With the dismantling of apartheid and all its repressive laws, especially the âGroup Areas
Actâ, people could now choose where they wanted to live. The result was a migration of
people from the rural areas to the urban areas where they could be closer to their places
of employment, better schools for their children, better infrastructure and amenities.
Most of these people did not have the finances to buy land and build houses so they
began to settle on available lands surrounding a suburb. On these lands they began
building âhousesâ made of wood and zinc which they called home. These settlements
became known as informal settlements or more commonly known as âsquatter campsâ.
This empirical study is focussed on the congregations of the Reformed Church in Africa
of one of its regions which together constitutes the RCA Presbytery of Gauteng. These
congregations have a predominantly âIndianâ membership due to the location of the
church buildings which were built during the apartheid era and subjected to the Group
Areas Act. The result of this was that these congregations engaged in mission work
amongst its own population group.
The main intention of the study is to establish how these congregations view these
informal settlements that have now come to settle within their congregation boundaries.
An attempt is made to answer the question as whether these congregations view the
informal settlement as âinclusiveâ or âexclusiveâ of their mission work.
The terms âinclusivismâ and âexclusivismâ is not defined as it is understood in the
âTheology of Missionsâ. In the context of this dissertation these terms refers to mission
work engaged in by the congregations of the Gauteng Presbytery as to whether it includes
or excludes the informal settlements that are to be found in their areas. These terms are also defined vis-Ã -vis universalism as distinct from universal salvation. A
comprehensive study, yet not an exhaustive one, is attempted in order to understand the
terms âinclusivenessâ and âexclusivenessâ in the Old and New Testaments. These terms
were also subjected to an understanding of missions as centripetal and centrifugal.
The relationship between church and mission is investigated so as to determine whether
these are two separate identities or whether there is an inseparable link between the two.
The research is structured so that the sample of the universe being researched would
provide data that is representative of the RCA Presbytery of Gauteng. The questionnaire
instrument of measurement was adopted to gather information for this research. The
sampling method employed was the probability, stratified simple random sampling
method.
Attention is given to the era in which the Reformed Church in Africa was born as well as
its ethos, which is encapsulated predominantly in the Laudium Declaration. Due to the
emphasis of the Laudium Declaration on evangelism, a short critical comparison is made
between the Laudium Declaration and its relationship to the praxis of missions as
understood by the congregations within the RCA Presbytery of Gauteng.
Chapter seven is the analysis of the information generated from the questionnaires. The
concluding chapter offers information, suggestions and makes recommendations to the
RCA Presbytery of Gauteng on how it is presently engaged in missions in relation to the
informal settlements, which changes are advisable and how it should understand the
relationship between church and missions.
The ultimate purpose of this research is to understand whether the RCA congregations in
the Presbytery of Gauteng has experienced a shift in its mission obligation from missions
only to the Indian culture during the apartheid era to include other cultural groups.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-09252007-135656 |
| Date | 25 September 2007 |
| Creators | Sukdaven, Maniraj |
| Contributors | Dr SJEJ van Vuuren, Prof DC Groenewalt, Prof P Verster |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-09252007-135656/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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