BYBELKUNDE AS SKOOLVAK: ‘N TOEKOMSVISIE

• Jacques Rousseau Universiteit van Port Elizabeth

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7833/26-0-1850

Abstract

The instruction of Biblical Studies at school level is desperately in need of a ‘new vision’ if it is to have any future whatsoever within the South African context. It is argued that this dilemma is primarily due to the fact that religious instruction in South African state schools is, to a large extent, nationalized. This inevitably opens the way to be hijacked for socio-political goals. An analysis of school textbooks has indeed shown that the ‘biblical’ perspective has unobtrusively been replaced by a nationalistic and positivistic orientation. This world-view, inter alia, has lead to a national ‘state of emergency’ in which white and black nationalism are confronting each other. Unless white, black and coloured Christians meet the challenge to re-orientate Biblical Studies in terms of a Christological perspective and to resocialize our children to become the ‘salt of the earth,’ they will continue to be religious puppets of the fighting forces of white and black nationalism respectively, who, ironically enough, will also demand from Bible teachers to be undertakers for a wounded (dying?) Christianity in South Africa.