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Christians in the Cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria

Becoming in an African Megacity

Christians in the Cities of Johannesburg and Pretoria

Becoming in an African Megacity

This item is a print on demand title and will be dispatched in 1-3 weeks.

Hardback

£75.00

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781350329898
Number of Pages: 344
Published: 24/07/2025
Width: 16 cm
Height: 24 cm

Taking a glimpse into the impact of Christianity in one of Africa’s largest and fastest-evolving megacities, located in the Gauteng City-Region, this book explores how faith shapes the city and its society.

Addressing a scarcity of religious scholarship in the field of urban studies, the book focuses on the Johannesburg-Pretoria corridor and Christian faith expressions in this evolving megacity. Stéphan de Beer highlights how city and faith are in conversation and explores various expressions of Christian faith in an ever-changing urban landscape.

Connecting socio-spatial change in post-apartheid South African cities with the changing Christian landscape, the connections and disconnections between Christian faith expressions and urban change are interrogated. Chapters feature wide coverage across both cities, including places like Soweto and Sandton, Sunnyside and Soshanguve, and everything in between. Examining these contexts where global migration and Christian faith increasingly co-exist, the book provides valuable insights to students of religion, sociology and urban studies.

1. Becoming in an African megacity: tracing change

Part I: Johannesburg: city of rushing hearts

2. Contested space in inner city Johannesburg: where Africa arrives
3. Sandton – Alexandra: life and death, divided by a highway
4. Soweto: the unmapped heart of urbanity
5. The new north: yearning, being, becoming
6. Holding on, letting go: Joburg’s old eastern suburbs
7. Morphing cities: Midrand-Centurion’s ‘un-urban’ urbanity

Part II: From Pretoria to Tshwane – shedding its apartheid clothes

8. (Un)imaginative becoming: Tshwane’s inner city and old east
9. Separated by the dead: the tales of Mamelodi and Eersterust
10. Facing each other: Woodlane Village, Woodhill Estate & Moreleta Church
11. An exploding north: from Sefako Makgatho to Soshanguve
12. All-pervasive urban tentacles: loving in a city that knows no end

Bibliography
Index

Stéphan de Beer (University of Pretoria, South Africa)

Stephan de Beer is Director of the Centre for Faith and Community at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.