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Journal ArticleDOI

Proselytising the Regulation of Religious Bodies in South Africa: Suppressing Religious Freedom?

12 Mar 2019-Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal (Academy of Science of South Africa)-Vol. 22, Iss: 1, pp 1-27
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the right to freedom of religion depends for its constitutional validity and viability on there being no interference (or regulation) by the state except in instances as provided for in terms of relevant legislation.
Abstract: In democratic pluralistic and secular societies, freedom of religion is a fundamental right to be enjoyed by all individuals and religious organisations. A unique feature of this human right is the extent to which it is premised on a personal belief. The latter can be "bizarre, illogical or irrational", but nevertheless deserving of protection in the interests of freedom of religion. However, when the expression of a religious belief or practice transgresses the civil or criminal law it must be dealt with in the relevant legislative framework to hold the transgressor liable. Measures taken by the state to regulate religious bodies in terms of a general supervisory council or umbrella body are an unreasonable and unjustifiable interference with freedom of religion, and hence unconstitutional. I am of the view that the right to freedom of religion depends for its constitutional validity – and viability – on there being no interference (or regulation) by the state except in instances as provided for in terms of relevant legislation.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors analyzed the historical relationship that has subsisted between the state and religious institutions in Uganda, over the years, showing how this influences reaction of religious institutions to a State's attempt to provide a regulatory framework over them.
Abstract: Since 2016 when the government of Uganda announced its intention to enact a policy about regulating religions and faith-based organizations, there have been contrasting responses from those this policy intends to regulate. The mainstream religious groups especially; the Moslem community, Anglican Church of Uganda, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Roman Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox church and generally all those that subscribe to the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda have welcomed the State's proposal. On the other hand, the proposal has met both stiff and liberal minded resistance from both the born-again churches and relatively newly founded religious faiths and groups. This is partly so due to the historical relationship between the State and Religious institutions which has been characterized by uncertainty at one time, and flowering at another. The contemptuous attitude of the born-again church towards the State’s proposed religious and faith based organisations policy (RFBOs) calls for renewed interest in analysing church-state relations in Uganda. Using the institutional approach, this paper analyses the historical relationship that has subsisted between the state and religious institutions in Uganda, over the years, showing how this influences reaction of religious institutions to a State's attempt to provide a regulatory framework over them. Key words: Born again, registration, regulation, religious policy, faith based organisations.

9 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is found that, though the church plays a significant role in addressing social issues, and a voice, listened to in the community; there is no PsychoChristian based rehabilitation module for youth drug abusers in Zimbabwe.
Abstract: Drug abuse among the youth in Zimbabwe has reached crisis levels, and the number of youths engaging in drug abuse is increasing yearly. The purpose of this study was analysing the response, and efforts made by the Government of Zimbabwe, and its stakeholders, civic organizations, and the Zimbabwean community to addressing the problem of drug abuse by the youth in the country. The study used a qualitative research method, in the form of desk research by analyzing secondary data in the form of books, peer-reviewed articles, and relevant websites. Findings from the study showed that the Zimbabwean Government, and its stakeholders, civic organizations, and the community have in place strategies for drug abuse rehabilitation, and prevention in Zimbabwe; however, the problem of drug abuse is recurring and increasing among the youth population. The study also found out that, though the church PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences ISSN 2454-5899 626 plays a significant role in addressing social issues, and a voice, listened to in the community; there is no PsychoChristian based rehabilitation module for youth drug abusers in Zimbabwe. The study concluded that there is a need to widen intervention programs for youth drug abusers in Zimbabwe. The study recommends for future studies to look into the idea of establishing a Christian based rehabilitation module for youth drug abusers in Zimbabwe, to support the youth drug abusers in recovery and quitting.

6 citations


Cites background from "Proselytising the Regulation of Rel..."

  • ...Emerging economies such as South Africa and Kenya have managed to expand their drug abuse rehabilitation and treatment strategies through psychoreligious ways making use of existing pastoral care and facilities (Francis et al., 2019; Henrico, 2019)....

    [...]

Journal Article
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the South African print media that reported and analyzed their reporting of the 9/11 terrorist attacks during that period, focusing on two widely circulated South African weekly newspapers, namely the Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian.
Abstract: New York’s twin tower bombings, popularly referred to as 9/11, are regarded as a watershed period in world affairs. It happened at the cusp of the new century and its impact, since then, has been enormous, for it radically changed many aspects of human life. Both the print and the electronic media were pivotal in these changes. Besides shaping the way that communities perceive others, it also influenced the manner in which communities are dealing with one another. Since a radical Muslim group was blamed for this dastardly deed and since Muslims were implicated for this reprehensible act, the secular media expectedly placed the Muslims – in majority and minority settings – around the world under the spotlight. The media’s negative portrayal and reporting about Muslims did not only contribute towards a tendentious relationship between the media and the Muslims but it also contributed towards the spread of Islamophobia. This thus caused Muslims in both majority and minority settings to adopt a skeptical view of the role of the secular media. Considering these developments, this essay’s focus turns to the South African print media that reported and analyzed their reporting of this event during that period. Since it is beyond this essay’s scope to look at all the country’s daily and weekly tabloids, it restricted itself to two widely circulated South African weekly newspapers, namely the Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian. It first describes and discusses their front-page reports as they captured the tragic 9/11 event, before it reflects on their editorials – columns providing one with insights into the respective editors’ understanding of this event and their perceptions of Muslims nationally and globally. Being a purely textual study, it conceptualizes Islamophobia as the essay’s conceptual frame.

6 citations


Cites background from "Proselytising the Regulation of Rel..."

  • ...Its revamped legal system ensured that religious communities, who formed an integral part of its citizenry (Henrico 2019), and the media industry, which was used as one of the instruments to back the nation-building project, benefitted from these outcomes (Kandjii 2001; Tomaselli & Dunn 2001)....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that mafiarised religions in South Africa thrive through psychic capture theology, which makes outsiders question the way in which both religious leaders and adherents operate outside the conventionally accepted practice of religion and, instead, indulge in practices characterised by manipulation, corruption and mental destabilisation.
Abstract: ‘Police arrested suspected criminals in a satanic place masquerading as a church … There is no church there, but there is Satanism … Those people are not praying for anything, but they have hypnotised abantu [ people ]’. Informed by a decoloniality lens in relation to motifs such as coloniality of power and knowledge and being, I argue that mafiarised religions in South Africa thrive through psychic capture theology. Some emerging religious movements subject their followers to unthinkable practices, which makes outsiders question the way in which both religious leaders and adherents operate outside the conventionally accepted practice of religion, and, instead, indulge in practices characterised by manipulation, corruption and mental destabilisation. I respond to two questions: What are the trajectories of a religion that zombifies, and how can the social pathologies of psychic capture theology be addressed? I respond to these questions with special reference to the Seven Angels Ministry and Penuel Mnguni. I argue that some emerging ministries strive to destroy the psychic ability of adherents, to achieve strategic distance that dehumanises, removes people from the zone of being, and causes them to question their ontological density. I end the article by arguing that there is a need for religion to be regulated, and reintroduced, to challenge religious mafias that thrive through mental destabilisation. In doing so, religion can be reconfigured and have relevance in a postcolonial state, such as South Africa, especially in contexts where the rationale of religious discourses is questionable. Contribution: The article contributes to knowledge in the sense that it calls for religion to be problematised and reconstructed within education and sociological space when it dehumanise and removes people from the zone of being. Through this approach, the article fits with the scope for the journal that calls for interdisciplinary approach to the study within the international contexts.

3 citations


Cites background from "Proselytising the Regulation of Rel..."

  • ...In this section, I will commence by admitting that, in democratic, pluralistic and secular societies, freedom of religion is a fundamental right, to be enjoyed by all individuals and religious organisations (Henrico 2019)....

    [...]

  • ...Mental destabilisation is partly as a result of religion has occupied a neo-liberal space, and resulted in misuse of the freedom of religion (Banda 2019; Henrico 2019; Magezi & Banda 2017; Mashau & Kgatle 2019)....

    [...]

  • ...For example, Henrico (2019) conducted a study on contemporary prophets in South Africa and argues that the ‘prophetic voice is an activity that addresses injustices in the society’....

    [...]

  • ...However, Henrico (2019) sees the CRL Rights Commission proposal as unduly restricting and limiting the people’s right to religious freedom, while Freedom of Religion South Africa (2017) sees it as unnecessary, unworkable and unconstitutional....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue against the background of reformed theology and ask about the contribution that reformed theology can make towards the common good in a pluralistic society in South Africa.
Abstract: ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This article is about religion and the common good in a pluralistic society. It is argued with the pluralistic society of South Africa in mind. The theme is further argued against the background of reformed theology and asks about the contribution that reformed theology can make towards the common good in a pluralistic society. ********* AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie artikel is oor die rol van godsdiens in ‘n pluralistiese samelewing. Die redenasies vind plaas teen die agtergrond van die Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing. Die beredenering vind ook plaas teen die agtergrond van Gereformeerde teologie en die vraag word gevra watter bydrae Gereformeerde teologie kan maak tot die algemene welsyn in ‘n pluralistiese samelewing.

1 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The people of South Africa declare that there is a need to create a new order in which all South Africans will be entitled to enjoy and exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms.
Abstract: “We the people of South Africa declare that … there is a need to create a new order in which all South Africans will be entitled to … enjoy and exercise their fundamental rights and freedoms.” (Preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa)

3,681 citations

Book
09 Dec 2008
TL;DR: Milonakis and Fine as discussed by the authors argue that economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme, with the separation of economics from the other social sciences, especially economic history and sociology.
Abstract: Economics has become a monolithic science, variously described as formalistic and autistic with neoclassical orthodoxy reigning supreme. So argue Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine in this new major work of critical recollection. The authors show how economics was once rich, diverse, multidimensional and pluralistic, and unravel the processes that lead to orthodoxy’s current predicament. The book details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and the dehistoricisation of the dismal science, accompanied by the separation of economics from the other social sciences, especially economic history and sociology. It is argued that recent attempts from within economics to address the social and the historical have failed to acknowledge long standing debates amongst economists, historians and other social scientists. This has resulted in an impoverished historical and social content within mainstream economics. The book ranges over the shifting role of the historical and the social in economic theory, the shifting boundaries between the economic and the non-economic, all within a methodological context. Schools of thought and individuals, that have been neglected or marginalised, are treated in full, including classical political economy and Marx, the German and British historical schools, American institutionalism, Weber and Schumpeter and their programme of Socialokonomik, and the Austrian school. At the same time, developments within the mainstream tradition from marginalism through Marshall and Keynes to general equilibrium theory are also scrutinised, and the clashes between the various camps from the famous Methodenstreit to the fierce debates of the 1930s and beyond brought to the fore. The prime rationale underpinning this account drawn from the past is to put the case for political economy back on the agenda. This is done by treating economics as a social science once again, rather than as a positive science, as has been the inclination since the time of Jevons and Walras. It involves transcending the boundaries of the social sciences, but in a particular way that is in exactly the opposite direction now being taken by "economics imperialism". Drawing on the rich traditions of the past, the reintroduction and full incorporation of the social and the historical into the main corpus of political economy will be possible in the future.

147 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a case where a judge is asked to decide whether an action is out of proportion and immoral for a neighbor to take a four-wheel drive car without asking and not return it until the next evening.
Abstract: INTRODUCTION Suppose you are a judge--not on a European constitutional court, where the principle of proportionality is generally accepted, nor on the U.S. Supreme Court, where, according to general wisdom, the principle is hardly known and hardly used, but on a fictitious moral court. No statutes, no precedent--each case is decided on its moral merits only. Two neighbors, John and Frank, who live high up in the mountains come before you. In the middle of a cold and stormy winter night, John took Frank's four-wheel drive car without asking and didn't return it until the next evening. Frank who had wanted to pick up his elderly mother in the morning at the lonely bus station in the valley, couldn't do so. The old lady stood in the cold for two hours before the postman drove by; he had to bring her to the hospital with frostbite. Frank thinks John should at least apologize for his immoral action. John is truly sorry for what happened but thinks he shouldn't be morally blamed. You are the judge--what will you do? You ask John how he could do what he did. He explains that he took Frank's car to bring his pregnant wife to the hospital; her water had broken. You ask why he didn't use his own car. He explains that he needed a four-wheel drive car because it had snowed heavily. You ask why he took the car without asking. He points out that he and Frank had often taken and used each other's things without asking and that he hadn't wanted to wake Frank up in the middle of the night. Then you turn to Frank. In view of what John has explained, does he still blame John for his immoral action? Frank does, because he had told John of his plan to pick up his mother the next morning. You confront John with this information. He says he is sorry for the old lady's frostbite but that he knew that with the postman driving by nothing serious could happen to her, while his wife's situation was a matter of life and death. You call the hospital, and it turns out that indeed John's wife, who delivered unexpectedly early, could have died if she hadn't reached the hospital when she did. And it also turns out that Frank's mother has recovered well and fast. Whatever you decide, maybe that John and Frank should reconcile because what happened was a chain of unfortunate events, you have engaged in a proportionality analysis. You asked Frank about the end that he pursued; you found out that the end was legitimate; that his action was a helpful, even a necessary means to pursue the end; that there was no alternative means that would have harmed Frank and his mother less; and that the end, saving John's wife's life, was important enough to justify the harm done to Frank's mother. Proportionality analysis is about means and ends, and whenever there is no law, here no moral law, specifically commanding, prohibiting, or allowing an action, we justify or condemn the action based on the legitimacy of the end pursued and on the helpfulness, necessity, and appropriateness of the action as a means to that end. The proportionality principle thus reads as follows: If you pursue an end, you must use a means that is helpful, necessary, and appropriate. A means that doesn't help to reach the end isn't a real means--to use it would be out of proportion. It is also out of proportion to use a means that does more than necessary, for example a means which is more harmful or more expensive than necessary. It is equally out of proportion to use a means that is inappropriate because, even though it is necessary, by using it you do more harm than the end is worth or you spend more than you gain. It would have been out of proportion and, in our context, immoral if John had taken Frank's helicopter, when, even though he knew how to fly it, he didn't have the skill to land; this would not have helped him to save his wife. It would have been out of proportion and immoral for John to take Frank's four-wheel drive car if John's normal car would have worked just as well; this would have been unnecessary to save his wife. …

41 citations

01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: In this article, the interfaces between the legitimate and illegitimate environments and the possibillities for preventive action are revealed, and indications for possible preventive interventions are called "red flags" from the four national reports and examined four selected topics in more depth: the role of public administration and local businesses, the legal professions, official and informal financial services, and forged official documents.
Abstract: The goal of this analysis is to reveal the interfaces between the legitimate and illegitimate environments and to generate possibillities for preventive action. These indications for possible preventive interventions are called 'red flags' from the four national reports and examines four selected topics in more depth: the role of public administration and local businesses, the legal professions, official and informal financial services, and forged official documents.

35 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In some parts of the Muslim world, a string of events indeed suggest that the violation of human rights continue with little sign of immediate abatement as mentioned in this paper, and the gulf in perception between Islamic and secular perspectives over the meaning of Human Rights is growing.
Abstract: The gulf in perception between Islamic and secular perspectives over the meaning of human rights is growing. Media reports and western governments repeatedly charge Muslim governments from Sudan to Iran of human rights violations. In some parts of the Muslim world, a string of events indeed suggest that the violation of human rights continue with little sign of immediate abatement. Tragedy is the overriding topos of the media attention that such events receive. The list can become endless, but I will only mention a few incidents in order to highlight the salient contexts and issues for the purposes of a discussion on human rights. The Turkish Muslim feminist Konca Kuris was kidnapped by a Turkish group known as the Hizbullah in 1998 and her dead body was found in 1999. In 1997 Egypt's highest court ruled that the writings of a Cairo University professor, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd were tantamount to apostasy. In 1992, Muslim militants assassinated the Egyptian human rights activist and essayist Farag Fouda. The 1980s witnessed the international imbroglio amounting to a debacle when Iran's clergy offered a ransom to anyone who would assassinate the Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie for writing novels that offended Muslim sensibilities. On a daily basis, spine chilling reports of death and civilian casualties perpetrated by Muslim militants and the military in Algeria bewilder observers after the army's subversion of the democratic process in that country. In many Muslim countries like Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Tunisia, intellectuals are subjected to harassment by traditionalist and fundamentalist quarters alike as well as by governments for their critical study of religion and for opinions that do not meet with approval from the religious establishment. When human rights concerns are raised, officials from Muslim countries accuse the West of using a double standard in its application of human rights, of mounting the human right claim as an instrument of political power against nations who do not further its political and economic agendas.

33 citations