marching as to war? Or is there another calling, one that requires us to be Disciples of Christ – with the Cross of Jesus going on before – entering the space of violence beyond the knowledge of good and evil as peacemakers? In this article, I sought to understand this ‘peacemaking’ space by bringing into dialogue Žižek’s interpretation of Christianity with Derrida’s interpretation of hospitality.Articlehttp://www.hts.org.z

Imitatio Christi and the holy folly of divine violence : the church as ultimate criminal

The calling of the church is to follow Christ (imitatio Christi). What does this calling entail? Following Žižek’s and Derrida’s interpretation of Benjamin’s interpretation of law and violence, the paper will argue that the call to follow Christ is not to subvert the law, but as Paul argues - Christ came to destroy the law. In this article, Christ will be interpreted as one who did not counter this violence of the law (state-maintaining violence) with a counter violence of state-forming violence, but completely undermined the justification of both forms of violence (state-forming and state-maintaining) with a divine violence. If the Christ event is read as an exemplary narrative of the post-metaphysics in the linguistic turn in the work of Derrida, this opens up new possibilities for both theology as well as the role of the church within the context of a postmodern world, and these possibilities will be explored.This article is a reworked paper presented at the Subverting the Norm II conference held at Drury University, Springfield, Missouri, USA from 5-6 April 2013 with the theme: ‘Can Postmodern Theology Live in the Churches?’ This article is a response to the conference question.http://www.ufs.ac.za/ActaTheologicahb201

Truth, reason, and faith in modern civilisation : the violence of truth and the truth of violence in modern ‘secular’ Western civilisation

What is truth? What is reason? What is faith? These questions have been hotly debated and have been the cause of violence prior to the rise of the modern and so-called secular state. The rise of the modern ‘secular’ state was founded on the distinction between reason and faith thus bringing to an end the religious violence which was inspired by their respective truths. The concept of truth will be questioned, thus questioning the ‘truth’ that reason and faith can be neatly separated from each other and consequently that the secular and religious can be separated into neat categories. There is an inherent violence (political, religious and linguistic) in the Truth(s), be it the truths of either religion or secular reason, namely the originary linguistic violence of truth. This article will ask the question: How can one speak of truth, reason and faith in a modern civilisation and seek ways beyond the violence of truths towards interdisciplinary open dialogue of a democracy still to come?http://www.ve.org.z

Fossils and tombs and how they haunt us

Fossils and tombs in museums fascinate us and haunt us with their secrets. The discovery of the remains of Homo naledi, found, as argued by some, in an ancient burial chamber, promises to reveal secrets of an unremembered past, thus offering clues concerning our present-day humans and maybe influence our human future. The paper will not engage directly with what Homo naledi might contribute to the various science-religion and/or theology conversations but rather engage with the grammars of these conversations, by asking the question, why do tombs and fossils haunt us? This article will bring into the conversation Derrida’s interpretation on tombs and fossils, his hauntology, as well as the fascination with secrets. It will not offer an interpretation of Naledi, but rather ask the question why she inspires (haunts) the belief that she has something to offer the science-religion conversation (which I believe she does), or why she inspires the belief that such discoveries make no difference to the religious views on creation, for example. Whichever way, the dead, and specifically those dead to human memory, when ‘recalled’, haunt us and disturb us with their secrets.This research is part of the project, ‘Towards a practical postfoundational theology as public theology in response to the challenges of lived religion in contemporary Southern Africa’, directed by Prof. Dr Johann Meylahn, Department Practical Theology, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa.http://www.hts.org.zaam2017Practical Theolog

The unbearable lightness of différance : the ethos of deconstruction

The unbearable lightness of différance is in reference to Milan Kundera’s famous book, The unbearable lightness of being. Being is unbearably light, if interpreted as Heidegger did as either the meaning of Being or the truth of Being, yet in Derrida’s response to Heidegger he argues that différance is ‘older’ than the meaning of Being, even older than the truth of Being, and thus one could argue that différance is even lighter than Being and thus even more unbearable. What possibilities does such an unbearable lightness of différance offer to human being-with (Mitsein) in a global village faced with so many socio-economic and environmental challenges? The unbearable lightness could be absolute relativism and particularism as Rawls has interpreted it or it could be the unbearable lightness of auto-deconstruction. The unbearable lightness of différance opens a socio-political space with an ethos of deconstruction and thereby response or ibility towards the other. This lightness of différance can be interpreted as a difficult liberty (difficult liberty as Levinas interprets it) or even an unbearable liberty of infinite broken chains of signifiers and yet a freedom that is held to account (that responds) to the other. This liberty is an infinite responsibility towards the other and therefore infinite responsibility towards justice (diké). Différance is liberty as all there is, is text, but this liberty is not licentiousness of absolute disconnection, but the difficult liberty of being only responsible towards the other. The question this article will grapple with is: what ethical implications can be gathered from this state of being-with, this unbearable lightness of différance in the global village? INTRADISCIPLINARY AND/OR INTERDISCIPLINARY IMPLICATIONS : Philosophy and philosophy of religion. The article focusses on the conversation between Heidegger and Derrida, with regards to différance and Austrag.http://www.ve.org.zaam2017Practical Theolog

Ecclesiology as doing theology in and with local communities but not of the empire

The concept of empire has re-emerged as one useful to interpret and describe the joining of dominant global themes that together construct a global homogeneous totality. Some of the main themes of this totality are: global finance/capitalism which goes hand in hand with consumerism, global media and communication technologies, security (including personal, national and global), equity within a context of limited natural resources and postmodern multi-culturalism with so-called religious pluralism. These themes, together, have created a system of meaning – an imperial world-of-meaning, that is imperialistic in the sense that it takes on absolute proportions as it does not acknowledge or accommodate alternative worlds-of-meaning unless such worlds-of-meaning have consumer value in a so-called pluralistic society, thus allowing alternative voices to be assimilated into the Same. South Africa is not exempt from this imperialism as our political-economic reality and our culture – which is strongly determined by the global media and social life – is dependent on, and interpreted within, the context of empire. This article will ask the question: What role can the local church play in such an imperialistic context? In response to this question the article will unpack a hermeneutical way of doing theology in and with the local community that is not of the empire as a possible ecclesiological response to empire. In other words, a theology that is contextual and embedded within the local community, yet that is not determined by the empire, but critically engages with the empire as it challenges the local effects of empire, thereby creating a liberated space for alternative realities.http://www.unisa.ac.za/shenf201