Background: As part of the Education and Global Social Justice Project, in May 2011 undergraduate student Conor Finnegan interviewed Natalie de Abreu, Harry Houseman, Harry Moyo, and Samantha Sadie, high school students at De La Salle Holy Cross College, in Johannesburg, South Africa. In this interview, the students discuss their religious beliefs, their perception of religion and biblical literalism in South Africa, and their experience at the Origins Center.
What religion do you follow? How does religion influence, motivate, detract from, or otherwise affect your life?
Samantha Sadie, Grade 11: Well, I’m Catholic, and it’s quite a big part of my life. My family is Catholic, and I’ve been raised Catholic. We’re quite staunch Catholics. At school, it’s also quite a big part of our lives because we go to youth group and go to church every Sunday. I’m making my confirmation now, so it takes up quite a lot of my time, and it’s something that I enjoy following.
Natalie De Abreu, Grade 11: I’m also Catholic, and I’m also part of that youth group here at school. I go to church every Sunday. My whole family is Catholic, and we pray before meals. I think it’s nice coming to a Catholic school as well, to be able to be open with your beliefs.
Harry Moyo, Grade 12: I’m also Catholic, and I also belong to the same youth group—we all do. For me personally, being Catholic is important because I feel that an acknowledgement of God is important. I feel that giving respect is important, and I feel that the way that I have chosen to do so, by being Catholic, is a good way to go about that giving thanks. So I incorporate it into my life. It’s a way to guide yourself and always remember where you want to be going. It’s a big thing in my life as well.
Harry Houseman, Grade 12: I’m also Catholic, but it’s different. My mom is Greek Orthodox, and my dad just calls himself Christian—he’s not really Catholic. They decided to bring me up in the Catholic society, and they baptized me and put me in a Catholic school. I’ve been in a Catholic school since grade naught. It’s also a big thing in my life because my sister and I both follow the Catholic lifestyle. We both go to church together. My mom even joins us when we go to church; it’s a lifestyle that we live. We pray together; we go to church together.
How do you think your religion influences your after-school activities and your interactions with friends?
Sadie: It’s not like we don’t do stuff that’s crazy. We still kind of follow the models of the Catholic religion when we go out or when we are together because most of my friends are also Catholic.
De Abreu: It’s easier to do that when you’re still with your friends, but I think it’s more challenging to stand up for what you believe in when you are the only one who believes that.
Sadie: My whole family is Catholic—well, my whole dad’s side—and my friends are all Catholic, so I find it easy to be Catholic, and I never have to stand up for my religion.
Moyo: Both of us on the committee of the youth group we all go to—we hold each other accountable. Even with friends that aren’t Catholic, it doesn’t get in the way. It’s not something you stay away from, but it’s not something you don’t discuss. It’s easy to be at an understanding with friends; it doesn’t have to be a problem, and it never has been a problem with us. And I think we’re capable of standing up if we need to. It hasn’t come up, perhaps because people in general, especially people in this school, are respectful.
Houseman: I think being in a Catholic school plays a big role in it. You’re around a lot more Catholic people. If we went to a different school, it’d be a different story. But if I explain to my friends outside of school what religion I follow, none of them really have, like, a problem with it. Some of them might not believe in a few of the things that the Catholic community does, but otherwise, they don’t have a problem. They allow me to explain myself, and I’ve never really had an issue.
Where do you stand on the creation/evolution issue? Have you ever changed your mind about it?
Sadie: I didn’t know a lot about evolution, and I was raised thinking that God created the Big Bang and that that’s how the world came about. I knew that there were different scientific definitions, but I also kind of always knew that there was a link—that God made that happen. So I understood that before, and after learning more, I still found the same sort of thing.
De Abreu: For me, I knew there was also kind of a link, but I didn’t really think that the Church was for it, and finding out that they were was nice. But I also didn’t really know anything about the scientific take before, so it was nice to actually know what happens. It could be that God did create the things, and then we as creation moved on and developed.
Moyo: If there’s a problem or something doesn’t make sense to me, then I need to sort that out before I can move on. I had to figure these things out before I could carry on being Catholic. If I had a problem about where things came from, I had to sort it out for myself so that afterwards, if you asked me, I could say, “No, that’s sorted out for me.” I had already thought about most of the stuff that came up, so I understood where he was coming from. Personally, I got a lot of it. I think the talk messed up a lot of people because our group ended up asking a lot of irrelevant questions—questions that can’t be answered in the space of a minute—and because of that, I think a lot of loose ends weren’t tied. Personally, I got what he meant, but to be honest, I think most people didn’t.
Houseman: As for me, I’ve always had both views. I’ve always believed in evolution, but I’ve always believed that God, the greater power, created that kind of evolution. The talk was not really a talk that gave any new input for me because I’ve heard it before, and I’ve gone through it before. A lot of my friends and a lot of my mom’s friends study that kind of evolution stuff. I’m not going to sit back and say that I deny that this kind of thing happened because they’ve got so much proof on it, but I will fight and say that I believe that God is the one who was there to make it happen; he was the greater power.
Interestingly, no one mentioned Adam and Eve, but I’ve found that many people believe that the story of Adam and Eve was true. Do any of you believe that?
De Abreu: I think maybe just as a symbol.
Sadie: Yeah, symbolically.
Moyo: I’ve always thought of it symbolically.
Houseman: I believed that it happened, but I don’t believe that they were just put on earth. I believe it’s a story about these two people, and it just explains morals and life goals or ethics.
De Abreu: Yeah, about how we have the choice.
Sadie: It could be kind of metaphoric.
Moyo: That situation may have happened in that way, where they got the choice to accept or deny. I think something like that did happen, and it was bound to happen. It’s just a simplified version of the story so that; we teach kids the story, so it needs to be accessible and easily sent across.
There are still those who believe that that is exactly how those events happened. Why do you think so many people in this country in particular have that belief? Where do you think they get that idea?
De Abreu: I think we were told that idea when we were younger, so some people just keep going back and never question it. And some people think that the Church doesn’t want to change or develop, so they think the old ways are always the right thing.
Sadie: And also, a lot of people think the Bible is factual, when no one ever told us it was factual. It can be symbolic, and I think a lot of the things did happen—I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that everything in the Bible actually happened exactly how it’s said. A lot of the things, like time for example—they’ll say 40 days, and it could be symbolic to something else; it doesn’t necessarily mean it was actually 40 days.
Why do people think it’s factual?
Houseman: They’ve never really been told otherwise. Sometimes you come across people, and they’ll tell you otherwise. Like me, with that whole evolution thing, because I’ve been told otherwise, I look at the other side of the story as well, and I start to question. But then a lot of the people go through life, and they’ve never actually been told the other side. They just believe what they read, or they believe what they’ve been told, and they never question or anything.
Moyo: I think in this country especially, if you look at racist people, it’s easy to hear what they’ve heard and then let it fit into what they’ve been taught at home, and I think people would rather do that than flesh out the ideas. So people will say, “No, that’s wrong,” the same way that the old racist people might have justified what they were doing because of the Bible: “It’s immoral,” or whatever. What they’re doing is bending the Bible to kind of push their own agendas.
Sadie: To suit themselves.
Moyo: Yeah, to suit them. And it’s easy to do that. Although this is not on the same scale as that, it’s still the same kind of concept. The story’s easier, and people don’t want to go and think deeper—because you can think deeper, but to what end? You know more, but in the end, it doesn’t do much for us either—we just know more.
Sadie: Also, because it’s what they’re told if they go to church all the time. In the readings—it’s what they’re told, it’s kind of their everything.
De Abreu: And the Gospel is the truth.
Moyo: There’s nothing that makes you have to learn more, or go deeper into it. You can take it as it is, or you could read into it. And if you choose to do that, then, who are we to say?
Do you think any one particular group is more inclined to believe this—blacks or whites or coloreds or Indians, or Christians or Catholics or [African instituted churches], or even the poor versus the educated?
Moyo: I’ll be honest with you. I think of the old racist South Africa as being more inclined because they felt that they brought the faith here. You’ll find the places that still believe in stuff like that are those really old Afrikaans churches that you find in the middle of nowhere. I’ve heard stories about places; our one teacher told us that there’s a church, I think in Cape Town, I don’t know where exactly, where they still believe in stuff like that. I think it’s those people who, funnily enough, were the originators of the faith, in a way.
De Abreu: Those that are older…
Moyo: Yeah, it’s the people who brought [Christianity to South Africa].
Sadie: Because it’s also known as a Western tradition—Christianity is not known as originating in South Africa. It’s more like people brought it to us.
Moyo: I think it’s progressed, and I think the people who aren’t progressive in the same way haven’t progressed with. I think that’s the group. I wouldn’t say the poor are more inclined, because the poor are taught by whoever they’re taught by. I think the originators are the ones.
Houseman: It’s more the older view than the youth, because if you ask the youth nowadays, 90 percent of the time, they won’t say, “I believe it, hands down, but it did happen”—
Sadie: Yeah, because there’s so many different—
Houseman: But if you ask an old person, than they’re the ones who are most likely to leave it hands down without any other explanation.
Sadie: Also in time, it’s changed. Before, religion could be a very staunch thing that families didn’t discuss, whereas now we’re freer to discuss it. It’s an open freedom of speech type thing.
Moyo: Obviously we’re younger, so it’s easier for us to be able to shift our ideas. But if you’re 70 years old and you believe something your whole life, somebody can’t come tell you something different after you’ve believed for 70 years. I think that’s a big thing as well. I think that’s probably the main thing.
I would like to talk about the presentation itself. What were your initial reactions last Tuesday?
Sadie: Well, me and Natalie, we did a different talk.
Moyo: We had two groups, basically.
Sadie: Yeah, it was grade 11s and then grade 12s. For our grade 11 talk, I heard it was a little bit different. I think you went into a little more detail with the grade 12s.
De Abreu: But the science side was really good. I think it really made sense.
Sadie: Yeah, the lady, that was the science. And then the priest—
De Abreu: He didn’t really have everyone’s attention.
Sadie: Because he was so clever, I think in his mind it made sense to him, but for some of us, we didn’t really understand—
De Abreu: The link between the two.
Sadie: Yeah, it made sense in his mind because it’s what he’s been studying his whole life. But then, for us, we were thinking, “Wait, what?”
De Abreu: He was saying stuff like, “The Bible was symbolic,” and then some people who aren’t Catholic who go to this school said, “Yeah, you see? It’s not even real.” So they kind of said stuff—
Sadie: You couldn’t focus on every word he said, so if you just got a little bit, you thought, “Oh, so you just said, ‘The Bible’s not real.’” We kind of had to think of it afterwards and think, “Okay, wait, what is he saying, and what was he meaning?” And he also said, “No, you know how Adam and Eve aren’t real,” so we were thinking, “Hmmm.” And he said, “No, church is boring.” Aren’t you a priest? Afterwards, we thought about it, and he was saying it in the sense of how he feels; it was all his opinion.
Houseman: As for our talk, I wasn’t wowed by anything because I’ve heard it all before. But the scientific talk was very interesting; it’s proof, she’s explained everything that’s there, that’s given to you. And then the priest guy came on. I could understand him, and I was following him. What I found out about our talk with him was that with a lot of the people, there was a lot of selective hearing. Like a person would listen to what they want to hear, so if the person wanted to hear him say the Bible is not real, they’re going to take that. But they weren’t listening to the rest of his statement. So the one question came up in ours with prayer. A lot of the really religious people heard him say that prayer is useless, but he did not actually say prayer is useless. He said prayer of your own intentions, like if you pray for a new BMW for example, you’re not going to get it. But if you pray for an intention, if you pray for strength, but it’s, like, also, it fell to a lot of deaf ears. You chose what you wanted to hear. But for me, I listened to all of it, so I kind of followed along.
Moyo: I think the science part—it was easy for the woman because science is definite. She can say, “Dah dah dah, like this, like this, like this.” Someone can argue with her, and she can say, “No, but I’ve studied this, and this and this have been found,” and they’ll be [say], “Oh, okay.” But with this now, the questions are too open-ended. In terms of what Harry was saying, people did have selective hearing, but I don’t think it was their fault. I think it was more his fault because he would [discuss] concepts that were way too out there. He said that prayer doesn’t do anything itself, and what he meant was that God is always with you, and that when you pray, you’re changing yourself really, and you’re making an effort to let God in. But people see it as now God doesn’t affect the world in any way; he’s set things, and he’s stood back now. And that kind of thing, I was worried by it because I thought that it would mess up a lot of people. One girl asked, “Tonight if I pray for my grandfather while he’s sick, does that not do anything?” I could see that he was in a tough place, because he couldn’t say no, that’d be a bit heartless, but he said, “Okay, he also prays, but then you go and help by getting him a new…” He needed more time first of all, and the questions that were asked were too open-ended. It sounded like he was sidestepping, when in fact he just, I suppose, needed more time. I think if it was better explained, I think people would’ve gotten it. But I think it wasn’t explained that well. So it might’ve been people’s fault, but it was also his fault for not finishing the ideas and just leaving bits of them for people to finish themselves. And obviously people pounced on things they wanted to hear.
Sadie: Also, it was hard for him to dumb it down, I think, and be simple—
Moyo: Yeah, he’s too intellectual—he used big words, and I think people got them, but they didn’t get everything…
What do you think he could have done better? What could he have done to improve the whole program specifically?
Moyo: Dumb it down, I think.
Moyo: [Make it] accessible, more accessible.
Houseman: Yeah, more accessible and understandable for some of the people.
Moyo: And not get carried away.
Houseman: But he definitely needed a lot more time because some of the questions you could not answer in an hour’s time. You need a lot more time than two. He was even saying to a few of the questions asked, “I can’t answer it. That would take me three to four months to fully explain to you.” He must just make it simpler and understandable
De Abreu: Also, he should have been a bit careful about what he said, because some people had an opinion, and they would only listen to what they wanted to. Some people came out of it thinking, “Well, a priest said this isn’t real, so obviously it’s not.”
Sadie: People who really didn’t believe in the Catholic religion came out and were [saying], “See! He just completed my argument.” And we were [saying], “No, that’s not what he was saying…”
Moyo: He opened Pandora’s box when he said things loosely where he should have stopped at the stage before. And if people ask the questions, I think if it was handled a bit better, in terms of, if he had shut it down and brought it back because he started answering it and that’s, that’s too far in. At that point you’ve lost, because then whatever you say, you’re going to sound like you’re talking. Also, he was a very liberal kind of person. People are used to seeing a priest standing up there, and he gave them a different kind of priest, someone who’s not as stiff. He did say, “Church can be boring.” And I think it’s also because people are very conservative here. I think people are shocked by things because they couldn’t take the fact that a priest would say that. They’re used to the priest telling them what to do, so maybe it’s a thing of growth for them as well. I guess it might’ve been good in that way.
Houseman: After the talk, five of us went to go speak to him afterwards, and those extra few minutes of explanation cleared it for us because we were also left in a dead end. We were unsure, so we went to go and ask him afterwards, and just those extra few minutes actually cleared up a lot for us. But a lot of the people did not experience that, so they still left with those open-ended question of what’s right, what’s wrong, what to do, and what not to do.
Sadie: I spoke to some of the teachers afterwards, and they said that speaking to him one-on-one, he was so much better because you could kind of understand what he was saying because he was speaking directly to you, whereas when he was speaking to a group, he couldn’t directly get his point across of what he was actually meaning. Instead, he just got what we thought he meant.
On the flip side of all of that, what did you like about it? What are some of the strong points of the talk that could be employed elsewhere in South Africa and around the world when teaching this subject?
Moyo: I think that the fundamental concepts were good concepts, and it’s concepts that I think a lot of Catholics need to think about. I think most people scratch the surface in life with everything, but faith shouldn’t be the kind of thing that you do because if you’re going to get involved in something, then you should judge it and you should really know it. And people don’t, so this is the kind of thing that we need to think about. I think everybody needs to kind of think about it, and I think it’s like a good introduction. [Religious education, RE] classes, even during our confirmation course last year, are too airy sometimes.
Sadie and De Abreu: Yeah, because we’re doing confirmation now.
Moyo: Yeah.
De Abreu: And some of the stuff even you’re like—
Moyo: He [said], "If the devil wanted to attack you, he would attack at the womb." It’s a nice thing to say, and it kind of makes sense if you expand on it, but you shouldn’t have to expand on it because not everyone can expand on it. So people need to be more careful about airy concepts because when they say that, they think they sound more credible, but they don’t. They sound less credible. This guy sounded more credible to the people who weren’t completely convinced. They [thought], “Wow, that guy was amazing, he saw the loopholes and—” There aren’t loopholes! But it makes it seem like there are loopholes because they say airy things like, “He attacks the womb.”
Houseman: Another thing that helped a lot was that he explained both ends. He wasn’t closing chapters, like there’s only one side to it, and you only believe this side. I know a lot of priests do that. They’ll only argue one side.
De Abreu: Like it’s only the Bible.
Houseman: You follow the Bible, and if you don’t follow the Bible, it’s not right. He argued both sides. Again, a simple thing of him saying church is boring—he understands that it can be boring sometimes. He’s not saying it’s always going to be fun and exciting.
Sadie: Yeah, he had an open mind. He definitely had an open mind.
Houseman: He had both sides. Then he would bring his own opinion in, and he would let you think about. Another thing that our teacher told us was that he was also one of those guys that leaves you and lets you think about it. He won’t answer your question for you exactly, so you have to think for yourself.
Moyo: The problem is people think priests should answer their questions, and then they should take it. But he also gave us some cool facts – like he said that the guy who came up with the big bang theory was actually Catholic, and I thought that that was a pretty cool idea. For people to see that, I thought it was nice.
Sadie: And usually you think they’re opposites.
Houseman: Yeah.
Moyo: Yeah, you’d think because he’s a scientist, he’s a complete atheist. So that was cool to see as well. He gave us good facts as well—that we should hear, but we don’t. In science, we should actually learn that; there should be a little caption there, but there isn’t.
Houseman: He even told us about that one father that was thinking about it, that started this whole theory of it and how it’s progressed. We’ve always thought that the Church has been totally against it, but now to find out that it actually was one of the fathers inside of the Church who started the whole thought of it is something else. It opens your mind.
Did any of you have your minds changed by the talk in a dramatic way?
Houseman: I don’t know about us because we’re very strong group.
Sadie: Yeah, for us four, we’re all quite Catholic.
Houseman: But for the people who are unsure…
Moyo: It might’ve rocked their foundation.
Houseman: Yeah, for people that are unsure, it could’ve messed up their foundation. Those that are totally against it, not think about it—
Moyo: That was good, because it was a step sideways.
Houseman: Yeah, they actually got to think about it. But I think for us, we’ve got a very strong belief for what we believe in, and an understanding…
Sadie: And I think we can also kind of see the links. But also for the grade 11 group, I think that people who didn’t believe in it at all, they [were thinking], “Oh, okay, so it doesn’t really exist, the Bible is symbolic. It’s not really true…I was right to be atheist. Why are you all basing this on your religion?” And we were [saying], “Oh, no, we didn’t mean it like that.” So I think for those type people, they felt like they kind of got a victory out of that. But for people who were on the border, there were lots of questions.
Moyo: But I think every encounter with a new kind of priest is nice because people have an idea that the Church is one thing. They’ll say, “Oh, what about the priest molesting kids?” Then they’ll blame the Church for it, and you just think, “How can you?” Priests are people, and so this was nice to see a different kind of priest for a change. Just seeing a different priest is always interesting, especially one who is not cut from the same mold as the usual priest.
Part of the reason he is a different priest is because he is a Jesuit. Have you had previous experience with Jesuits?
Sadie: I didn’t even know. I’d heard of it, but I didn’t really know what it was about.
So you didn’t have any prior notions going in?
Sadie and De Abreu: No
Houseman: A lot of the people were thinking, “How can he say that? He’s a priest.” It was only afterwards [when] we were told that he looks at the science side and the religious side of matters that it actually made sense why he was saying things like that. A lot of people walked in and thought he was like some big Catholic priest from across the road [who] would just [think] evolution is rubbish, so they never knew exactly what he did.
Moyo: Yeah, I think I heard that Jesuits were academic, but obviously this was a new experience for me because I never knew what angle actually he would take.
Are there any other final comments, stories, or reactions you would like to share?
Moyo: People were either rocked and distraught afterwards, or they were thinking, “Yeah, yeah.” Our grade wasn’t like that though. They didn’t say, “You see, it’s all fake.” They appreciated the talk.
Sadie: I think that was really just people being naïve. They weren’t really listening to what he was saying.
Moyo: Even the negatives in our grade, they were [saying], “We can respect him because he looks at things as they are, and it’s put Catholicism into a realistic world.” They appreciated that much, so I think the negative people in our grade took [something] from it as well.
I feel like now we have a bit of an issue because there were so many people that were either rocked by it or who now find reason not to believe. What do you think your teachers or the Jesuit Institute can do from here that can fix that?
Sadie: Well, I think those people are always going to find the doubt. Even if they tried, they don’t want religion.
De Abreu: Even in RE classes, if little things go wrong, they’ll be like, “Oh yeah—”
Sadie: They want God not to be there, so they—
Moyo: They’re looking for reasons.
Sadie: If there wasn’t a talk, they would’ve still found a reason not to, so they can’t really do anything. There’s always going to be people like that.
Moyo: I think the job that’s been done is just to show it to people who could be open to it, and if someone’s mind gets changed along the way, then that’s good.
Houseman: But again for us, I think if you gave that talk to adults, it would have a whole different effect. For us as youth, we understand it, we’ve gone through it, we’ve been taught about similar things by different people. But if you teach adults, the ones that are strict and that follow the Bible like it’s their life—
Moyo: He’d get more of that at one of those Afrikaans places.
Sadie: No, no jokes—my gran—she would say, “No, evolution is not right.”
Houseman: But if you sat him down with those kind of people, it would have a bigger effect than it would have on us.
Moyo: It’s good for us to get it now because this is when we’re growing
Houseman: And it makes you think.
Sadie: Yeah.
They are considering doing that, though. They are considering teaching teachers instead of young students because your teacher would have more contact with you and have more time to answer all these questions.
De Abreu: It would be nice if our RE teachers also said some stuff about science, [so] people who didn’t really believe in God could also see it’s in real life.
Sadie: Also, I think the teachers did really well with it because Mrs. R spoke to me afterwards, and I understood much better what he was trying to say and how we went about it and why we didn’t understand it as well as we should have. I think that cleared up a lot for me, so I’m glad that they were there.
Moyo: I spoke to our RE teacher who actually was under this priest. She said that he taught her theology, so teachers are equipped. It’s just we’ve got to bring the questions. Our class is quite lax.
Houseman: Plus teachers know how to teach—
Moyo: They know how to deal with kids, that’s the thing.
Houseman: [The priest] was just kind of just coming here and telling us about it.
Sadie: Also, he was a university lecturer, which makes it a bit higher
Moyo: A different type of teacher.
Sadie: Yeah.