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Jan-Albert van den Berg—‘Tweeting God: Finding the sacred in everyday life’

09 May 2019 | Story Eugene Seegers | Photo Johan Roux

“Have we — have I — thought sufficiently about the deeper and sacred meaning of everyday life?” Intriguingly, this was how Prof Jan-Albert van den Berg concluded his inaugural lecture on 28 March 2019. During this journey, Prof Van den Berg took his listeners via the scenic route, starting with a mere outline of the divine — first a sketch, then a drawing, until a fully-fledged painting emerges — ending with a manifestation of glory as seen by each individual.

Faith in popular culture

“Practical theology,” said Prof Van den Berg, “implies a specific sensitivity and feeling for the description and meaning of practice and praxis. The use of narratives is one possible way of understanding and documenting a specific involvement in praxis.”

As an object lesson from popular culture, Prof Van den Berg cited the now-infamous-yet-ultimately-beneficial amateur restoration of the Ecce Homo by octogenarian Cecilia Giménez in Borja, Spain. The original fresco, ‘Behold the Man’, was painted in 1930 by Spaniard Elías García Martínez. By 2012, the artwork had suffered the ravages of time, until Giménez’s enthusiasm for art restoration happened to it. At first, the historical society and local townsfolk were up in arms. However, since 2012, Borja’s flagging tourist industry has been revived, and the proceeds from the picture’s fame help to fund not only a local museum but a care home for the elderly as well.

The entire debacle quickly went viral on social media and the internet, leading Prof Van den Berg to comment on the underlying significance of social media as a field of praxis. As a nod to this aspect of modern culture, he specifically used hashtags (#sketching, #drawing, #painting, #tweetingGod, #findingthesacred) for the subtitles of his lecture. He said, “This is how the Twitter world in particular talks about God, in order to express multiple and compound understandings of daily life.”

Evergreen Bible student

Prof Van den Berg’s love of practical theology dated back to his days as a student, when he said he learnt that “theology was not just a noun but a verb”. He said: “Practical theology’s description of the Divine in everyday life represents, for me, the relevance and topicality with which I associate theology.” He added that the title of his inaugural lecture directly relates to this understanding, as much as it can be strongly associated with his recent doctoral thesis at the University of Queensland, entitled Tweeting God: A practical theological analysis of the communication of Christian motifs on Twitter.

Expressions of faith in the mundane

In answering his question, mentioned at the outset, Prof Van den Berg said: “Perhaps there is more to be seen, heard, and read in everyday-life texts of the Cecilias of the world who take up their ‘paintbrushes’ ”. Stating that formal theological language has, in certain aspects, lost some of its impact and that many people have turned a deaf ear to the articulation of these truths, Prof Van den Berg concluded that “one must envision possible alternative descriptions, in the form of existing practices of #tweetingGod, finding the sacred in everyday life”.

News Archive

Publication on indigenous knowledge systems

2005-10-21

Dr Otsile Ntsoane (acting Director: IKS, Department of Science and Technology) and Prof Philip Nel (Director: Africa Studies at the UFS and guest editor of the publication) at the launch of the publication

UFS launches most comprehensive publication on indigenous knowledge systems
A unique collection of essays on Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) was launched yesterday (20 October 2005) by the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Programme of Africa Studies.

The essays are published as a special edition of INDILINGA, the African Journal for Indigenous Knowledge Systems and is an outcome of the colloquium on Indigenous Knowledge Systems that was presented last year by the UFS Director of Africa Studies in cooperation with the National Research Council.

“The amount and diversity of materials on IKS brought together under one cover is unique as there are no other South African publications of this magnitude on this issue. It contains papers of international experts on IKS such as Prof Fritz Wallner from Austria and Prof Gayatri Spivak, foremost postcolonial theorist from India,” said Prof Philip Nel, Director of Africa Studies and guest editor of the publication.

“The publication is a rich source field for students and scholars to exploit because most of the sources quoted in the articles are recent, fresh and relevant. The contributors are largely people responsible for managing, fostering and studying IKS in a responsible manner,” said Prof Nel.

“An added value of the publication is the inclusion of the policy document on IKS that was adopted by Cabinet in November 2004,” said Prof Nel.

“Millions of people in South Africa are faced with the painful choice of abandoning their heritage. In this choice, the study and management of IKS has a major role to play; on the one hand, to encourage as much assimilation of traditional knowledge as possible into the modern systems, and on the other hand to provide a “language” and a “grammar” for indigenous people through which they can access modernity,” said Prof Nel.

The IKS debate involves questions of African identity, protection of indigenous communities and practices, political aspects as well as the scientific integrity of the enterprise.

The publication displays the range of burning questions that have to be resolved in this field such as mainstreaming IKS in academic debate and practice, recognition and protection of the knowledge holders, bio-prospecting and bio-piracy, bio and ethnic healing, lack of textbooks and field manuals, etc and will prove worthwhile for future researchers.

“One of the main reasons for publishing this volume is the fact that IKS should be studied not only to provide a sense of pride in the past, or to engender respect for indigenous peoples, but also to enable people in indigenous mind sets to make a better transition into the world of science and technology,” said Prof Nel.

The guest speaker at the launch was Dr Otsile Ntsoane, acting Director of IKS at the Department of Science and Technology. In his speech Dr Ntsoane stressed the symbolic and concrete value of the publication. “The publication can have a great social impact and the research results can contribute to chancing the economic landscape of South Africa,” he said.

The publication can be purchased at R150 per copy. For more information, Ms Steffi Cawood, Programme Coordinator for Africa Studies at the UFS can be contacted at (051) 401-2614.

Media release
Issued by:Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
21 October 2005

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