Stellenbosch Theological Journal 2024, Vol 10, No 1, 1–24
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17570/stj.2024.v10n1.m8
Online ISSN 2413-9467 | Print ISSN 2413-9459
2024 © The Author(s)
“Liturgies in Kaaps” as demotic discourse for generating spiritual capital among youth
smweber@sun.ac.za
Abstract
There is a close relationship between language, especially a first language or mother tongue language, and identity formation. There is furthermore a connection between liturgical celebrations, faith and identity formation. Recent debates about being Khoisan or Coloured reflect contestation to the term “Coloured” as an imposed racial identifier resulting in some living in a continuous state of displacement, migration or liminality. Kaaps is the language of some “Coloured” people in South Africa, especially in the Western Cape, and there is a nascent movement amongst speakers of Kaaps to gain formal recognition for their language. This is reflected through varying literary forms, the use of media and television, clothing brands and even liturgical styles of worship in churches. Included here is an ongoing project to translate the Bible into Kaaps. This chapter explores by means of a literature study the potential of Kaaps to generate spiritual capital amongst “Coloured” youth in South Africa by means of liturgies in Kaaps that, as demotic discourses, can counter the hegemonic discourses of English and Afrikaans liturgies and as such the importance and possibilities of liturgies in Kaaps as relevant to the faith and identity formation of youth.
Keywords
youth; liturgy; ritual; power; identity; Kaaps; spiritual capital
This interdisciplinary chapter explores language, liturgy and faith among youth and the potential impact of liturgies in a mother tongue on the generation of spiritual capital which serves identity formation. The importance of one’s mother tongue, like Kaaps, as liturgical language, and liturgies in Kaaps, is critical for the generation of spiritual capital in identity formation. Scholars like Le Cordeur argue that Kaaps is not recognized as a language in its own right, a language spoken by many young people on the Cape Flats. In contexts of youth, it is often associated as gangsters’ language instead of a language which signifies the dignity of young people self-identifying with their cultural group. Liturgies in Kaaps are one way of generating much needed spiritual capital ‘Coloured’ youth need in forming their Christian identity. As demotic discourse, Kaaps can serve as a counter to the potentially hegemonic discourses of English and Afrikaans liturgies. Kaaps embrace the breadth of emotions and facilitate expression and as such influences youth identity formation.
According to Chupungco1 and Pecklers,2 the language of the liturgy in the West changed from Greek to Latin to make it understandable to worshippers who could no longer understand the Greek. This happened again during the reformation and should, to our minds, be an on-going and dynamic process of liturgical inculturation pertaining to the language of liturgy. What is at stake is the depth and quality of expression that is possible in a mother tongue, which entails a certain quality of liturgical participation that impacts the generation of spiritual capital and subsequently influences identity formation.
To advance the argument of this chapter, we explore theoretical concepts such as spiritual power and capital, dimension of ritual, identity formation, as well as liturgy and power discourses, which we augment with a discussion of youth and identity formation and the on-going debate regarding Kaaps; ending with a plea that the recent translation of the Psalms into Kaaps3 should serve as an example of what is possible and be expanded to include the development of liturgies in Kaaps.
A vital ingredient of social capital that does not always get sufficient attention is that of spiritual power. Ter Haar4 distinguishes between four main categories of religious resources that are important in so-called integral development, namely, religious ideas, practices, organisations and experiences. We focus here on religious practices mainly and partially on religious experiences and the role they play in generating spiritual power for spiritual capital. Through ritual action such as singing and praying in worship, spiritual power is generated that can be turned into spiritual capital. Ter Haar5 calls spiritual power ‘enabling power’ and writes: “It is a type of power that enables people to take control of their own lives by reference to an invisible world inhabited by spiritual entities” and argues that for the people who believe in these entities it is a real transformative power. Through their interactions with these spiritual forces people have access “to a form of power that can actually change their lives, often in quite dramatic ways.” Ter Haar6 then also argues that spiritual capital is a sub-set of social capital and defines it as “people’s ability to access resources believed to reside in an invisible world, which can be mobilised for the common good through forms of active engagement with them.”7 The faith community is often overlooked as an avenue through which spiritual and consequently social capital is gleaned. Many young people are part of youth ministry structures which provide such spiritual and social capital through liturgical practices like worship, prayer and Bible study and the social networks these ministries provide. This is also true of many of the youth within marginalized communities.
2.1 Spiritual capital and youth liturgical engagement
Kaaps is predominantly the language of youth in poorer communities in Cape Town. Exploring youth ministry as an agency for youth development for vulnerable (or displaced) Coloured youth in Cape Town, Aziz8 notes that it is out of dire hopelessness experienced living in such poor communities that meaningful relationship with God is sought by youth. The coloured identity in the South African context has always been a contentious matter because of not having a nationally recognisable culture or identity. The faith of youth is intertwined with their identity as young people; how they make choices and behave (morality) and how they are developing physically and cognitively. These youth are at the stage of their identity development and spiritual growth which requires that they have the supportive influence of authentic Christian adults in their lives. This could be associated to adult-centred contexts (including the church) in which experimentation and questioning is not encouraged, yet it is such an integral part of their lives.9 Aziz10 further states that this lack of cultural identity has affected the identity formation of Coloured youth because a majority of the coloured lived experience in poorer communities is characterised by rejection, systemic and structural violence and abject poverty11; resulting in talented youth not be exposed to opportunities that their wealthier counterparts may have. In contexts like these, Aziz12 argues that young people should be considered ‘as resources to be developed, and not as problems to be managed’. Too often youth ministry in such contexts has been focussed on an end goal, albeit a spiritual commitment and a faith walk with Jesus Christ, or a rehabilitated lifestyle, often at the expense of the dignity of the young person. He argues that significant contribution to youth development is facilitated through the mediation of religious organisations by generating social capital. Youth leaders or ministers working with youth in marginalized communities (in which they are most often the primary role model of these youth), serve as contributors towards or facilitators of spiritual capital which derives, as mentioned, from people’s belief in an invisible world.13 The spiritual is influenced and impacted by the context and situations young people have previously encountered and continue to encounter, experiences that are often traumatic14. Engaging with these youth in their mother tongue language helps them to connect to and understand how their lives can be changed for the better much faster than when using languages that they need to re-interpret for themselves.
Several studies15 have noted the concern that many church going youth are leaving church without being able to articulate their faith. Edie16 argues that one of the reasons for this has been a disconnection between “liturgy and education for faith formation, of children and youth with adults in the assembly’s worship, and, ultimately, of our liturgies of worshiping with our liturgies of missional living beyond the sanctuary.” Holistic ecclesial faith formation processes need to take the mother tongue of its young people seriously, in this instance Kaaps.
Reflecting on Armenian Apostolic and Syriac Orthodox churches in Lebanon, Nasrallah and Sonnenberg discuss why youth participation in liturgy aids their identity formation. The research study found that language enables a sense of belonging which is further enhanced by embodied liturgical rituals in one’s mother tongue. It further discovered that “ethnicities are anchored in the liturgy and in theological convictions (and in this study youth) ethnic identity fuses with their religious identity”. This religious identity is one aspect of the hybrid identities which young people embody. These are explored through the roles and positions in society, family and church which these youth embrace. Young people in Syria and Lebanon expressed a desire to learn traditional languages in order to fully experience traditional liturgies because they experienced these divine. Liturgical language was found valuable to these youth. “Language seems to replace lost territory, and therefore much effort and money has been put to teach and maintain such languages in schools (in Lebanon) .
There are many modes through which a young person’s faith is formed17 of which liturgy is an integral one. Many churches prioritise catechetical teaching as faith formation of its youth but here we argue that this is not the only mode through which youth faith is formed. Smith18 describes cultural liturgies embraced by youth to including daily lived experiences like shopping at the mall, college campus social life, playing sports etc. Churches need to recruit and nurture (or disciple) its youth toward engaging their own sacramental liturgies (and lived experiences) for forming those things they love toward the enhancement of their faith. Edie19 argues that the consistent Christian practices taught and engaged in alongside young people are critical to their faith formation. This is evident in Deuteronomy 6 in which the daily experiences of these youth are interwoven into their lifestyles of faith. An empirical study20 conducted in 2012 among young people confirmed the value that music, Scripture memory, visitation, and interaction around Scripture (through technology like Facebook, through group work and inviting others to church) have on the spiritual growth of youth. To young people, these are their liturgical expressions.
Liturgy needs to connect to and engage with these lived experiences through embracing cultural expressions like language. Language as expression of one’s being is one way in which liturgy becomes meaningful. Kaaps has not been welcomed as a way of youth expressing their faith within local church liturgy which is probably one of the reasons these youth do not feel welcome. Young people should repeatedly explore the church’s central ritual symbols through creative imagination. Similar to liturgical symbols and gestures, therefore, youth are encouraged to regularly practice biblical and liturgical figurative language in Kaaps. Metaphoric expansion is also key to youth discovering how to imagine themselves inside of this and other stories by connecting faith stories and personal stories.
Ideally, Sunday liturgy can potentially form the liturgy of life. Many of the realities youth on the Cape flats experience are articulated best in their mother tongues (sometime referred to as slang). These expressions are not incorporated into Sunday liturgies in a way that enables practical tools through which youth can engage with their faith during the rest of the week. One of the reasons for this has been that ministers and youth leaders themselves, have not integrated their lived experiences in such communities with how they do ministry. This is a topic for another chapter.
The discussion has focussed mainly on why youth faith formation and liturgy are integral to how young people are ministered to. We now pay attention to how this connects to liturgical engagement as an aspect of spiritual capital. As mentioned earlier, we approach our argument here from two angles which includes both religious practices and spiritual capital by means of the functions or dimensions of ritual. Ritual actions potentially serve certain functions, but some scholars21 prefer to refer to them as ‘dimensions’ to avoid forcing liturgy or rituals into a functional or utilitarian category. However, the point is that (liturgical) rituals have various dimensions, such as a social, political, or ethical dimension. We highlight five of the ten dimensions that Lukken lists and discusses, which are particularly important for our argument.22
Firstly, there is a channelling dimension that entails, amongst other things, that the intense emotions that often form part of a crisis are channelled or structured. The exorcizing dimension means that through the ritual negative forces are exorcized by rituals means and, in the action, it is claimed that the evil forces do not have the final say over the lives of people. The expressive dimension is closely related to the ability to create new ritual forms to articulate new experiences. The social dimension is the most obvious dimension of ritual action, namely that in and through the ritual action worshippers also communicate with the people around them and thus bonding between different people can potentially occur. The last of Lukken’s dimensions we discuss is the therapeutic dimension, which refers to the situation when people try to re-connect with the deeper roots of their existence by allowing the forces that are not within their own control into their lives. It should already be clear how these functions or dimensions can be valuable in ministry to young people, specifically also as it relates to liturgy and rituals and the use of Kaaps in these practices, seeing that religious practices in which they are manifested can be beneficial in various ways. Edie23 confirms this therapeutic dimension when working among young people because the practice of ritual/symbol does not so much tell salvation stories in cinematic detail as it enacts or evokes them in broad brush strokes. Celebrating the Eucharist may be connected to multiple narratives of God’s salvation (manna in the wilderness, feeding the five thousand, Christ’s passion, resurrection presence, heavenly banquet). So, too, the ritual/symbolic character of the meal may also evoke our own personal broadly associated emotional memories of feast or famine, isolation or companionship, justice or oppression, life or death. Rituals/symbols permit, indeed they invite, this surplus of associative meaning as the means to foster the intersection of personal and communal story lines. These intersections are where worshipers may sense the healing of their wounded memories or the redirection of their loves.24
In this sense liturgical ritual helps youth deal with trauma of injustice faced in their daily lives. It is often the heart that is doing the remembering. This transformation involves more than just a change of mind.25 It is the body that is learning to cast out fear and receive the graced love of Christ.26 Those worshippers who participate in these ritual actions thus gain a space through which they can express their emotions and experiences. We will revisit this point later, but the critical issue is the fact that the liturgical rituals can become so removed from for example first language Kaaps youth for various reasons that they are thus robbed by those with liturgical power or ecclesial authority regarding the worship expressions of churches of the opportunity to use them in this regard.27 This power is displayed within faith communities who do not take intergenerational ministry seriously, thus marginalizing the agency of its young people.
2.2. Liturgy and youth identity formation
Blount28 reflects on identity formation with African American youth in response to the persistent realities of racism and conflicting cultural forces that impact their senses of self. This sense of living in between is true of ‘Coloured’ young people in South Africa as well. Coloured people constantly find us not being white enough in white spaces and not being black enough in black spaces. This was the case in a predominantly white governed apartheid government as well as today in a predominantly black governed government. In this double consciousness,29 this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others (black or white), the self is not something fixed, but evolves as it appears differently in different contexts and from diverse perspective. Young people who are not able to express themselves through something as basic as their mother tongue, identify and dissociate themselves with the various “selves,” depending on numerous, complex emotional, motivational, and behavioural attitudes at any given moment which is a dilemma of many who are oppressed, who find themselves making assessment of who they are through the eyes of their oppressor. According to Aziz,30
The identity formation of young people is not an isolated and simple process. One has to consider the impact of the immediate environment or context, the historical context, as well as the spiritual formation of the young person as active agents in their identity formation. Identity formation of the young person cannot be realised through a single programme employed by youth ministry but is an ongoing journey of reflection and action required of both the youth practitioner and young person.
Blount31 confirms that identity formation is also a question of faith formation. He reflects on how racism among black youth impacts both their identity and faith formation. He notes that black youth do not fully articulate the injustice they endured because they internalized the issue and made it their fault. Aziz32 echoes that “one has to take cognisance of the internalisation by many coloureds as not being white enough nor black enough and continues to symbolise a rejection by the apartheid and the post-apartheid governments in South African history”. Blount33 urges the faith community to help young people live out their identity authentically by including conversation partners that will help them wrestle with and discover who they are. He further notes that “voices never exist in isolation of other voices”.34
‘Youth have a wide variety of voices competing to get their attention. There are voices desiring to steer these youth in what they understand as the right direction, hoping they will become responsible citizens of the community. There are voices stressing self-sufficiency and the hope of never needing to depend on anyone. There are voices of hope and healing, but there are also voices of nihilism and pain. As mentioned earlier, Smith notes the importance of recognizing these as cultural liturgies of which these youth are a part of. Weber35 argues that young people need to be confronted with the plurality of values, beliefs, and cultures they encounter daily and should not be coerced into only one perspective to the situation. How liturgy is introduced to and engaged with among young people influences their religious identity.36 The power this liturgy holds within their lived experiences of being and feeling displaced is crucial for the church to understand. However, the history of the Christian liturgy shows that liturgy is always also influenced by power discourses.
Language is not only a medium of communication; it represents a wealth of cultural things and is bearer of identity, values and opinions. Language facilitates our experiences, our intellectual and cultural environments, and the ways in which we interact with people37. There is a close relationship between language, especially a first language or mother tongue language, and identity formation. There is furthermore a connection between liturgical celebrations, faith and identity formation.38 Le Cordeur39 confirms that language is a bearer of cultural identity. Language is woven much deeper into people’s being and identity than most people realize. We do not only learn language from one another, we also learn certain patterns of thought along with it. The language we speak is thus more than just an instrument of sound and communication. Our language is part of how we experience and see ourselves, how we express ourselves and understand the world. In the context of this argument, we emphasise the potential of language in connection to practices in the generation of spiritual capital.
We would like to argue that liturgies in Kaaps can play a very important role with regard to the generation of spiritual power for spiritual capital as a resource for first language Kaaps youth. However, for liturgy to be able to serve this function and continue to do so, it has to be accessible to these youth. It is however not a simple process to make liturgies more accessible as there are various role players involved in processes regarding liturgical revisions in which a very particular power dynamic is at work. There is a tension between what those who are in authority decide should be happening in liturgy and what those on grassroots level are in fact doing. This is sadly reflective of youth marginalization within ecclesial spaces. This tension is not new but is well known in the history of the liturgy.
In his book entitled A Sociological History of Christian Worship Martin Stringer40 takes his cue from Foucault and distinguishes between seven discourses in the history of Christian worship over the course of two thousand years. The period 600-900 is characterised by what he calls “Hegemonic discourses in the worship of the empires” and the period 1200-1500 he describes as “Accessing the demotic discourses of devotion”. In the former he shows how “Christian ideas and practices as part of state policy” were utilised “by ruling authorities to manipulate and control liturgy for political ends”41. In this period, which roughly covered the Early Middle Ages, the best-known example of such control is probably Charlemagne’s use of the so-called Hadrianum, a missal he obtained on request from Pope Hadrian that he copied and made the compulsory standard book for worship in all churches. Charlemagne’s idea was to unite the Eastern and Western parts of his Empire by means of imposing uniformity in worship in the East and the West42. In the so-called demotic discourse, the popular devotion of the people places itself liturgically in opposition to the dominant official liturgies as prescribed by the church authorities. Those propagating the dominant discourse will then also often try to suppress the emerging demotic discourse by referring to it in pejorative terms, such as, for example, claiming it is ‘superstition’43. “This distinction also became one of the major foci for the reformation and was used widely, as a means to condemn Catholics, by Reformed thinkers.”44 In essence this is a matter of the use and abuse of power and a combination of both political and sacred power by those who control the power.
The identification of these power discourses, as Stringer does in his book, is important for better understanding the existing tensions regarding who will decide how worship should be practised. It is necessary to relate this tension to the point made in the previous section regarding spiritual capital, since this control of power is also related to the control of this very valuable source of power, namely spiritual power. This tension is not restricted to the domain of Christian worship; on the contrary, it can be found in many spheres of life and in academia. We will now turn our attention to the current debate regarding Kaaps to briefly explore how this power struggle also exerts itself on the terrain of language and literature in South Africa.
We have argued that Kaaps is the language of some ‘Coloured’ people in South Africa, especially in the Western Cape, and there is a nascent movement amongst speakers of Kaaps to gain formal recognition for their language. Kaaps is a variant45 of the Afrikaans language since the early 1600s.46 Customary alternatives for “Kaaps” are, firstly, “Kaapse Vernakulêre Afrikaans”, or “Kaapse Vernakulêr-Afrikaans” [“Cape Vernacular-Afrikaans”] and, secondly, “Kaapse Afrikaans” [“Cape Afrikaans”]. Cape Vernacular Afrikaans is only one form of demotic Afrikaans, but not the only one by far. Kaaps was used locally as well as by foreigners as a shortened name for “Kaaps-Hollands” [“Cape Dutch”] when referring to the South African form of Dutch, used at the Cape in the seventeenth century and thereafter47. Le Cordeur48 notes the protest poems of Coloured poets and writers who were active during the struggle years as their way of rebelling against their exclusion from mainstream Afrikaans. In this sense
Kaaps is a language, a language in the sense that it bears the full fate and destiny of the people who speak it; their whole fate, their whole life “with everything that is in it”; a language in the sense that the people who speak it, give their first cries in this language, all transactions in their lives are concluded in this language, and their death rattle is rattled in this language. Kaaps is not a joke or a comedy.49
As noted earlier, Kaaps is the distinct home language of more than 1,5 million people on the Cape Flats.50 As a native language, Kaaps signifies the individual and group identity of the group of people who were classified as Coloureds during apartheid and marginalized by poverty, place of residence and race (ibid). Much research has focussed on the influence of Kaaps on its speakers’ perception of their identity; the conflict of Kaaps with Standard Afrikaans; the current status of Kaaps in the Coloured population; the re-standardization of Afrikaans, and to what extent, if any, Kaaps comes into its own in South African schools. Le Cordeur is one of the key scholars who argue that learners who grew up with Kaaps, are disadvantaged at school and that the language should be utilized more inclusively. This paper connects this inability to succeed educationally to the inability to worship freely when one is not able to do in one’s mother tongue.
Le Cordeur51 argues that the apartheid group areas act forced segregation not only by race but by language too. He notes that different groupings within the Afrikaans community had lived apart for so long, it caused them to grow apart linguistically. According to Le Cordeur,52 Kaaps is probably the most stigmatized Afrikaans language because speakers of Kaaps are often considered to be naïve, shufflingly subservient, half-skilled and with an inability to understand or appreciate complexity. As noted earlier in this paper, young people speaking Kaaps are often negatively associated as gangsters’ language instead of a language which signifies the dignity of young people self-identifying with their cultural group. Research53, however, indicates that the use of teen Kaaps is experienced positively by teenagers who speak the language. The teenagers surveyed in the study indicated that Kaaps was “hip” and “cool”, which could be an indication of changing perceptions about Kaaps since 1994. Kaaps is thus indeed an important indicator of both group and individual identity54 for young people.55
Aziz56 cautions that “not all young people will be susceptible to the threats and exposures of their community because of various support systems that may be in place”. Coloured communities are close-knit communities. This has benefitted and hindered youth. He adds that youth identity in such close-knit communities must be acknowledged as more than becoming the adults of that community. Young people’s beliefs, values and goals are interwoven with their faith and culture. He57 goes on to discuss how religion can have a positive influence on young people’s faith. According to Aziz,58 Cloete59 and Weber,60 youth faith formation is a holistic integration of everything that we believe and is expressed through a way of living. Faith formation, therefore, is a dynamic and continual process of cognition and experience as practised in the faith tradition and personal pursuit of knowing God. The role the faith community plays is integral and, in this way, liturgy and how it is planned and engaged in, is integral to faith formation of these youth. Consequently, we believe that the language used in such liturgies are also important. In this instance, we argue for consideration of Kaaps as liturgical language. A practical theology for youth in a South African context has to consider how cultural identity, community and context influence each other61. Le Cordeur62 notes that nearly three million people consider Kaaps a religious language. An example of this can be sourced from Adam Small’s poem; “Kitaar my kruis”.63
… seën hierie taal oek Here, Kaaps en Afrikaans wat, soes ek Djou vertel het,
singend is, bestem virrie kitaar: ’n taal met curves, het ek vi’ Djou gesê, soes van ‘n sexy engel…
[… bless this language too, Lord; Kaaps and Afrikaans, which, as I have told you, is singing,
destined for the guitar; a language with curves, I have told you, like those of a sexy angel …]
Young people who engage in liturgical acts and rituals feel like they belong within their faith communities. The tangible objects they engage with draw them closer to the God they are pursuing64. Consistent teaching, equipping and practicing (Deut. 6) empowers these youth with tools for expressing their faith outside of the faith community. Enabling this in their mother tongue personalizes but also strengthens their relationship with God. Exposing youth to new liturgical rituals (like prayer and fasting) is also important because these “keep the links between the various aspects of the group identity and their spiritual selves present”.65
Many “Coloured” people still have a negative attitude towards Afrikaner nationalism66. As a result, many speakers of Kaaps tend to speak English in formal circumstances. Sonn67 encourages that to develop a sense of pride, a sense of self-esteem and a true sense of unity, it is important that the history we teach our children should be corrected. And Nasrallah & Sonnenberg68 write: “… liturgical participation is often stimulated by leaders who explicitly encourage young people to participate … these influential adults invited young people to take up a particular role” within the faith community. As Boezak in his translation of Psalm 85 states, youth should: “Go for it!”
In conclusion, our argument is that there should be the existing on-going and deliberate attempts at translating liturgy into Kaaps. In the light of the dimensions of ritual, the role of spiritual capital through liturgy and identity formation, we argue that liturgies in Kaaps can play a positive role in identity formation of “Coloured” youth, but liturgy can only fulfil this role in a meaningful way if what is already underway in for example literature in Kaaps, and the translation of the Psalms into Kaaps as the Pesalms,69 is also appreciated and embraced by those responsible developing and celebrating liturgies in which youth participate. Thus, there should be a deliberate on-going attempt at the liturgical inculturation and translation of liturgy in the idiom and first language of Kaaps youth and thus challenging existing hegemonic discourses.
In this regard the recent translation of the Psalms into Kaaps by Willa Boezak and the project on LitNet where parts of the Bible are translated into Kaaps is of great value and an indication that the kind of development that are making a plea for, is already happening in other spheres. An attempt at liturgical inculturation and translation will indeed be a move towards making a potential source of power, namely spiritual power as a source of spiritual capital, more accessible to this youth through liturgical worship in service of identity formation. As practical theologians studying liturgy and youth, we are tempted to make a final comment regarding the so-called pragmatic task70 and conclude this article by answering the question “What shall we do?”
In our view, the best contribution liturgical commissions and other people in traditional churches in position of (liturgical) power can do at this stage is nothing, or at least, not too much. People with some authority when it comes to developing liturgical material, will do well to step back and deliberately create space and allow liturgical inculturation to happen in an organic way. With regard to the prayer book of the church, the Psalms, there is an opportunity here for Kaaps youth to find correspondences regarding the expression of emotions and experiences as expressed in the Psalms and translate that into liturgical rituals in Kaaps that they themselves experience as meaningful in their context.
Pesalm 85
U was goed vir hierie land. Korag se Pesalm vir millennials.
U was so goed vir hierie land, Vade,
wat innie hanne van os amillenials gesittit –
soese plantjie wat moet groei.
U Hettie ou generation gehelp
om dwarsdeerie Struggle in U te bly gloe,
Wie’t gedink ose land
was soe vinnag ytie blokke soese reisieped nuh,
ma nou issit ’n donkie?
Wies os genadig hemelse Vade,
al wat os vra is justice.
…
Millenials, moenie djulle newwe lat platdruk
oo’lat djou velklee nie donke genoeg issie.
…
Aweh millennials, staan op vir djulle regte,
go for it.
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1 Chupungco, What, Then, Is Liturgy? 174.
2 Pecklers, Worship, 41.
3 Die Pesalms vi ose mense is the Psalms translated into Kaaps by Dr Willa Boezak in 2019. One website (https://daknetwerk.com/projekte/noord-kaap-juig-met-die-pesalms/ -visited 20/10/20) states about the worship service where the book was launched and used in the liturgy and sermon: “Jongmense het, nog voor die erediens begin het, gesê hulle sien uit na ‘n Bybel wat “lekke plat” is – bedoelende natuurlik ‘wat verstaanbaar’ is. Ds. Matthys sê daar is heelwat belangstelling en mense is opgewonde daaroor. Aan die glimlagte op vele gesigte agterna kan ons sien hoe die gemeente hierdie nuwe weergawe geniet het. Uitdukkings soos “die dywel het mit my kop gesmokkel” was treffers.”
4 Ter Haar, “Religion and development”, 8.
5 Ter Haar, “Religion and development”, 14.
6 Ter Haar, “Religion and development”, 20.
7 Adogame uses the terms ‘religious capital’ and ‘spiritual capital’ interchangeably and does not see social and spiritual capital as being mutually exclusive. Adogame, The African Diaspora.
8 Aziz. “Youth ministry as an agency”, 1.
9 Weber, “Faith formation of young people in an evangelical context”.
10 Aziz, “Youth ministry”, 2.
11 Bray et al, Growing up in the New South Africa 99. See on this topic also the recent book by Mellet entitled The lie of 1652.
12 Aziz, “Youth ministry”, 5.
13 Swart & Ter Haar, “From social capital to religious social capital” 66.
14 Aziz, “Youth ministry”, 5.
15 Kinnaman, You Lost Me; Edie, “Liturgy and Faith Formation”, 34-44; Weber, “Faith formation of young people in an evangelical context”; Smith & Denton, 2008. Soul Searching.
16 Edie, “Liturgy and Faith Formation”, 35.
17 Weber, “Faith formation”.
18 Smith, You are what you love.
19 Edie, “Liturgy and Faith Formation”.
20 Weber, “Faith formation of young people in an evangelical context.”
21 Lukken, “No life without rituals”, 88-116; Lukken, Rituals in Abundance, 37-72.
22 Lukken, “No life without rituals,” 88-116.
23 Edie, “Liturgy and Faith Formation”, 30.
24 Smith, You are what you love.
25 See in this regard the recent PhD thesis of Van der Merwe, “Liturgie en versoening”, who similarly argues regarding the role of liturgy in national reconciliation with regard to a change of heart.
26 Edie, “Liturgy and Faith Formation”, 39.
27 See in this regard Wepener, “Participation and power”.
28 Nel, “Toward Whole-Making”, 35.
29 Nowrouzi, Tayebeh, and Soheila Faghfori article on "Am I an African or an American? Duboisian Double consciousness in A Raisin in the Sun." they note that a Raisin in the Sun is the story that examines the problem of identity and lack of a true self consciousness among the members of an African American family. In this work, Hansberry is mainly referring to the psychological state in which African Americans are seeking whether they are Africans or Americans. In their constant search of identity, they finally comprehend that their identity is neither African nor American but African American, a merged identity. They, thus, must endeavor to reconcile the dual parts of their identity to which Dubois referred as double consciousness.
30 Aziz, “Youth ministry as an agency of youth development”, 2.
31 Blount, “Toward Whole-Making”, 38-39.
32 Aziz, “Youth ministry as an agency of youth development”, 2.
33 Blount, “Toward Whole-Making”, 40.
34 Blount, “Toward Whole-Making”, 40.
35 Weber, “Faith formation of young people”.
36 For a discussion of liturgy and identity formation with a special emphasis on ritual time, see Wepener & Pauw, “Terug na die toekoms”.
37 UNESCO, The use of vernacular languages.
38 Recent debates about being Khoisan or Coloured reflect contestation to the term ‘Coloured’ as an imposed racial identifier resulting in some living in a continuous state of migration or liminality. See Titus, “Forward”, 1-4. The following extract confirms that young people consider language as an identity marker: ‘.… cause ek wil somewhere ge-belong het. Kan jy sien die merke (Apostel) George? Kan jy sien die tattoos? ‘it was ’n terrible gesoek vir ’n identity … [… ‘cos I wanted to belong somewhere. Can you see the marks (Apostle) George? Can you see the tattoos? It was a terrible search for identity …]. See Small, Krismis van Map Jacobs, 31.
39 Le Cordeur, “Gang culture, Identity and Kaaps”, 86.
40 Stringer, A Sociological history of Christian worship.
41 Stringer, A Sociological history of Christian worship, 48.
42 Stringer, A Sociological history of Christian worship,111-11; see also Van Tongeren, “Exaltatio crucis”, 53-55.
43 Stringer, A Sociological history of Christian worship, 151.
44 Stringer, A Sociological history of Christian worship, 151.
45 There is contestation as to the extent of such variance as specialist scholars (le Cordeur, Small, Hendricks) argue that Kaaps played a role in the development of Afrikaans as a South African language. Kaaps is presented as a variety of the dialect group Southwestern Afrikaans which as a form of colloquial Afrikaans refers back historically to the seventeenth century influence of slaves on the formation of Afrikaans and which is currently chiefly manifested as a sociolect associated with the working class of the Cape Peninsula. See, Hendricks, “The nature and context of Kaaps”, 6.
46 Le Cordeur, “Gang culture, Identity and Kaaps”, 86. Le Cordeur further opines that Afrikaans has been branded as the language of the oppressor, especially because Afrikaans was promoted on a racial basis.
Dr Allan Boesak also became a symbol of their participation in the struggle for freedom. His legendary undertaking at the World Council of Churches that he would fight apartheid was expressed in Afrikaans. And Basil Kivedo, the former MK soldier and currently member of Parliament, admitted that he had fought his ‘Umkhonto battle in Afrikaans’. Even at school it was Afrikaans-speaking youths who were at the forefront of the struggl Coloured people thus played a big role in the struggle, and they did so largely in Afrikaans.
47 Hendricks, “The nature and context of Kaaps”, 7.
48 Le Cordeur, “Gang culture, Identity and Kaaps”, 91.
49 Small, Kitaar my kruis.
50 The Cape Flats comprises the Areas East of the Northern and Southern Suburbs of Cape Town and is made up of Black Townships, Coloured ghettoes and Shantytowns. It was the area that most Black people were moved to after areas were declared 'White Only. It is also the area in which most of Migrant labour was housed (https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/cape-flats-cape-town).
51 Le Cordeur, “Gang culture, Identity and Kaaps”, 88.
52 Le Cordeur, “Gang culture, Identity and Kaaps”, 89.
53 Saal & Blignaut, “Moetie rai gammattaal gebrykie”.
54 According to Hendricks, “The nature and context of Kaaps”, 10-11; Kaaps is chiefly a working class cocoon which is distinguished from other colour varieties of Afrikaans. For this reason, Le Cordeur confirms that Kaaps is increasingly being used in the classroom. The poems of Marius Titus, Peter Snyders, Adam Small, and recently also the poetry of Patrick Petersen, Nathan Trantraal and Ronelda Kamfer, are being studied at school. Novels like Diekie vannie Bo-Kaap by Zulfa Otto-Allies (used in Grade 9) and the inclusion of Kaaps idioms and expressions in a new textbook series14, introduces youngsters to cultural issues to which they had little exposure before. And dramas like Adam Small’s Krismis van Map Jacobs and Kanna hy kô hystoe give young people insight into an indigenous value system. Le Cordeur “Gang culture, Identity and Kaaps”, 99.
55 Le Cordeur, “Gang culture, Identity and Kaaps”, 95.
56 Aziz, 3.
57 Aziz, “Youth ministry as an agency of youth development”, 3.
58 Aziz, “Youth ministry as an agency of youth development”, 3.
59 Cloete, “Spiritual formation as focus of youth ministry”.
60 Weber, “Faith formation of young people”.
61 Aziz, “Youth ministry as an agency of youth development”, 4.
62 Le Cordeur, “Gang culture, Identity and Kaaps”, 96.
63 Small, Kitaar my kruis.
64 Nasrallah & Sonnenberg “Oriental Orthodox Young Adults”, 370.
65 Nasrallah & Sonnenberg, “Oriental Orthodox Young Adults”, 376.
66 Du Preez, “Breaking through the language barrier”.
67 Sonn, “Gaan soek die helde”, 369.
68 Nasrallah & Sonnenberg, 368-369.
69 Boezak, Die Pesalms vir ose mense.
70 Osmer, Practical Theology.