Introduction by Rev Sithembiso Zwane, Deputy Director, Ujamaa Centre and Rev Prof Simangaliso Kumalo, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Co-Editor, The CIHA Blog: The Ujamaa Centre celebrated its 30th anniversary this year (2019), which coincided with the farewell function of the Director, Prof Gerald West. Ujamaa Centre was formed in 1989 in Pietermaritzburg after a series of consultative meetings and community workshops on the role of religion in addressing social, economic and political contextual challenges. Its founding Director, Prof Gunther Wittenberg spend most of his ministry in the community engaging with Christians and ordinary citizens about the Bible and its relevance to contextual contemporary issues of the time. The Christian communities and ordinary people raised a pertinent question, where is God in the midst of political violence? This critical theological question led to the development of Contextual Bible Study (CBS) by the then Institute for the Study of the Bible (ISB) which subsequently became Ujamaa Centre after the merger with Worker Ministry (WM) Project.
In his farewell speech after 30 years as a professor at UKZN and founding leader of Ujamaa, Gerald West paid tribute to the number of colleagues who contributed to his career through their work in Ujamaa. These colleagues belonged to different generations and played different roles that enriched both Gerald West’s career and Ujamaa.
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By Prof. Gerald West, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
30th Anniversary Story
How does one tell the story of the Ujamaa Centre?
One could tell the story by locating the beginnings of the Institute for the Study of the Bible in the intersection of the visionary leadership of Gunther Wittenberg and the volatile political context of KwaZulu-Natal in the 1980s, providing a thick description of the local context of that time, from within which God saw the oppression and heard the cries of those being assaulted by their apartheid taskmasters. Amidst the cries was a cry for contextual forms of Bible study.
One could tell the story by acknowledging the many faith-based and activist organisations and movements of the 1980s that gave their mandate to the ISB to begin its work in 1989, offering the support and resources of these sister projects, including organisations in Brasil like CEBI, ISER, CECA, CEM/CRE, CEDI, CENAP, the Methodist University, EST; organisations in Africa like EDICESA and the AACC; and organisations in South Africa like C.B. Powell Bible Centre (UNISA); Theological Education by Extension College (TEEC); Khanya African Independent Churches Theological Training and Research Institute; Ubulungisa Project (Christian Citizenship Department of the Methodist Church); Institute for Contextual Theology (ICT); St John the Baptist Extension Seminary; Victims of Apartheid (VOA); South African Council of Churches (SACC) and its member churches; Church of the Province of Southern Africa Mission Department; Young Christian Workers (Soweto); Department of Religious Studies, University of Cape Town; Theological Exchange Programme (TEP); The Ecumenical Action Movement (TEAM); Churches Urban Planning Commission (CUPC); Broken Wall Community; University of the Western Cape (Seminary); Centre for Contextual Hermeneutics in Southern Africa; and sociotheological movements like Contextual Theology and Black Theology.
One could tell the story by locating the ISB within an emerging contextual and ecumenical theological education project at the University of Natal, including Federal Theological Seminary, St Joseph’s Institute, ETHOS, Anhouse, LTI, Congregational House of Formation, SMMS, especially the various forms of the School of Religion, Philosophy, and Classics, which insisted that an emergent ISB situate itself within a contextual theological education project.
One could tell the story by remembering the people who gave so much to the formation of the Ujamaa Centre, including Gunther Wittenberg, Dumisani Phungula, Renate Cochrane, Maxie Nurnberger, McGlory Speckman, Bafana Khumalo, Graham Philpott, Malika Sibeko, Jessica Canon, Sipho Mtetwa, Martin Mandew, Phumzile Mabizela, Mzwandile Roddy Nunes, Bongi Zengele, Sibusiso Gwala, Sanele Mngadi, Comilla Laban, Solomuzi Mabuza, Sithembiso Zwane, Thulisile Nkomonde, Simanga Kumalo, Maria Makgamathe, Mirolyn Naidoo, Rogers Ndawula and the many, many others. A roll-call of people would indeed be a wonderful way of telling the story of the Ujamaa Centre.
One could tell the story by acknowledging the decisive contribution of the House of Studies for Worker Ministry and its Director, Mwandile Roddy Nunes, on the ISB, resulting in a merged project, the Institute for the Study of the Bible and Worker Ministry Project, which was then renamed the Ujamaa Centre in the mid-1990s.
One could tell the story by following the trajectories of the scores of Student Workers who worked within the projects of the Ujamaa Centre over these thirty years, tracing the ways in which they contributed to the work and the ways in which the work shaped them, whether they were theological students or students from other disciplines, students like Ntombifuthi Ntshingila, Nwabisa Qungana, Dombo Sinthumule, Gopolang Moloabi, Zodwa Kutu, Stephina Moeng, Amando Sontange, Thandeka Ndlanzi, Dixie Mashigoane, S’khumbuzo Zuma, S’bonelo Zuma, David Ngwetjana, Khawulani Ntuli, Belinda Mangena, Smadz Matsepe, Phuti Phaleng, Tankiso Mokoena, Noluthando Gasa, Belinda Crawford, Mote Magomba, Yenziwe Shabalala, Helder Carlos, and many, many others.
One could tell the story by following the trajectories of the scores of postgraduate students who have visited or studied with the Ujamaa Centre, including Naveen Rao (India), Jan Bjarne Sodal (Norway), David Castillo (Costa Rica), Crystal Hall (USA) and many, many others, including Ecumenical seconded workers, like Folkert De Jong and Hanna Wapenaar, and others, reflecting on the significant contributions they have made in their own contexts around the world.
One could tell the story by documenting the funding partners who have believed in and supported the work of the Ujamaa Centre and the many, many formal reports that they have received on oour work and the external reviews they have commissioned, including funding partnerships with EMW, EED, AMA, CCFD, Missio, Fastenopfer, Norwegian Church Aid, Dan Church Aid, Kerk in Actie, Church of Sweden, WCC, and many, many others.
One could tell the story by analysing the conceptual contributions of the Ujamaa Centre, contributions that have forged new sub-disciplines in the areas of biblical studies and faith-based social activism, contributions such as the See-Judge-Act and Contextual Bible Study methodologies, the conceptualisation of the Bible as a site of struggle, of the Bible as having a prophetic shape, notions of interpretive resilience and interpretive resistance, analytical categories like invited spaces, invigorated spaces, and invented spaces, and many, many other innovative concepts.
One could tell the story by acknowledging the work of socially engaged biblical and theological scholars who have embraced and encouraged the work of the Ujamaa Centre, including Jim Cochrane, Jonathan Draper, Sid Luckett, Martin Mandew, Albert Nolan, Frank Chikane, Alex Bhiman, Chris Langeveldt, Norman Gottwald, Richard Horsely, Phyllis Trible, Allan Boesak, Itumeleng Mosala, Sarojini Nadar, Bob Ekblad, Tinyiko Maluleke, and many, many others.
One could tell the story by analysing how the published work on the Ujamaa Centre has been taken up by academics and activists around the world, changing, forever, how they think about and use the Bible, and leaving a legacy for generations to come.
One could tell the story by understanding the particular creative and collaborative, sacred and safe, space that Contextual Bible Studies have constructed between organised formations of the poor and marginalised and the resources of socially engaged biblical and theological scholars in contexts all around the world, on every continent.
One could tell the story by recognising the local organised formations of the poor and marginalised that have partially constituted the Ujamaa Centre over thirty years, including Ilimo, Funda Wenza, the Amawoti Ministers’ Organisation, the Umtata Women’s Group, the Young Christians Workers, the Siyaphila Support Groups, the Church Land Programme, the Rural Network, Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Pietermaritzburg Gay & Lesbian Network, and many, many others.
One could tell the story by acknowledging the artists who have collaborated with and allowed the Ujamaa Centre to use their songs and artwork as part of our CBS work, including Mzwakhe Mbuli, Ben Dikobe Martins, Azariah Mbatha, Dina McCormick, and Trevor Makhoba.
One could tell the story by remembering the thousands of Contextual Bible Studies and CBS training workshops around the world, within particular local communities, and of the Campaigns that have shaped the church, including the Tamar Campaign, the Worker Sunday Campaign, and the Redemptive Masculinities Campaign.
One could tell the story by recounting the histories of sister organisations who have based their work on the work of the Ujamaa Centre, including the Contextual Bible Study project in Scotland, the various CBS projects in Norway, the CBS project at Chancellor’s College in Malawi, the CBS work at St Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya, the CBS project at Bishops College, Kolkata, the CBS-related projects in the USA, Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand, and many, many others around the world.
One could tell the story by identifying and surveying as many of those who have used the work of the Ujamaa Centre as possible, documenting with them how they understand our contributions to their work.
One could tell the story by using the See-Judge-Act methodology to structure the 30th Anniversary of the Ujamaa Centre, inviting comrades to share stories, and listening carefully.