Simon Maimela as public theologian of the 1980s and 1990s
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Authors
Landman, Christina
Issue Date
2010
Type
Article
Language
en
Keywords
Public theologian , Simon Maimela
Alternative Title
Abstract
This article traces the public career of Simon Maimela (1944–) during the 15 years
between 1980, when he was appointed as the first black lecturer in the Faculty of
Theology at the University of South Africa, and 1996, when he handed over the position
as international coordinator of EATWOT, the Ecumenical Association for Third World
Theologians, to Mercy Amba Oduyoye. Although “Public Theology” was not a current
designation during the 1980s and 1990s, this article presents Maimela as a forerunner of
Public Theology through his contribution to Black Theology and his influence on public
opinion formation. The sources consulted include newspaper reports on his public
lectures and involvement in public statements on political situations. His articles on
Liberation Theology in academic and semi-academic journals and his inaugural lecture
are acknowledged as the source of views that contributed to the political transition to
democracy in South Africa; all of Maimela’s academic articles are derived from papers
delivered at conferences to which the public had primary or secondary access. Study
material on Liberation Theology prepared by Maimela while teaching Systematic
Theology at the University of South Africa is cited to reveal his then novel view on
feminist theology in particular. The publications of the Institute for Contextual Theology
(ICT) and EATWOT are investigated to show Maimela’s role in the application of
Liberation Theology to the public sphere. The article concludes by summarising
Maimela’s role as teacher, public speaker and public opinion former within his own
vision of Black Theology as prophetic theology. The part he played places him among
the most influential Black Theologians of the last two decades of the twentieth century,
and possibly of the first decade of the twenty-first.
Description
Peer reviewed
Citation
Landman, C. 2010,'Simon Maimela as Public Theologian of the 1980s and 1990s', Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, vol. XXXVI, pp. 49-65.
Publisher
Church History Society of Southern Africa
License
Journal
Volume
Issue
PubMed ID
DOI
ISSN
10170-0499