VIOLENCE, LIBERATION AND THE LEGACY OF MODERNITY: TOWARDS A THEOLOGY OF PEACE

Since the rise of democracy in South Africa violence has been erasing freedom andjustice. In this article it is argued that the different theologies of Liberation, such asBlack, Feminist, Ecological and other contextual theologies, might have perpetuatedviolence as part of the modernistic tradition they stood in. The irony is that theemancipatory motives of these theologies precipitate the oppression they arefighting. Theology therefore needs to revisit the modernist foundations of thesetheologies in a robust dialogue that challenges the limitations of modernity in orderto discover emerging alternatives that nurture a theology of life, freedom and peace.David Hart proposes a theology where the theme of beauty, as essentially peace,adheres to every moment of the Christian story: A theology which celebrates a Godwhose being is beauty; whose works are an expression of his beauty; and in whichthe gospel is a story that persuades only by its beauty. This theology stands incontrast to the dichotomies of for example Black and African Theologies which arebased on ‘modernity’s violent legacy’ – a reductionistic ontology.