Browsing by Subject "religion"
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- ItemOpen AccessThe book of all books(2012) Reisenberger, Azila TalitLecture series presented by Dr Azila Talit Reisenberger, Head of Hebrew, School of Languages and Literature, University of Cape Town. The Bible is one of the most widely-read and influential pieces of literature in the world, but many people are surprisingly unaware of the long history of the component books that make up the central text of both Judaism and Christianity. These audio lectures will be of interest to anyone who wishes to learn more about the history of the Bible and the vast cultural and religious meanings of this collection of books.
- ItemOpen AccessPsychology and religion in the search for personal wholeness(2012) Maree, JohannThese presentations examine the relationship between psychology and religion by exploring the roles they play in helping people grow towards personal wholeness. These lecture slides will be of interest to students who attended this lecture series or other persons who wish to know more about this topic.
- ItemOpen AccessThe political instrumentalization of religion in the South African truth and reconciliation commission(2019) Kumordzie, Beatrice; Tayob, AbdulkaderThe South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been subject to numerous debates across a wide range of disciplines, including peace and conflict studies, justice and transformation studies, as well as religious studies. In political science, the debates concerning the TRC have mainly revolved around the peace versus justice dichotomy, and more recently - the heated question of whether symbolic measures as opposed to socioeconomic measures can pave the ideal path to justice and reconciliation in post-conflict societies. Arguably, the debates that have dominated the discourse on justice and transformation in South Africa so far has failed to acknowledge and unpack the central role that religion played in the country’s process of transition. My argument is that religion was instrumentalized politically in the TRC, and thereby used to morally justify certain political compromises that were made during the negotiations between the apartheid National Party (NP) and the African National Congress (ANC) in the early 1990s. By political instrumentalization, I am referring to the strategy of using an identity marker, in this case Christianity, to achieve political ends. I propose that that the Mandela administration purposely employed religious elements in the political nation-building-tool of the TRC with the intent to create an atmosphere of “spiritual healing”. This symbolic and inter-personal understanding of justice in turn, it can be argued, came at the expense of retributive and/ or socio-economic justice. The influence of religion within the TRC can be seen most strongly in the identity of the key people involved (the chairperson Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and four of the commissioners who were theologians), the overt biblical rhetoric employed both in the hearings and in the final report, as well as in the design of the commission. The constructivist theories in which this paper will frame its understanding of “the religious” suggests any space can become holy through the performance of religious practices. In this regard, I propose that the TRC, while appearing to be a court-like body, became a sacred space through practices including prayers, lighting of candles and singing of hymns.
- ItemOpen AccessTherianthropes in San rock art(2002) Jolly, PieterSan paintings of therianthropes, beings that combine human and non-human features, are described and analysed in order to formulate a theory concerning the meaning of these paintings for the people who made and viewed them. The range of therianthrope paintings is described. Four explanations, or theories, concerning the therianthropes are discussed and evaluated in relation to San religious rites and beliefs and the physical forms taken by therianthropes in the art. These explanations or theories focus respectively on animal-masked/costumed shamans, shamans transformed into animals or other creatures while in altered states, the spirits of dead shamans and the human-animal beings of San myths. Physical as well as deeper, structural, conceptual correspondences between these classes of beings in San religious thought indicate that they are all related and relevant to the way in which we should interpret the therianthropes. The kingdoms are artificial constructions designed by human beings in an effort to cope with the tremendous diversity of the living world. They are not rules of nature. (Keeton 1972: 703).