This article sets out to describe how churches have responded and continue to respond to fast-changing urban environments in Pretoria Central and Mamelodi East, animating Henri Lefebvre’s sociological perspective of citadins or urban inhabitants. We make tentative interpretations and offer critical appreciation. Churches, which were historically separated from the city centre, now directly participate in claiming a right to the city. With necessary fluidity, churches express lived African urbanisms through informality, place-making, spatial innovation and everyday rituals. Though not exhaustive, the article focuses on rituals shared among historic urban Christians and contemporary African urban Christians, namely prayer, listening to the Bible and worship. These rituals, when combined with the churches’ spatial innovation, to a certain degree contribute to place-making.
In this article we explore initial findings on how churches in two distinct and yet inextricable regions (Pretoria Central and Mamelodi East) of the City of Tshwane, South Africa, respond to urban change. Our aim is to give a fair presentation of the local churches’ enduring presence, raise critical questions and offer insights on the extent to which the churches’ inhabitation and practiced rituals address urban vulnerabilities and contribute to place-making amidst urban change.
Our co-research endeavour applied a transdisciplinary approach to engage community and church members from the two regions of study. We merged perspectives from social sciences and theology into a qualitative research methodology and structured the research around the contextual praxis cycle of Holland and Henriot (
This article interacts with our findings, considers the urbanising context of the City of Tshwane historically against the backdrop of an urbanising African continent and examines the ‘lived urbanisms’ of local churches, as they unintentionally give expression to Henri Lefebvre’s ‘right to the city’ (cf. Pieterse & Simone
The undulating terrain, freshwater sources and favourable climate around the contemporary city of study attracted human migrations and settlements throughout history. The Sotho-Tswana peoples cultivated social and economic development and established effective trade networks for iron implements, copper ornaments and ivory (Krüger
in principle, the area had been opened for European cultural, military, trade and religious expansion, which would come with the British and their rivals, the Voortrekkers from the Cape Colony. (Krüger
The Voortrekkers differed from other white people in that they penetrated territory with commando tactical units, did not seek permission from indigenous rule and acted as if they meant to stay with their large numbers (Lye
For a thorough civil-religious history of Pretoria’s transition from a frontier town to the major metropolis known as the City of Tswhane and its interrelationship with local Reformed religion, Cobus Krüger’s extensive work
In 1853 Marthinus Wessel Pretorious set out to build a new town and dreamed of a capital in the centre of the Voortrekker republic, but there was already an entrenched pattern – Reformed parishes became towns (Krüger
The Voortrekker world view influenced town development, architecture and residential separation. The first church was designed to be at the elevated centre of Pretoria. And from there, a grid of perfectly rectangular blocks and main streets crossed at Church Square and expressed an orderly cosmos and ideals of urban place-making (Jordaan
Pretoria fell to the British troops in June 1900, became the capital of the self-governing Transvaal in 1907 and was established as the administrative capital of the Union of South Africa in 1910 (Krüger
By policing African Influx, the centres of production and white residential areas were protected. Increasingly, the white urban sprawl pushed black people farther from the city centre, solidifying political, social, economic and spatial dominance, and yet the African population continued to migrate towards Pretoria. In the 1930s, Atteridgeville became the first municipally constructed, controlled and administered black location in Pretoria, which brought in its wake a huge process of forced removals and resettlement, becoming the brutal pattern of Pretoria’s spatial reorientation over the next five decades (Krüger
As we begin to hone in on our contemporary situation and the particular regions of our comparative study, we have to bear in mind that the systematic segregation by race over many decades built a ‘bastardized city structure’ and a prototype Apartheid city (Christopher
Fassil Demissie (
The early involvement of Christianity in the life of the city took on manipulative forms: negotiation, justification for forced separation and dominance. This article explores the continuity of Christian presence and provides initial insights on the contemporary expressions of Christianity in the urban context of study. The historical background of transitioning from a church town to the City Tshwane sets the stage for us to now interact with urban perspectives for application in our context.
Every day around the world more and more people in-migrate and inhabit the city. The rapidity and scale of the urban transition is remarkable, especially throughout Africa. According to the United Nations’ forecasted urbanisation rate, the population of African urban inhabitants will more than double between 2000 and 2030, increasing from 294 million to 742 million and climbing towards 1.26 billion by 2050 (UNFPA
Within the City of Tshwane, our study focuses on two regions: Pretoria Central and Mamelodi East. Pretoria Central is the city centre, or downtown Pretoria, and consists of a cross-section of four wards (58, 60, 80 and 81) and has 100 000 people (Wazimap
The second region of study is Mamelodi East, which is located within Wards 15, 16, 18 and 40 of the Mamelodi Township and has 135 000 people (Wazimap
The new centre of gravity for Christianity holds in the global South (Sanneh
The majority of Christians now belong to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These regions will increasingly be the place where Christian decisions and Christian choices will have to be made, where creative theology will become a necessity and where the materials for constructing that theology will be such as have not been used for that purpose before. (pp. 80–81)
The focus of our research is to better understand how churches in an urbanising African context are making decisions and daily choices that creatively express lived urbanisms. The religious dimension to Africa’s urban transition has been sparsely researched (Parnell & Pieterse
In the 1960s, as Henri Lefebvre reflected on urban realities in France, he conceptualised what has become known as the ‘right to the city’ approach. Lefebvre (
Lefebvre’s robust sociological and philosophical concept, however, is instructive for pressing beyond hegemony with the fundamental notion that ‘all those who
should modify, concretize and make more practical the rights of the citizen as an urban dweller
Margherita Grazioli further uncovers the ramifications of Lefebvre’s integral concept of
Grazioli’s research identified
UN-HABITAT (
To develop our reflections on the everyday challenges and unique features of ‘urban improvisation’, and, more specifically, engage how churches in the City of Tshwane embody living urbanism and claim a right to the city, we now turn to the notion of ‘African urbanisms’, ‘southern urbanisms’ or, more poetically and even prophetically, ‘rogue urbanism’ (Pieterse
Place-making is the process of shaping public spaces in ways that could be liveable and meaningful for its diverse users. By applying Lefebvre’s right to the city, Lepofsky and Fraser (
An underlying curiosity of ours was whether the Christian faith has the adaptive and innovative capacity to transcend or transform apartheid spaces and apartheid cities? Are there new forms of place-making emerging in formerly exclusive spaces, perhaps through how churches incarnate themselves?
We discovered, sometimes surprisingly, how local churches contributed to a sense of place-making, without it even being their intention: they often simply want an affordable space, strategically located for most of its members or potential members. Cadge and Ecklund (
We found this to be particularly relevant in relation to churches in Pretoria Central. Nearly 30% of the population in this region of the city are migrants and many of the local churches are predominantly migrant churches. We gathered data for over a year and a half through participatory and supplemental processes. The participative mapping process identified 57 churches in a defined area of Pretoria Central, which is about 2 km2 in size. This region stretches from Nelson Mandela Drive in the east and Prince’s Park Avenue in the west and between Jeff Masemola Street in the south and Bloed Street in the north. We identified 40 churches in a defined area of Mamelodi East, within a 1-km radius around the Mamelodi Campus of the University of Pretoria. This region is marked by a combination of more established and older township communities and vast and sprawling informal settlements.
During the mapping process, we discovered unique and innovative expressions of churches’ place-making activities. The first innovative characteristic of several churches was an agile form to their architectural structures. To inhabit different contexts and be present in different communities, churches contextualised their particular gathering space to be congruent with the immediate built environment. We discovered in Mamelodi East, for example, the ‘pop-up’ nature of some churches. Peace and Mercy Church was a handmade shack dwelling from locally sourced materials of wood and corrugated metal (EpiCollect
Another example of innovation, in both Mamelodi East and Pretoria Central, is the structural fluidity and the way in which churches re-purposed facilities. Carole Rakodi suggests that ‘emerging Pentecostal churches and other renewalist groups have colonised secular buildings’ (Parnell & Pieterse
Not only were churches innovative with flexible structural forms, but what we also found striking was the way in which certain churches were proximately located as a cluster (EpiCollect
A question emerging during the research process had to do with how churches relate to, or live with, informality.
Informality in cities of the global South, and urban Africa, opens up ‘new territories for debate about the right to be urban’ (Pieterse & Simone
In
Huchzermeyer upholds the enfranchised inhabitant by envisioning a participative plan for collective and creative action to secure inhabited space, transforming the so-called slums ‘from temporary and uncertain margins to permanent places in the city’ (
As Huchzermeyer argued from below with ‘slums’ against the neoliberal and technocrat agenda, Colin Smith in his study of Nairobi argued from below with informal churches against the dominant tendency for ecclesial marginalisation. Smith (
A large part of Mamelodi East includes so-called informal settlements, areas that continue expanding and also those suddenly emerging (Focus Group 09/04/17). Pockets of informal trade and housing also exist in Pretoria Central. Smith’s (
Just as the informal economy is the economy of the urban population which largely does not share in the benefits of urban citizenship, so informal churches need to be understood in terms of their marginalization both socio-economically and within the structures of organized religion in the city. (p. 41)
Accompanying the explosion of informality and the ‘shanty city’ or informal city, so-called informal religious activity or new or different expressions of religion often operate in ways that are more elusive or even hidden to the untrained eye. When we start to consider from a theological perspective Huchzermeyer’s concept (
The presence of diverse churches spontaneously adapting to evolving urban environments, demographic changes and migration patterns correlates with literature, especially from Séverine Deneulin and Carole Rakodi (
Smith (
In our research, we were struck by the adaptive capacity and spontaneity within changing, informal and often very vulnerable urban environments. The eruption of a multiplicity of small faith communities, early childhood centres, informal businesses and local social initiatives could be seen as innovative urbanisation from below, contributing to a local sense of place and even asserting, not necessarily in a Lefebvreian sense, a right to the city. What we could not find clear traces of, however, were signs of intentional, reflective, collective and organised actions by churches to effect lasting change and re-imagine alternative futures, in often challenging urban spaces.
What we gleaned from the mapping, surveys and focus groups is the range of ways in which churches self-identify. Our process might have been more authentically collaborative had we left self-identification completely open for the churches to surface new vocabularies. The data nevertheless revealed that the type of Christianity growing in the urban context of study for the majority of the churches surveyed self-identify as Pentecostal and/or Charismatic. To provide a bit of necessary perspective on this particular category in the typology of the Christian faith, we consider the work of Allan Anderson.
Anderson’s lived experience and helpful study of this expression of the Christian faith offers insight to the ‘raw, incarnated, “grassroots” theology of the Spirit-type churches in Africa … from the “underside”, a people’s theology’ (
Precisely because of the freeing power of the Holy Spirit, as Anderson uncovered, Pentecostal churches are an invigorating expression of African urban Christianity, able to inhabit and centre the margins. Lamin Sanneh (
It is the enactment of the Gospel in day to day living, the translation of the message of liberation in the concrete, visible and physical activities of people in those fields of human experience that really matter, which constitutes credibility and inspires conviction. (pp. 59–60, [
The churches we encountered show signs of having an empowered identity, participating creatively, even if unintentionally, in place-making and cultivating meaning-making. In many ways, perhaps without much reflection, the churches are claiming a right to the city. And yet, one wonders if the churches have a more narrow (internal) emphasis, by which claiming space is not necessarily in the interest of the other, in solidarity with the place in which they set up church, or in a search for justice in the city. In that sense, one can indeed ask if what the churches exercise is a right to the city only as a narrow expression of self-interest, self-preservation or in the way probably intended by Lefebvre. Is there a broader (external) emphasis, with an inclination towards others, upholding the right to difference? The element of creating new space that accentuates differences and access to justice was not fully manifested.
In Pretoria Central, members represented South Africa, Malawi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya. Four of the churches indicated that membership was mainly South African; Grace Exploration Ministry and Christ Populate Ministries indicated that membership was 50% South African and 50% other African. Deeper Christian Life Ministries is 90% Nigerian and 10% South African. Similarly, the Redeemed Christian Church of God is 98% Nigerian and 2% South African. The Grace of God Ministries is 98% Congolese and 2% other nationalities.
In Mamelodi East, it is evident that the majority of the churches covered by our survey were predominantly South African with much smaller percentages of other African countries. One has to wonder if some of the churches are manifesting the reality that ethnicity is the ‘primary source of identity and the main basis for the web of social relations’ (Parnell & Pieterse
Rituals practiced and performed in particular spaces are repositories of meaning and knowledge systems, possessing transformative agency (Pieterse & Simone
found something about the worship of God to be so important that he made it a priority above all else … nor did he leave his everyday life outside the doors of the church, but carried it right into the sanctuary with him. Instead of the church being an escape or refuge, it is the very place where life happens.
The story brings to light an essential characteristic of African urban Christianity. The boundary dissolves between so-called church activity and everyday life and ordinary practices. Smith’s social imaginary and Gornik’s observation identify the essentiality of bodily expression and everydayness. Coleman and Collins’ (
Though not an exhaustive representation of what we noticed, our co-research efforts unveiled three everyday rituals of African urban Christianity – prayer, the Bible and worship – which we are presenting here as another form of lived urbanism.
The churches we encountered in the City of Tshwane are praying churches. Prayer is an everyday performative action. During the focus group and World Café conversations, when we asked how the church is responding to the happenings in the city and how the church is innovating, prayer was repeatedly mentioned. Our bias, even disappointment as researchers came through:
So what else do you do as a church? We’ve complained about what is happening in the community in the context. Are we only praying for them? Are we active? What is it that we do? (Focus Group 05/10/16); Apart from prayer, what is it that we do to help those that are unemployed? What is it? Any other thing?. (Focus Group 25/09/16)
Upon further self-criticism and deeper reflection, the churches’ prayer life as a community and individuals can be a fitting practice at times. When we look back to the early urban church, we find Paul urging the urban churches in and around Corinth and Thessalonica to innovate their way in adapting existing forms of individual and collective prayer and to pray without ceasing, ‘with some mixture of the spontaneous and customary’ (Meeks
Afe Adogame’s reflections on the Celestial Church of Christ as well as Diedre Helen Crumbley’s on the Church of the Lord-Aladura offer us key insights into emerging African urban Christian expressions. The vulnerabilities and vicissitudes of life in this urban world are the result of evil, an evil that is not impersonal, ‘rooted in intimate social relations, expressed in the grammar of witchcraft’ (Crumbley
The African urban churches of our study exemplified these elements in their practiced prayer rituals and habits. Churches have fixed and open times for prayer during the weekly rhythm of city life and during Sunday-specific worship services. The church prays in the city, for the city and on behalf of the city. One church prayed in taxi ranks while also distributing sanitary items for homeless women from Lesotho and entered Church Square with the incarnational and empowered presence of Christ (Focus Group 19/9/16). Another church holds weekly Thursday prayers with the unemployed, offering spiritual sustenance and support for job placement. A Pretoria Central church with the tagline – ‘A place where impossibilities become possible’ – had the following posters on its storefront: Prayer Rain, Lunch Hour Prophetic Encounter, Prayer and Counselling, Success & Prayer Night. The church that is the immediate storefront neighbour to the mechanic is called ‘Christ Ever Reigns Chapel International Prince of Peace Parish’ and avails ‘Victory Prayers’ every Tuesday night and Bible Study on Thursdays. These prayer habits and rituals buttress the churches’ attempts in offering financial or in-kind donations to the poor, unemployed and homeless and evoke God to change the person’s situation.
Another practiced ritual is varied but regular usage of the Bible, put to effect for personal and social transformation. Similar to the urban Christians of our study, the first urban Christians gathered to listen to regular preaching and readings about the ongoing redemptive work of the incarnated, crucified, resurrected and ascended Christ. The rhetorical patterns within the Bible woo the heart, inculcate habits and change the world (cf. Meeks
We notice these patterns in different forms being expressed by the churches of Pretoria Central and Mamelodi East. One church with the tagline, ‘The church where prophetic, priestly and kingly people are made’ showcases a ‘school of the present day dealings of God’. During the World Café, churches emphasised their responsibility to teach morals and family values, share the word of God in prisons, pre-marriage and marriage counselling, preach abstinence and encourage the youth. Put succinctly on the World Café table, ‘the Word of God is a good solution’. Further evidence indicates that churches proclaim principles of love and forgiveness and a message of healing and restoration. Forward in Faith is evangelising at universities while Gospel Chariot Missions offer ‘Get a Free Bible Degree, Apply within’ (EpiCollect
Churches are using the Bible as not only a good solution for personal morality and interpersonal and familial relationships but a close companion in advocacy work. Grace Exploration Ministry indicated that they spoke on behalf of the poor, AFM Word of Life promoted human rights and justice, Creative Fountain Ministries referred refugees to professional services and Melodiya Tshwane engaged public leadership.
These claims find both historic and contemporary expression. For example, it is noteworthy that Melodiya Tshwane is one of the churches whose leadership wrote the Confession of Belhar in 1982, which according to Krüger (
In Paul Gifford’s review of
First, Scripture is an imaginative world that narrates the experiences of life. Second, it is read and heard communally to address everyday concerns and needs. Third, it is appropriated as a means of maintaining the distinct identity of transnational religious movements. Fourth, it is a basis for preaching and responding to the text. Fifth, it is received as words that have power and make commitments. (loc. 1562)
Gornik then concludes: ‘Scripture is viewed as living, powerful, and relevant, especially when it inhabits the bodies of believers and communities of worship to which they belong’ (Gornik
African urban churches have various rituals within liturgy for the communal gathering of worship. According to Gornik’s study: ‘Liturgy works to form a way of life by enabling church members to understand the world and bodily participate in God’s new world’ (Gornik
We already noticed in Meeks’
Both in the World Café and focus group conversations, worship (singing, choir, youth choirs) was mentioned as forms of both innovation and competition. Lively conversation ensued to reveal two important considerations, youth agency and instigator of market competition, which we briefly address.
The churches in both regions mentioned the relevancy of song for youth, but there was unique emphasis in Mamelodi. Bearing in mind Adogame’s insight on song being revelatory to God’s active redeeming work in this world, we can make connections to Mamelodi’s emphasis on youth agency in this particular ritual. A number of social ills identified immediately affect youth in Mamelodi: drugs, school drop-outs, teenage pregnancy and unwanted pregnancy, abuse, child-headed homes, crime and vandalism. The church is responding to this situation by developing a youth choir. We learned from the focus group conversation in Pretoria Central that the adult choir fostered an environment conducive for relationship-building and tangibly supporting each other. Golden Gates in Mamelodi mentioned youth being directly involved in playing instruments and leading song during worship services (Focus Group Report 9/4/17) as a way to develop leadership. And finally, this ritual fosters new relational connections for role modelling and mentoring youth.
Another consideration is the way this practiced ritual becomes an instigator for market competition. A number of the co-research participants indicated that the music style played a significant factor in terms of their own church of choice and level of participation. They sifted through a self-directed approval system on song selection, local choruses, hymn book, instrumentation or some amalgamation. And lastly, how open was the space and ethos for dance? Not only does the practiced ritual of song influence decisions about why, where and how a person joins church, it also developed what churches perceived as negative and positive forms of competition with other churches.
Churches noted the aspects of this negative form of competition. Some churches distrusted, and yet also envied other churches because their attractive music and liturgical style stole members. Another church shares a story about market value and monetary exchange for a particular musician or singer (Focus Group 29/11/16).
We identified from one church that this practiced ritual influenced positive competition around them. The AFM Word of Life church in Pretoria Central embraced the competition of their immediate context and did something about it. This church is within the densely clustered area of 11 churches. One participant of the focus group said, ‘Five years ago it was only our church in this area. As we are speaking now, next door, it’s a church, back, front, everywhere it’s a church. … Competition is everywhere’. Within this stage of churches rapidly being born, AFM Word of Life church still sustains 1500 people in total membership. Their tagline is catchy, ‘Welcome to our church. Where everyone is somebody’. Their ministries are indicative of the aforementioned emphases.
With these details in mind, we come back to the specific approach to positive competition. Taking seriously the revelatory and celebratory role of song in living community, AFM Word of Life has their own Praise and Worship department. The department likely vets members for their character, piety and ability (Crumbley
According to Gornik, ‘singing, praying, testifying, and hearing the Word helps to shape a world’, an urban world (
The article briefly etched the historical connection of the City of Tshwane to the Christian faith. We then considered urbanisation and urban change in the City of Tshwane against the backdrop of African urban processes. As part of a deliberate desire to contribute to ongoing discourse pertaining to African urbanisms and southern urbanisms – but with particular emphasis to faith, religion or the church in African cities – we then considered local churches in two regions of the City of Tshwane in relation to the notions of
One remains curious about the possible socio-economic and spatial impact if such churches, as expressions of a rogue urbanism, are to become more reflective and intentional about the city as place. This might be the next phase of our research: to journey more collaboratively with the same churches, unpacking the meaning and possibilities of their enduring local urban presence.
This article formed part of a collaborative research project entitled ‘Religious innovation and competition amidst urban social change: a Pretoria case study’. We appreciate the following collaborative researchers for their curiosity, conversations and commitment: Eugene Baron, Nico Botha, Jacob Manyaka, Ezekiel Ntakirutimana, Wayne Renkin, Drew Smith and Cobus van Wyngaard. The project was funded by the Templeton Foundation as part of an Africa-wide enquiry on ‘Christianity and social change in contemporary Africa’.
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationship(s) that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
S.F.d.B. and M.R. contributed equally to the conceptualisation and writing of the article. S.F.d.B was responsible for all revisions and M.R. prepared the article for submission.
The project is also a sub-theme of the ‘Faith in the City’ research project, hosted by the Centre for Contextual Ministry in the Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria.