Overview

Faith Negotiating Loyalties draws readers into the world of Christian faith in South Africa and the question of loyalties in the new post-apartheid state. It carries out its investigation in two parts. Part one examines Christian faith and loyalty during the first nation-building exercise following the South African War, positioning the creation and contestation of three Christianities corresponding to three nationalisms, each of which imagined South Africa in a particular way, shaping faith accordingly. The idea of an undifferentiated South African Christianity gives way to contesting and contested Christianities, nationalism gives way to nationalisms, and faith emerges in tension with and in criticism of these loyalties. Part two discusses the American theologian H. Richard Niebuhr in South Africa. Three kinds of faith in his wittings are set forth: social faith, radial faith, and reconstructing faith. Contextualized within the South African story, Niebuhr's ideas suggest self and society as constituted by hybridities and suspended in a web of loyalties. Faith Negotiating Loyalties suggests the message for faith in a post-apartheid South Africa is the importance of negotiating covenants which allow for crossings, hybridities, and contestations.

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9780761841111

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Reviews

An exceptionally fine work that makes a contribution both to theological ethics, through its interpretation of H. Richard Niebuhr, and to the study of Christianity in South Africa, through its critical use of Niebuhr's thought to organize and refocus the South African debate on the relation of Christianity to the reconstruction of South African society and national identity. -- William Johnson Everett, Herbert Gezork Professor of Christian Social Ethics, Andover Newton Theological School Steve Martin's reading of H. Richard Niebuhr's legacy in relation to the South African story is remarkable for its creativity, insight, and breadth of scholarship. . . . I strongly and warmly commend it to all who seek to read history from a theological perspective. -- John W. de Gruchy, Robert Selby Taylor Chair in Christian Studies, University of Cape Town and Extraordinary Professor, Stellenbosch University

An exceptionally fine work that makes a contribution both to theological ethics, through its interpretation of H. Richard Niebuhr, and to the study of Christianity in South Africa, through its critical use of Niebuhr's thought to organize and refocus the South African debate on the relation of Christianity to the reconstruction of South African society and national identity.--William Johnson Everett

Author Information

Stephen W. Martin is Associate Professor of Theology at the King's College in Edmonton, Alberta.

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