{"title":"The dignity of the different - towards a Christian ethics for a pluralistic society","authors":"W. Huber","doi":"10.5952/54-0-353","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5952/54-0-353","url":null,"abstract":"From the perspective of three periods of professional experience of the author - twelve years as a church-related researcher, fourteen years as a full-time professor of ethics and sixteen years as a church leader - the essay expresses the need to address the role of Christian ethics for society anew. It shows how and why, in the next period of his research and public involvement, the author wants to take the pluralistic character of modern societies even more seriously than in some of his previous approaches. In order to do so and to reach some ethical agreement in pluralistic societies, a central prerequisite is to make room for different voices to be heard. For only then we shall find a relevant, overlapping consensus amongst these voices. This, furthermore, requires rethinking of the forces - religious or otherwise - behind why human beings are motivated to act according to their ethical convictions. In all of this a useful guiding principle may be found in the so-called dignity of the different.","PeriodicalId":18902,"journal":{"name":"Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73500522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Developing common values in situations of plurality and social transformation","authors":"B. Lategan","doi":"10.5952/54-0-355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5952/54-0-355","url":null,"abstract":"Social transformation is always accompanied by a change in\u0000 basic values. When this occurs in situations with high levels of diversity, it is\u0000 important for the eventual success of the transition that there is sufficient\u0000 agreement on what the basic value system of the new dispensation should be. The\u0000 article discusses the role of foundational documents like the Freedom Charter and\u0000 the South African Constitution during the transition to an inclusive democracy in\u0000 South Africa and the challenge to implement the values contained in these documents\u0000 in various contexts in society. As a case study, the process to develop a set of\u0000 common values in a major gold mine and the practical implementation of these values\u0000 in the workplace is analysed. It is concluded that – like the publics of the academy\u0000 and of the church need a dedicated style of discourse for successful communication\u0000 with these publics – discourse in the context of general society also needs a\u0000 specific style of discourse. This discourse must be inclusive and generic and\u0000 therefore not religion-specific. Features of this style of discourse are illustrated\u0000 at the hand of examples from the case study.","PeriodicalId":18902,"journal":{"name":"Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87371972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Orientation and ambiguity – On a decisive hermeneutical dimension in Dirkie Smit’s theological thinking","authors":"L. Fouche","doi":"10.5952/54-0-351","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5952/54-0-351","url":null,"abstract":"This essay explores Dirkie Smit’s theological thinking from a hermeneutical perspective. Smit’s linking up with Karl Barth’s view on confessing, as can be seen in the Accompanying Letter of the Belhar Confession, is taken as illustration. After a historical perspective on the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer with its central concepts of historicality, contextuality, orientation and dialogue, it is demonstrated how these concepts also play a significant role in Smit’s way of doing theology. Barth’s three aspects of Reformed confessions (historical context, the one message and the one church) are associated with three Gadamer’s concepts of historicality, orientation and contextuality. While Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics move from application (contextuality) to practical philosophy, Smit’s theology moves from contextuality to public theology. Confessing the old Christian creed that Jesus is Lord in the public sphere as the church’s decisive orientation contains the risk of ambiguity within an ongoing dialogue. The argument of the article is that the core of Smit’s theological thinking can be understood as orientation and ambiguity amidst the dialectic of historicality and contextuality.","PeriodicalId":18902,"journal":{"name":"Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76883387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Systematic reflections upon the Christ images in some modern Western films","authors":"M. Brinkman","doi":"10.5952/54-0-344","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5952/54-0-344","url":null,"abstract":"All of the images applied to Jesus in the New Testament have as their context the religious world of that time. So, there was a vivid interaction between gospel and culture. Especially in Western culture, however, that seems not anymore the case. This lack of interaction might be one of the main crises of Western theology. Could modern Jesus films fill in this gap and offer new, useful images? Partly, they do indeed. Referring to films like Babette’s Feast , A Short Film About Love and Breaking the Waves is shown that filmmakers often have more tools at their disposal to express the meaning of Jesus Christ in Western culture than theologians have.","PeriodicalId":18902,"journal":{"name":"Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74068990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Honour thy father and thy mother” – What do grown children owe their aged parents?","authors":"F. Lange","doi":"10.5952/54-0-349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5952/54-0-349","url":null,"abstract":"What do grown children owe their aged parents? This article describes some visions on filial obligation, current in modern ethical theory, and evaluates them from a theological perspective. Why should children help their parents? Is it out of gratitude, friendship, because they are indebted to them, or is it simply because they are their parents? And what kind of assistance may parents justly expect their children to offer them? The article presents and evaluates four theories of filial obligation. biblical texts seem to support the so called debt theory which argues that children are in debt to their parents and that they are repaying them with their care what they owe to them. A variant of the debt theory is the model of gratitude. both theories go astray by supposing that the mutuality in parent-child relationship is marked by reciprocity. The friendship approach argues that there are many things that children ought to do for their parents, but that it is inappropriate and misleading to describe them as things “owed”. Parents’ voluntary sacrifices tend to create love or “friendship”, rather than creating “debts” to be “repaid”. but friendship does not describe sufficiently the filial reality either: one can end friendships, but not parenthood. And parents can never be the equals of their children, as friends can be. Apparently, the most satisfactory theory is the special goods theory, which underlines the special relationship between parent and child. That means also that the goods of parenting are unique in kind. Accordingly, adult children should provide frail and dependent parents with something that they will not get otherwise. This approach can get theological support and a faith inspired horizon by interpreting filial relationships in an eschatological perspective and considering them as a divine mandate.","PeriodicalId":18902,"journal":{"name":"Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90062128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Jesus Christ as Mediator of creation","authors":"E. Conradie","doi":"10.5952/54-0-347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5952/54-0-347","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution offers reflection on two of Dirkie Smit’s\u0000 conversation partners, namely Herman Bavinck and Karl Barth. It notes that both are\u0000 deeply Trinitarian theologians, but also that such a Trinitarian approach has to\u0000 address a number of underlying difficulties with respect to the work of the Father,\u0000 Son and Holy Spirit. On this basis the distinct positions of Bavinck and Barth on\u0000 the relationship between Christ and creation is explored. Both would confirm that\u0000 Jesus Christ is the “Mediator of creation” but adopt different approaches in this\u0000 regard. Such underlying differences are explored and highlighted with the help of GC\u0000 Berkouwer’s attempt to mediate between these approaches. The essay concludes with\u0000 the observation that Smit’s emphasis on the centrality of the resurrection may\u0000 suggest a critical correction to discourse on “Christ and creation”.","PeriodicalId":18902,"journal":{"name":"Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82269925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Belhar Confession – 29 years on","authors":"Horn Nico","doi":"10.5952/54-0-352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5952/54-0-352","url":null,"abstract":"Twenty-nine years down the line, this essay revisits the birth of the Belhar confession in 1982. It describes the immediate reaction in South Africa, specifically by the Dutch Reformed Church, to the acceptance of this confession by the then Dutch Reformed Mission Church. It shows how the confession was “held hostage” by church politics in the Dutch Reformed family of churches in South Africa from 1982 until 1994, constituting and continuing to constitute, a major stumbling block for efforts of reunification between the DRC and DRMC (and later, URCSA) – either to the chagrin or relief of those involved. In light of the continued importance of this confession with regard to the issue of church reunification and its positive reception over time in some North American and European Reformed churches, the article calls for a reconsideration of the possible role the confession can play in a new millennium, in a vastly different South African church and society and in a time thinking about confessions seem to be closer to those of Calvin and the Reformers, and of Karl barth, steering away from the dogmatic Dordt way in which it for long understood by many Dutch Reformed Christians in South Africa.","PeriodicalId":18902,"journal":{"name":"Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72768099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An ethics of responsibility reading of Eduard Tödt’s theory of the formation of moral judgement","authors":"D. Villiers","doi":"10.5952/54-0-350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5952/54-0-350","url":null,"abstract":"In the article the interpretation of Eduard Todt’s theory of the formation of moral judgements as descriptive of the six steps that are logically presupposed in the formation of all moral judgements is critically discussed. On the basis of an analysis of the four publications in which Todt developed his theory it is demonstrated in the first part of the article that such an interpretation is incorrect. The normative nature of his theory is acknowledged. In the second part of the article a case is made for an ethics of responsibility reading of his theory. Each of the six steps in the process of the formation of moral judgements that Todt distinguishes, is analysed. It is demonstrated that each of these steps entails a distinctive normative ethical approach that can be depicted as ethics of responsibility.","PeriodicalId":18902,"journal":{"name":"Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91153618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dialogue and an advocate of dialogue - Dirkie Smit on dialogue","authors":"G. Akper","doi":"10.5952/54-0-339","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5952/54-0-339","url":null,"abstract":"The essay explores Smit’s thoughts on dialogue. In the first instance, the essay reflects on Smit’s conviction on the need for dialogue in all human endeavours. Secondly, it explores Smit’s (together with Leon Fouche) analysis of four dominant discussants on dialogue, namely Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty and Jurgen Habermas. What the essay sees as Smit’s own idea of dialogue in relation to the four discussants is stated in the concluding part of the essay.","PeriodicalId":18902,"journal":{"name":"Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75604602","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On being a theologian for “others”","authors":"Denise M Ackerman","doi":"10.5952/54-0-338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5952/54-0-338","url":null,"abstract":"This contribution, written in the form of a letter to Dirkie\u0000 Smit, reflects on his weekly columns that are published in the Cape newspaper Die\u0000 Burger. It addresses two questions: How does Smit, par essence a theologian’s\u0000 theologian, communicate so successfully with the readers of a newspaper? Second,\u0000 what motivates his faithful writing of these weekly columns? In attempting to\u0000 address the first question it is suggested that the columns are infused with the\u0000 intent to achieve a communicative praxis that is liberating, and thus reminiscent of\u0000 critical theory. Employing language that is simple and straightforward, laced with\u0000 humour, never devoid of learning, and contextually relevant, Smit’s columns are a\u0000 highly effective exercise in Christian ethics. Here the two questions asked, merge,\u0000 for the answer to the question of motivation is found to be an expression of Smit’s\u0000 spirituality and his hope for a redeemed world. Discernment (onderskeidingsvermoe),\u0000 a key value in Christian spirituality, is central to his writing. His\u0000 critical contextual awareness combined with his focus on moral discernment, all\u0000 couched in a highly accessible format, make him “a theologian for\u0000 others”.","PeriodicalId":18902,"journal":{"name":"Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72739877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}