THE SACONSTITUTIONAND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: PERVERTER OR PRESERVER OF RELIGION'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE PUBLIC DEBATE ON MORALITY?

• Pieter Fourie Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa & Research Associate Faculty of Theology University of Stellenbosch

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7833/82-0-901

Abstract

The South African Constitution should be interpreted differently from the North American one, or else religion will forfeit any role as a partner in the public debate on morality. The history of interpretation and implementation of the North American constitution serves as an example of a secular scenario that we as South Africans should try and avoid. American jurisprudence on the First Amendment, by which religious freedom in that country is guaranteed, led to a complete separation between religion and the state as representative of the public sphere. This is the result of so-called “secular individualism”. The text of the South-African Constitution allows for an interpretation whereby the rights of groups, also religious, contrary to those of individuals only, are recognised. That allows better for the diversity of a pluralistic democracy as in South Africa. However, tolerance and cultural openness, as active values, are needed to prevent the formation of a theocratic dictatorship, like we had under the previous regime in South Africa. Seen from this perspective, the Constitution is not a perverter but a preserver of religion's right to partake in the public debate on morality