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We continue our journey towards a better understanding of the city and the way in which God wants us to demonstrate love and justice within the city.
 
In this piece we journey through the streets of Woodstock, Cape Town, taking in Thandi Gamedze's experience of the city and the theology embodied within it.

Two South African teens jump through the streets of Cape Town

ANNO DOMINI PRESENTS:

Theology as Contestation

TEXT: THANDI GAMEDZE / PHOTOGRAPHY: SESIHLE MANZINI

The idea of contestation is one that I can’t seem to get away from.

Church Cross

The realm of the theological is a site of perpetual struggle.

The word struggle is important

as it surfaces memory of historical moments and movements...

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...where people marginalised by unjust systems refused to accept the dehumanisation that these systems tried to impose on them

I think that the theological struggle carries some similar dynamics.

Resistance against theological hegemony is present in powerful and courageous ways

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 as the dehumanising nature of the dominant theologies are challenged and fought against in various expressions of liberation theologies

Theology is not simply believed or theorised

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE WHO HELP US SEE?

In this story, it was those that the city excluded that helped the city see

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The city and its theology is alive with contestation

The theology of Empire brings death and destruction

The theology of life is found in the prophetic minority

the church is at its best when it is the prophetic minority

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SEEING IS ESSENTIAL

Being able to see our own positionality and ideology in the process of trying to build a different world

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When ideas are seen as norms, and ‘just the way things are'

they are very difficult to see, let alone change.

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THE PROCESS OF SEEING

creates the possibility

for imagining things... different

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