Multi-cultural congregations in South Africa – Guidelines from social science theory and research in being and becoming community

Cornie Groenewald and FransKotze[1]

Paper submitted for a Conference on Being Multi-Cultural Congregations, organised by KommissievirGetuienisaksie (KGA), RaadvirGemeenteontwikkelingenKerklikeSamewerking (GKS), andHugenoteKollege (HK), 22-23 July 2014

Abstract

The paper aims to introduce relevant sociological conceptual contributions in understanding the social reality in which multiculturalism has been historically problematized in South Africa. It is asserted that power relations characterised and defined these socially problematic situations and generated a high potential for antagonistic and distanced social relationships. From this analysis, it is concluded that social interface at the local community level, as to be found in a faith community or congregation, offers a unique platform for cooperative and intimate relationships among previously differentiated, and even conflictual, groups. Based on empirical research, sociological and social-psychological conditions for healthy and cooperative relationships as stated according to the so-called contact hypothesis are introduced together with a local community strategy that may guide such a process.

Introduction

When we were invited to participate in the reflection on multicultural congregations, and the challenges it brought to both pastor and member, the reason for including us into the circle of conversational partners was first and foremost to provide sociological guidance in this apparently new reality facing worship or faith communities at a local level. This immediately raised two considerations in our minds; first, what is sociological guidance, and second, what would be the perspective typical of sociologists when they address a phenomenon indicated as ‘multicultural’?

Sociology

On the first consideration, that is, what is a sociological direction or guidance, we concluded that we were invited due to the fact that we both practiced careers related to sociology and social work, which have been very much the same thing within the academic realm up to the 1960s. The simplistic perception was that the one represents the theory and the other the practice of social relationships, be it networks of social relationships found in families, workplaces, prisons, child care welfare organisations, churches, or communities. Our team composition, therefore, is deliberately a mix of the two sides to avoid the pitfall of becoming too abstract or too concrete. The objectives of sociological analysis and synthesis are to observe, put apart, dissect, discover linkages and to synthesize the parts within a totality of a social unit. The ultimate goal would be to contribute to quality of life by having well-functioning systems of living together and acting as a unity. From this perspective, the challenge would be how to construct and reconstruct the multicultural congregation as a space for genuine pastoral care, worshipping and koinonia.

The word ‘sociology’, we should remind ourselves, is a hybrid of the Latin socius and the Greek logos with the promise that this 19th century intellectual invention attempts to study systematically from a Francis Bacon scientific perspective the social realm, as apart from the physical reality, to conclude findings and facts very much as a geologist would do when rock formations are studied – or as August Comte would have it, sociology is the physics of society. Today, the interpretive and intersubjective perspectives, stoked by Max Weber, opens up the possibility to take a far more phenomenological stance in sociological work. In this genre, a qualitative approach is practiced in order to understand, rather than explain, the meanings of objects, social practices, events, and social processes. This is a far more user-friendly approach in the practice of social science than the 19th century tradition.

Sociological analysis

But what is typical of sociological investigations whether they are positivistic (following traditions spurred by August Comte and Emile Durkheim) or intersubjective and interpretive (following the Weberian tradition)? Perhaps there is no typical line of inquiry, but we suspect that the power dimensions of social relations would be a strong contender. More specifically, the questions that interest social inquiry – in a broad sense – interrogate as follows:

  • Who are the power holders and the powerless in any social configuration?
  • What are the means of power and in what ways are these means demonstrated?
  • How do powerful members exert their power in a social situation, in what ways and with what means to their disposal?
  • How do powerless members respond to the exertion of elite power and in what ways and with what means?
  • What is or can be the social outcome of power relationships and the way do they play out in a social situation?

It is perhaps with this last question that the assumed distinction between sociology and social work (and in a sense practical theology) is most dramatically demonstrated. Sociology in its 19th century guise wants to describe what is – this is the empirical project of sociology; while interpretive sociology would lead to an analysis of what can be – a paradoxical project of deconstruction and reconstruction. In evangelic language, one needs to repent before healing is possible.

In a multicultural congregational context, it means we have to heal the wounds of the past, following a route of reconciliation and peace-making, before constructive and healthy faith-based relationships would be possible.

Multi-cultural relations

Cultural relationships in South Africa, as in many other colonial and post-colonial societies, tend to be defined in power terms. Culture has been defined in many ways but a dynamic definition describes it as a permanent activity of meaning construction in which the old and the new are established; it is a permanent process of meaning construction. Culture produces various and varying patterns of meaning and systems of conceptions, which are historically transmitted and inherited, embodied in verbal and non-verbal symbols, and are vehicles to shape knowledge about and attitudes toward life. All cultural behaviour is said to be of a symbolic nature that carries meaning that is shared by the group and abstracted by the individual from the social system through participatory interaction (Geertz, 1993).

In the meaning structures generated by people and their mind games, culture often has been mistaken for rank, class, estate or caste and for justifying and even legitimising social distance among various layers of people. People of so-called “high culture” would look down on those of “low culture” and avoid interpersonal contact and intimate relationships with the latter. Such differentiation precipitates in the structures of society and defines the included and the excluded, setting in motion a historical process of development and underdevelopment not only within societies but also across societies and world regions. Today we recognise political and economic international relationships that are structured according to designations such as North and South, developed and developing, and we define cultures as being “modern” or “traditional” or even “primitive”. These labels often function as a basis for stereotyping people, particularly in racial terms.

Classic interpretations of religion have emphasized the assumption that religion functions as a meaning generating structure in society. For instance, Max Weber postulates that in situations where one encounters a radical breakdown in secure and routine life patterns, such as the loss of a dear one and the breakdown of intimate relationships, religion provides answers on the “why” questions of life, and so creates meaning in and for life. In this sense, religion is a crucial part of culture as a meaning generating institution in social life. In particular, it presents hope in situations of hopelessness; an expectation that there is a way out of the dead-end of the present.

Because the generation of meaning – that is, making sense of life, providing the reason for living a life, regardless of or in the face of nonsensical events – is very personal, sensitive, fragile, and sanctimonious, it has become an effective object of power exertion and manipulation of people. It is in this area of life that powerful people have invent extremely effective means to influence less powerful and powerless people and to subordinate them to positions of passive compliance in life. This may be an explanation of why people of different cultural inclinations prefer to practice their religious obligations among like-minded fellows of the same faith and conviction.

The correlation between separate worship arrangements and the power distribution in multi-cultural societies, especially where such differential patterns associate with race and sometimes language, is not coincidental or purely because of some practical consideration for easy communication. It may be understood as the outcome of power relations more than other socio-religious considerations. This has been documented clearly for the case of the Dutch Reformed Church in the pre-1857 position by Carl Borchardt (1986) when the DRC was still a multi-cultural church. He shows how for both practical and socio-political reasons congregations provided for separate seating in the same building, separate buildings, separate services and teaching programmes, separate missionary approaches, and separate participation in practicing the sacraments, sometimes under the clear understanding that biblical prescription would argue otherwise.

By the end of the 20th century, Dawid Venter (1999) observes that racially-integrated congregations are rare in South Africa, due mostly to the political policy of residential and social segregation enforced by the apartheid regime between 1948 and 1990 and, we would also argue, due to “subordinate adaptation” and “boundary maintenance” (Schwalbe, 2001).

Various dimensions of culture are to be distinguished, of which power and inequality is one. This and other dimensions of culture help us to understand the differences in thinking, feeling and acting by ‘others’. They serve as a basis for intercultural discourse and mutual understanding (Hofstede, 1995). Although intercultural interaction and relationships in the global world is inevitable, historical power distributions may cause it to be consistently unequal. However, it is the means of power exertion that has the potential of changing the nature of these relationships.

In this respect, AmitaiEtzioni (1961) distinguishes three types of means for exerting power; namely coercive means such as physical force; normative means that commit people to adhere to beliefs and values; and calculative means that appeal to the rational application of material or economic resources as rewarding mechanisms for being compliant. The application of these means of power will become clear in the following discussion.

In South Africa, historically, cultural groups symbolically signified by race, have been forcefully defined in separate categories and spaces, a clear example of coercive power exertion that ended in alienation between the race groups (Etzioni, 1961). The ideal of apartheid to create peaceful coexisting racial and cultural groups did not materialise and proved to become a false ideology that stoked violent conflict. However, the change in cultural relationships was motivated as a possibility based on the assumption that a shared system of values would transcend cultural differences. A multi-cultural common society has been proposed as an alternative. The normative base for such a society is to be found in a system of human rights and the protection of minority cultural interests. The power means for regulating social interrelationships would therefore become normative power (Etzioni. 1961) with the assumption that all groups and cultures will develop a strong and overarching commitment to the country and nation. The rainbow nation concept serves as an expression of this ideology and the nation building project becomes the vehicle for carrying it.

However, cultural relationships have taken on a class nature, which has its base in material interests and resources. This means that the economic more than the political realm impacts intercultural relationships. For example, historical patterns of neighbourhood settlement as determined by the Group Areas Act during the 1950s to 1970s remain very much the same in terms of majority occupation in these neighbourhoods with some notable exceptions. Residential settlement is determined by the financial ability of house-owners and has become a subtle exertion of economic power. The second and underlying force determining the residential settlement patterns is access to higher paid jobs and to work in itself. Unemployment and associated poverty as a racially differential characteristic remained a basic feature of South Africa society. Culture and its signifier, race, is a strong correlate of differential economic power in our country.

One of the consequences of the patterns of cultural relationships is that voluntary association takes on the character of the residential patterns. Even in cases where residential racial and cultural integration occur, the members of the respective groups still associate in terms of their pre-democracy memberships. Churches as a voluntary association remain therefore very much still the same as two decades ago.

Multicultural faith communities or congregations in South Africa therefore remain a minority phenomenon. Intercultural relationships within a faith context is a rather exceptional manifestation. By and large, interculturalism is new ground in South Africa and manifests a different type of community and not a mainstream community type. While tolerance would be a characteristic of a multicultural community, close intimacy as among dedicated faithful Christians in their worship community is an unusual social phenomenon.

The coming about of these rather exceptional social configurations seems to be explained mainly in terms of a common and a shared belief in Christian faith terms – seeing Jesus Christ as the only and singular Redeemer and Saviour from eternal damnation and the Way to everlasting life. Once this belief is stripped from cultural, political and social connotations in the sense as preconditions for real salvation, a common theologically based value and knowledge system would pave the way for true and credible community among different and diverse groups of people.

Among the non-theologised reasons for increasing the racial mix of local congregations, Venter (1999:108) provides a glimpse of insight into the factors operating here. Based on inquiries (37 congregations; more English-medium churches) during 1997, external factors were the majority reasons (70.3%; of which demographic changes were strongest). Internal considerations such as deliberate effort to invite other races, were quite small or actually unknown. Unless forced to adapt, congregations do not change their own composition of membership deliberately.

The issue under discussion is not the about the structural unity and unification of various denominations and churches but the creation of local worship and faith groups within the same space of worshipping. In this sense, the real question is about how to overcome the divide of cultural and racial groups that has been so characteristic of South African society. This would raise issues and challenges of intergroup relationships, prejudice, stereotypes and inequality as a result of decades and centuries of power exertion by colonial and oligarchic regimes that have used cultural including religious differences as a fault line of domination and subordination. Even in the post-apartheid society, South Africa has been profiled as a country with two nations. And during the past decade we have seen xenophobic outbursts against foreigners in our midst.

The question to be addressed is therefore one of practical importance and necessity; how can we achieve respect, trust, caring and a supporting community and Christian koinonia among and within congregations at the local level that currently experience cultural diversity. How can intergroup and interpersonal relationships be promoted towards becoming more positive for the involved parties to these relationships? These questions seem to be a critical challenge not only for the church but for wider community as well. We attend in the following section to this aspect.

The social conditions of credible association – the contact hypothesis

It is a general assumption that a shared value system would provide favourite conditions for such positive development. Another social condition is underscored by the so-called contact hypothesis whereby it is postulated that increased intergroup contact will lead to more positive intergroup perceptions and behaviour towards one another (Amir, 1969). There is some truth in both assumptions but in themselves values and social contact are not sufficient to produce positive relationships. A number of preconditions are to be considered unless contact among politically conflicting or culturally different people lead to even more negative behaviour. Based on extensive research, a number of qualifications and proviso’s need to be made in this regard – the proverbial “terms and conditions” should be taken note of. We make use of findings that were forthcoming from a Western Cape based research project in the late 1980s, a period of intense turmoil and conflict in our country. The findings are based on an extensive literature study and review of the contact hypothesis, conducted by Johan Malan, a social psychologist at the University of Western Cape at the time, and empirical research findings by a team of social science academics and practitioners under the supervision of Cornie Groenewald, whilst located at Stellenbosch. (See: Groenewald, et al, 1988; Malan, 1988). We also include an Addendum to the paper that suggests a framework for capacity building in community relations.

In intergroup relations we distinguish among in-group and out-groupparticipants that often translate into we and they, which form the basis for a process called ‘othering’ – in which one objectifiesand stereotypescharacteristics of people different from oneself in terms of their assumed traits and characteristics even if anindividual case is markedly different from the stereotype. We also apply terminology such as majority and minority groups, which do not refer in the first place to demographic quantities but more often to power groups – the majority group being the stronger group in terms of power and influence and the minority group the weaker one.

Within the context of in- and out-group and majority-minority relations, intergroup or inter-cultural relationships often find expression in dominant, racist and classist relations that weaken solidarity with subordinate groups in opposing them. The result tends to be the perpetuation of poverty and face-to-face processes such as “othering, subordinate adaptation, boundary maintenance, and emotional management” (Schwalbe, 2001).