From Demonic Faith to Redemptive Faith: The Ambiguity of Faith in the Intersection of Religion and State Violence

Wonchul Shin

doi:10.3390/rel11060268

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the ambiguity of faith in the intersection of religion and state violence. I pay attention to the state-operated system of apartheid in South Africa and critically analyze the Afrikaner community’s faith that motivated and justified vicious state violence against people of color. I name this faith demonic faith and present two key features of demonic faith in the South African case: idolatrous absolutization and destructive dehumanization. I also examine how the Afrikaners’ demonic faith came to its existence through the complex dynamics of their existential anxieties, desires, and distorted ways to fulfill the desires. I then argue for the ineffaceable possibility of redemptive faith, and theoretically construct how two features of redemptive faith, consisting of courage and empathy, could have empowered the Afrikaners to break the shackles of demonic idolatry and destruction. Redemptive faith is tragically paired with demonic faith, but truth serves as a key criterion to guide us in this tragic ambiguity of faith.

Highlights

What Is Faith?In the 1970s, Colonel Swanepoel, one of the most notorious torturers who worked for the Bureau of State Security under the South African state, testified in court that his talent of torture—what he claimed as “his special gift for psychological persuasion”—was the gift of God (Chidester 1991, p. 81)
I argued that the Afrikaners confessed the demonic faith, and the two key features of the demonic faith—the demonic idolatry and destruction—were enacted by the vicious actions of the Afrikaners
I pointed out that the demonic faith has not developed in a vacuum, and presented the dynamics of the Afrikaners’ demonic faith: the complex interactions of the three existential anxieties in their concrete historical and social contexts, two desires for security and superiority, and the distorted measures of fulfilling the two desires—absolutization and dehumanization/demonization respectively

Summary

Introduction

In the 1970s, Colonel Swanepoel, one of the most notorious torturers who worked for the Bureau of State Security (as known as BOSS) under the South African state, testified in court that his talent of torture—what he claimed as “his special gift for psychological persuasion”—was the gift of God (Chidester 1991, p. 81). Along with the Kairos Document, this essay acknowledges the rich legacy of theological critiques of apartheid developed by South African theologians (De Gruchy and Villa-Vicencio 1983; De Gruchy 1991; de Gruchy and de Gruchy 2005). These scholarly works present us normative theological frameworks to critically evaluate apartheid as a form of heresy. I found Tillich’s thick descriptive languages valuable His keen theo-philosophical framework to describe humanity’s existential states and crises will help us to develop a theological anatomy of the Afrikaners’ faith that justifies, normalizes, and sustains state violence against South African citizens of color. What Tillich calls faith resonates with my concept of the redemptive faith—the state of being grasped by the power of the redemptive divine—which breaks the shackles of the demonic

Demonic Faith

The Dynamics of the Demonic Faith

Toward Redemptive Faith

Conclusions