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Fear, Violence & Racism: Can Religion Help Us Outlive the Past in South Africa?
Dr.
Gerrie Snyman When Beyers Naude, an anti-partheid stalwart, asked in an open letter to ministers in the Dutch Reformed Church how it was possible to preach peace from the Gospel on Sundays without touching the heart of people, he touched a very sensitive hermeneutic nerve. This paper will try to provide some understanding on why it was possible to have apartheid and the Gospel. It will look into the following problems: 1) the presence of fear (see "Bowling for Columbine") with which settlers had to deal with ever since they set foot on the southern tip of Africa, 2) the legitimisation of violence in order to deal with that fear, 3) racism as a direct consequence of fear and violence and 4) the question of violence in the bible with which much of apartheid, and the struggle against it, were related.
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