The theological anthropology of Simon Maimela: Democratisation of power and being human in relationship

George J. Van Wyngaard

doi:10.4102/ve.v38i1.1682

Abstract

The lacuna around race in (white) Christian theological anthropology has often been pointed out. The canon of academic systematic theology seldom reflects on the implication of modern race and racism for our theological anthropologies and, therefore, fails to provide adequate resources for dealing with one of the most fundamental problems of modern theological anthropology � that the modern human was conceived through a white racial lens. Black theology, in its various streams, has responded with a theological anthropology that consciously disrupted a modern anthropology which thought of �man� as white (and male). This article analyses the sustained work around theological anthropology of South African Black Theologian Simon Maimela. Maimela over a number of years attempted to articulate the theological problem of white anthropology, or the anthropological problem of white theology, in South Africa. Two dominant pillars are identified in Maimela�s theological anthropology and these are connected to the influence of Black theology and African theology on his work, and his attempt at drawing these traditions together. Maimela�s theological critique on whiteness will be discussed and key contemporary implications noted.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: While the article is most explicitly situated in the discipline of systematic theology, it challenges dominant narratives on what the theological problem with apartheid was, which also has implications for the broader fields of whiteness studies and critical race studies in South Africa.

Highlights

In what has become a well-known narrative in Reformed circles, Botman (2006) narrates early University of the Western Cape student explorations of apartheid as a theological problem: As a student of Professor Jaap Durand in the year 1978, I was challenged, together with the rest of the class, to come to a theological evaluation of the problem of apartheid
Why was apartheid a theological problem? What was heretical about apartheid? The answers given to these questions, whether contained in the nuanced language of academic theology or found in the tacit assumptions and embodied practices of people, are closely intertwined with Christian discernment on what the response to apartheid should be, and, I will argue towards the end, will in part determine what we consider appropriate action to be after apartheid
The relational is directly connected to this horizontal dimension and described as the contribution which the Black Church, drawing on African resources, must make to the church at large: This African perspective on anthropology, which looks at life holistically in terms of the multiple relationships in which life is lived, the perspective that lays greater stress on the social wrongs and evils which humans commit against their fellows, is one which Black theologians should lift up and offer as African contribution to theological reflection on the great questions of sin and salvation. (Maimela 1988:22, [author’s own emphasis]

Summary

Introduction

In what has become a well-known narrative in Reformed circles, Botman (2006) narrates early University of the Western Cape student explorations of apartheid as a theological problem: As a student of Professor Jaap Durand in the year 1978, I was challenged, together with the rest of the class, to come to a theological evaluation of the problem of apartheid. I will conclude by noting some of the implications Maimela’s analysis of the anthropology of white theology has in describing the problem of whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa.

Results

Conclusion