[1] Is there a place for Christian insights about reconciliation
beyond the realm of the personal and private? Even more, is
it possible that these same insights can help pave the way to a
more deeply reconciled national identity in South
Africa? John W. De Gruchy has charted a difficult and
courageous path indeed in his book Reconciliation: Restoring
Justice, a path literally surrounded with peril on all
sides. If De Gruchy's project is to contribute to a "public
theology of democratic reconstruction and transformation" (67), on
the one side he is chastened by the fact of Christian complicity in
the development and enforcement of apartheid; and on the other
side, committed to sensitivity regarding gender, and diversity of
culture, ethnicity and religion, he must beware Christian
patriarchalism, exclusivism, supersessionism and
triumphalism. His goal is ambitious: to take categories of
Christian atonement theory, thinking and practice beyond the realm
where they tend to dwell in contemporary experience, that is, the
individual and co-personal, into the heart of political life in
South Africa.
[2] Why bother with Christian categories at all, given such
dangers? Anthropologist Judith Singleton, in her August 2003 review
of this book in the Journal of Lutheran Ethics is suspicious of
De Gruchy's attempt on a number of counts. Christianity is an
irredeemably "western instrument," an externally imposed tool for
reconciliation in a society comprised of many diverse African
societies, as she writes, "Why should Christianity with its long
legacy as a partner to colonialism, capitalism, inequality and
apartheid in the South African context become a collaborator in the
question for reconciliation and healing?" According to
Singleton, talk of reconciliation must be preceded by an honest
confrontation of "inequality and its violent legacy of the past and
present." She analyzes the establishment of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission in South Africa less as a "space in which
victims, perpetrators and benefactors could come together. . . for
the sake of personal and national healing" and more as a
"nation-building project predicated upon the creation of a culture
of human rights in order to foster the transition from the
repressive regime of apartheid to a liberal democracy." I
question Singleton's reason for pitting these two interpretations
of the TRC against one another. Surely the work of the TRC
embodied multiple dynamics simultaneously, and no doubt the work of
the TRC continues to have a multivalent impact on South African
society.
[3] Nevertheless, given the painful history of Christianity in
Africa, Singleton's suspicion is not difficult to understand.
Yet De Gruchy wants to dig into the wisdom that Nelson Mandela drew
upon when he named Archbishop Tutu as Chair of the TRC; and wants
to probe the language of covenant in Mandela's inaugural
address. De Gruchy, in short, is convinced that Christian
understanding and practice have an important role to play in South
Africa's continuing journey toward a more just and reconciled
national identity. As he writes, "Reconciliation. . . is a human
and social process that requires theological explanation, and a
theological concept seeking human and social embodiment"
(20). It is ". . . an action, praxis and movement
before it becomes a theory or dogma" (21) "a journey from
estrangement to communion"; "an ongoing process to establish a
community of love in which the conflict and injustice, though still
present, are actively being addressed, and the eschatological goal
of cosmic communion in love being definitely achieved" (76).
[4] De Gruchy's goal is not the only ambitious aspect of this
book; equally impressive is the sheer amount of material he strives
to bring together: a brief history of Christian acquiescence and
resistance to apartheid; an overview of atonement theology's
breadth, primary metaphors, problems and limitations; a
juxtaposition of Christian understandings of reconciliation with
Jewish and Muslim perspectives; and a constructive outline of the
"art of reconciliation" as it applies to the present in South
Africa.
[5] Clearly, De Gruchy's answer to the question, "Does
Christianity have anything to offer to support deeper, fuller
reconciliation in South Africa?" is a resounding YES!
However, as he works out the implications of his yes, various
emerging issues suggest the need for further investigation and
development.
[6] For instance, De Gruchy decides very early on to prioritize
what he categorizes as a Pauline understanding of reconciliation,
based on the Greek alasko, "to exchange." What is
significant about Christian understanding is its emphasis on the
vicarious nature of reconciliation, according to De Gruchy:
"The underlying theology
here is yet again shaped by the vicarious suffering of Christ, the
one who takes the place of the "other" and transforms the wrath of
vengeance into mercy of forgiveness" (168).
[7] And again,
". . . the notion of
vicarious representation lies at the heart of the gospel"
(51).
[8] Surely this emphasis on the vicarious element in
reconciliation is appropriate with respect to atonement metaphors
such as imputation, satisfaction, and penal substitution.
Other metaphors/theories in Christian theology and history,
however, lay weight on different descriptive elements, such as
unification in theosis, victory in Christus victor,
righteousness in justification, purification in sacrifice,
etc. While on the one hand De Gruchy attends to the
plural development of atonement theology in Christian history, on
the other, I believe his analysis would be improved if he allowed
the diversity and conflicting stories of atonement metaphors to
stand out more clearly instead of working to categorize so much
beneath the one banner of vicarious action in
reconciliation.
[9] The problems with a more univocal view especially stand out
as De Gruchy narrates the story of Ginie Fourie, whose daughter was
killed in a massacre at Heidelberg Tavern on Dec. 31, 1993 by
members of the armed wing of the Pan Africanist Congress.
Drawing on Fourie's experience to embody the power of the vicarious
element in reconciliation, DeGruchy tells how Fourie, after her
daughter's death, embarked on a theological journey to explore
whether it might be possible to reconcile with her daughter's
murderers. Visiting the four accused in prison during their
trial, she helps to initiate a dialogue, creating the possibility
for a depth of healing neither she nor they could have imagined
before. The openness, initiative and capacity for compassion
on the part of Fourie takes DeGruchy's breath away, and it is
precisely this stance of putting herself in the other's place,
finding room for openness to the other, in other words, her own
vicarious action, that DeGruchy wishes to emphasize as key in
Christian reconciliation.
[10] However, one is struck by the fact that this central
narrative nevertheless is the story of a white woman's outreach and
imaginative compassion to vicariously move past her own suffering
and empathize with the lives of the four black participants in the
massacre. De Gruchy writes, "Just as we cannot force victims
to forgive, so forgiveness when it occurs does so because victims,
mirroring God's own forgiveness, take the initiative. . ."
(179). Would he, one wonders, invite the same vicarious
imagination on the part of black victims of apartheid's
cruelties? What should we recommend to the victims of
torture? Would one wish to encourage the victim of rape to
the same initiative? I question the wisdom of
privileging this story about black-on-white violence, the danger
being that the story may almost subconsciously shift the ground
under the specific strenuous terrain of reconciliation in the South
African context, as if to suggest that white citizens are as much
victims in this history as those in black communities, and other
communities of color. Though De Gruchy so carefully
distinguishes the need for truth-telling as central to the process
of reconciliation, and without wishing to denigrate either Fourie's
pain or her courageous action, I wonder if De Gruchy thought about
narratively grounding this key notion of vicarious action with a
story more in keeping with the actual statistics regarding the
atrocities of apartheid. This same narrative, told from the
perspective of Fourie, and completely lacking with regard to our
hearing the voices of the black assailants, raises the question
about a serious imbalance in this book, in that the dominant
voices, theology and experience are mostly from a white
perspective, while black South African voices, culture and
religious practice remain relatively unexplored. Of course,
De Gruchy's hope is ". . . to come to terms with the truth that has
been uncovered through the TRC, acknowledge our guilt in ways that
heal and renew, and find ways to move beyond the past in covenant
with the rest of South Africa" (189). Yet I fear such gaps in
De Gruchy's work only underscore how very difficult, indeed
treacherous and costly, this journey may prove to be.
[11] What if we were to compare Fourie's story with the
fictitious narrative of Linda Lurie in South African Nobel Prize
winning novelist J.M Coetzee's novel Disgrace? A
white South African woman in her late 20's/early 30's, Linda is a
lesbian living in rural Georgia, struggling to negotiate the new
terrain of neighbor-relations with Xhosa Petrus in post-apartheid
South Africa. Theirs is a complicated relationship built upon
mutual practical needs. Linda installs electricity in the
barn on her land and permits Petrus to live there with his wife
while they build a home on the neighboring land; he helps her with
bundling cut flowers and taking them to market to sell. Yet
Coetzee wants to demonstrate how tentative, complex and susceptible
to brokenness even these superficial relations are in
post-apartheid South Africa. Far from a covenant
relationship, the foundation of this social contract is
paper-thin. When three black men brutally rape Linda and rob
her in her own home, Petrus turns out first to have been away at
the time of the attack; later he refuses to give up the youngest,
mentally unbalanced member of the trio of rapists, in fact has
provided him with protection, because he is ". . . my family, my
people" (Coetzee, 201). Linda's father demands that Petrus
fulfill the demand of justice by submitting the young man to
judicial process, but Coetzee illustrates that the old
understandings and practices of justice in white-controlled South
Africa no longer apply. He will marry Linda, Petrus tells her
father, and that will provide her future protection against further
violence. What kind of vision of reconciliation is
this? Coetzee emphasizes the costliness of
redemption/reconciliation/healing in post-apartheid South Africa,
and the inadequacy of former meta-narratives that made life
understandable and just in white-controlled South Africa. At
one time early on in the novel, Linda's father, David Lurie,
imagined that he would like to get to know old Petrus, imagined
that Petrus no doubt had a story to tell about his life under
apartheid, and he would like to hear it sometime. Yet when
the rapists/robbers descend upon the house, David's immediate
mental lurch to colonialist narratives about the savage natives,
and Petrus' eventual instinctive and unquestioned protection of one
of the attackers suggest Coetzee's conviction regarding the vast
distance separating members of different communities in
post-apartheid South Africa.
[12] It is this same distance that remains to be explored not
only theologically, but sociologically as well. What do
Christian narratives of reconciliation look like in rural areas as
the Georgian lands occupied by characters such as Xhosa Petrus, his
wife and extended family? How is "sacramental community"
practiced in black South African communities in ways similar to and
different from white Christian communities? Though DeGruchy
preaches against exclusivism, there is very little in his book that
explores the particularities of reconciliation in black South
African cultural forms. I would like to know more of the huge
reservoir of knowledge and experience regarding reconciliation from
specifically Black South African perspectives. Along the same
lines, though DeGruchy wishes to avoid supersessionism, and
acknowledges disagreements between Jewish, Muslim and Christian
understandings of reconciliation, it seems as though these same
differences dampen very little his enthusiasm for a Pauline
emphasis on vicarious initiatives of forgiveness, a notion that
surely flies in the face of Muslim and Jewish beliefs about
repentance and justice.
[13] To his credit, DeGruchy is careful about naming forgiveness
as "the prerogative of victims"; he emphasizes that victims cannot
be forced to forgive, to create the kind of open space so
courageously sought by Fourie. However, DeGruchy claims that
forgiveness makes reparation, expiation and atonement possible,
even going so far as to say that Christian conviction compels
embrace of wrong-doers (180). What about the importance of
power differentials with regard to taking the initiative in
reconciliation, forgiveness and healing? A much more finely
nuanced analysis of forgiveness would help DeGruchy navigate these
difficult waters. Feminists have written about the need
expressed by abused women to reclaim and recover a sense of self in
order to move definitively in the world, much less forgive their
abusers (Keshkegian, 2000). What of South Africans of
color? How did the decades of apartheid (not to mention the
centuries of colonialism) denigrate and wound the communal sense of
self in ways that have yet to be healed? What will healing
look like on their terms? Without advocating
separatism, theologian Gregory Jones writes that the "craft
of forgiveness" may in fact require some to ". . . separate from
the enemies, since their presence may threaten our very identities
in relation to God" (Jones, 196). Is too much being glossed
over in the enthusiasm to create bridges of reconciliation?
When DeGruchy speaks of such difficult topics as the cry for land
redistribution in this context, he on the one hand agrees that
reconciliation must include social and economic justice; yet he
later suggests that token and symbolic restitution may be as good
as it gets. One can only wince as DeGruchy speaks in this
regard of his hope for reliance on "the generosity of the victim"
(208), and in contrast, Coetzee's unyielding articulation about the
costliness of this process for white South Africa is a bracing
tonic.
[14] Perhaps the emphasis on vicarious imaginative initiatives
is appropriate for white South Africa, particularly given the fact,
emphasized by DeGruchy, that many (most?) white South Africans have
yet to demonstrate much sense of responsibility or remorse for the
horrors of apartheid from which they most definitely have benefited
(DeGruchy, 195). Here comparison to the United States may not
be avoided, and acknowledgement of the dearth of any communal
restitution/reparation for the destruction wrought by slavery in
this country. Again, to his credit, DeGruchy outlines a
wealth of typologies of justice, understandings of forgiveness,
guilt, and more. At the end, however, I find myself wishing
that he'd left more ends untied. Though in many places in
this book DeGruchy tells us that reconciliation, the process of
building bridges, is about allowing contradictory stories to be
told in the presence of deep listening and respect, what one
inevitably senses is a desire to move past the contradiction to the
bridging, when perhaps what is most needed is to stop and allow a
deeper penetration of those contradictions in the stories
themselves. What will it take to adequately hear, much less
address Singleton's description, "the violent legacy of apartheid's
inequality in the past and present"? Going back to Coetzee's novel
Disgrace, one is finally struck by this story's multiplicity of
images of reconciliation/atonement, all of them exceedingly
partial, fragile and questionable in terms of offering much in the
way of hope. Petrus' offer to marry Linda smacks of feudal
satisfaction, males offering material bounty to one another as a
way of balancing the scales of justice in response to theft, rape
or murder. Linda's resolve to "doggedly carry on" (Boehmer,
348) after her rape, and her resolute silence and refusal to report
the rape or confront Petrus about what he knew, suggest a narrative
of reconciliation in the format of penal substitution; she will
bear the punishment for white South Africa's unwillingness to face
and endure the brunt of the costliness of apartheid's evils (and it
should not escape our attention how frequently women have been
placed in just this suffering role). Linda's resolve has
little to do with any belief about a redemptive value in such
suffering, but again, practically, what else can one do, the novel
suggests, given the realities of post-apartheid South Africa?
Finally, David Lurie, Linda's father, it seems, can only find the
way toward reconciliation (and for him this means the possibility
of authentic relationship, even love) through a kind of
self-emptying, a process of sacrifice, experiencing the lopping off
first of this piece of his identity/privilege, then that, until all
the artifice and self deceptive utilitarian impulses have been
sheared away. And even then at the conclusion of the novel,
despite the costliness, the painfulness of this redemptive process,
David is only able to accomplish real relation with animals, not
yet with any human beings. Not only is reconciliation costly,
in Coetzee's estimation, it is difficult, uncertain, and all too
partial in the real world. It's almost as if behind Coetzee's
pessimism, he is trying to warn against anything that hints of
transformation wrought too quickly or superficially, admonishing
against any possibility of movement without adequately coming to
terms with the cost.
[15] In the end De Gruchy counsels us to hope in ". . . the
vision of what we believe our world can and should be" (212).
I'm with DeGruchy in hoping that Christian narratives may find
their rightful role in encouraging deeper and fuller reconciliation
nationally and globally, and appreciative of the path he has
charted. At the same time, I'd like him to slow down on his
journey, smooth over the sharp edges a bit less and take in more
along the way, beginning perhaps with a long sojourn among black
South African Councils and rural black women's collectives, to
listen deeply not only to the cries of lament, but also to the
intricacies of black South African practices of healing and
redemption and consider just how those practices might inform his
own Christian convictions. Holding out the promise of genuine
reconciliation requires both openness and critical awareness, lest
in drawing upon our own tradition we mistakenly reinstate various
forms of oppression. Such is the struggle not only in South
Africa, but also everywhere in the world with every and any moral
code; however much good it may promise, there is an undertow that
must always be interrogated. Thus it is likewise clear that
this journey also requires continuing captive attentiveness to the
narratives of reconciliation in diverse non-Christian spiritual and
religious traditions in South Africa; and finally, the very
diversity of understandings of redemption in Christianity itself
stands almost as a beacon regarding the importance of modesty,
openness and flexibility in such a difficult enterprise.
Given the painful history of Christianity in Africa, can Christians
challenge themselves to any less?
References
Boehmer, Elleke. "Not Saying Sorry, Not Speaking Pain: Gender
Implications in Disgrace," Interventions Vol 4(3) 342-351,
2002.
Coetzee, J.M. Disgrace. New York, Viking, 1999.
De Gruchy, John W. Reconciliation: Restoring
Justice. London, SMC Press, 2002.
Jones, L. Gregory. Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological
Analysis. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1995.
Keshgegian, Flora A. Redeeming Memories: A Theology of
Transformation. Nashville, Abingdon Press, 2000.
© March 2004
Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE)
Volume 4, Issue 3