South African Religion

pastor from New York, since we came all the way to South Africa and heard a sermon from another American pastor. The pastor’s sermon was about love and acceptance, which is also interesting given the churches history and apartheid. Another aspect of the service, which I thought was different was the use of incents. I had never been to a church service where they used incents, which were symbolizing cleansing and for prayer. I thought it was an interesting element to the service, although I was not feeling well because of them.

After church we walked around the area, checking out the Dutch Reform Church, which was just across the street next to Parliament. I noticed there were lots of statues in the area and particularly people who represented …show more content…
There were some interesting displays of rock art and its evolution, Nelson Mandela’s election and some tribal clothing. Although what intrigued me the most was a map of South Africa and it illustrated the population of South Africa by ethnicities and how much land each group possessed in the early 20th century. It is interesting how land is broken up and distributed. For example, the country of Lesthoto is landlocked in the middle of South Africa. Now why a country would be sitting inside another? I would guess that the tribal or African group that makes up that area are in a location that the Europeans had no desire to acquire because of no water resources or rough terrain and therefore, left the land to the local group. The Europeans wanted the best pieces of land with natural resources and were able to force other non-white groups to move out. So, in 1913 the Natives Land Act was put into law and the main aim of the law was regulated the acquisition of land. According to the description by the map the population of South Africa, was fifty percent black and fifty percent white, who owned eight-five percent of the land. It is similar to the Homestead Act of 1862 placed in the United States. The Homestead Act encouraged settlers to travel west and provided a large chunk of acreage to settle onto and farm. However, the land that was distributed by the government often times cut into territory being occupied by the Native Americans. …show more content…
In class we discussed the four articles, which gave an overview of South Africa from social and political viewpoints along with the role of the church and some history of the apartheid. One of the main points of class I found interesting is the idea of what race is and what it means. The idea of race is not a biological factor, instead it is socially constructed idea. Yet, through society people have used certain physical characteristics, such as nose or skull size to distinguish people as different. So then, European, or colonial powers could say those people are measureable different than us. Therefore, this is yet another case of identity difference and the us versus the other. From an ideological standpoint Europeans felt it was their duty or necessity to come to Africa and help those who in their minds were lesser than them. It is usually referred to as the white man’s burden and it is the burden of the white man to civilize the rest of the world. The mindset of colonialism did not happen only in Africa, but all over the world. The Middle East is divided by abstract borders that do not make sense to the people who inhabited the land, but what worked politically for imperial powers like England. At the South African Museum there was a map of Africa and looking at its crooked boundaries illustrates the authority Europeans countries had over African nations. On a