From religious transcendence to political utopia: the legacy of Richard Turner for Post-Apartheid political thought
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Date
2010-06
Authors
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Berghahn Journals
Abstract
In recent times South African politics has come to exhibit
features typical of many post-colonial contexts, not least the rise of
acrimonious and confrontational politics based around personalities
and forms of populism. In such contexts rational dialogue and democratic
deliberation become increasingly difficult to get going and to
sustain. Drawing on Richard Turner’s The Eye of the Needle, first
published some forty years ago, the paper examines the role religion,
and religious organisations, could play in returning such acrimonious
public debate to more democratic and visionary grounds. The key
point is that religion offers a form of transcendence from the divisive
and bitter particularities that animate contemporary political conflicts.
It does this through the spiritual affirmation of our shared
human worth due to the love of God(s). From this recognition,
achieved through spiritual appeals, the conditions for more rational
and democratic debate can be retrieved. In addition, religious transcendence
redeems the value of utopian thinking, and thus could help
re-orientate public debate from a politics of blame for past wrongs to
a politics of imagining of future rights.
Description
Keywords
Common human worth, Faith-based organisations, Post-colonial, Post-apartheid politics, Religious transcendence, Richard Turner
Citation
Piper, L. (2010). From religious transcendence to political utopia: the legacy of Richard Turner for Post-Apartheid political thought. Theoria, 57(123): 77-98