Abstract

FORSTER, Dion Angus. Towards a Future with Greater Freedoms for All: A Historical Theological Engagement with Mary-Anne Elizabeth Plaatjies-Van Huffel's Contribution to Religion and Law. Studia Hist. Ecc. [online]. 2021, vol.47, n.2, pp.1-19. ISSN 2412-4265.  https://doi.org/10.25159/2412-4265/8166.

This article engages the work of one of South Africa's foremost scholars in religion and law-the late Prof. Dr Mary-Anne Elizabeth Plaatjies-Van Huffel. Towards the end of her life, Plaatjies-Van Huffel published a number of important articles on themes related to religion and law. In this article we shall trace the biographical and academic antecedents to these later works. The article shows how her dedication to justice, peace and integrity (to borrow a phrase from the World Council of Churches) developed through particular methodological and theological commitments. The article concludes by offering some tentative insights into where her work may have gone, had she lived to follow the same trajectory of a post-structuralist historiographic engagement with power to deconstruct gender abuse, safeguard minority rights, and cultivate inter-religious cooperation.

Keywords : freedom of religion; religion and law; Mary-Anne Elizabeth Plaatjies-Van Huffel; ecumenism; pluralism; church history.

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