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Church Clothes: Land, Mission, and the End of Apartheid in South Africa

Thomas Patrick Wilkinson

298 pages

Library binding $46.95 0-944624-39-1 or ISBN-13 9780944624395

Publication date August 1, 2004

When South African State president F. W. de Klerk announced to the all-white House of Assembly in Cape Town that Nelson Mandela would be released from prison and that the African National Congress would be unbanned, he took actions that began the process of ending apartheid. This book recounts discussions, controversies, and impressions that shaped the key economic and ideological issues facing all South Africans in 1991 and after. Although many remember apartheid as a system of racial discrimination, it has almost been forgotten that the basis of apartheid was enforcing the color bar through the expropriation of land, forced relocation, and disenfranchisement through the construction of dictatorial statelets. What is more, apartheid was based on deep religious convictions accepted tacitly by nearly all the mainstream churches in the country. This study explores the mechanisms by which land relations shaped South African culture. It takes the churches in South Africa as microcosms of South African apartheid society and applies the analysis of “church culture” to reach a definition of “apartheid culture.” This culture continues to shape South African society, and more than a decade later the land problem is just as urgent as it was in 1991.

Thomas Patrick Wilkinson is an essayist, translator, and editor. His work has concentrated on questions of technology policy, culture, education, and Church history. During graduate studies, he spent extended periods in Brazil and South Africa collecting data on the political transitions. From 1986 to 1988, he was a freelance journalist covering the United Nations headquarters. He holds degrees in political science and sociology from the University of South Carolina and City University of New York Graduate Center, and a PhD from the University of Bremen.

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