The cultural history of apartheid and the politics of healing in a South African indigenous church

The cultural history of South Africa records the events that led to the establishment of apartheid, the legal system which subjugated the black majority to an inferior status based on race. While apartheid became the official policy of South Africa in 1948, prior to that year white minority governments enacted laws and manufactured attitudes that led to the political domination of black people. The ramification of policies of discrimination has for decades caused black people's intellectual, economic, political, and educational pursuits to be substandard. Yet, the resiliency of black South Africans has been demonstrated many times over in movements of resistance. People such as Nelson and Winnie Mandela challenged the South African government concerning its continued domination of blacks. Grass roots movements all over the country used various means of resistance. One vehicle of resistance at the grassroots level was the emergence of African indigenous churches. In the context of sacred space, these churches, which attract the poorest of the poor, utilize symbolic orders that transform peoples' lives to the extent that they become empowered social actors. Moreover, these churches design rituals of healing in which people who suffer from various sicknesses are healed physically and, more often than not, transformed emotionally. This study focuses on healing rituals in an African indigenous church located in a black township in Cape Town known as Guguletu. It is based on fieldwork conducted from June 15, 1991-January 15, 1992 and during the month of August 1992. The primary focus of the research involves the study of religion as a cultural system. The goal is to examine how micro-level social relations, as reflected in an African indigenous church, impact and are impacted by macro-level political, social and economic structures, as well as by the struggles in the Republic of South Africa. The interpersonal social relations of poor black South Africans are examined with the intent of discovering how they employed religious healing rituals as a force for reorienting their social reality, a material world that is permeated with the legacy of apartheid. The ways in which this material world is symbolically transformed by healing rituals into a life enhancing reality are explored. The specific location of the study is an African indigenous church called St. John's Apostolic Faith Mission. It is part of a larger indigenous church movement that is the most rapidly growing segment of religious life in South Africa. These churches stand in counterdistinction to the "historical churches.". The conclusion is drawn that the rituals of healing are expressions of protest by nonelites who are thereby transforming the world in which they live.