BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
The argument in this set of quotations, which are true to Mbeki’s more
extended argument, is that the focus of the RDP, which committed the
ANC government to “modern and effective services” for all our people
should not be our primary focus; there is a more urgent concern, namely
the moral failure infecting our nation, and so while the government gets
on with sorting out the economy, we the people must get on with repair-
ing our individual and corporate soul. As early as 1995, while Mbeki was
Deputy President, he said that the liberation government’s Reconstruc-
tion and Development Programme (RDP) had “established a unique
national consensus on the need for prosperity, democracy, human de-
velopment and the removal of poverty”. “However”, he goes on to say,
“despite its almost biblical character, the RDP Base Document did not
provide us with all the answers”. This is because, he continues, “We
have always known that its many many priorities and programmes need
to be distilled into a series of realistic steps, guided by a long term vision
and our resource constraints” (Mbeki 1995:1). The vision of prophetic
religion, Mbeki seems to argue, is unrealistic, particularly in economic
terms. However, the vision of moral religion, “Church Theology”, is
adequate to our nation’s needs. Again, this section of the “The RDP of
the Soul” Policy Discussion Document seems to accept Mbeki’s trajec-
tory as its starting point, though it does go on to broaden it.
The first sub-heading in this section on “The colonial misuse of Relig-
ion” focuses on the damage done by the imposition of colonial institu-
tional religion on Africa and Africans. The colonial and missionary en-
terprise “coopted” us “into western civilisation and a corrupted version
of the Gospel”, undermining “the essentials of spiritual humanity pro-
claimed by the great spiritual leaders of the past”, none of whom “were
products of western civilisation”, “not Hindus, Confucius, Isaiah, Amos,
the Buddha, Jesus, or Mohammed” (ANC 2007b:3). The anti-western
argument is clear here, and so is a sixth distinctive feature. According to
this analysis religion is in and of itself not bad for us. There is an uncor-
rupted version of “the Gospel”, with a capital ‘G’, and there are “essen-
tials of spiritual humanity”, and there are “great spiritual leaders of the
past”.
The next sub-section, on “Liberating Religion”, draws attention to more
recent examples of life-giving religion from our own recent past. Among
these are the ecumenical and inter-faith movements of the liberation
struggle, Liberation Theology, and various declarations (like the 1991