The courage to disappear

Tonight we attended

the third annual Steve de Gruchy Memorial Lecture

Guest speaker was Prof. Beverley Haddad. It was in many respects a memorable evening. I have been to a number of similar lectures. Tonight the hall, which was big, was filled to capacity. Not only people from the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics were present. There were also many staff and students from the Cluster partners; Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary, St.Joseph 's Theological Institute (Roman Catholic), Lutheran Theological Institute, Evangelical Seminary of Southern Africa, and the Congregational House of Formation.

Of course we bought a copy. Signed!

But of course: most of all the evening evolved around the legacy of Steve de Gruchy, as the highlight of the evening was the launch of a new book:

Beverly Haddad (Ed), Keeping Body and Soul Together. Reflections by Steve de Gruchy on Theology and Development. (Pietermaritzburg: Cluster publications, 2015)

Beverley Haddad, who also was a colleague of Steve de Gruchy for many years. They worked together in the ‘Theology and Development Programme’. (One of the programmes that Church of Sweden is supporting at our university). Beverley has far as I can see, done a great job. But I have of course not read the book. I will certainly come back when I have done that.

Back to title of this blog post. Steve de Gruchy disappeared in a very tragic way. The 21 February 2010 he was drowned in a river. I have never met him but I have heard a lot about him and also read some of his texts, to the extent that I feel that I am getting to know him.

Photo: Kristina Göranzon

Beverley started by saying that there are many myths around Steve de Gruchy, since fewer and fewer of the students have met him. Sometimes he is portrayed as a saint. To her, as a close colleague, he was no myth and certainly no saint, she said. But a very good friend!

He disappeared. So did also Beverley last year when she took early retirement. To me this became very obvious, when I listened to the lecture. A memorial lecture! A lecture about times that have passed …

This could have been the case, had it not been for Beverley’s energy and commitment. The way I understood her lecture, she wanted to pose questions to today’s young generation of theologians at the university. And the most burning one was:

Is social transformation still at the heart of the Theological Project?

Maybe I need to explain the term ‘Theological Project’. Our School is a result of several mergers. So Theology is now together with Religious Studies, Ethics, Philosophy, Classics and maybe other disciplines. Nowhere in the School is there any structured space which can be called a ‘Theological’ one. Therefore we speak about the ‘Theological Project’. It is carried by individual staff members in mutual commitment and I am still struggling to understand how this entity or phenomenon is constituted and by whom.

Never the less: most of the people in the audience, albeit not all, where theologians. To us the question was a wake up call. Do we really care for the context in which we live? Or are we just engaged with internal church issues? Beverley quoted Archbishop emeritus, Desmond Mpilo Tutu, who after 1994 said, that

Now the churches can go back to be churches

I have never heard of this quote and was a bit chocked. Wasn't that what the churches really did during the struggle? Were churches!

Tonight's lecture drew most of its inspiration from Latin-american liberation theology. Also a bit surprising! Maybe Steve de Gruchy also did that.

Beverley spoke about the ‘See, Judge, Act’ method but added a first step namely ‘Faith Commitment’, which makes it into the ‘Pastoral Cycle’. Later in the lecture she also, referring to Latin-america, added a fifth step: ‘Celebrate’.

The faith commitment means that we ask whose perspective is important, whom we want to journey with. The answer is, that we must journey with the poor and marginalized. We need to have an

Epistemological privileging of the poor

What we often do, in our churches is that we have an

Epistemological privileging of the ordained

This Beverley repeated four times. In as much as she herself is an ordained Anglican priest, she is very suspicious about the way clergy use their power and forget whom they are to serve.

Another part of the lecture built on the Brazilian theologian Carlos Dreher at Centro de Estudos Bíblicos (CEBI). Beverley referred to one of his books:

Carlos A. Dreher, The Walk to Emmaus (São Leopoldo: Centro de Estudos Bíblicos, 2004)

He uses the narrative in Luke 24:13-35 where Jesus walks with two disciples to Emmaus. Seven steps are found in the narrative, which we as theologians could make use of, when we seek to be part of a transformational leadership:

1. Recognising the culture of silence

2. Walking together and listening

3. Analysing the reality of those we work with

4. Using the Bible at the right moment

5. Practice opens the eyes

6. The courage to disappear

7. Ultimate goal – enabling others to become active subjects

When I took part in a bible workshop in Nairobi last year, we did study this narrative and the facilitators were from CEBI. But todays lecture gave other ‘aha-moments’. Maybe it is because we also are in the process of leaving Pietermaritzburg and South Africa later this year. That is why the sixth step became important tonight:

The courage to disappear

However, I don’t want to disappear for the sake of just leaving. I think I am on my way to something else. I also believe God is with me on that journey. Presently I do not know where we will live in six months’ time and I do not know if I will have a job or what I, if I get a job, will work with.

But one thing I know: I want to work with a theological method that has social transformation at the heart. And I want to understand that the epistemological privilege rests with the poor and marginalised. And not with the ordained.