Symbolic warfare: the battle for the ownership of symbols in an Anglican community

England, Frank

Symbolic warfare: the battle for the ownership of symbols in an Anglican community

Thesis / Dissertation

1987

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Religious Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Abstract

The uncovering and investigating of those meaningful aspects of human existence which emerge as a result of one's location in life and experience of life and are appropriated, interpreted and operated by individuals and· groups is the focus of this thesis. This is an enquiry into 'living meaning', the symbolic configurations and conceptions which lie hidden in the recesses of the human psyche as feelings, images, words and associations and are displayed in combinations and concatenations in the public square. The initial belief that I would discover a common language and find cohesion and unity in the theological college which formed the research arena was soon shattered, and this project came to centre around the use and abuse, manipulation, exploitation and stealing of symbols and the complex procedures of negotiation and collective bargaining. In fact, we entered a battle zone from which we would not emerge unscathed because symbolic warfare was being waged! While at one stage there was the attempt to carry out the task before me by primarily using questionaires and interviews, I came to realize that in dealing with the complex nature of pre-apprehended and apprehended symbols, participant-observation and reflective analysis was far more fitting. Here I focused on a representative South African community which, I believe, contained almost all the permutations found in our society- political, social, economic, cultural and educational. This complexity may have been compounded by the comprehensive nature of Anglicanism. I believe that symbolic warfare is endemic to the very nature of religion and I endeavour to show this by analysing the discourse, ritual and community aspects of the seminary. But it is also my belief that there are some things of the sacred which defy appropriation and thwart the claims to ownership and it is these which prevent the disintegration of a community. My hope is that men and women will assimilate the multiplex nature of being human and seek to relinquish the tenacious grip they have on their own symbols which have, in fact, become idols! Bound in these chains there can be no freedom, because liberation comes in recognizing the interdependent and interconnected nature of human living in a universal theatre of symbols. To die to one's own symbols is indeed a real death but the lesson has not been learnt that while the crucifixion brings death, the flickering light of the resurrection is still shining as it did on that first Easter morn.

Keywords

Religious Studies

Reference:

Collections

Masters

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