The ambiguity of God : a post-colonial inquiry into the politics of theistic formulation in South Africa

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dc.contributor.advisorVilla-Vicencio, Charlesen_ZA
dc.contributor.authorSavage, James Peter Tyroneen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2015-11-08T05:12:51Z
dc.date.available2015-11-08T05:12:51Z
dc.date.issued1997en_ZA
dc.descriptionBibliography: leaves 115-131.en_ZA
dc.description.abstractThis thesis sets out to locate a post-apartheid perspective within what might be described as postcolonial Religious Studies, drawing on the genealogical method of Michel Foucault. Roughly stated, I understand the methodology to represent a shift away from preoccupation with the actual truth or otherwise of an idea, towards concern with the agitation - the discord, the discrepancies - that characterizes the appearance of an idea. Within the parameters, paradigms and possibilities imposed by this method, I inquire into the politics of theistic formulation in South Africa prior to the Union of South Africa (1910). Part One of the thesis discusses the politics of the advent of the Christian God in Southern Africa. In the three chapters that comprise this section, I situate colonial beliefs about God within colonialism as a discursive genre; in particular, evidence is provided of the deployment of religious (and in particular theistic) sensibility as a strategic category in the Othering discourse by which European expansion into Southern Africa was promulgated. Chapter Two opens by observing that colonial constructions of Otherness served not only to "erase" (Spivak) autochthonic identity, but also to eulogize and assert the colonial Self. Contextualizing my argument in the debate about the ambiguous effects of colonial missionary activities, I examine the mythically imbued, Othering discourse of Robert Moffat as a particularly conspicuous instance of the missionary qua colonial Self. Chapter Three gathers the concerns of Part One around the problem of theistic formulation in a colonial context, by discussing John Colenso's discovery of a theistic sensibility indigenous to autochthonic Africans as an example of a transgression of the Christian discourse that colonialism made function as truth. Part Two makes use of the categories established in Part One, and applies them to Afrikanerdom: its Othering in British colonial discourse; its religiously imbued, mythic history; and its beliefs in God. Having brought to theistic formulation a Foucauldian suspicion of systems of truth, my argument turns in Part Three to bring a particular theology, theologia crucis, alongside Foucault: accepting that the "dogmatic finitization" (Wolfhart Pannenberg) of Christian belief is inherently susceptible to the play of power, I observe that theistic formulation cast in terms of the cross - the "Crucified God" (Jurgen Moltmann) - holds a subversive potential in which may lie possibilities for an alternative to "truth".en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationSavage, J. P. T. (1997). <i>The ambiguity of God : a post-colonial inquiry into the politics of theistic formulation in South Africa</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of Religious Studies. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14747en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationSavage, James Peter Tyrone. <i>"The ambiguity of God : a post-colonial inquiry into the politics of theistic formulation in South Africa."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of Religious Studies, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14747en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationSavage, J. 1997. The ambiguity of God : a post-colonial inquiry into the politics of theistic formulation in South Africa. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Savage, James Peter Tyrone AB - This thesis sets out to locate a post-apartheid perspective within what might be described as postcolonial Religious Studies, drawing on the genealogical method of Michel Foucault. Roughly stated, I understand the methodology to represent a shift away from preoccupation with the actual truth or otherwise of an idea, towards concern with the agitation - the discord, the discrepancies - that characterizes the appearance of an idea. Within the parameters, paradigms and possibilities imposed by this method, I inquire into the politics of theistic formulation in South Africa prior to the Union of South Africa (1910). Part One of the thesis discusses the politics of the advent of the Christian God in Southern Africa. In the three chapters that comprise this section, I situate colonial beliefs about God within colonialism as a discursive genre; in particular, evidence is provided of the deployment of religious (and in particular theistic) sensibility as a strategic category in the Othering discourse by which European expansion into Southern Africa was promulgated. Chapter Two opens by observing that colonial constructions of Otherness served not only to "erase" (Spivak) autochthonic identity, but also to eulogize and assert the colonial Self. Contextualizing my argument in the debate about the ambiguous effects of colonial missionary activities, I examine the mythically imbued, Othering discourse of Robert Moffat as a particularly conspicuous instance of the missionary qua colonial Self. Chapter Three gathers the concerns of Part One around the problem of theistic formulation in a colonial context, by discussing John Colenso's discovery of a theistic sensibility indigenous to autochthonic Africans as an example of a transgression of the Christian discourse that colonialism made function as truth. Part Two makes use of the categories established in Part One, and applies them to Afrikanerdom: its Othering in British colonial discourse; its religiously imbued, mythic history; and its beliefs in God. Having brought to theistic formulation a Foucauldian suspicion of systems of truth, my argument turns in Part Three to bring a particular theology, theologia crucis, alongside Foucault: accepting that the "dogmatic finitization" (Wolfhart Pannenberg) of Christian belief is inherently susceptible to the play of power, I observe that theistic formulation cast in terms of the cross - the "Crucified God" (Jurgen Moltmann) - holds a subversive potential in which may lie possibilities for an alternative to "truth". DA - 1997 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 1997 T1 - The ambiguity of God : a post-colonial inquiry into the politics of theistic formulation in South Africa TI - The ambiguity of God : a post-colonial inquiry into the politics of theistic formulation in South Africa UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14747 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/14747
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationSavage JPT. The ambiguity of God : a post-colonial inquiry into the politics of theistic formulation in South Africa. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of Religious Studies, 1997 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14747en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of Religious Studiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherGoden_ZA
dc.subject.otherRace relations - Religious aspects - Christianityen_ZA
dc.subject.otherMissionaries - South Africaen_ZA
dc.subject.otherAfrikaners - Religionen_ZA
dc.subject.otherChristianity and politics - South Africaen_ZA
dc.titleThe ambiguity of God : a post-colonial inquiry into the politics of theistic formulation in South Africaen_ZA
dc.typeMaster Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelMasters
dc.type.qualificationnameMSocScen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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