480 THE EXPOSITORY TIMES THE EXPOSITORY TIMES Volume 118 Number 10฀ Pages฀480–487 Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) DOI: 10.1177/0014524607079990 http://EXT.sagepub.com On Becoming a Family: Multiculturality and Interculturality in South Africa Y By PROFESSOR LOUIS JONKER Department of Old and New Testament, University of Stellenbosch This article presents a summary of a research project taking place in the Western Cape of South Africa at the moment. 1 The project depicts South African society as a society that has come a long way since 1990 to accepting multiculturality. However, it argues that a move towards interculturality has not necessarily taken place at the same time. The project begins with the hypothesis that a development of hermeneutical skills among Christian communities of reading the Bible together with ‘the other’ could contribute signifcantly towards the fostering of interculturality in the broader South African society. Additionally, it is hypothesized that the studying of the dynamics of intercultural Bible reading could provide us with better insight into the dynamics of a shift from multiculturality to interculturality in South African society. KEYWORDS Multiculturality, Interculturality, Biblical Hermeneutics, South African society Introduction I n a recent publication, 2 the well-known former archbishop of Cape Town and Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu suggested that the South African faith communities should become a family. He uses the metaphor of ‘family’ to explain how the building of a culture of communal life in South Africa could take place: ‘The wonderful thing about family is that we are not expected to agree about everything under the sun. Show me a man and wife who have never disagreed and I will show you some accomplished fibbers. But those disagreements, pray God, do not usually destroy the unity of the family. And so it should be with God’s family. We are not expected at all times to be unanimous or to have a consensus on every conceivable subject. What is needed is to respect one another’s point of view and not to impute unworthy motives to one another or to seek to impugn the integrity of the other. Our maturity will be judged by how well we are able to agree to disagree and yet to continue to love one another, to care for one another and cherish one another and seek the greater good of the other’ (2004 : 22). Although Tutu primarily calls the Christian community to adopt the ‘family’ metaphor for their own existence, the implication of this call also extends to society in general. The metaphor emphasizes that cohesion within any diverse social group does not build on agreement, interest or commonness, but rather on tolerance, respect and communality. One could rightly ask whether this ‘dream of God’ which Tutu shares in his book, does not remain an unrealistic ideal for South African society. 3 South Africa certainly could be described as ‘the world in one country’. This slogan, which is often used in tourism advertisements, and which is mostly used to refer to the rich diversity in climatological and vegetational regions, also describes the rich variety of peoples, cultures, languages and religions in this country. This diversity is even acknowledged in the South African constitution (Act 200 of 1993, and amendments) in articles 30 and 31. In article 30, 1 The project is funded by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) – a fact which is gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed here remain, however, the responsibility of the author. 2 Tutu (2004). 3 Cf. more sceptical voices, such as Degenaar’s book, The Myth of the South African Nation ( 1991).