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Revealing intergenerational traits and self-compassion through therapeutic creation
Get PDFCommunity arts counsellors work in the complex socio-cultural landscape of mental health care in South Africa, providing vital support to under-resourced communities amidst a shortage of mental health workers. Initially, the article intended to showcase the impact of group narrative art therapy on community arts counsellor trainees’ (CACTs) self-awareness and empathy, but the process quickly revealed self-compassion as integral in developing these qualities. I observed some CACTs’ natural inclination towards self-compassion, while realising that others needed to allow self-compassion to emerge more gradually. Using a reflective lens helped me understand and appreciate that enhancing self-awareness and empathy may assist CACTs in supporting clients effectively while fostering a compassionate therapeutic environment. A qualitative, interpretive approach with six CACTs was used, employing thematic analysis of artwork and personal reflections to provide insights into participants’ experiences during sessions. The group setting offered a shared experience, which enabled these CACTs to become aware of other perspectives, thereby improving self-awareness and empathy. Three case vignettes showcase moments where participants reflected on the creative process and expressed meaning through personal and familial narratives.
Philanthropy as Image Politics in Ghana’s New Churches
Get PDFGhana’s new Pentecostal-charismatic churches are budding in charitable deeds and parade such humanitarian intervention publicly, some via TV channels. Based on in-depth interviews with spokespersons of Christian Action Faith Ministries International (Action Chapel) and International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), as well as the observation of the churches’ philanthropic actions in the Ghanaian public sphere, the study argues that such actions of the Pentecostal-charismatic churches constitute mimetic isomorphism in relation to the historic churches. The philanthropy of the new churches augments their public image while “Prosperity Theology” drives the churches’ growth in material wealth
The Need for Incorporating Health and Healing in Theological Education in Africa
Get PDFObserving that theological education in Africa needs a review in light of its history of association with Western missionaries, this article joins that call by focusing on the need to incorporate health and healing in this review. The article is based on findings from a field study as well as from literature. It argues for incorporating health and healing in the revised African theological education curriculum, among other reasons, on the pursuit for healing in African churches. Opening with a discussion of theological education in Africa in terms of its offering, its meaning and goals, the article then makes a presentation of findings on Batswana’s views of health and healing in theological education. It then discusses the need for incorporating health and healing in theological education as reflected by respondents and in literature
The Rise of Jihad, Killing of ‘Apostate Imams’ and Non-Combatant Christian Civilians in Kenya: Al-Shabaab’s Re- Definition of the Enemy on Religious Lines
Get PDFSince the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) deployment into Somalia in 2011, terrorist related attacks have increased targeting anti-jihadi Muslim clerics, churches and noncombatant Christian civilians. These and other attacks indicated the rise of a homegrown radicalised section of the Muslim population in Kenya, willing to undertake jihad and kill fellow citizens in the name of Islam. In this regard, the article explores the intra-Muslims conflict emanating due to divergent views on the concept of jihad, and how ultimately the variances are supposedly resolved by imposing the apostasy claim on the opposing clerics. In varied occasions, suspected al-Shabaab militants and their Kenya jihadist counterparts have attacked churches, and killed non-combatant Christian civilians. The atrocious killing of both anti-jihadi Muslim clerics and non-combatant Christian civilians, and coupled with the exclusivist jihadi supported discourse imply the conflict is transforming into a broad-based violence between Muslims and non-Muslims. Therefore, this paper identifies three arguments associated with the jihad discourse in Kenya; (i) rationalising the jihad cause in the present ethno-nationalist Somali war; (ii) the apostasy claim arising due to intra-Muslims conflict boosted by the jihad discourse; and (iii) the justification of targeting non combatant Christian civilians during the ‘jihad’ attacks
Tähadiso Movement a Myth or Reality? Inter-Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church Rivalries
Get PDFReligious reformist movements are often described to have lasting socio-economic and political outcomes in a given setting. This paper aims to understand the development of the Tähadiso movement within the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church and the complexity of rivalries emerging. The paper will further try to show the populist representation of reformist concepts of the Tähadiso movement within and outside the church by drawing on discourses regarding the contentions, the struggles, and the controversies surrounding the Tähadiso reformist groups as raised by different actors. The central questions to be dealt with in this paper include: what is Tähadiso? How does the movement evolve through time? How can Tähadiso movement be best understood, as an established reformist movement, a sect within the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church (EOTC), or a myth? Who has an active agency in the reformist movement? What effects and implications do such movements have on the church? By expounding on these questions, this paper will sketch out the understanding of the embryonic idea of Tähadiso and its place within the contemporary Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church
Conflict and Violence at the Crossroad of Religion and ‘New’ Media: Periscoping Faith-based Crisis through the Eyes of Camera in the Sharia-age of Northern Nigeria
Get PDFRecent engagement in local cinema production by northern Nigerian Muslims (Kannywood) elicited numerous religious disapproval from Islamists and a section of ʾulamāʾ leading to contestations, and even persecutions, especially after the Sharia reintroduction in the year 2000. This article discusses the role of religious and media actors in a structural violence context. It elucidates on how the stance of Islamists on Kannywood, which is pervasive among youths, reproduces factors and actors in the region’s history of intolerance, physical conflicts and ‘structural’ violence. This new media forms of religious conflict and violence accentuates the role played by the intersection of religion and ‘new’ media in conflicts and violence. It analyses how youth engagement in the movie industry and the interference of Islamists provoke new and reignite old modes of religious tensions. The data used was collected during a 12-month period of ethnographic research in northern Nigeria between 2014 and 2016 which was part of a Doctoral programme
James L. Cox 2014, The invention of God in Indigenous Societies
No full textThis book examines the submissions of writers in both indigenous and non-indigenous religious traditions on indigenous religion as a religion in its own right. Thus the book sought to critique writers who seek to discover \u27the Christian God in Africa\u27 rather than to understand indigenous religions in their own right. The author presents four case studies in this quest: New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Australia and the Yupiit of Southwest Alaska. In addition, the book attempts to explicate controversies on the academic and theological study of religion. The book comprises an introduction, six chapters, notes, bibliography and an index
The influence of the built environment on drug misuse and abuse
Get PDFDrug misuse and overdoses (DMO) continue to rise in the United States and around the world. As the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown brought America to a standstill, the drug overdose epidemic took a sharp turn for the worse. Poorly built environments have been said to pose greater risks for substance use. The inequitable race and socioeconomic status distribution of the built environment might be tipping drug overdose and deaths toward minority populations. This review examined the contribution of the built environment to drug misuse and overdose to identify further research and policy needs. Databases like PubMed and Google Scholar were searched for peer-reviewed empirical studies in the English language published from 2010 to March 2021. MeSH search terms were built environment, overdose, drug, and drug overdose. Using the PRISMA flow diagram of article selection, title, and abstract screening plus text narrative synthesis of included articles were done. The built environment features making it more conducive to initiating and maintaining DMO included disinvestment, geographical context (urban versus rural), spatial characteristics of the built environment, easy access to drugs, low access to interventions, and built-environment-associated environmental and social stressors. Built environment features play some roles in drug misuse problems. Policies and programs are needed that place the built environment at the centre of health, drug overdose prevention, and harm reduction, provide increased treatment facilities for addicted persons, ensure stricter opioid prescription measures, and address poverty as well as hopelessness due to disinvestment
Democratising Nuclear Governance: The Role of African Civil Society in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
Get PDFThe entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) on 22 January 2021 presented a turn in nuclear politics. It is a unique instrument in the governance of nuclear weapons, because its advocacy was led and managed by non-nuclear weapon states and transnational civil society organisations. It is widely acknowledged that transnational civil society plays a democratising role in international governance and that the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) did exactly that for nuclear governance through its facilitation of the Humanitarian Initiative that unfolded into the negotiation of the TPNW. This article elaborates on this role, guided by Scholte’s (2002) framework of the assessment of transnational civil society’s democratising role in global governance, to map ICAN’s role in six criteria: awareness, participation, contestation, transparency, accountability, and legitimacy. However, the extent of broad-based representation of civil societies across the world is equally important to ICAN’s role. It is in this respect that the article turns specifically to African civil society participation as part of ICAN. Although several African civil society organisations partnered with ICAN, the question goes beyond the quantitative side of their participation, to its quality. Although challenges were experienced in the leadership and decision-making structures around racial and regional diversity, African campaigners see their role in ICAN as transformative and empowering
Nuclear Policy and the Changing Dynamics of Decision-Making
Get PDFUnder the apartheid regime nuclear policy was decided by the president, with most of the cabinet being in the loop. The AfricanNational Congress (ANC) in exile sought to discover the facts, and to campaign against the apartheid regime acquiring nuclear weapon capabilities. Between 1991 and 1994, the ANC’s Science and Technology Policy group played a role in lobbying on nuclear policy issues, alongside some NGOs, culminating in the February 1994 conference on nuclear policy. After the came to power in April 1994, inaugurating democracy, the nuclear lobby within the bureaucracy and parastatals influenced the relevant ANC directors-general, cabinet ministers and one president. Statutory and regulatory agencies were compromised. Civil society organisations alonetook the lead in opposing nuclear energy, and were partly successful