Unfinished Business Faith Communities and Reconciliation in a Post TRC Context 1st Edition by Christo Thesnaar, Len Hansen ISBN 9781928480518 1928480519

01 – The South AfricanCouncil of Churches – A kaledoscope of memories

Introduction

Selection of the TRC commissioners

President Mandela’s views on the TRC

Reparation for the victims and their families

Economic justice and land reform

The special role of the churches and church leaders

02 – “The best of allhearings.” – The South African faith communities appear beforethe South African

East-London, 17-19 November 1997

The Truth and Reconciliation process

Representatives from the South African faith communities called to the podium

The faith communities as agents of oppression

Faith communities as victims of oppression

Faith communities as opponents of apartheid

The faith communities’ role in South Africa’s transition

Answering the challenge

High expectations of the future role of the faithcommunities

Taking stock and moving forward

03 – Chronicle of there-enactment of theTRC’s Faith Communities’ Hearings with a view to the prese

Introduction

Run-up to the re-enactment

The re-enactment consultation

Summary of Day One

Summary of Day Two

The way forward

Reflections on the process

Concluding remarks by Archbishop Tutu

Afterword: Actions following the consultation

General concluding remarks

04 – Witness statementat the re-enactment of TRC Faith Communities’ Hearings

Introduction

Prophetic words

Religious potential

Embodying reconciliation

Instruments of religious reconciliation

05 – Faith communities,reconciliation and justice

Looking back at the South Africa we were

The South Africa we are in today

The South Africa we wish for

Not everyone is sitting around the table

Prophetic word

Reconciliation and forgiveness

Healing and justice

Conclusion

06 – Churches, universities and the post-TRC process – Impulses from a consultation

Introduction

Royal-servant unity and social cohesion

Priestly reconciliation and social healing

Prophetic justice and social solidarity

Conclusion

07 – Thoughts into action – Creating a long-term movement toward a reconciled and just society

Introduction: The past and the present

Faith communities as agents of change

Reconciliation and social justice as a long-term process and not an event

Process versus event

Systems thinking as an approach to social development

Strategies towards reconciliation

Conclusion

08 – Economic justice – the fulcrum of strongreconciliation – A Muslim critique of South Africa’

Introduction

An Islamic concept of reconciliation

Theories of reconciliation

Sustainable and positive peace

The apartheid system as structural violence

Reconciliation according to the TRC

Post-TRC and the struggle for economic justice

The lesson of the TRC

Conclusion

09 – Creating space for truth – Reconciliation Studies and the 2014 TRC re-enactment

Introduction

The Jena perspective on Reconciliation Studies

The TRC and its Faith Community Hearing in 1997

The 2014 re-enactment of TRC

Final remarks