The Politics of Reading

Almost thirty years since the dawn of democracy, the attention that Bibles, and the Christian Bible in particular, receive in South Africa, shows no signs of abating. Much as in the past, and besides its obvious presence and even prominence in faith communities, the Bible is invoked in political structures, on the sport field, in the classroom and in social media. In the democratic South Africa, many elements of the politics of reading have stayed the same as before 1994, especially in terms of perceptions of and about Bible as scripture and in terms of use of the Bible, while some aspects of the engagement such as who counts as engaged readers, show signs of change.