Resurgent fundamentalism, politics, and the anti-liberal agenda: Challenges for South Africa’s constitutional democracy

Abstract

Against the background of changes in the religion-state relationship in South Africa since 2009, this essay provides the foundational history of a resurgent fundamentalist Christian alliance that seeks to exert influence in politics, state institutions, and civil society. The discussion includes the growth of fundamentalist groups in the United States that established the religious right as a political force on which the alliance’s stringent anti-liberal agenda and strategies are modelled. In conclusion, the unlimited right to religious freedom is questioned in the context of guarantees of protection from discrimination in a constitutional democracy.