‘Closet Christians’: a phenomenological study of Christian youth in a small town in South Africa
Date
2024-12
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Stellenbosch University
Abstract
In this thesis, I examine the phenomenon of a group of Evangelical Christian youths in a small church in South Africa who did not profess their faith or disclose their Christian identity in contexts outside of church, contrary to the tenets of their Pentecostal faith- and of the Emerging Church to which they belonged. Using a phenomenological approach, I try to understand the subjective experiences of a group of ten young adult Christians who “closeted”their faith in their relationships with non-Christian friends and family members who did not share their beliefs. This at-home ethnography of Bay Surf Church (BSC) members over a two-year period unpacks the process through which once devoted members grappled with their “closeted” faith and gradually left the church. I show that my interlocutors “closeted” to avoid the stigmas associated with both conservative and liberal Christianity. Despite closeting, they remained committed to “sharing the gospel” through embodying and demonstrating their Christian values in social spaces that they imagined traditional Christians would be unable to enter. As the BSC grew in size, my interlocutors complained that their personal faith journeys and missiological expressions were stymied by an organisation that increasingly resembled traditional churches. Whereas the BSC was once known as laid-back church in which believers could practice their faith in their “own way”, and have personal relationships with the pastors, it gradually developed a clearer church hierarchy, with organising teams and established church locations that exercised more surveillance and control over the ways in which members expressed their faith. Seven of my interlocutors eventually left the church, but expressed deep yearning for the ‘lost’ BSC’s Young Adults group which had once embodied the very essence of the Emerging Church philosophy.
Description
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2024.