From religious transcendence to political utopia: the legacy of Richard Turner for Post-Apartheid political thought

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dc.contributor.authorPiper, Laurence
dc.date.accessioned2013-05-02T07:38:26Z
dc.date.available2013-05-02T07:38:26Z
dc.date.issued2010-06
dc.description.abstractIn 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.en_US
dc.description.accreditationInternational Bibliography of Social Sciencesen_US
dc.identifier.citationPiper, L. (2010). From religious transcendence to political utopia: the legacy of Richard Turner for Post-Apartheid political thought. Theoria, 57(123): 77-98en_US
dc.identifier.issn1558-5816
dc.identifier.issn0040-5817
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10566/582
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.privacy.showsubmitterfalse
dc.publisherBerghahn Journalsen_US
dc.rightsCopyright Berghahn Journals. This is the author's final draft following peer review. It may be displayed and circulated, subject to full acknowledgement of author and source.
dc.source.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.3167/th.2010.5712304
dc.status.ispeerreviewedtrue
dc.subjectCommon human worthen_US
dc.subjectFaith-based organisationsen_US
dc.subjectPost-colonialen_US
dc.subjectPost-apartheid politicsen_US
dc.subjectReligious transcendenceen_US
dc.subjectRichard Turneren_US
dc.titleFrom religious transcendence to political utopia: the legacy of Richard Turner for Post-Apartheid political thoughten_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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Research Articles (Political Studies)
Prof. Laurence Piper