Religious Pluralism and Christianity in South Africa

Abstract

It is not reported whether Bartolomeu Dias de Novaes took off his shoes when on 12 March 1488 he raised a padráo, dedicated to St Gregory, at Kwaaihoek on the East Coast and just west of the mouth of the Bushman’s River. He most probably did not. Even if he did encounter indigenous people, his task in performing the first known Christian act on our shores was not to look for the footprints of God in Africa. If he, as a civil servant loyal to the throne of Portugal, were ever to have theologised about his pioneering mission, he would most likely have seen in it the opportunity of bringing God to the ‘dark, unknown’ continent of Africa. In terms of the reigning attitude of the Western Church during the fifteenth century, other religions, such as Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, were regarded as the enemies of Christ and were to be destroyed with the sword. The chances were therefore indeed negligible that an encounter with the traditional religions of Africa would have elicited any other response than to acquaint the ‘pagan’ African with the one ‘true faith’. And yet it is clear that when Dias arrived at our shores, religion was indeed practised, and always had been, on the southern sub-continent. The Khoikhoi, the San and other people have observed their own religious beliefs and practices.KeywordsSouth African ContextChristian TheologyReligious PluralismMissionary EffortSouth African SocietyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.