Experiencing God in Everything and Nothingness: Negativity, Embodiment, and Spirituality--South African Perspectives

COVID-19 has impacted the way we see the world and the way we view spirituality; in times of crisis, people turn or return to religion or spirituality. Most of the South African population identifies as Christian. This brings to the fore what is meant by “spirituality” in a country crippled by the remains of apartheid structure, rampant corruption, poverty, and various systemic problems. Overall, there is a lack of scholarship investigating “spirituality” and “spirituality studies” from the global South. This book aims to bridge the gap. New avenues are investigated of thinking about God in difficult circumstances, as ideologies of hope and prosperity are reshaped. This book links text and context, spirituality and material culture, self and society, the analogue and the digital, contemplation and action, saying and unsaying; in short, the question of experiencing God in both everything and nothingness comes under the scope of this book.

Annette Potgieter is a senior lecturer in New Testament and related literature at the University of Pretoria. She is the author of Contested Body: Metaphors of Dominion in Romans 5-8 (2020) and the editor of Resilience in a VUCA World: Reflections on Teaching, Learning and Health in Turbulent Times (2022). She completed her doctorate in theology at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (2019).


Khegan M. Delport is a Research Fellow at the Department of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology, University of Stellenbosch and Department of Historical and Constructive Theology, University of the Free State. He has published his work in Modern Theology, The Heythrop Journal, and The Journal of Anglican Studies, amongst others.