Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

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religions: Joseph Smith’s, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mary Baker
Eddy’s, Christian Science, and Madame Blavatsky’s, Theosophical Society, to name just
a few.
In the late 19th Century and beyond, paganism began to resurface. With “the repeal of
the Witch Act in Britain in 1951, English witchcraft began to proliferate openly, and in
the 1960’s Sybil Leek and other articulate exponents rose into prominent view in the
media, conducting a skilful public relations campaign to advance the image of Wicca, the
‘old knowledge,’ as they preferred to call their religion” (Lovelace, in Montgomery,
1976:80). Widespread popular interest in the supernatural, and things like demons,
angels, spiritual healings and more, has grown exponentially; while the modernized,
traditionalist churches remain locked in their naturalist mindset. “We have seen that
virtually all forms of occult practice have been enjoying a renaissance since the late
nineteenth century, at first in a relatively covert and quiet way, and then openly and
dramatically within the last decade or so” (Lovelace, in Montgomery, 1976:84).
How may we explain these great changes Missiologist David Bosch suggests that a
“fundamental reason lies in the fact that the narrow Enlightenment perception of
rationality has, at long last, been found to be an inadequate cornerstone one which to
build one’s life” (Bosch, 2000:352). Os Guinness and Francis Schaeffer suggested, “that
the pervasive anti-rationalism in many sectors of the twentieth-century intellectual
climate has helped breed this kind of movement” (Lovelace, in Montgomery, 1976:85).
Philip Jenkins said the “search for alternative Christianities has been a perennial
phenomenon within Western culture since the Enlightenment; it has never vanished
entirely, though in different eras, it has attracted larger or smaller degrees of public
attention” (Jenkins, 2001:15). He further argues that the current situation is largely the
failure of God’s people to be and do what God called them to do -- to be light and salt,
not religion (Mat. 5:13).
Postmoderns now routinely blend traditional, home-grown, and more exotic religious
beliefs. This is making for some extremely interesting new religious thinking -- though
reflecting historically, none of these ‘new’ religious constructs is very much different
from what mankind has concocted at some point previously. Most spiritual seekers in the
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa