Churches claiming a right to the city? Lived urbanisms in the City of Tshwane

Abstract

This article sets out to describe how churches have responded and continue to respond to fast-changing urban environments in Pretoria Central and Mamelodi East, animating Henri Lefebvre’s sociological perspective of citadins or urban inhabitants. We make tentative interpretations and offer critical appreciation. Churches, which were historically separated from the city centre, now directly participate in claiming a right to the city. With necessary fluidity, churches express lived African urbanisms through informality, place-making, spatial innovation and everyday rituals. Though not exhaustive, the article focuses on rituals shared among historic urban Christians and contemporary African urban Christians, namely prayer, listening to the Bible and worship. These rituals, when combined with the churches’ spatial innovation, to a certain degree contribute to place-making.

Cultivating the “good city”: The theological engagement of the Institute for Urban Ministry within the City of Tshwane

“…Of those who self-identify as Christian in South Africa, 84% are Protestant; 11%, Catholic; and 5%, other (Pew Research Center, 2010:22). Recent research (de Beer, Smith & Manyaka, 2017;Ribbens & de Beer, 2017) in two distinct yet interconnected areas of Tshwane indicates clusters and dense presence of 57 churches in 2km2 of Pretoria Central and 40 churches in1-km radius within Mamelodi East. Among Protestant Christian population in South Africa, those who identify as Pentecostal are 10% and African Independent Churches, 35% (Pew Research Center, 2010:23).…”

How Can the Church Reclaim Backsliders? Analysis of Church Education to Reclaim Backsliders

“…Urban churches need to pay attention to the church's relationship with the local community in addressing backsliding in urban areas. The church's role in social mobilization, adult education, social media engagement, and community activism highlights the importance of community-centered approaches in addressing backsliders (Chandler, 2017;Han et al, 2018;Isaac, 2005;Ribbens & De Beer, 2017).…”

From a pit to a palace: Deconstructing the economics and politics of labour migration in the City of Tshwane through the lenses of Genesis 41:41–57

“…Migration in South Africa is on the rise (Gordon 2019:270) and movement to the City of Tshwane is no different (Mashau 2019a;Ribbens & De Beer 2017). Renkin (2017:1) opined that migration 'has always been part of humanity, but not at the magnitude we find today'.…”