Pharos Journal of Theology (Nov 2020)
Effectiveness of WhatsApp homiletics in the era of COVID-19 in South Africa
Abstract
A recent experience, that of the lockdown due to the emergence of COVID-19 in South Africa, resulted in religious groupings, such as Judaism, Islam and Christianity, among others, turning to social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and YouTube, among others) as a significant means of communication, social interaction, as well as religious teaching. Due to space constraints, this discussion is limited to the homiletics of the Christian church, and does not include religions such as Judaism and Islam. As a precautionary measure against COVID19, many churches used WhatsApp groups to reach out to their diverse membership in various demographic locations. The present study problematises the emergence of WhatsApp as a critical platform to disseminate gospel-related material; this platform presents material in a more fashionable form, and was not utilised much before the advent of COVID-19. The study discusses homiletics through WhatsApp in view of the following three main aims: (1) To demonstrate that COVID-19 is a reality and the lockdown was a necessary ‘evil’ to reduce its impact, (2) To reveal that the WhatsApp platform developed the preachers’ sermon delivery skills without the personal presence of congregants, which is atypical of a conventional church gathering, and (3) To show that the WhatsApp group platform played a key role in church members accessing sermonettes, Bible teachings and prayer sessions, from the comfort of their homes. The research applied qualitative content analysis (thematic analysis), which examined content and themes of recorded human communications; responses were solicited from participants through email conversations. In addition, the study employed the so-called uses and gratification theory to demonstrate that users do derive some gratification from WhatsApp homiletics.
