‘THE PEOPLE SHALL GOVERN’ THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY IN SOUTH AFRICA
Abstract
This research focuses on the role that needs to be played by the church in the development of democracy in a democratic South Africa. It argues that since the church played an important role in the struggle against apartheid and during the transition to the formation of a democratic government, it has to continue being involved in influencing the political life of the country. However, the first decade of democracy has seen the church retreating to denominational conclaves leaving a vacuum in the political arena. This is blamed to the tight control and centralization of government which makes it difficult for citizens and civil society organizations, such as the church, to penetrate and participate. Then it calls for the church to consider active participation in the development of democracy by suggesting ways of political engagement for the church in South Africa.Downloads
Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this Journal.
This is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors’ publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal webpage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: “This is an electronic version of an article published in Scriptura, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX–XXX”, DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://scriptura.journals.ac.za/pub) may be found.
Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University’s’ Institutional Repository SUNScholar.
Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.
The following license applies:
