Over the past few years the Mail & Guardian has given a disproportionate amount of column space on religion to the views of Richard Dawkins.
I count it strange that while the M&G is deeply committed to reflecting on politics, law, business, economics and sport in our South African context, it deals with religion as if an Oxford don has offered the final word on God and religion for Africa.
At the heart of this is a naïve confusion, and one which Dawkins himself perpetuates, between questions about God and questions about religion. As both Marx and Freud illustrate, just because one is an atheist does not mean that religion is insignificant. And as Jesus and the Hebrew prophets suggest, believing in God does not mean that one is starry-eyed about religion.
The point is that whatever the personal religious beliefs of the editor of and journalists at the M&G, there is just so much rich material to reflect on when it comes to religion that is being avoided in these pages.
The past few months in South Africa have proved the point. Far from representing the kind of fantastical mythical world inhabited by Dawkins and his neophytes, our context has been about refugees in a Johannesburg church, Jacob Zuma in a Rhema church, Mvume Dandala leaving the Methodist church and Alan Boesak not leaving the VG church. And the list goes on.
Religion is deeply embedded in our social life in Southern Africa in ways that defy the categories of modernity. It is like housework in the economy. Just as (male) economists completely ignore the most fundamental and foundational economic activity of any society because they themselves don’t do it, so (atheist) social commentators blindly ignore what is going on before their very eyes, simply because they themselves don’t ”do it”.
This illusionary practice does not assist the struggle for life in Africa for three reasons. First, it savages the agency of ordinary Africans who believe in God. Like latter-day missionaries, catechists of European secularism think they know better than the ”natives”. The arrogance is astounding.
That Marx, Freud and Dawkins are somehow of more importance to Africans than God, Jesus and Muhammad betrays a strange perspective on our social life. By all means let us deal with atheism and secularism, but surely the M&G can go in search of ways in which this is shaping and being shaped by Africans and African reality — rather than being some pale imitation of a European desire for patricide.
Second, promoting naïve European atheism in our context creates enmity where there should be solidarity. Throughout the history of the struggle, religious people and leaders have worked alongside trade unionists, community activists and village elders. In fact many of the latter were rooted in faith communities, which is what gave the relationship its energy.
While there is good reason to criticise some religions and religious actors, the fact remains that many of the good people doing good things in Southern Africa are people of faith. We are not a secular nation, but a religiously plural one; and the alliances of ordinary people that are necessary in holding together our social fabric require religious literacy and respect.
Third, it is crucial that we are open and honest about the real failures of religion in our context. But contra Dawkins, this reality calls for more theology, not less. If people sing badly, we do not shut down music schools. We train better music teachers.
Religion is not going to go away in Africa (or elsewhere, actually). Laughing at its excesses, peering snootily at it and pretending that the forces of scientific rationalism are going to sweep away all false consciousness in some kind of atheist apocalypse is unhelpful.
It drives religion underground and into the fundamentalisms that are dangerous.
Rather, religion and religious actors need to be engaged in the public square, held accountable for their actions and appreciated for their contribution. And they in turn need to be able to do the same.
In fact, unbeknown to many born-again atheists, faculties, schools and departments of religion and theology at South African universities are daily involved in this work, much like our counterparts in sociology, politics and psychology.
The M&G is invited to join the debate.
Professor Steve de Gruchy is head of the School of Religion and Theology at UKZN and the editor of the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa