A critical engagement with the DSM-5 and psychiatric diagnosis

Classifications in psychiatry can result in the reification of hypothetical approaches, arbitrary categorisation and social injustice. This article applies a social constructivist approach to critique the DSM-5 as a neurobiological model of psychiatric diagnosis which ignores psychosocial factors such as poverty, unemployment and trauma as causes of mental distress. It challenges the universality of psychiatric diagnosis and proposes that cultural psychiatry's framing of ‘culture-bound syndromes,’ or ‘cultural case formulation’ guidelines, is oversimplified. Use of the DSM in the South African context risks perpetuating injustice by labelling and stigmatising people who have in the past been racially stigmatised by apartheid. In culturally diverse South Africa, psychiatric diagnosis should take into account alternative explanatory models that provide a more balanced view of the complex and dynamic relationship between biological and sociocultural forces in the manifestation of psychopathology.     

EXTINCTION,NATURAL EVIL,AND THE COSMIC CROSS

Did the God of the Bible create a Darwinian world in which violence and suffering (disvalue) are the means by which the good (value) is realized? This is Christopher Southgate's insightful and dramatic formulation of the theodicy problem. In addressing this problem, the Exeter theologian rightly invokes the Theology of the Cross in its second manifestation, that is, we learn from the cross of Jesus Christ that God is present to nonhuman as well as human victims of predation and extinction. God co‐suffers with creatures in their despair, abandonment, physical suffering, and death. What I will add with more force than Southgate is this: the Easter resurrection is a prolepsis of the eschatological new creation, and it is God's new creation which retroactively determines past creation. Although this does not eliminate the theodicy question, it lessens its moral sting.     

Charles F. Mackenzie and Early Colonial Racism

Archdeacon Charles F. Mackenzie ministered in the diocese of Natal in South Africa from 1855 to 1859. The early days of the diocese and the colony of Natal were characterized by conflict both inside and outside the church. The church conflict of Bishop John Colenso is perhaps most infamous. Mackenzie attempted to navigate this space and minister to settlers, soldiers, and Africans alike. This article draws on primary sources to explore the life and times of Mackenzie and argues that despite Mackenzie's remarkable story, the inseparability of coloniality from the missionary endeavour, racism, and the civilizing narrative was inescapable. Racism has evolved and is still a challenge for many churches.     

African witchcraft and western law: psychological and cultural issues

The South African Suppression of Witchcraft Act of 1957 outlawed tribal mediation by chiefs and sangomas (African priest-diviners) in witchcraft accusation trials. This Western legislative intervention denies African justice to Africans who believe in the reality of African witchcraft. As a result there have been many recorded instances where ordinary African people, thinking themselves bewitched, have turned to self-help to protect themselves against bewitchment; mob justice and witchcraft violence have escalated like never before. This paper argues that the Suppression of Witchcraft Act should be repealed so that legitimate sangomas can be reinstated as mediators in witchcraft accusation cases. The distinction between sangomas and witches is clarified and a Jungian framework is used to shed light on the nature of African beliefs in witches, ancestors, and spirit worlds. Standard models of anthropology and psychology have tended to treat such beliefs as symptoms of superstition or madness. My argument is that by approaching these belief systems from a Jungian perspective, new ways of thinking about them are introduced which can help us find a solution to the problem of witchcraft violence in South Africa.     

What makes Christian bioethics Christian? Bible, story, and communal discernment.

Scripture is somehow normative for any bioethic that would be Christian. There are problems, however, both with Scripture and with those who read Scripture. Methodological reflection is necessary. Scripture must be read humbly and in Christian community. It must be read not as a timeless code but as the story of God and of our lives. That story moves from creation to a new creation. At the center of the Christian story are the stories of Jesus of Nazareth as healer, preacher of good news to the poor, and sufferer. The story shapes character and conduct and enables communal discernment.     

How does anybody live in this strange place? A reply to Samantha Vice

Abstract

Samantha Vice has argued that ‘white’ South Africans are so tainted by the history of racial oppression in their country that they are incapable of attaining a great degree of moral virtue. She recommends that they should live in humility and political silence. There are a number of flaws in her argument. First, none of the characteristics of ‘white’ South Africans that she says provides the basis for these conclusions can distinguish (almost) all ‘white’ South Africans from (almost) all ‘black’ South Africans. Second, because it is not only ‘white’ South Africans but everybody in the world who either perpetrates serious injustice or is tainted by others’ perpetration of it, her argument, if sound, would imply that nobody is capable of great virtue and that everybody ought to be politically silent. Finally, her recommendation that ‘white’ South Africans should be politically silent is a very dangerous one.     

Freedom of Religion and The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark

This article investigates how Africans in Zululand, South Africa, viewed Lutheran missionaries in the 1950's. The main source is a thorough report Zulu pastor S. A. Mbatha gave in answer to a survey initiated by the Swedish missionary Helge Fosseus in 1957. Fosseus wanted to find out more about the causes of increasing African resistance to mission, church and Christianity. Mbatha replied that missionaries were seen by Africans as enemies in that they shared white South African society's prevailing attitude toward blacks. Missionaries were characterized as exploiters and betrayers. This negative image contrasts strongly with the picture the missionaries painted of themselves as Africans' friends and allies in the struggle against increasing discrimination. The last part of the article discusses possible causes for the large difference between the missionaries' self-understanding and the Africans' image of the missionaries.     

My heart is on my tongue: the untranslated self in a translated world

Abstract: The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was the first body to provide translation in all the languages of the country, setting people free from groping around with distorted tongues, unable to see, talk or hear one another … After three centuries of silence South Africans could daily hear the black voice talking and being translated; for the first time white South Africans could hear and listen. Through translation we could access our deepest emotions and feelings. But among the two thousand testimonies there were some that were incomprehensible, that confirmed every racial stereotype built up over many years of apartheid. What does one do with these ‘untranslatable’ narratives? This paper looks at one TRC testimony and one Bushmen story, both of them translated from indigenous languages and both posing enormous moral dilemmas. Read in a particular way, the Bushmen story seems to say that they had no sense of responsibility. I will look at the story in its cultural context as revealed through translation to see if another conclusion is possible. In the TRC testimony, I and two colleagues looked at the slippages between the original Xhosa testimony and the interpreted version and explore the consequences thereof. I want to make the point that a narrative can be experienced as discriminatory and ethically problematic when read through a particular, in this case a western, perspective. But the moment there is an attempt to interpret the narrative via its embeddedness in an indigenous worldview, it becomes breathtakingly ethical, fair and logical.     

Cuckoo coloureds: Cacophonic auralities and hidden visibilities of so-called coloured identities in South Africa

Beginning with the association between “sounding out” and “voicing” this article begins with a tacit question of what musical metaphors might offer for thought concerning identity, and in particular the complex racial (mis-) or (dis-)identifications of so-called coloured people in South Africa. I tie the aurality of the cuckoo bird to the notion of something that pops out of invisibility and makes an irrelevant or silly kind of noise. In musical settings the cuckoo is often associated with a dissonant cacophony of multiple chiming (cuckoo) clocks and steeple bells. This offers a telling metaphor for the determination of coloured(ness) by white and black South Africans alike, for whom coloured is precisely the incomprehensible “other” whose voice cannot be heard clearly. At the same time, among so-called coloureds in South Africa, the metaphor of an internal cacophony refers to a resounding, but tragic noise created by the “sounding-out” or “voicing”, i.e. the aurality, of multiple narratives of what constitutes and nullifies coloured(ness) in South Africa. In other words, the cacophonic plurality of so-called coloured voices in society speaking simultaneously against one another in terms of self-determination also seems to be speaking beyond comprehension for most other South Africans. The ironic outcome of all of this noise is an extraordinary kind of silence.     

We Preach Christ Crucified: Rejecting the Prosperity Gospel and Responding to Feminist Criticism Using Luther's Second Theology of the Cross

Abstract :  This article affirms that Luther's theology of the cross should serve as a counterpoint to ideologies like the prosperity gospel that encourage adherents to amass personal wealth while remaining indifferent to the suffering of others. To employ Luther's theology of the cross responsibly, however, one must take into consideration the feminist critique that it potentially encourages passive suffering and abuse, especially on the part of women in abusive situations who are told to 'bear their cross' and simply endure what they suffer. A second theology of the cross implicit in Luther's writings, one that portrays God not as the cause of suffering but as the healing power that brings life out of suffering and death that already exists, provides the basis for a rejection of the prosperity gospel while meeting (at least partially) the concern of feminist critics.     

Luther's Heidelberg Disputation and identity formation

Luther's famous Ninety‐five Theses overshadowed his twenty‐eight theses of the Heidelberg Disputation. This is regrettable insofar as Luther broke in Heidelberg with the traditional scholastic method and introduced for the first time publicly his influential theology of the cross. Luther's existential emphasis in this Disputation is particularly significant, because he answers here the big questions for us: Who am I really in the sight of God? What is my true identity in Christ? Luther radically exposes our self‐centeredness and calls us to look at the world, God, and ourselves through “suffering and the cross,” as only in this way will we be able to perceive clearly and “say what a thing is.” He encourages us to become theologians of the cross who have given up on themselves and discovered that “everything is already done.” Luther's passionate plea to put the cross of Christ at the center of our lives is a welcome reminder for us today, even five hundred years later, as we seek to find out who we are, who God is, and what God is accomplishing in and through us. Rescuing Luther's Heidelberg Disputation from oblivion is vital for the health of both church and academia today.     

Living toward the end

Human beings look to the end as terminus, a passing away when the individual's life story will be complete. Against a cultural tendency to deny death, Christians—claiming a Creator God who does not die—can accept their finitude in principle and aspire to a “high definition” ending. That hope is threatened by the devastating reality of dementia. But Kierkegaard reminds us that the “positive third” of selfhood is not to be identified with mentality and Whitehead stresses that the reception of the inrushing world does not depend on conscious mentality. Against the prevalent culture of individualism, a person of faith can recognize the constitutive role of community past and present. She can find in her terminus a telos, a passing on of life to the others as she steps aside. Is there more? The Newer Testament proclaims a new creation in which life's ending is transformed by the sense of end as beginning, end as advent. This omega as alpha entails both continuity and discontinuity. As to discontinuity, the Christian envisions a life “beyond Eden,” where the perilous gift of freedom is transformed in an integrating knowledge of self, world, and God—fulfilling the calling given to all as created in God's image. This sense of end does not function as an “escape to a transcendent elsewhere,” but motivates and empowers the believer to care for the suffering victims of this volatile and violent age.     

Challenges and Gifts of Teaching Luther in a Lutheran College1

This article examines what can be learned from teaching Luther to American college students. It reviews several ways in which college students benefit from studying Luther. The article suggests that identifying the “operating principles” in Luther's thought can help students more carefully discern the contemporary significance of his thought. After discussing some challenges encountered when teaching Luther to college students, the article ends with reflections on the theological significance of the college context. While Luther's discovery of a gracious God remains central, the college setting promotes a retrieval of several broader themes in Luther's thinking that have often been neglected by Lutherans: ongoing creation, wisdom, the Bible as “torah,” the suffering of God, and societal reform.     

The Cross‐Cultural Relevance of Person‐Centered Counseling in Postapartheid South Africa

In this article, the need for effective cross‐cultural counseling in South Africa is emphasized against the background of the country's sociocultural context. The characteristics of person‐centered counseling that make it cross‐culturally suitable in the South African situation are discussed. Rogers's cross‐cultural group work during his visits to South Africa is briefly described. The ways in which specific cross‐cultural obstacles can be overcome by means of the person‐centered approach are pointed out. The relationship between person‐centered counseling and traditional African healing practices is described. Finally, ways to address the language barriers in cross‐cultural counseling in South Africa are discussed.     

Christ,the Karamazovs,and Compensational Theodicies

This article draws from Ivan Karamazov a two‐fold challenge to the goodness of God: that no one can forgive the infliction of suffering upon the innocent and that, even when forgiven, this suffering costs more than any good brought out of it. It then looks to Alyosha for a response to these challenges, suggesting that Christ can forgive because of the cross and that his doing so puts the innocent to a choice: either to join their suffering to his – and so maintain God's goodness – or to lose their innocence. This response helps supply another defect of theodicies that appeal to the compensatory goods that God brings out of innocent suffering, namely that it seems to make some kind of salvation necessary and not gratuitous. For here all innocent suffering is joined to the cross and so part of the economy of redemption, not something prior to redemption that renders it necessary.     

Is penal substitution unjust?

Penal substitution in a theological context is the doctrine that God inflicted upon Christ the suffering which we deserved as the punishment for our sins, as a result of which we no longer deserve punishment. Ever since the time of Faustus Socinus, the doctrine has faced formidable, and some would say insuperable, philosophical challenges. Critics of penal substitution frequently assert that God’s punishing Christ in our place would be an injustice on God’s part. For it is an axiom of retributive justice that it is unjust to punish an innocent person. But Christ was an innocent person. Since God is perfectly just, He cannot therefore have punished Christ. Virtually every premiss in this argument is challengeable. Not all penal substitution theories affirm that Christ was punished for our sins. The argument makes unwarranted assumptions about the ontological foundations of moral duty independent of God’s commands. It presupposes without warrant that God is by nature an unqualified negative retributivist. It overlooks the possibility that the prima facie demands of negative retributive justice might be overridden in Christ’s case by weightier moral considerations. And it takes it for granted that Christ was legally innocent, which is denied by the classic doctrine of imputation. It thus fails to show any injustice in God’s punishing Christ in our place.     

Preaching Christ Crucified: Luther and the Revelation of God

Abstract :  The doctrine of revelation has to do with how we know God, but Luther warned against the human presumption that God can be known fully. God remains hidden and is revealed in Jesus and his death on the cross. The cross is at odds with all human notions of an omnipotent God. Preachers ought to be suspicious of human presumptions about God that inflate and puff up. The cross is the antidote for a theology and a preaching of glory as well as the criterion for theology and preaching that authentically proclaims God and the gospel of Jesus Christ.     

Practicing the Story: Equiping Congregations for Evangelism

“Evangelism” carries a lot of baggage! And many in our 21st‐century church feel that the baggage was packed by someone else and contains clothes that no longer fit or equip them for sharing the gospel with people and life in the present world. If evangelism is to find its place high on the agenda of our church of today, we need to enable Christian people to freely and honestly explore first, what it means to be people of the gospel now, and then, the message they have to share and how they will share it with the world today. Radical questions about our understandings of the gospel and purpose and practice in sharing it need to be asked, discussed, and explored with faith and courage in the many different contexts that Christian people are called to live and serve in. If the Christian church is to be faithful to the gospel and recognizing and growing the kingdom of God, then we must be listening to the discomfort within ourselves and our neighbours and open to the possibility of transformation. Can our Christian story, always a renewal movement, inspire that new thinking, sharing, and action that will reach the people we meet today?