Courageous Conversations as Public Theology: In Search of New Partnerships for Justice

A keynote address to the Together for Justice Conference at the University of the Western Cape:

Friends, colleagues, sisters and brothers in Christ: I greet you all in the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of our lives.

Sermon for Midnight Mass at St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town, Christmas 2016

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba

Lessons: Isaiah 62:6-12, Ps 97,Ttitus 3:4-7, Luke 2:8-20

Welcome to each and every one of you: I am glad you are all here, on this most holy night! 

The Place of Religion in Public Life

This media release from the Provincial Synod was issued on 4 October 2013

Anglicans Affirm the Place of Religion in Public Life

A leading educationist now serving the Anglican Church has criticised the South African government for neglecting religion in public life.

The Revd Prof Barney Pityana told the Provincial Synod of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa that the latest South African census statistics failed for the first time to give data on religious affiliation and activity in the country.

“It is evidence if any was needed of how much officialdom desires to neglect religion and religious practices in national life,” he said. “It cannot be true that there is so much indifference about statistics on religion that an inquiry on religion should be left out altogether from the statistics design.”

Dr Pityana, formerly Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of South Africa, is now the Rector of the College of the Transfiguration, the Anglican Church's principal residential training seminary for clergy.

Criticising the promotion of secularism in South African public life, he said the words “secular” and “secular state” did not appear anywhere in the Constitution or legislation.

“On the contrary, religious and cultural and linguistic practices are protected in the Bill of Rights, and so are freedom of expression, belief and opinion.”

He said secularism “has a tendency of confining religious discourse and practice to the private sphere.” As a result, “the secular world view... is one that is unable to be addressed or corrected or challenged. It forecloses any argument or engagement.

“For that reason secularism is unable to engage with the spiritual and intangible and as such will always have an inadequate grasp of the human condition. Secularism is about the material, hence it givers rise to the cultures of acquisitiveness, greed, an insatiable desire for things or for those things that derive personal benefit or prestige.

“Over and above secularism results in corruption and criminality because it covets that which does not belong to one. It is about power and control of others.”

Dr Pityana remarks, made during an address on theological education, were warmly received by the Synod.

Issued by the Office of the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town
Inquiries: Ms Wendy Kelderman, 021 763 1320 (office hours)
The Revd Canon Dr Sarah Rowland Jones, 082 856 2082 (during Synod)

News from New Zealand - 8

Sunday 4 November - Yesterday I observed a Sabbath from writing. Sunday was a day for ACC members to have ‘Mission Encounters’: through worship, conversation and hospitality at the invitation of churches in Auckland and the wider Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. So on Saturday evening I travelled from Auckland to Wellington on the southern tip of North Island, and stayed overnight with Tony and Susan Browne, delightful and hospitable hosts. They gave a great dinner, over which I enjoyed meeting some of their colleagues and friends.

On Sunday morning Canon Jenny Wilkens, the priest in charge, also gave me a warm welcome at St Paul’s Cathedral and showed me the ropes . The Cathedral is situated opposite the Houses of Parliament, rather like our St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town. I enjoyed preaching at both the 8am and 10am services today and appreciated the parish lunch afterwards. I shared a thirty minutes PowerPoint presentation about the life and mission of ACSA – I hope it will soon be available on our ACSA website, for you to see and comment on. It was fulfilling to hear the views of senior laity, committed to our church and wanting it to be relevant in its vocation and teachings about Christ, and its prophetic ministry in situations where there is no fairness and justice. It was a great time, and I enjoyed discussions about church and state, including with diplomats and former diplomats. I was particularly glad to meet South Africa's High Commissioner and Deputy High Commissioner to New Zealand at the 8am service.

The people were very warm. We may be different in locality, race, and other particulars, but the way we are able to share in worship underscores that the Anglican Communion family is one, among the baptized people of God. We share far more profound similarities than superficial differences. In both worship and fellowship this was evident.

Wellington is a beautiful city, though windy like Port Elizabeth in South Africa. The air strip is surrounded by water on both sides – it reminded me of landing at Port-au-Prince airport, when I visited Haiti after their terrible earthquake. We were all asked to bring back a picture from our Mission Encounter, and write 100 words about our experience for sharing with the ACC plenary on Monday. I took a photograph of the picturesque scene where North and South Islands almost meet, from the hill that overlooks Cook Strait – it is rather like Signal Hill overlooking Table Bay in Cape Town! It was a beautiful sight, and I am grateful to my hosts who took me for a tour after the service and lunch.

This afternoon I travelled back to Auckland and I will now have an early night to bed in readiness for our final week of work. As a preparation for coming down from this ‘mountain top experience’, I am starting to reflect on the weeks ahead, back in Southern Africa. Soon after I return, Lungi and I will go to Swaziland to consecrate our first woman bishop in the Province, Revd Ellinah Wamukoya. Pray for us, and for Ellinah as she takes this enormous responsibility of serving Christ in this new role.

Independence of Faith Communities from Government and Political Parties

This statement was issued by the Western Cape Religious Leaders' Forum on 1 November 2012. No invitation to President Zuma's meeting with 'the religious sector' was received at Bishopscourt.

WCRLF CALLS ON RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES TO BE VIGILANT IN THEIR INDEPENDENCE FROM GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL PARTIES

The Western Cape Religious Leaders Forum (WCRLF) notes with concern the report on “Nation Building through Social Dialogue with the Religious Sector,” a conference convened at the Good Hope Centre on Tuesday 30 October 2012. The conference was organized by the ANC Legislature at which President Jacob Zuma was the keynote speaker. We note with further consternation that the conference purports to ‘strengthen the ANC’s association with the interfaith movement’ and hailed President Zuma as ‘having worked hard to unite the religious people of SA’.

The WCRLF feels compelled to re-affirm one of its founding principles namely, that faith communities should strive to be an independent voice, free of government or party political interference. This is one of the most important lessons that we as religious leaders have learnt from the apartheid crime against humanity, when some churches became the racist National Party at prayer. In light of this tragic lesson, WCRLF has committed itself to resist the temptation of merely being apologists for the political authorities or of being co-opted by political parties to advance their own agendas. We do not need government to unite the religious communities of South Africa. The vital process of inter-religious dialogue and solidarity should and is being nurtured and promoted by the interfaith movement ourselves. The WCRLF and its partner organization the Cape Town Interfaith Initiative (CTII) have been contributing to reconciliation in modest ways by striving to overcome the stubborn racial, religious and class divides in the City of Cape Town for more than a decade. Neither the WCRLF nor the CTII were invited to attend the conference held in our city.

Furthermore, as religious leaders we have a prophetic role of being one of civil society’s strongest partners in holding our government accountable for its political and moral mandate. This is the only insurance for a robust democracy. In this regard WCRLF has recently joined a wide range of public intellectuals and social activists in expressing concern about the growing problem of corruption in public and private life. With half our population living in poverty and millions still without jobs, housing, electricity, adequate sanitation, and medical care the human cost of corruption is widely felt. We thus note with great distress and dismay that the 30 October 2012 conference, cost a reported R2.1 million! The WCRLF supports calls to fully investigate how the event and funding came about.

We call on religious leaders and communities to be vigilant about attempts by government and political parties to co-opt them and to continue their prophetic role of being the independent moral conscience of society alongside other civil society partners.

Faith Leaders' Role in Shaping Perceptions, Addressing Poverty

Here are two recent opinion pieces, carried in The Star and The Sunday Independent.

Faith leaders can shape perceptions

The Star, October 24 2012 at 09:00am

For many countries, the need for nation branding on the world stage has become a major imperative in recent years. Whether stimulated by the need to pursue individual national objectives of trade and investment, or to support specific tourism promotion initiatives, positioning a country’s brand has never been more important.

With the backdrop of the recent events in Marikana that have projected our country in a bad light, it is crucial that all of us, including members and leaders of various faith persuasions, ask ourselves what role we are playing to position SA as a country which can still attract much needed investments from all over the world.

Positioning a country for investment purposes among others requires the active participation and support of all those decision-makers, opinion-formers and leaders in the country who are committed to spreading the positive word. This does not for a minute mean denial of the negative.

South Africa is a unique, progressive and caring nation that is open for business and ready to welcome the world to its shores. It needs consistent and constant messaging through a range of powerful global platforms, delivered by voices of authority, trust and knowledge, in order to reach the hearts and minds of those who need to change their perceptions.

In the world of global business, corporations would take the approach of focusing solely on their strengths to take attention away from any perceived weaknesses, however in the case of nation branding, a country brand is about positioning it in the best possible light while acknowledging that it has its own unique strengths and weaknesses. This is when unified voices of authority and trust come into their own when working to position SA’s nation brand on the global stage, and none more so than the voices of the country’s faith leaders.

There is a definitive role to be played by SA’s faith leaders in terms of contributing to the positioning of SA to the world and helping to shape perceptions of the country in the hearts and minds of diverse global audiences. Such a nation branding role would reflect the important and unique roles played by SA’s faith leaders in national life and also reflect a distinctly different perspective from the corporate or government voice in positioning the country on the global stage.

Faith leaders have the capacity to recognise the intrinsic, unique features of our country’s essential character and to differentiate it from every other country in the world. Through its rich traditions, the diversity of its people, its powerful history and heritage and its unique natural resources, SA has a unique story to tell.

Faith-based organisations and leaders have a powerful, non-partisan voice with which to convey good-news stories as well as bad news that have the capacity to express and amplify South Africa’s nation-brand in a non-commercial way, but focus on the planet and people. This in turn will dovetail with other complementary national branding initiatives seeking to percolate good-news stories.

Another important role to be played by SA’s faith leaders in positioning the country globally is to promote a spirit of inclusivity and openness between faith institutions and the international press and broadcast media. This will certainly improve relationships and the way that the country is portrayed in the global media environment. Faith leaders are well positioned to stimulate positive and meaningful dialogue in the media which support unifying nation brand themes and keep pushing country values that support South Africa’s strategic nation building position in the global marketplace.

The voices and messages of the country’s faith leaders ensure that accurate news and positive images of the country are proactively portrayed to enhance and support the overall national strategic positioning, while at the same time avoiding blatant distortions, manipulation or attempts to control press and media relationships, as in the fear of the secrecy bill.

Finally, faith leaders can assume an important ambassadorial role as that of enablers and facilitators. Through a process of advocacy and thought leadership, they can become a trusted and authoritative voice, spreading powerful news and messages about South Africa when travelling and participating in events across the world. They can shape more informed perceptions of the country on the part of overseas visitors and delegations of foreign faith leaders, providing accurate news, images and updates on new, progressive developments in the country. In turn, those visiting the country will take back to their own nations and peoples an informed perception of SA as a nation on the move in the global marketplace.

However, it must be recognised that with a more proactive role on the part of faith leaders in the positioning of South Africa, there comes social responsibility.

South Africa’s image in the global marketplace can also be negatively influenced by domestic issues and events that garner the wrong kind of global media and public attention, for example with the recent Marikana mine conflict.

This story was carried for many days around the world by a plethora of global media outlets, all reflecting poorly on South Africa’s image through their coverage of the tragic situation that unfolded. There was an opportunity missed by the country’s faith-based leaders, with the exception of a few from the SACC and other churches, to publicly show the world that they can play an active role in helping to reduce conflict and address the critical needs of society through a multicultural and interreligious approach that espouses religious tolerance and a shared concern for humanity.

Enlightened faith leaders and scholars of all faiths have a key role to play in situations such as the Marikana mine conflict.

Their advocacy and wisdom can influence political leaders and ordinary citizens alike. Their teaching and guidance can inspire people to new levels of responsibility, commitment and public service, and by their example, they can promote interfaith dialogue and bridge the chasms of ignorance and misunderstanding.

This is as much a factor in the process of successful nation building and the dispelling of uninformed perceptions of SA in the global marketplace, as any other marketing campaign or media exercise devised to encourage visitors and investment.
At the end of the day we have to answer the question on whether faith-based organisations have critically engaged with South Africa over the last 20 years to cement the fundamentals that can create sustainable stability necessary for investments to keep flowing, as well as flourishing, for the benefit of the poorest of the poor. Let’s play our part in holding up SA as a beacon of hope for the downtrodden all over the world.

http://www.iol.co.za/the-star/faith-leaders-can-shape-perceptions-1.1409659

Conditions for miners is sub-human

October 28 2012 at 02:37pm

One of the crucial issues facing SA is the dehumanising poverty levels of the majority of our population. Last week, as we marked World Poverty Day, the horrendous statistics of people living below the poverty line across the world were revealed. Closer to home, the last few weeks have put the mining sector in the spotlight and pointed to the fact that we, as a nation, must pay more attention to the critical question of economic redress as a precondition for fighting poverty.

The conditions of employment in the mining industry are in all honesty sub-human. In the wake of the Marikana tragedy, I was moved to write to the president to once again underline the question of urgent action to ensure that the underlying economic questions are addressed once and for all.

US president Franklin D Roosevelt, in his second inaugural address, said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” This is the challenge that has been thrown up by the strikes that have afflicted that industry in particular, placing on the national discourse the morality of exorbitant bonuses for bosses and a pittance for workers who risk their lives every day to dig up the metals that are a source of riches for the few.

My heart is sore, and my spirit is grieving after visiting some of the mining areas, especially in the Northwest area. It felt as if the land was crying out to me, deep in my soul, saying, “All is not well, all is not well.” It felt like the calm before the storm, the eye of the hurricane. That part of North-West province teeters on a knife edge. The dire state of everything from living conditions to the issues in the mining community, stirred up revulsion inside me. This is the stuff from which revolution is far too easily made, if we allow it. Whether in the mines or anywhere else, living and working conditions that – 18 years after the coming of democracy – still deliver neither human dignity nor economic justice, have become a cancer spreading across our country.

Poverty and its consequences are clearly portrayed in scripture as evil. And this evil all too often arises from structural deficiencies rooted in moral failings. Of course, the problems can be complex. If there were simple, easy answers to poverty, to inequality, to unemployment, someone somewhere would have found them by now. This is why we need good research on strategies to overcome poverty and inequality. This is why we need comprehensive policy initiatives like the National Development Plan. But more important, we need a serious and urgent commitment to implement pledges that have been made since the dawn of the mining charter.

Those discussions recognised that the conditions under which mine workers worked were unacceptable. That situation still remains. We have not been true to the spirit of many of the policies passed in the past 18 years. Indeed the tragedy of Marikana did not come from nowhere. It came about because we have been content to let things slide. They have slid in policy-making and implementation; in attitudes that allow economic inequalities to grow; in acceptance of high and low-level corruption, and in ineffectual implementation of good governance and the rule of law. They have slid in the worsening trust between government and citizens, politicians and people.

In the midst of all this, trouble fermented in the mining sector in particular, and gave rise to the tragedy that shocked the whole world and cast all of us in a bad light. It is, as Mamphela Ramphele has said, above all a failure of leadership: in politics, but also in business, and in the cosy relationship they too often enjoy. Our leaders are the deaf, who cannot hear the loud cries of the hungry, the homeless, the needy, the oppressed. Our leaders are the blind, who cannot see what is right in front of their faces.

And what of the church? We must be doers of the word, not hearers only. We cannot remain silent. What we see and hear, we must speak out about. And so while there may be many other challenges that have led to this situation, it is important to speak quite clearly about the urgent need to fast-track transformation in the mining sector by asking a few difficult questions:
- Who is holding the mining sector accountable for the commitments they make to mining communities to plant back after they have extracted ore and profits from the mines? There is a moral imperative to ensure that if these commitments are not met there must be consequences.
- Who is holding industry accountable to ensure the mining sector transforms its ownership to reflect the demographics of our country? Neglect in this regard is responsible for the slowing down of change since the initial debates on our problems.
- Who is holding the worker organisations accountable for their role in the building of a suitable working environment and a collegial relationships between unions representing workers?
- Who is holding the government accountable for driving the transformation of this industry and monitoring commitments in line with various pieces of legislation.
- What is the role of traditional leaders, local government and civil society in mining communities in the face of what is clearly a stagnation in conversations?

It is clear from these questions that the recent developments in mining show us the huge gap that has been left to develop. Viewed differently these are questions which, when answered, can generate a sense of hope for what can be achieved. The inequality gap between the rich and poor – the worst in the world by all accounts – is clearly morally indefensible and economically unsustainable, if the downgrades by international agencies as well as the weakening rand are anything to go by.

Which means, as Roosevelt surmised, we will not succeed in engendering a sense of progress and hope until we provide for the poor and the downtrodden. We need to urge the social partners and government to start looking at what austerity measures are necessary across industries to once and for all focus on the big question of redress as a crucible of hope amidst all the despair that is the aftermath of Marikana.

My time in Marikana left me with the sense that this country is like a smouldering log that, left unattended, lies ready to ignite at the slightest wind. There is real urgency in these matters I am raising here. Yet I remain an optimist, for I have faith in the living God, whose word to us is peace and hope and new life. His gospel promises us a better future.

Therefore, this is not a message of doom – it is a call to wake up and act. All South Africans must rekindle the vision of a free, fair, just, South Africa which inspired the peaceful transition to democracy – and we must work and pray to bring it about. Never again must talk of “bloodbath” become a reality within our country. If we do the right things, hope is possible.

Makgoba is the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town

The Sunday Independent

http://www.iol.co.za/business/opinion/columnists/conditions-for-miners-is-sub-human-1.1412499

Church Leaders Engage with National Development Plan

The following statement was issued by South Africa's National Church Leaders on 16 October 2012

Church Leaders engage with the National Development Plan

An opportunity to deal with the wounds and the healing of our country.

The National Church Leaders’ Consultation gathering at Kempton Park from the 15 -16th October 2012 addressed many concerns and needs related to Religion and its input into addressing and making a difference in matters of Education, Public Health, Welfare, Economics and the implementation of the National Development Plan. Although we became deeply aware of the woundedness of our nation and the cry of our beloved country, we firmly believed that the unity of believers in SA can create an enormous opportunity and be a beacon of hope.

The Consultation was privileged to have the Minister of National Development and Planning, Mr. Trevor Manuel, address the meeting offering considerable reflection on the Plan and its implementation. He stressed the need for Church Leaders to not wait for government alone to address issues in our country but to take the initiative to encourage all citizens to become actively involved in the full realization of democracy.

At the meeting the Church Leaders agreed on the following:
1. We are a wounded nation facing poverty, distrust, racism and the breakdown of society which impacts negatively on the moral fiber of our country. For example, Marikana sent out a stern warning to us which show that this is a kairos moment requiring transformational leadership and action.
2. We commit as Church Leaders not only to exercise a prophetic and lamenting role in addressing the issues and struggles in South Africa but to get actively involved in making a difference in the lives of the poor, sick and suffering in our land today and to play a role in effecting healing, reconciliation and wholeness. In the same breath we call on government to more seriously recognize that Religious bodies are key partners in bringing about change in South Africa. In as much as we helped in dismantling apartheid we are called to play a vital role in the reconstruction of our beautiful land. We need integrated efforts of people, groups and institutions in making a difference. In this, Christian leaders readily avail and commit themselves to these initiatives.
3. We recognize the need for ecumenical cooperation and collaboration in addressing these giants and we appointed a group of people to take this conversation further and to bring concrete plans to the Consultation.
4. We are concerned about the state of education in South Africa and feel that Church Leaders need to assume a more proactive role in this area and not necessarily wait on government to take the lead. Consequently, a special Conference on Religion and Education will be held from 1-2 November 2012 in Bloemfontein chaired by Bishop Siwa and Prof. Jansen.
5. In addressing social issues, we believe that we not only need good economic policies but also social policies that will restore human dignity, moral fabric, work ethic and discipline in our country. We are seriously concerned that the National Lottery is seen as the major instrument in funding social development and welfare initiatives. What does this say about the low values and political priority we attach to social and welfare programmes?
6. We are concerned about racism on all levels in our society and believe that it must still be addressed by Politicians, Religious Leaders and the country as a whole.
7. We are concerned about the current political climate in our country and the escalating violence due to political intolerance, and call on the Mangaung Conference to take seriously the need for political stability and quality leadership.
8. We need to foster leadership which serves the needs of our people and the most vulnerable in our society. We commit ourselves to pray for all political parties and leaders in our country.
9. We call upon the people of South Africa to be constructive and responsible as agents of social change, rather than leave everything to government. We do so as servants of God who are called to exercise grace and truth.

The Conference concluded on a high note of practical suggestions and initiatives to address our current concerns, setting in place the necessary structures to ensure the continuity of our conversations and actions in our role to make a difference for the good of the people in our land.

Participating leaders
Archbishop Dr. Thabo Makgoba – Anglican Church of Southern Africa
Bishop Lunga ka Siboto – Ethiopian Episcopal Church
Rev. Motlalentwa Betha - Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa
Archbishop Dr. Zandisile Magxwalisa – Jerusalem Church in South Africa
Prof. Jerry Pillay – Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa
Fr. Richard Menatsi – Catholic Church in South Africa
Pastor Dr. Butisi Yakobi – Assemblies of God South Africa
Bishop Ziphozihle Siwa – Methodist Church of Southern Africa
Rev. Vuyani Nyobole – Methodist Church of Southern Africa
Rev. Braam Hanekom – Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa
Rev. Willie Van Der Merwe – Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa
Dr. Kobus Gerber – Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa
Rev. Hermy Damons – International Federation of Christian Churches
Canon Desmond Lambrechts – Anglican Church of Southern Africa
Rev. Vasco Da Gama Seleoane – African Enterprise
Rev. Moss Ntlha – The Evangelical Alliance of South Africa
Rev. Marlene Mahokoto – Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa
Dr. Renier Koegelenberg – National Religious Association for Social Development
Dr. Welile Mazamisa – National Religious Association for Social Development
Mr. Miles Giljam – African Enterprise
Mr. Marcus Van Wyk – National Dialogue Initiative for Social Change

Visit to Diocese of Natal - Interview in The Witness

The following interview appeared in The Witness on 21 November 2011, and can also be found at http://www.witness.co.za/index.php?showcontent&global%5B_id%5D=72190.

THABO Makgoba, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA), has challenged the government on issues of service delivery and corruption, and is a “proud” member of the Press Freedom Commission. In the province recently, he spoke to The Witness about a range of hot topics in the church and society. It was clear that Makgoba (51) is cast from the same mould as some of his illustrious predecessors like “the scourge of apartheid”, Joost de Blank and Geoffrey Clayton (who refused to obey the Native Laws Amendment Act), and Desmond Tutu.

Julius Malema

“I agree with Julius Malema when he raises questions about the need for economic emancipation. I agree with him when he raises questions about the number of unemployed youth who voted the ANC into power but whose votes have manifestly not translated into creating jobs, better education, or access to health care. I agree with him, but I don’t agree with him on how he thinks this should be achieved. I disagree with the suggestion of nationalisation without putting the specifics on the table. Will nationalisation increase access to health care, improve the national education standards, address the housing backlog and sanitation and improve the living standards of unemployed youth? Without specifics, I cannot agree with him.”

The Church and politics

“The understanding persists that the church should not be involved in politics. I have a different understanding of religion and what God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit calls us to do and be. We cannot privatise faith — there is a eucharistic imperative that sends us into the world to love and serve. This entails asking why some people are more privileged than others, why some have too much food while others go hungry? And asking why and which structures and systems support that? Poverty and hunger are not because some people are more blessed or work harder than others. There are lazy rich people and poor people.

“As soon as you ask questions people call it ‘politics’. But in the Bible Jesus Christ learnt and cited the Torah and studied with the synagogue leaders — that is education. We need to raise these things, we cannot leave them to the party political heads.”

Apartheid reparations

“This is one of the things that Julius Malema is articulating, but in a clumsy way. The TRC, Desmond Tutu and other commissioners (who were mostly people of faith), could have done better in terms of reparations. They produced a document but then left it to politicians to put into action, which either did not happen or happened too slowly. Now it is coming back to bite us. The TRC did not address the economic and apartheid structures and systems that sustain and maintain poverty and economic inequality, so now we need to find a vehicle to do that.

“Desmond Tutu’s idea of a wealth tax is a way of recognising that politicians have not done what should have been done.

“The church could have done far better in addressing this issue, seeing that it was the church — specifically, the Dutch Reformed Church — that gave the moral, spiritual and theological basis to apartheid.”

The Press Freedom Commission and corruption

“I am proud to be part of the Press Freedom Commission under the chairmanship of Justice Pius Langa, to review best practice and regulation within the print media. An effective free press, and the ability of all to speak truth to power, is indispensable to successful constitutional democracy. The Secrecy Bill and Media Tribunal have the potential to undermine press freedom. If the citizenry does not engage with these they could undermine the core of our democratic ability to make constitutional values a reality.

“[The commission] will contribute to making this country’s democracy work, encouraging people to speak out and makes those we have elected serve the citizens and transform corruption. There is too much corruption and we want to make South Africans intolerant of it.

“To a large extent we are still a moral and Christian country. We must use that, not to proselytise, but to make this country shine.”

Transformation in the church

“We have talked the talk but not walked the walk in this area. The legacy of apartheid needs to be transformed, for example, priests live in houses of very different standards. Even Bishopscourt in Cape Town where the archbishop lives is a legacy of colonial times that predates apartheid. What was — and what is — the relationship between the church and the structures of power? How does it benefit some and not others? Those are the kinds of questions we need to ask if we are to be transformed.

“It can also mean changing those areas of church life that were socially engineered by apartheid, like barring people from worshipping across colour lines. It means looking at the Biblical apartheid of having only men as bishops. The Anglican Church in southern Africa has been going since about 1860 but we have only been ordaining women for about 20 years. There are 30 bishops in this province and not one is a woman. We need to start to walk our talk.”

Homosexuality

“The issue of transformation in the church touches on this issue too. There are those who feel called by God to be in a same-sex union, and those who believe it is against the Bible and God’s principles to be in that state. We need to allow God through the Holy Spirit to continue working in us and we need to keep talking until God prevails, and not us. There are no easy solutions. We must remember that it took many years before the book of Revelations was included in the canon of scripture. Look at the Nicene Creed (325): people argued and talked and died for many years before that was settled.

“I have always held that homosexuality should not be a church-dividing issue, but we need to take seriously people who take an either-or position. We need to wrestle together to understand scripture and our vocation to the world.”

Climate change and the environment

“These are also issues of social and economic justice and human rights, and we need to raise them. If you look at the mine dumps in Gauteng and the West Rand, you see a pattern that mirrors racial and political divides in geography. If you look at economic development you see big business and politicians in cahoots to get their hands on opportunities to benefit only themselves, like oil rights and access to energy. You see the developed world as the worst producers of carbon emissions at the expense of the developing world.

“There is a lot of greenwashing going on ahead of Cop17 in Durban. The government preaches the right message but does not practise it. We are far behind in developing renewable energy sources. Eskom pays huge subsidies to big industry at the expense of the poor, which is scandalous, and the government is planning another coal-burning power station.

“I hope Cop17 will be a chance to highlight these issues and I encourage everyone to make their voice heard. Sign the pledge to care for the environment in the We have Faith — act now for climate justice campaign and attend the interfaith rally at the start of the conference on November 27.”

Who is Thabo Makgoba?

CONSECRATED in 2008 at the age of 48, Makgoba was the youngest archbishop to head ACSA. He grew up in Alexandra township, Johannesburg, and went to school at Orlando High, Soweto, during the politically turbulent eighties. He is a qualified psychologist, holds a PhD in spirituality from the University of Cape Town and is a committed father to Nyakallo (17) and Paballo (12) and husband to Lungi, a former development consultant.

The Feast of Christ the King

This Sermon for the Feast of Christ the King, was preached at a ‘Pontifical High Mass’ at the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Observatory, Cape Town, on 20 November 2011. The Mass was sung to Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai, with additional music by Edward Elgar and from Handel’s Messiah.

The readings were those set for ‘The Coming of the Kingdom of God,’ on pp.389ff of the Southern African Book of Common Prayer: Colossians 1:12-20; John 18:33-37.

May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let me again say what a pleasure it is to be with you. It is a pleasure also to welcome you, Dean Michael Weeder, to this service. Thank you, Fr Richard Girdwood and Wardens, for your invitation, and thank you to everyone who has contributed to this morning’s service: whether through participating or as one of the many unsung heroes and heroines behind the scenes. Let me also at this point congratulate Fr Richard on his appointment by the Minister of Arts and Culture to South Africa’s Heraldry Council. This is wonderful news! Let us offer him a round of applause.

Today, on the last Sunday before Advent, the Anglican world observes the Feast of Christ the King. This postdates the Book of Common Prayer, so Fr Richard has been creative in proposing the readings set there for ‘the coming of the Kingdom of God’. And in fact our Epistle today is one which is set every third year within the Revised Common Lectionary. The objective is the same – to help us reflect upon the coming of God’s kingdom, and the coming of Christ as King of kings and Lord of Lords, both in this world, and for all eternity.

Pope Pius XI first instituted this commemoration, in 1925, in response to the growing nationalism and secularism he perceived in the years following the First World War. In Italy, the Fascists, under Mussolini, were increasingly influential, and the Pope realised that both the faithful and the wider world should be regularly reminded that ultimate power of every sort lies in the hands of God, and allegiance to him overrules all other claims on our loyalties. Following a decision of Pope Paul VI in 1969, the Feast has been observed on the last Sunday of the church calendar, and has increasingly been adopted by Anglicans and others.

This is with good reason – for the need remains both to proclaim that Jesus is Lord of all; and, furthermore, to insist that all legitimate power and rule are to be exercised and understood according to the model of Christ our King. Both the wider world and the church itself need to be reminded of such truths.

Three weeks ago I came the closest I have ever been to preaching to a king, when the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall came to St George’s Cathedral! By chance, the lectionary had set for our Old Testament reading a passage in which the prophet Amos warned the leadership of Jerusalem that all their religious observances – no matter how fine – were worse than useless and brought only judgement, if they were not matched by holy living and the pursuit of righteousness and justice. As we sat in the splendour of the Cathedral, with wonderful music uplifting our liturgy, it was a salutary warning to the church also.

And I guess the same must be said today, in the magnificence of this pontifical mass. However much we adore Christ as King, with all the trappings of majesty and might, we must also follow him faithfully – as the one who emptied himself of the glories of heaven; the one who came not to be served but to serve and to lay down his life for his friends; the one who calls us all to take up our crosses and follow after him.

As Pilate was perplexed to hear – as our Gospel reading recounted – Jesus’ kingship is very counter-cultural to the expectations and standards of the world.

For on the one hand, he is a far greater King than any human monarch. He cannot be relegated to some constitutional figurehead with limited engagement in the daily running of his realm. All power and majesty and might are his. Yet the exercise of his sovereign rule bears no resemblance to even the most powerful absolute head of state. For, if Jesus truly is the ruler of all, we might ask how it is that so much of the world seems out of step with the kingdom of God – from the sinfulness of humanity to the levels of suffering unconnected with human malpractice. It doesn’t seem to point to a very effective kingship. And indeed, at no point does Jesus ever force us to follow his rule.

But the answer lies with the second counter-cultural aspect of Jesus’ rule – that of the suffering servant who lays down his life for his people. This is the subversive kingship who does not confront the powers of the world by overcoming them with greater strength. Rather evil is to be overcome by good, those who are prepared to give up their lives will gain life immortal, our enemies are to be loved, and the few cents that the poor widow gives add up to far, far more than the large donation made from the surplus of the wealthy man. (Though having said this, let me not undermine the generous giving of sums both large and small to St Michael’s Stewardship campaign, which I understand concludes today! All that we give to the Lord’s work is valued and used by him, of that I am sure!)

So the question with which we are posed, when considering the coming of God’s kingdom, in this world and the world to come, is this: what does it mean for each of us to live as citizens of the kingdom of God? What does it mean for us to be not so much ‘proudly South African’ as ‘proudly Jesus people’? For certainly, we should bear our allegiance to him with pride, and not be ashamed to call him Lord! And while rugby or cricket or football can call us to sport our green and gold shirts, or rainbow scarves, we can demonstrate our loyalty in many ways, not just, for example, through dog collars or crosses and ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ bracelets.

Through our lives, our actions, our words, our attitudes, there are two messages we want to proclaim. First is the challenge to anything else that tries to claim our primary allegiance. This may come in many forms – we might use the broad terminology of idolatry. This can span both the public and private sphere.

So, for example, Christians say loud and clear – as Pope Pius XI intended in creating this feast – that any ideology, from secularism to nationalism, from the claims of any political party, or economic theory, or philosophy of life – it must all come second to the kingdom of God. Furthermore, since God is God of all of life, all of creation, there is no part of human activity that can fall outside his interest. This means that it is for us to critique every area of life, according to Christian principles – to the standards of the Kingdom.

Idolatry also extends to money – though remember that Scripture does not say that money itself is the root of all evil, but that love of money is the problem. Money, and what it can buy, can be very seductive. But we should not be afraid of it and should learn to use it wisely. There was a banner at the Occupy Wall Street protests that put it well: ‘You don’t have to be poor to be good, you don’t have to be rich to be bad, but you have to be fair to be right.’

Idolatry can come in other forms, in our private lives, and includes any sort of addictive behaviour – not just alcohol or drugs. There may be other aspects of our lifestyle that have an unhealthy hold on us. These might include our attitudes to others and ways we speak about people, and perhaps even exploit them. It may be that we have a superiority complex, seeing ourselves as something of a ‘king’; or the reverse, an inferiority complex where we always want to please others as if they were ‘kings’. Or it may be our self-image, our good name, our status, the opinions of others, that we most care about – vanity and pride. Our sexuality and how we express it can also become idolatrous, especially in a world that over sexualises so much and promotes promiscuity, pornography, and the objectification of other people for our own gratification.

But, whatever it is that we battle with, thanks be to God, he does not just tell us to put him first – he helps us! By the power of the Spirit dwelling within us, if we ask him, he will help us place every aspect of our lives under his rule.

And the second message we have to proclaim is that God’s ways are best – the way of peace and love and honesty and truth. The story of the widow’s mite tells us that even the smallest acts of compassion and kindness bear unimaginable value in God’s scales; and what might seem insignificant lives, if lived through his love, can have consequences that will make their mark on eternity. To be a proud citizen of the kingdom of God, we do not need to make a big splash. We just need to be faithful and obedient, in our own context, in whatever are the circumstances of our lives.

Let us therefore, in this Eucharist, be conscious of offering ourselves to God as his loyal citizens, as followers of Jesus Christ. We come to his table, with our hands open to present ourselves, wholly without reserve, in his service – and open to receive whatever he gives to us: both his bread for the journey, and the path on which he calls us forward.

Yes, today we celebrate the coming of the kingdom of God – the kingdom of the one who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and we remember the words of Jesus to Pilate: ‘Everyone who belongs to the truth, listens to my voice.’ May we be those who listen, and follow faithfully. May it be so. Amen.

Historic Church Leaders' Meeting

The following Press Release was issued on 17 November 2011.

An historic meeting of Church leaders took place Tuesday, 15th November, at Bishopscourt in Cape Town. Its aim was to tackle divisions between historic and newer churches, where labels such as ‘ecumenical’ and ‘evangelical’ have undermined a broader shared Christian witness within society and nation. Leaders made a renewed commitment to enhance working together for the good of all South Africans.

Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, chair of National Church Leaders Consultation, hosted the meeting which brought together leaders from three major Christian groupings: Revd Mautji Pataki, General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC); Revd Moss Ntlha, General Secretary of the Evangelical Alliance of South Africa (TEASA); and Mr Miles Giljam, CEO of African Enterprise (AE). Methodist Bishop Ivan Abrahams, out-going chair of the National Church Leaders’ Consultation also participated, and Dr. Renier Koegelenberg, Executive Director of Ecumenical Foundation of South Africa; and Dr Welile Mazamisa, EFSA board member, were also present. Archbishop Stephen Brislin of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cape Town was invited but unable to attend. He indicated his support of the meeting.

The meeting followed the January 2010 National Church Leaders’ Consultation which expressed the need for organic unity amongst Christian groupings, and strongly recommended that SACC,TEASA and AE leaders meet and explore common concerns as a way forward.

“Now is a kairos moment, “said Miles Giljam after Tuesday’s meeting. “People want leadership and answers. We also need to instil hope in people.”

“The year 1994 was the end and the beginning of history in South Africa,” commented Dr Welile Mazamisa. “The churches stepped back and others have taken that space – we now need to reclaim it.”

“We need a space to analyse together and work on our commitment to one another and to the people of South Africa,’ said Dr. Moss Nthla.

“In our current context, where the dream of our being a rainbow nation is not being realised in certain quarters, it is important that as Christians, regardless of our differences, we should meet and hold to the vision that a united country is possible,” Archbishop Makgoba added.

The Christian leaders shared individual perspectives and identified common priorities. They then considered the Overview of the National Development Programme 2030 and discussed the contribution Churches can make to the way forward.

Participants agreed on key issues in South African society needing urgent attention, including corruption, poor service delivery, and problematic health care and educational systems. They also affirmed the desire of the broader Christian community to be a partner in addressing the problems which are facing our people and our communities.

The meeting concluded with an enthusiastic commitment to continue meeting for reflection, dialogue and common action.

Issued by the Office of the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town. Inquiries: Ms Wendy Tokata on 021-763-1320 (office hours)

Tiyo Soga's Legacy: A Reflection on Restitution, Freedom of Information and Hate Speech

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba participated in the unveiling of the Memorial Tombstone to Revd Tiyo Soga on 9 September 2011, at Thuthura, Eastern Cape, using the following prayer. Below, the Archbishop offers a longer reflection on the lessons that we can learn for today, from this great South African intellectual and man of faith. Dr Makgoba comments on freedom of speech and the protection of information legislation, on hate speech and racial and sexist language, and on Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s recent remarks about restitution. An edited version of this reflection, “Singing from the Same Hymn Sheet” appeared in the Cape Times, of 16 September 2011 on page 9.

Let us pray: God our Creator, whose Son is the Way, the Truth and the Life, we ask you today to bless all who speak here, and all who listen – praying that, as St James writes in his epistle, we may be doers of the word, and not merely hearers. Make us your apostles of true freedom and democracy, so that we, following in the footsteps of our brother and forefather, Tiyo Soga, may bring true emancipation to those who are held captive by economic slavery.

God of Righteousness and Truth, fulfil in us your promises, by making us people of justice and integrity, who, like Tiyo Soga, not only sing a song of gospel liberation to the poor and downtrodden, but work to share our wealth.

We pray especially for the rural poor, that they may know the fulfilment of your promise never to leave or forsake your children. When times are hard, pour your Holy Spirit on us, speak your words of comfort and encouragement through us; move our hearts and strengthen our wills to act, so that we may bring the fulfilment of your promises of real hope and new life for all.

We ask this for your tender mercies’ sake. Amen.

Reflections on the life of Revd Tiyo Soga, and his legacy to us today

Participating in the unveiling of the Memorial Tombstone for Tiyo Soga has prompted me to reflect further on this remarkable African intellectual, and his legacy for our own times. What would this devout man, who aimed to take the best of international scholarship and give it expression in his own culture, say to South Africa today? What would the composer of the famous hymn, sung to open the first meeting of the South African Native National Congress in 1912, ‘Lizalis’ idinga lakho’, ‘Fulfil the Promise’, say about democratisation’s unfinished business of reconciliation and restitution? What lessons should we learn from his commitment to the ‘Lord, God of Truth’ (the words with which that hymn continues) for current debates around freedom of information, hate speech, and racist or sexist language? Tiyo Soga has a lot to teach us.

There is no doubt that Revd Tiyo Soga was an extraordinary individual. He was outstanding in his own generation, and remains outstanding as we reflect on his astonishing life, 140 years after his sadly young death. Others have recalled his achievements in greater detail than I, both in Thuthura at the unveiling of his Memorial Tombstone, and elsewhere. My father-in-law, Professor Cecil Manona, who researched and wrote on Tiyo Soga, gave me extensive material on this remarkable man, and his influence has remained with me.

Last week’s moving ceremony, attended by Tiyo Soga’s family members, together with former President Mbeki, the Provincial Premier, amaXhosa King Mpendulo Zwelonke Sigcawu, other politicians, traditional and religious leaders and figures from the business and wider community, has prompted me to consider what lessons should we learn for our own context, from this man who travelled (what must have seemed to a schoolboy from Chumie) incomparable distances into the unknown, in order to learn from the best the world had to offer, and then to translate it into his own language and culture? What does it mean for us as individuals, and for our nation, to draw on the best of today’s international experience and scholarship and root it in African soil, so that Africa’s children may grow and flourish?

Reflecting on these questions, I found my thoughts focussing on the central question of what it means for us today to ‘Fulfil our Promise, God, Lord of Truth’.

Fulfilling Promise poses us, I shall suggest, four challenges. First is a challenge to our nation, and our leadership, in this era of democracy. What is the promise for which so many struggled and even died, for which the seed was planted in 1912, and which blossomed in 1994? Where is the promised fruit of democracy and freedom?

We can point to global financial difficulties, and make other excuses, but there is no getting away from the truth that economic emancipation has not yet reached us all. Indeed, the divide between rich and poor has grown. And though it is now the case that among the richest 10%, 20%, 30% of South Africans, the majority are black – it remains true that the great, great majority of our population, our black population, remain exceedingly impoverished.

We know there have been great improvements, for example in provisions of water and electricity, but it has been no-where near enough to overcome the poverty trap in which so many are imprisoned, with little hope of escape. NGOs, charities and faith communities do what we can – but we are only scratching at the surface. Government must lead the way forward.

We often talk about the private sector coming to the party – but it is the government who must ensure there is a party, and a good party, to which others can be invited, and can turn up with confidence that all arrangements have been properly made! I am sure there is far greater willingness to come to the party than government realises – if only the rest of us knew for sure that there really is a party, and where it is being held, and how to get there!

Recently Archbishop Tutu got himself into hot water once again for speaking about reconciliation and restitution, and the unfinished business (indeed, the unfulfilled promise) of the TRC. And, as usual, the sorts of reports that followed focussed as much on the outrage as on the heart of the matter. But there is an important issue at stake – and it will not do to leave such unfinished business hanging in the air while continuing to complain at it. This is a recipe for a dangerous festering sore, not a solution.

Here is another party which the Government must organise. Mamphela Ramphele, in a public presentation for the Restitution Organisation earlier this year, said ‘The pain caused by Apartheid has been left to individuals to solve privately without any effective assistance from society.’[1][1] She is right that individuals, acting out of private motivation, cannot be expected to bear the burden of making amends. Nor can companies, one by one, however good their social responsibility programmes. And while we should be more than wary of punitive measures (indeed, the Arch said it could be something ‘quite piffling’[2][2]) and the imposition of inappropriate one-size-does-not-fit-all policies, it nonetheless surely must be the responsibility of Government to provide mechanisms for making amends.

No one else can provide the necessary guaranteed channels for ensuring tangible, sustainable, upliftment to those who continue to be most harmed by the legacies of our unjust past. If only government would provide such sure ways of making a true difference, how many more would be ready, even keen, to take such steps? But is it any wonder there is resistance, when the likelihood is that attempts at reparation will be lost without trace within a budget we are incapable of spending well on our country’s neediest people? And what of South Africa’s wealthy, of all backgrounds, who should also be given encouraging ways to contribute to a more just economy – as some of Europe and North America’s richest have recently been asking to do through higher taxation?

As Trevor Manuel put it so eloquently at the Parliamentary seminar on the Millennium Development Goals last week, service delivery – and our failures in service delivery – are not a question merely of money, but of how Government spends it. It seems that we have enough, more than enough, but we do not use it wisely or well. To put it another way, the budget is not fulfilling its promise – the promise that is well within its grasp, if only we work to make it so. When I look at the promise of the struggle, and at our difficulties today, I wonder if one of our major problems lies in the following: that in the past we taught people to struggle against; but we have not taught people that now we must struggle for, if we are to achieve that promise. Therefore we must learn new ways of struggling, and struggling together:

• struggling through hard work, dedication, commitment, and going the full distance

• struggling through refusing to settle for second best, for corruption, for corner-cutting, for laziness

• struggling through holding one another to the highest standards,

• struggling through being prepared to work for the good of everyone, not just me and my cronies,

• struggling through believing our country truly can be all it promises to be.

Only through such struggling together, can we ensure a re-engineering of past discriminatory attitudes and practices and their persisting legacies.

All this brings me to the second challenge to fulfil our promise. It is the challenge of the youth of today.

For once I am not speaking about offering a challenge to the youth – but rather, about the challenge that the youth are giving to us, today’s leaders. This challenge demands that we recognise that too often we have been selling empty promises to the generation now in their twenties, even thirties – empty, unfulfilled, promises of instant improvements in education and employment, as if all these would come with the single wave of a democratic wand. We promised, but we did not deliver. Perhaps we were too exhausted when democracy came. Perhaps we just assumed that another generation would pick up the baton where we left off, and carry it forward themselves. Perhaps, we reached crucial compromises far too quickly. Perhaps we did not realise that the youth too needed to be ‘conscientised’ into the promise, and the struggle needed to achieve it – in their own time and context, as we were in ours.

For Julius Malema is not wrong when he cries out for the youth of today – when he cries out for justice in education, in employment, in opportunity, in economic emancipation and empowerment. But he is wrong in how he thinks these can be achieved, and in leading others to believe in these unworkable solutions. We need to share the hope, promise and detail of the new struggle with the new generation – for so far, we have failed to do so adequately.

It is far easier to struggle against, than to struggle for. As the demonstrations outside Luthuli House last week showed vividly, it is far easier to break down and destroy than it is to create and build.

But democracy also requires a struggle – making democracy work requires effort and commitment. Democracy was not a destination – rather, it is a new way of life, which comes with the promise of true fruit for all, provided we are prepared to tend the plant so it can grow and flourish. In the same way, Tiyo Soga’s legacy, the promise in which he believed, and which he worked to deliver, is one of creating a new society, and building a new nation – laying the foundations from the best that we can see around us.

It is not enough to criticise what is wrong. True, we need to get our analysis right. But that is drawing the map. It is not even taking the first step into the future that, if only we had eyes to see, still remains so full of promise, so ready to bear lasting, tangible fruit.

Yet we certainly must be free to criticise what is wrong. Tiyo Soga’s hymn continues: Fulfil your Promise, God, Lord of Truth. Though the phrase ‘speaking truth to power’ is more recent, Tiyo Soga certainly lived by it – both criticising the colonial powers, and refusing to be co-opted by Maqoma, telling the Xhosa chief that he served only God – ‘There is another King …’

Surely to honour his legacy means, at the very least, that we must have a public interest defence clause in the Protection of Information legislation. I fully support the efforts spearheaded by the Right to Know Campaign, with their march on Parliament on 17 September, to call for its inclusion, even at this late hour of the legislative process. I am also appalled that Cosatu members should be arrested and deported from Swaziland to prevent them speaking up for democracy and human rights – though I am glad they are not being charged within Swaziland for promoting regime change.

Freedom of speech is entrenched in our Constitution – and rightly so, because it is a part of the necessary bed-rock of democratic life. But this does not mean we can and should say anything, anywhere, merely on the grounds that we claim it is ‘truth’. Nor should restraint merely consist in establishing the maximum we can get away with when arguing before the courts. No, freedom of speech touches on the very essence of what it is to be human, and to be committed to the wellbeing of other human beings. This is at the core of religious belief – though it is not exclusively the perspective of the religious, as illustrated by the ancient concept of the Greek philosophers of ‘the common good’. Our best speaking is what builds up our communities, our society, our nation.

Hate speech is not merely a legal category. It is, as I have said often before (when people have been called ‘snakes’ and ‘dogs’ and worse), any utterance that diminishes and degrades other human beings, other children of God. More than this, it diminishes and degrades not only its target, but also the speaker – for it demonstrates a general failure to understand and respect people at large. The same is true of those who resort to racial epithets, or demeaning sexual slurs, as are also in the news. Pretending to humour is no excuse. Whether such words break the law may be open to debate. What is beyond question is that it all undermines our capacity to ‘fulfil the promise’ of democracy, through building the sort of individual character and mature society which will help create the opportunity for every citizen to flourish. Hate speech, racist talk, sexist language only oppresses and imprisons. We must denounce it all, and instead speak the ‘truth’ of Tiyo Soga – the truth that underpins true democracy, that emancipates and liberates; the truth of the one King whom Tiyo Soga followed, Jesus, who told the world ‘the truth shall set you free’.

So now comes my third challenge of what it means to fulfil our promise. It is a challenge to Tiyo Soga’s direct heirs – South Africa’s religious leaders. One definition of a preacher in the pulpit is someone who stands ‘six feet above contradiction’! It is easy enough for us to declaim our sermons! But that is not enough. In his new Testament Letter, St James says we should ‘be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves’ (Jas 1:22). In the same way, we who preach should be doers of the word and not merely speakers, deceiving ourselves and others.

That said, it is not our role to do government’s job for them; nor to be social workers; nor environmental activists; nor political commentators; nor economic gurus. These are all areas with which we must engage – but we must do so, bearing the promised fruit of our own unique place within society. We have a special responsibility to provide the moral compass, a clear vision of justice, of freedom, of honesty, of truth. We must demonstrate what it means to be truly human – created, as many of us say, in the image of God, and so bearing intrinsic dignity, and worthy of respect, from the smallest child and the roughest old bergie, to Archbishops and Presidents. None is more valuable in the eyes of God.

We must walk the walk and talk the talk – modelling servant leadership exercised for the well-being of those entrusted to us; taking special care of the suffering and needy; standing in solidarity with the marginalised and excluded; helping the voiceless find their voice; being a full part of democracies processes of debate and mutual accountability. We must show what true stewardship is about – another essential aspect of contemporary leadership in a world of finite resources, where we increasingly risk destroying our home, the only home there is for ourselves, our children and our children’s children, for the sake of short term gains enjoyed by the few. We must provide moral, ethical, resources; and help others understand how to apply them in every walk of life.

And finally, we must point to the fourth challenge that arises from Tiyo Soga’s hymn title ‘Fulfil your promise’. For these words are a prayer – that God himself will fulfil his promises to us. They are a prayer to which we can all say ‘Amen’ with confidence. For the vision that the Bible offers – the very Bible that says more about poverty and economics than it does about prayer – is that though God condemns those who exploit, or even merely ignore, the poor; far more than that, he delights to bring blessing wherever people pursue justice and mercy.

The prophet Amos says ‘Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ He says ‘Seek the Lord, and live; seek good and not evil, and the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you’ (Amos 5:24; 6, 14). This is the promise that is sure and certain – that when we do what God calls us to do; when we seek justice and mercy, when we seek righteousness and truth, when we seek the economic emancipation of the poor, affordable health-care for all the sick, decent education for every South African child, efficient service delivery, effective rural development, tangible mechanisms for appropriate reparations … – when we seek the true flourishing of every individual, every community, all of society – then we can be assured that God will indeed be with us.

When our hearts, our minds, our commitments, are in the right place, God will help us know what is the right thing to do. God will help us have the insight to know how to take it forward. God will help us have the will-power to see it through. When we seek to do what is right, what is good – then God will indeed help us fulfil our promise. This is his promise, and he guarantees to fulfil it.

Therefore, let me end with words of prayer, from the final verse of Tiyo Soga’s hymn, ‘Fulfil your promise’: ‘O Lord, bless the teachings of our land; Please revive us, that we may restore goodness.’

May it indeed be so. Amen.

Note for Editors: Tiyo Soga was the first ordained African Presbyterian minister in South Africa, an African intellectual who translated parts of the Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress and other works, into Xhosa, and wrote a great number of hymns, many of which are still sung today.

Born in 1829, at Mgwali, near King William’s Town, he attended the Lovedale Missionary Institute, and when the principal returned to Scotland during the War of the Axe in 1846, Soga went with him, and continued his studies. He returned to South Africa after being baptised, but later went back to Scotland to study theology further. In 1856 Soga became the first black South African to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church. He married a Scottish woman, Janet Burnside, with whom he subsequently had seven children, several of whom had significant careers in South Africa and Scotland. In 1857 they returned to South Africa, where Soga worked as a catechist, evangelist, hymn-writer and interpreter. He died at Thuthura in 1871, of a persistent throat infection, exacerbated by overwork.

Religious Leaders' Statement on Fundamental Human Equality, Regardless of Race

The following statement was issued by the National Religious Association for Social Development (NRASD) on 10 March 2011.

Values of a democratic South Africa based on fundamental equality of humans created by God,not to be defined in discredited racial categories

As religious communities, our fundamental point of departure is that we are all created by God , not only equal, but in fact responsible for one another’s well-being. This is our true identity. We are therefore alarmed by the current political debate in South Africa in which there is an attempt to use discredited racial categories again to define the value, place and role of human beings in our society.

It would be the ultimate failure of the struggle for the liberation and dignity of all South Africans, visitors and foreigners amongst us, if we remain captive to the racial or quasi-biological concepts and categories that were used in the past to divide, oppress and exclude some people in South Africa from realising their full potential. Our new identity and our hopes for the future are based on our common destiny and our responsibility for one another.

As a religious community in South Africa we strive to build a just and equitable society, a society that cares for all its citizens, especially for those who are weak and marginalized; we wish to sustain a democratic society that respects our Constitution, the rule of law, that guards against the misuse of power, that fosters our diversity and plurality, and that promotes the role of civil society. Such a society can only be built on the shared moral values within our diverse traditions in order to build a wholesome society. This is the true challenge of national reconciliation.

Thus we must have the courage to build a common future for all South Africans – based on our true identity as being equal, according to the image of God, focussing on how we can help one another, serving one another to realize our God-given potential, seeking justice for the weak and giving hope to the destitute and the poor, so that South Africa can really be a home for all, a shining light amongst the nations of the world.

Father Richard Menatsi, NRASD Chairperson, Executive Director, IMBISA Catholic Centre

Sheikh Achmat Sedick, NRASD Deputy Chairperson, Muslim Judicial Council

Archbishop Buti J. Tlhagale OMI, President of the Southern African Catholic Bishop’s Conference (SACBC)

Bishop Ivan Abrahams, Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of South Africa

Archbishop Dr. Thabo Makgoba, Anglican Church of Southern Africa

Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein, Union of Orthodox Synagogues

Dr. Isak Burger, President, Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa

Ms Shohreh Rawhani, Baha’i Community, South Africa

Rabbi Ron Hendler, Union of Orthodox Synagogues

Prof. Piet Strauss, Moderator, Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa

Dr. Jakobus (Kobus) Gerber, General Secretary, Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa

Prof. Thias Kgatla, Moderator, General Synod, Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa

Archbishop Dr. Zandisile Magxwalisa, Jerusalem Church in South Africa

Pastor Dr. Lucas Yakobi Founder, Assemblies of God South Africa

Rev. John Sigudla, President, Baptist Convention of South Africa

Bishop Dr Joe Ramashapa, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa

Rev. Lucas Plaatjie, Moderator, Cape Synod, Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa

Canon Desmond Lambrechts, Anglican Church of Southern Africa

Rev. Mzukisi Faleni, General Assembly Moderator, Presbyterian Church of Africa

Enquiries or additions, NRASD Secretariat:

Dr. Welile Mazamisa, E-mail: wlm@sun.ac.za; cell: 083-6326321, Tel & Fax: 021-8802852; Dr. Renier Koegelenberg, E-mail: efsa@iafrica.com; cell: 083-6251047, Tel: 021-8801734, Fax: 021-8801735; Mr. Sipho Mahokoto, E-mail: mahakoto@sun.ac.za, cell: 083-7453405, Tel 021-8802850 Fax 086-6017739

Address to MOT Courage2B Conference

The following address was given on 2 December 2010

Dear friends, thank you for your invitation to speak to you this afternoon. My theme is ‘Courage, Encouragement and Hope’. I want to talk about what this means for ourselves; as well as for the young people whom we hope to influence to live as positive, contributing, members of society. Yet if we want to be an effective influence on others, then we have to be prepared to walk the walk, as well as talking the talk – or perhaps I should say, to dance the dance! We have to do the same homework ourselves, looking at society around us, and our own contribution to it.

Now I shall of course be talking from a Christian perspective – but I hope to be able to speak in a way that makes sense to those of other faiths or of none. It seems to me that the fundamental question that we have to ask is what sort of life do we seek for ourselves, for our societies, for our young people and for generations to come. And to answer that question, we have to think about what it is to be human, and to live as humans ought to live.

Our starting point for considering human life within the wider world, is one generally shared by other theistic religions. We understand God as creator and sustainer of all that is. The Psalmist (Ps 95:4) wrote ‘In his hands are the depths of the earth – and the peaks of the mountains are his also’. You may have noted that this verse was written on the t-shirts which many of the Chilean miners were wearing as they were finally brought to the surface after 69 days underground.

My point is that there is nothing at all outside God’s ambit - God creates everything that there is. And therefore, if all of existence owes its being to God, then everything is of concern to him. This is the starting point for faith communities – and particularly churches – to take an interest in every aspect of our world, and to believe that we potentially have something positive to contribute.

This is particularly true when it comes to human activity. The Book of Genesis says, in its first chapter, that ‘God created humankind, in his image’ (Gen 1:27). There is thus something very special about being a human being – reflecting a spark of the divine life, carried within us. Human life is truly sacred. We all are intended to flourish.

By flourishing, I do not mean that we are all entitled to an opulent lifestyle. Not at all! Indeed, we know in theory – even if we have not acknowledged it yet in our behaviour – that our planet cannot sustain 6 billion people pursuing the capitalist, consumerist lifestyle which the advertising world implies is our right! Human flourishing is something far more fundamental, and must be a possibility for everyone.

This is why we also use the term ‘the common good’ – the rightful pursuit and enjoyment of what is good for us, that we all should share in common. This concept of common good, of flourishing, is rooted in what it essentially means to be human, and what, in such terms, are our basic human rights. These begin with a necessary standard of material well-being – adequate food and clean water, housing, clothing, health-care and so forth; with particular provision for the very young, the very old, the sick and disabled, and other vulnerable individuals unable to look after themselves. These human rights also include access to decent education, which opens up opportunities for employment, and brings each of us the dignity of having some choice in our own destinies.

The common good also entails a stable, safe, just, society which accords everyone respect materially, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. In this description of human existence as encompassing heart and soul and mind and physical embodiment, I hope I have reminded you of words of Jesus, who said that humanity is created ‘to love God, with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength’.

The teachings of Jesus give further instruction on how we should live: doing to others as we would have them do to us. This principle, often known as the Golden Rule, is of course shared among those of many faiths, and none. It is a principle that underlies all our understandings of what it is to live with fairness and justice – two of the virtues of ethical living, which we want to have the courage to uphold in practice in our lives, and to encourage our young people to embrace, in both their words and their actions.

This attitude of reciprocal justice and fairness underlies the second great commandment of Jesus’ teaching: that we should love our neighbours as ourselves. We should direct our lives – and encourage young people to direct their lives – towards ensuring that others are in receipt of what we would like for ourselves, especially where those others face any sort of need or vulnerability.

Within this ethical context of mutuality and reciprocity, Jesus came, he said, to bring ‘life in abundance’. This ‘abundant life’ cannot possibly be understood as the affluence only of some, at the expense of others. Abundant life consists of the fair and equitable availability of the material, spiritual, emotional and intellectual provisions which I have outlined. This is the potential we seek for our young people – and the potential we hope that they will work to bring for everyone within their own communities.

Surely this is what it means to be a good citizen, making a positive contribution to the well-being of the people of our nations, of our planet. Within South Africa, our Constitution reaches the same conclusions. It says that every citizen, every resident, of this country, should enjoy their full opportunities and rights, no matter what their gender or race or beliefs – and should live free of discrimination on a very wide range of grounds. It does so because we are committed to the common good, the human flourishing, of everyone – each in accordance with their own particular circumstances and free choices. Intrinsic human worth, lived out and enjoyed by individuals and in community, is the right of every citizen, every resident within our borders.

On this basis, we can always begin conversations around the essential question of what it is to be human and to live decently; and how we achieve it more fully for the people and societies of our countries. Furthermore, in such conversations, we must increasingly situate ourselves within this globalising world of ours. This means we have no option but to recognise that our obligation to be ‘good neighbours’, in promoting reciprocal flourishing, applies not only to those near by, but to everyone else: across both space and time. Therefore we must pay attention to, and take account of, both those who share our global village today, and those who will inherit our legacy in generations to come. Inevitably, one area in which this challenges us is responsible care of our environment.

Therefore, to sum up what I have discussed so far: when we ask ourselves, and when we ask young people, to consider the question of how we want to live as individuals in our communities, and what sort of society we want to be a part of, we must look to very basic questions of what it is to be human.

We must consider what it is for everyone to experience fairness and justice, in the pursuit of fundamental human rights, shared together for the common good; that is, to strive for the well-being of every human person, and for the good stewardship of creation. These are concepts rooted in – though not exclusive to – the faith communities. In consequence, since human well-being encompasses every aspect of human existence, there is no reason to consider that faith communities should confine themselves to promoting the common good in some artificially defined ‘private realm’ while the public sector is left to its own devices.

Let me now turn to what it might mean in practice for us to work with young people to create a world in which each of them can flourish, can reach towards their full potential ‘in heart and mind and soul and strength’ and ‘loving neighbours as themselves’. In other words – how can we promote growth and maturity in the emotional; spiritual; mental / intellectual; physical / material dimensions of our lives; and how can we best be ‘individuals-in-community’, where neither the narrowly selfish needs of individuality nor stifling group interests wholly dominate? How too can we ensure that people are first and foremost treated as fully rounded, and not, for example, as if all that matters is the competitive status that comes with wealth, or power, or fame?

Well, perhaps the next thing I must say is that one important source of courage, encouragement and hope, in tackling these questions, comes from the realisation that each one of us can make a difference. This is something that far too often we do not realise. But believing that what we do does not matter very much, can undermine our readiness to aim for the best for ourselves, and for our society and wider world. For it is true that not all of us can become successful in the way that is often portrayed to us by the media and the world around. Not all of us can become rich; not all of us can become famous; not all of us will get to the very top of the professional tree and have leadership, authority, and status.

But – here is the most important thing of all – all of us most certainly will be significant. Every single one of us here is already leading a significant life. We are significant in many ways, every day – through our attitudes, our words, our actions. We have an impact all around us, through what we choose to think and say and do; and through what we choose not to think and say and do.

Our choices affect those who are closest to us – families, friends, neighbours, and often through wider circles of influence through colleagues, and those we come across as we go about our daily lives. Whenever we interact with another person, either directly or indirectly, it is as if a stone is dropped into a pond of water. There are always ripples; and the ripples travel to the very edges of the pond.

So when we are faced, and when we face others, with questions about what sort of life we seek, we should be encouraged that we really can make a difference. We really can be either part of the solution, or, alas, part of the problem. We need to realise that by choosing to do nothing, we actually are making a choice – a choice not to help solve the challenges of society, but rather the choice to allow injustice and unfairness to continue.

For those of you living in countries like South Africa, there is additional reason to take courage, to be encouraged, to live hopefully. In young countries like ours, like most of Africa and much of the developing world, there are so many changes happening. And young people have very significant influence in ensuring these changes are for the good. Within South Africa, over 30% of the population is aged 15 or under. Across sub-Saharan Africa, that figure is 40%. In some places, like Angola, it is closer to 50%. Young people are our future – not a hypothetical tomorrow that is years, even decades away – but the future that is already on our doorstep, knocking to come in. Young people have far more potential to shape their own lives than perhaps they realise! It is as the poet Wordsworth put it: Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!”

So how shall we help our young people aspire to be the best they can? At the heart of this is helping them to see that it is in their own interest to promote the well-being of the whole community. The principle of treating others as one would like to be treated and loving one’s neighbour as oneself requires us to pay attention to the needs of others, to their concerns and their aspirations. This is what true ‘respect’ is all about, whatever some rappers might say! Respect entails genuine listening in the way we interact with others. I love to remind people that God made us with two ears and one mouth – and so we should draw the conclusion that he intends us to do twice as much listening as talking.

We must also encourage one another to talk truthfully. In the Bible we are told that ‘the truth will set us free’. Or, to use a well-known proverb, ‘honesty is the best policy’. For honesty is the way to build trust – and trust is like the oil in the machinery of the life of society. Trust is what enables us to live and work in harmony together. Trust communicates to you that I truly do have your best interest at heart; and trust enables me to understand that you have the same attitude towards me. Trust enables us to live not in narrow competition with each other – but in what the Archbishop of York has called ‘gracious magnanimity’. It helps set us free to live, and speak and act, knowing that at a very fundamental level, we are all ‘on the same side’ – we are all on the side of wanting to promote human flourishing.

This leads me to another principle from Scripture – from the same book of Genesis, with which the Bible begins – and that is the concept of Covenant. Covenant is about committing ourselves to work together for the greater good of all – and through sharing goods such as love, friendship, trust, which are multiplied, not divided, when we give them to others. This is very different from money and power and influence – if I share my money with two of you, I am left with only a third. But if I share friendship with you, between us we have three times as much as when we started!

Living together guided by the principles of covenant is quite, quite, different from living according to the principles of contract. While contracts concern our interests, covenants concern our identities; and while contracts deal in transactions, covenants deal in relationships. In other words, contracts are interested in what we can get out of one another – covenants are interested far more fundamentally in who each of us is, and how we can thrive and grow together, for mutual benefit. Contracts are about competition – if I win, you lose; while covenants are about cooperation – if I win, you also win.

Covenant is the basis for encouraging our young people to create a society in which everyone can win, everyone can flourish. When we have the courage to live by covenant, we will find ourselves encouraged to grow into all the new opportunities that are opened up before us. To live by covenant is to live with hope.

My prayer for you today, is that you may have the courage to live lives of encouragement, and lives of hope – so that you may be blessed, and be a blessing to the young people you seek to influence for the best. And in the same way, my prayer is that God may bless them, and make them also a blessing to others, in all our communities, in the generation that lies ahead. Thank You.

Ethical Leadership for Kairos Time and Chronos Time - The Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture

Below is the text of the Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture, delivered at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology on 15 October 2010

“Ethical Leadership in both Kairos and Chronos Time”

Vice Chancellor, Professor Mazwi-Tanga, Honoured Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a great privilege to be giving the Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture this morning. Thank you Ms Njoli-Motale, for your warm introduction and kind words. I thank the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and the South African Council of Churches for the invitation to address the theme of ethical leadership, and what it takes to be a good and effective leader in our times.

There is a famous passage in the Hebrew Scriptures – which Christians call the Old Testament – in the Book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, which says:

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance …' and so the passage continues, until it ends 'a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace."

We must ask ourselves, what sort of times do we live in now? Surely we seek a time of peace, of planting, of building up, and healing? But what also of the unfinished mourning and weeping from our past, and of breaking down those aspects of our inheritance which still need to be broken down? Answering these questions leads us to today’s central question – if these are our times, then what sort of leadership, ethical leadership, do we now need?

Let me stay with the Bible a little longer, as a means of getting under the skin of my questions. In the New Testament, in the Greek of first century Palestine, there are two words that speak of time. One is kairos and the other is chronos.

The Leadership of Kairos Time

Let me start with kairos. Kairos became an iconic word during the struggle era, through the issuing, 25 years ago last month, of ‘The Kairos Document – A Theological Comment on the Political Crisis in South Africa’. It was so significant and influential, that numerous other Kairos Documents have since been written around the world, from Central America to Kenya and Zimbabwe; and most recently, Palestine. All address a particular urgent need. All focus on a moment in time that has the potential to be a tipping point, a chance for turning the tide – if only we take hold of it.

This is kairos time – a pivotal point, perhaps of crisis or threat, perhaps of opportunity. It calls for a decisive response, for speaking out and for acting.

The Kairos Document of 25 years ago spoke into just such a time. A state of emergency existed. Oppression and violence were at unprecedented levels. Thousands were in detention; some suffered torture and death; and others went missing, or were banned, restricted, deported or forced into exile. There was an ‘almost total black-out’ of honest news coverage. Sometimes it is hard to convey to those who were not part of it, quite what we experienced.

Believing that kairos time comes with the promise of blessing, if we grasp the opportunities which God presents – the churches realised that, into this dire situation, they had to speak out loudly and clearly the authentic word of God, the true gospel of Jesus Christ with his promise of good news for all who suffer. Therefore, most importantly, this had to be done ‘bottom up’ and not just ‘top down’. This was not a task for those bishops, clergy and academics who were cushioned in ivory towers. It was for those who lived and pastored in townships and countryside, who experienced the daily realities of these hardships. It was a task for the theologians of the university of life – both ordained and lay.

A deep and honest critique emerged, which stated the difficult truth that Christians were in reality divided, even within denominations, over apartheid and how to respond. It challenged the Churches to grapple with three ‘theologies’ which it identified: ‘state theology’, ‘church theology’ and ‘prophetic theology’: two which supported or contributed – perhaps unwittingly – to the unacceptable status quo; and one that declared God’s better way. Today I want to look at what these three theologies might mean in our own time, and the vital lessons we can learn from them for ethical leadership – whether or not we are Christians or people of faith.

The Leadership of Chronos Time

To do this we must return to the question of what sort of times we live in today. Life is not as it was 25 years ago. The era of democracy is closer to the other sort of time of which biblical Greek speaks, chronos time. This is measured, not by stark crises and opportunities, but on watches, in diaries, through calendars. Politically speaking, we mark the returning seasons of elections, party congresses, annual budgets and each new tax year.

Leadership in such a time is far less about grasping pivotal moments (though these may still arise) – and far more about persevering for the long haul. It is less about heroes of the hour – it is more about those who are prepared to put in the long hard grind, and steadfastly hold to their goals, their principles, their values, as the ups and downs of life roll steadily on. Chronos times call for ethical leaders who will keep on upholding the highest standards in public and private life, day by day by day: leaders who have demonstrated that they have earned and deserve our trust – and to whom we can look to lead and guide us through the evolving changes and challenges of our country.

We need people of determination and persistence, on whom we can rely, on the long and often daunting journey we still have to make, to continue moving from the oppression of the past to a country of true equality for all – not just the equality of a ballot-paper for every adult, but the equality of economic justice and fair opportunity for everyone. This is the destination for which we strive.

The Right Goals of Human Living

In this respect, the goals of kairos and chronos are much the same. Ethical leadership should always direct us towards providing a better context for human beings, as individuals, and within society, to live well – to flourish. By flourishing, I do not mean that we are all entitled to an opulent lifestyle. Not at all! Indeed, we know in theory – even if we have not acknowledged it yet in our behaviour – that our planet cannot sustain 6 billion people pursuing the capitalist, consumerist lifestyle which the advertising world implies is our right!

Human flourishing is something far more fundamental – and must be open to everyone. This is why we also use the term ‘the common good’. It is rooted in what it essentially means to be human, and what, in such terms, are our basic human rights. These begin with a necessary standard of material well-being – adequate food and clean water, housing, clothing, health-care and so forth; with particular provision for the very young, the very old, the sick and disabled, and other vulnerable individuals unable to look after themselves. They also include access to decent education, which opens up opportunities for employment, and brings each of us the dignity of having some choice in our own destinies. The common good also entails a stable, safe, just, society which accords everyone respect materially, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.

Now, if you are wide awake, by now you might have spotted that I have just described human existence as encompassing heart and soul and mind and physical embodiment. I hope this has reminded you of words of Jesus, who said that humanity is created ‘to love God, with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength’. This is, he said, the first commandment of being human – being created by God in his image. More than this, God further dignified the human person through the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity – or, in less theological language, God became a human person in Jesus Christ.

Thus every human individual, without exception, is intrinsically deserving of being treated with dignity and respect – indeed, with honour akin to that due to God himself. And creation – the planet and all life on it – must also be treated with the reverence and care that is due to the handiwork of God.

The teachings of Jesus give further instruction on how we should live – doing to others as we would have them do to us. This principle, often known as the Golden Rule, is of course shared among those of many faiths, and none. This attitude underlies the second great commandment – that we should love our neighbours as ourselves. We should direct our lives towards ensuring that others are in receipt of what we would like for ourselves – especially where those others face any sort of need or vulnerability.

Within this ethical context of mutuality and reciprocity, Jesus came, he said, to bring ‘life in abundance’. Therefore this ‘abundant life’ cannot possibly be understood as the affluence only of some, at the expense of others. Abundant life consists in the fair and equitable availability of the material, spiritual, emotional and intellectual provisions which I have outlined. Ethical leadership must promote all this – in both the crises of our lives, and daily routine; in both kairos time and chronos time.

One does not have to share the underlying Christian reasoning, to share in this conviction. Our own Constitution, in making provision of equitable space for everyone, no matter what our beliefs, reaches the same conclusions. Intrinsic human worth, lived out and enjoyed by individuals and in community, is the right of every citizen, every resident within our borders. And it is the responsibility of our nation’s leaders to guarantee it, through the policies set by politicians and administered by public servants – and, where necessary, through the legal system where these fail.

While secular human rights theory may root itself in very different principles, its conclusions are sufficiently close to Biblical concepts of appropriate human flourishing for there to be fertile common ground for collaboration in forwarding these goals. Whatever our religious or philosophical starting point, we can always begin a conversation around the essential question of what it is to be human and to live decently; and how we achieve it more fully for our population.

Furthermore, in such conversations, we increasingly have no option within this globalising world of ours, but to recognise that our obligation to be ‘good neighbours’, in promoting reciprocal flourishing, applies not only to those near by, but to all across space and time – whether those who share our global village today, or those who will inherit our legacy in generations to come; and this must include responsible care of our environment. In consequence, since human well-being encompasses every aspect of human existence, there is no reason to consider that faith communities should confine themselves to promoting the common good in some artificially defined ‘private realm’ while the public sector is left to its own devices.

Kairos Theologies and Chronos Theologies

However, since not everyone agrees the voices of religious communities should legitimately be heard in the public space, perhaps I should give a little more justification. In doing so I want to draw on lessons from the crises of our kairos past and apply them to the chronos of democracy.

Earlier I mentioned that the Kairos Document identified three theological approaches – state theology, church theology and prophetic theology. Each, I shall now argue, finds new forms in our changed circumstances – but the dangers of the first two, and the challenges of the third, remain with us, even if we must learn to recognise them with new eyes.

State Theology

The Kairos Document described how the apartheid state used Scripture and theological concepts to justify racism, untrammelled capitalism and totalitarianism. Using the Bible this way (and I quote) ‘blesses injustice, canonises the will of the powerful and reduces the poor to passivity, obedience and apathy’ (unquote).

The starting point for this was a passage from St Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 13, which begins with these verses:

‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resist what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgement…for it is God’s servant for your good’ (Rom 13:1-2, 4).

Taken literally and superficially, these verses do indeed seem to offer an absolute and divine legitimacy to any state; to offer justification for any form of ‘law and order’ required to maintain that state and its rulers; and to condemn anyone who stands against them.

But there is truth in the saying that ‘any text without a context is a pretext’. We cannot just rip verses out of the Scriptures to suit ourselves, without taking into account everything else that lies between the covers of our Bibles. Therefore, as the Kairos Document pointed out, we must also pay attention to the many examples of God’s people and God’s prophets standing up against oppressive rulers and unjust state practices.

Even the quote from St Paul begs the question of whether a particular authority really is acting as ‘God’s servant for the good’ of its citizens, as it is called to do. Today we recognise that apartheid was fundamentally opposed to the purposes of God, of abundant life and the full breadth of opportunity for human flourishing open to all.

But what of our current democratic system? The preamble of our Constitution ends ‘May God protect our people’ and then the words ‘God bless South Africa’ are repeated in many of our languages. And its provisions, especially in Chapter 2, the Bill of Rights, closely mirror the essentials of human existence which I have outlined.

Does this mean that the words of St Paul wholly apply? – that government can expect its citizens to unreservedly support whatever they do; and especially the ANC and its partners, since they were the ones who brought in this new political era? Should faith communities let government get on with the business of politics, and stick to matters of worship and personal piety? Is our task the so-called ‘moral regeneration’ of the country, only coming into the public arena to denounce crime, and argue that the laws of the land must be upheld unquestioningly by all?

Well, all this would be to fall into very much the same trap of ‘state theology’ as before, even if our context is so changed. A good Constitution gives no one a ‘divine right’ to rule! Government must not expect the religious sector and other struggle partners merely to offer unconditional support in this new era. Nor can they unilaterally set the agenda for dealing with the faith communities, through bodies such as the National Religious Leaders Forum, or the National Interfaith Leadership Council – even at times expecting us to be a sort of mouth-piece in support of them, within our own communities. The same is true of other civil society bodies that were partners in the struggle, but who are also now called to act independently for the common good.

For democracy does not mean that instead of an unrepresentative minority holding all the power and wielding it in its own interests, another minority – though technically representative of the majority – gets to do the same instead. Democracy is a completely different way of doing politics: where everyone has a voice. We must all hold one another accountable to the highest aspirations of our Constitution, and to the vision of common good and human flourishing that underlies it.

Government must expect critique – and the rest of us must offer it – because open, honest, transparent policy making, and free debate around it, are the best way of seeing the issues, analysing the needs, and formulating and delivering effective policies to address them. It goes without saying – but I will say it anyway – that the so-called Protection of Information Bill is a disgrace to our democratic aspirations.

Leadership – whether of coalition partners or opposition political parties, of academia, of the media, of civil society organisations, and of the faith communities, must always be directed towards this goal. When government are working clearly towards these objectives, we must support them – and when they fall short, then we must offer the sort of critique that insists they move in a better direction, and helps them do so.

Church Theology

This brings challenges not only to the state’s understanding of itself and the leadership role it plays within democracy, but also to the way the Churches, the faith communities, and others, comprehend our role in these new times.

In the extreme conditions of 25 years ago, the Kairos Document criticised mainstream churches and their leaderships for being too limited, too cautious in their critique of the state – despite understanding apartheid to be wrong. Rather than engaging in in-depth analysis of the ‘signs of the times’, there was too much reliance upon superficial and uncritical application of a few stock ideas derived from Christian tradition. In particular the Churches’ right desire for peace and reconciliation was not adequately matched with demands for justice, repentance and change. There was too much emphasis on individual morality and not enough on just social, economic and political systems and practices. Sometimes it was merely the case that those in leadership in government and in the faith communities, were just too close to one another, with shared backgrounds, lifestyles, and social connections.

But, including through the influence of the Kairos Document, Churches increasingly came to work closely with others in the struggle; and today there are many lasting personal ties across society. Often religious and civil society leaders, politicians and business people bump into each other on political occasions, at sporting events, in social gatherings, even on aeroplanes. We are members of the same extended families. Our children go to the same schools. We all benefit from the opportunities available to the middle and upper economic classes: enjoying our nice suburbs, shopping at Woolies and Pick ‘n’ Pay and then going home to watch DSTV or surf the internet; and sharing our shock at the scandals revealed on Carte Blanche or in the Mail and Guardian.

But what are we actually doing to make a difference where it matters, to support those for whom all this is unimaginable luxury? It is not surprising that religious leaders face accusations that in seeing ourselves as ‘critical friends’ of government, we have often been far too friendly and nowhere near critical enough. True, we stood shoulder to shoulder together in the struggle, in our shared desire for human flourishing. But now we need to ensure that human flourishing, rather than sharing in the struggle, important though it was, remains the central issue.

This should be clear, if we only read the Constitution, or return to the pages of the Bible. It is implicit in Jesus’ own self-understanding, that he came to bring good news to the poor, and liberty to the oppressed (Lk 4:18) – no matter what form impoverishment and oppression take, whether in material or spiritual terms, or emotional well-being, or the structures of society. It is far more explicit in some of the Old Testament prophets, who, in their condemnation of self-serving and corrupt leaders, continually warn religious leaders against being compromised in their association with power and influence.

For example, the prophet Micah declares: ‘Its rulers give judgement for a bribe; its priests teach for a price; its prophets give oracles for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say “Surely the Lord is with us, no harm shall come upon us!”’ (Mic 3:11).

There is warning for South Africans here. We often speak of God’s blessing in bringing us into a new era without a bloodbath – but we cannot take God’s blessing into the future for granted, if we are not ready to be his instruments to ensure his blessing on all.

Prophetic Theology

Let me now turn to what the Kairos Document has to say about Prophetic Theology – the sort of theology it advocated for that time of crisis, and which we now must appropriate for our own era.

Given that I am in a university, a place of study and learning, let me read the following key passage: ‘Prophetic theology differs from academic theology because, whereas academic theology deals with all biblical themes in a systematic manner and formulates general Christian principles and doctrines, prophetic theology concentrates on those aspects of the Word of God that have an immediate bearing upon the critical situation in which we find ourselves.’

This is a warning to all of us who love theological studies – and also for all who major, academically and professionally, in political studies or economics or social sciences or any other discipline that relates to the life of the world!

The message is this – where does the rubber hit the road? Where does our studying connect with the needs of those for whom the coming of democracy has not brought abundant life, freedom of choice, human flourishing?

This is the crunch for ethical leadership. We, who have positions of authority and influence may indeed generally find ourselves in a chronos context – working through stable structures of governance and democracy. But we must do so in the service of those who still live with kairos urgency – in crisis times of inadequate food, shelter, clothing, health-care, education, and so much more that we take for granted. Even clean water from the tap! I was shocked to learn recently that the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs acknowledges that in South Africa over 100 children may die daily from diarrhoeal diseases, largely a result of poor water and sewage provisions. It is so basic – so why do we not address such fundamentals with far, far, greater urgency?

The greatest risks of leadership today are not of missing the window of opportunity – they are more often about complacency. Yet it takes strong, courageous, committed individuals to provide the leadership of integrity necessary for these times of so-called normality. This is leadership often behind the scenes, over years; content to proceed through small gains achieved through steady perseverance, not one-off great and decisive victories; without the adrenalin of the moment, with little promise of glory in the public eye.

But, if we are not to fall back into the traps of ‘church theology’, and the thinly disguised patronising attitudes with which it so often unwittingly comes, we must do more than merely work ‘on behalf of’ those we consider less well off than ourselves, within existing systems and practices. We need to turn the uncompromising eye of the prophet on these also, and ask ‘Whose interests do they primarily serve?’ Are we content with political, economic and social structures that are more geared to upholding our own comfortable lives, than to delivering human flourishing to those who most lack it?

Of course, this may not be popular with voters who aspire to the comfortable life! But once one has achieved even very modest levels of material well-being, more money is no guarantee of increased happiness, as studies increasingly show. We need to change the debate, as Pope Benedict attempted to do in his visit to Britain last month. He posed to young people the challenging question, ‘What sort of society do you want?’

There is far more to life than individualism and conspicuous consumption. Attempting to define ourselves by our wealth and what we buy, or though our status and influence, will not bring deep or lasting satisfaction.

Leaders of our Times

Nor is this what leadership is about. True leadership is not for the personal gain of those involved – an opportunity to maximise the benefits for oneself and one’s family and friends. It is not about 15 minutes of fame – like a prize supermarket dash, where one races through the aisles trying to stuff as much as possible into one’s trolley before one’s time is up.

Whether we find ourselves in politics, in business, in academia, in the media, in civil society organisations, or the faith communities: leadership must be about serving the interests of the nation as a whole – and especially the needs of those who still do not have access to the basic necessities of a good life. This is the leadership of servanthood – to put our lives on the line, for the wellbeing of others.

We have seen one of the most remarkable examples of this in Luis Urzúa, the leader of the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground. He held them all together, especially during the terrible 17 days before contact was made – days when death seemed closer than life. He provided the structure, focus, and discipline they needed, so that every single one was supported through the crisis. The strength of his character was such that it came as little surprise to learn he would be the last one of the 33 out of the mine. How many of our political leaders would show such selflessness, I wonder?

Yet we should not just imagine that he was a man of the moment who sprang from nowhere to meet this crisis. He had been a miner for three decades – three decades during which he developed the habits of behaviour and character which earned the trust and the respect of his colleagues. And when crisis came – he was ready to step up: and others recognised and followed his lead.

Madiba too, spent his long apprenticeship in jail – which shaped him for the pivotal task of leading us into a new era. And of course, the same is true of 'the Arch', Desmond Tutu, whom we honour in this lecture. We should form our lives through the same commitment to a life of doing what is right, in the right way, for the right reasons, in the service of humanity now and through the future of our planet.

We must do so as individuals, and corporately – for example, the ANC and other political parties must come to see servant leadership of the nation as the vocation of the whole party, and not merely of leaders acting as individuals. Furthermore, we must choose our leaders not on the basis of their connections – but on their fitness for office, in terms of both qualifications and experience, and of character and track record. It must be normative to expect the highest values, the truest morals, the best standards, and to see congruence between public and private lives.

Conclusion

Let me end with a challenge to all of you here today. Each one of you has the opportunity to be a leader – perhaps not in big or public ways. But all of you, through the choices you make or fail to make, will influence people around you – for good or for bad. My challenge to you is to be the best, ethical, servant leaders that you can be – directing your lives for the good of all, in the little things of life, and sustaining that commitment through whatever life brings your way. This is the sort of thing the LEAD-SA campaign is promoting, and I support it wholeheartedly.

And then, when opportunities arise – through the long slog of life or through moments of pivotal change – you will be the ones who are best placed to take them, and shape this country so that it can truly be a place where every person can flourish and live an abundant life. There can be no greater aspiration in life. May God bless you as you pursue this goal, and make you a blessing to others.