Nkosikhulule Nyembezi
Cape Town - To pleasant surprise of many people of faith, Easter in South Africa is still the great Christian festival of hope and rebirth.
Improved church attendance in most denominations offers faith-based leaders several reasons to be cheerful about the future.
This trend is consistent with the observation that thousands of churches have been experiencing significant attendance fluctuations since the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.
These low church attendance numbers register at a time when the nation seriously needs a new crop of people of faith, to sustain the moral regeneration efforts that continue to hold together our broken and wounded people.
Remarkably, amid fluctuations in church attendance numbers, however, a religious success story is changing the shape and enriching the texture of South Africa’s Christianity.
In this year’s Easter story, people notably emphasised the tools of progress confirming transformative changes post the coronavirus pandemic. We observed the internalisation of an encouraging example of Jesus as a religious leader who taught in word and deed that a better future is not found in coercive power, exclusion, greed or violence, but rather in true solidarity, recognising the intrinsic equality of every human.
We find renewed courage to continue to follow the message of Jesus, a reforming religious teacher who was crucified for undermining his day’s religious and political powers, and who promoted an alternative lifestyle of equality, non-violence, unconditional inclusion, radical generosity and selfless love.
The importance of the right to equality in our maturing democracy is obvious to many as the apartheid political and legal system was based squarely on inequality and discrimination.
It dealt with the problem of a scarcity of resources by promoting the socio-economic development of the white population at the expense of the rest of South African society.
The deep scars of this appalling systematic programme of inequality are still visible in our society.
The need to confront this legacy is recognised by the clause promoting equality in the Constitution, which also recognises the freedom of conscience and expression.
In addition, our Constitution provides a list of socio-economic rights that should be progressively realised by the state, including the provision of minimum levels of basic goods and services such as food, water, social security and the right not to be refused emergency medical treatment.
These provisions are in line with what a biblical prophet as the role of people of faith anointed “to proclaim good news to the poor, sent to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Creator’s favour”.
To a remarkable degree, rural and peri-urban churches are a countercultural growth industry in a country that is perhaps less secular than it believes.
Observations suggest that the rise in township church attendance in recent years may more or less match the drop off in leafy suburb churchgoers.
In Cape Town, East London, Durban, Pretoria, Johannesburg and other metropolitan areas, local communities have transformed former cinema halls, warehouses and shops into places of worship, channelling the evangelical intensity of African Christianity.
Also noticeable is an increase in worshippers using open spaces.
I am constantly amazed when I encounter a handful of individuals and small groups of worshippers in discrete spots on the slopes of Table Mountain.
These are less prominent than those spotted on the outskirts of townships and informal settlements.
Starting here is now as good a place as any to give an account of modern South African religiosity. Seeded during the early years of democracy, with waves of immigration from the African continent, the makeshift churches multiplied to accommodate internal and external migrants partly in response to hostility encountered in traditional Christian churches.
As well as religious consolation, they offered a haven, advice and economic assistance to communities forced to contend with pervasive racism and other forms of discrimination.
These social functions continue: interdenominational non-traditional Christian churches played a vital role, for example, in challenging the xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals and the ruinous impact of denial or freezing of bank accounts on foreign nationals and low-income households, due to the government’s and private businesses’ misguided application of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act of 2001.
But the cultural influence of these churches extends far beyond that.
For example, as far back as 2010, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) revealed in one of its reports that South Africa had emerged as one of the most prominent asylum destinations in the world.
Last year alone, there were more than 300 000 new applications for asylum.
Therefore, South Africa’s policies on immigration must align with international protocols, and they should recognise our location in Africa and the trend towards regional integration.
Many affected individuals are Christians and observe Easter in ways that reflect their cultural diversity, nationality and unity in their faith.
Taking a cue from this Easter celebration in particular, we would do well to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity.
We could also do well by standing in solidarity to promote this cherished right to equality enshrined in our Constitution, remembering that it is the cornerstone of our democracy in South Africa.
After all, by learning to treat others as equal, we elevate our levels of humanity – ubuntu – enmeshed in our faith that portrays us all as equals in the eyes of the creator.
The depth of secularisation in the country at large and so far as it affects the youth, renders the idea of envisaging an increasingly defined role of Christianity even more plausible.
But in perilous times for the established church and a Eurocentric presumption that for religion, the only way is down and formal, worshippers using open spaces are writing a chapter of the national story which suggests that faith has a positive future.
Nyembezi is a policy analyst, researcher and human rights activist
Cape Times