Christ as Reconciler: What Jesus Looks Like in the Shadow of Apartheid in South Africa

[0:00] Good morning, everyone. Good morning. All right, let me just pray as we begin together this morning. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness to us.

[0:13] We thank you for this new day. And I pray that as I speak this morning, as we are listening, that you would also be speaking, that you would also be opening our minds to what you are doing in our lives, in this city and country, and also in the wider world.

[0:34] We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Can everyone hear me all right? Do I need to project more? Is this all right? Okay. Yeah, as was said, my name is David.

[0:50] For those of you who don't know me, I'm a student at Regent College. And so this morning, I am going to be presenting, in part, presenting a paper that I did last term for a course at Regent.

[1:03] So I will explain that a bit, but I also have some context to bring into all of this as well. So my title for the talk this morning is Christ as Reconciler, What Jesus Looks Like in the Shadow of Apartheid in South Africa.

[1:19] So what Jesus looks like today in the post-apartheid era in South Africa. So these are questions that we have looked at in our course.

[1:29] I'll explain a bit more about the course that I was able to do last term, what I took from that, what I learned overseas also, and then talk about the paper itself.

[1:41] So this morning, just to give you an idea, we'll start off with kind of some of the big picture of this course that I took. Within that, the context is world Christianity.

[1:53] So Christianity in different parts of the globe outside the Western world, looking at that and what that means and what we can learn from that as well.

[2:04] Secondly, I want to give you some context before I jump into the paper, because I spent a few years, five years living in South Africa myself, really enjoyed my time there.

[2:16] And so that has had a big impact on myself and also then upon my research and work on this particular topic. And lastly, I will talk about the paper itself, which I entitled Christ as Reconciler and Bringer of Ubuntu.

[2:33] And if you don't know what Ubuntu is, I'll give you a few different definitions of that African word. So the course I took last term is a course at Regent with Dr. Diane Stinton, who is a professor of global Christianity at Regent.

[2:52] And the title of the course was Perspectives on Christology from the Global South. So Christology is the study of Christ. So perspectives on the study of Christ, perspectives on Christ from the Global South.

[3:05] So from cultures outside the North American, European, Western context. And so within this course, we would examine how Christ is portrayed in different cultures.

[3:18] And so what we did was each week we would look at a different area of the world, examine that continent, examine its, especially its recent theology coming out of that area of the world.

[3:31] So we read a whole bunch of theologians. So the first week we started with Latin America and read, and we're reading Brazilian theologians and Peruvians and Mexican theologians, all of that.

[3:44] Then the next week we did African theology, read a whole bunch of different African theologians. Then we did Asian theology the next week, which is even more broad because there's so many countries and cultures in Asia, but we had to synthesize it all down.

[3:59] So that's just a bit of an idea of this course, was to look at all these different areas of the world and how Christ is perceived uniquely in each one of those contexts. And there's a definite connection, I think, within this coursework to the work of mission as well, which I'll get into a little more in the talk.

[4:19] So some examples of how this is done. So I'll just give you a couple examples. So in Latin America, for example, Christ is often seen as liberator. So those of you who've heard about liberation theology, so liberation theology was kind of a movement coming out of Latin America, particularly Catholic theologians in the 70s and 80s, who were really focusing on Christ as coming for the poor and for the oppressed and speaking that within the context of poverty within those nations, within the context of also, you know, dictatorial regimes and the like.

[4:55] And so a strong emphasis on the poor and that Jesus comes for the poor, a strong emphasis on certain verses of the Bible that speak about that. So, for instance, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 4, Jesus comes and when he inaugurates his ministry, he talks about, he says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

[5:19] He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

[5:31] And so within that context, they tend to emphasize these parts of the Bible strongly based on their context. And I think in the West, we probably do this to some extent as well, although that's a larger discussion.

[5:47] But, you know, we will emphasize certain verses of the Bible. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. That's just how God speaks to us and to our cultural situation.

[5:58] And so, but he speaks in different ways to some of these different cultures. One more example of this in the African context would be Christ as a healer. So we see many passages, even as we're going through the Gospel of Matthew, I'm sure, at St.

[6:14] John's. And you've noticed how often Jesus heals people. And for us in the West, that can seem like a very foreign thing. We have, in the sense that we have, we have doctors, we have hospitals, we have perhaps less of a reliance on that kind of healing than, say, a community of Africans where there isn't maybe a more, you know, remote communities, communities where there aren't, where there isn't as much Western medicine, especially if you go back some years.

[6:44] So there's a greater need in that context for Christ to be seen as a healer. For healings to even happen in that context through missionaries or through church workers was quite common.

[6:58] And so this becomes a big theme within their theology, this emphasis on Christ as being a healer. So those are just a couple of examples for us to think about.

[7:14] And this is a quote by John B. Taylor, who was a, he was actually an English bishop, bishop in the Anglican Church. He did a lot of work with, a lot of missionary work within the Anglican Church.

[7:26] Um, I think in the 80s, uh, 70s, 80s, that era. And he, uh, wrote this quote, which we read for our course, which I think is quite interesting. So Christ has been presented in Africa as the answer to the questions a white man would ask.

[7:43] But if Christ were to appear as the answer to questions that Africans are asking, what would he look like? So this is an important question to consider within the context of missions.

[7:55] Uh, especially within Africa. Um, we are, those of, uh, us from European descent are some of our ancestors went, went to Africa and brought the gospel.

[8:07] And, and, and that was a great thing. And Africans are very grateful for the fact that the Europeans actually, you know, brought, brought the gospel of Jesus Christ. Um, however, at the same time, that needs to be contextualized.

[8:21] That message needs to be brought to Africans in a way that they can understand. And so this, this quote raises the question, well, what questions are Africans answering? Um, because the Jesus that we picture often answers, he answers our, he answers our questions.

[8:35] He answers the questions that we have in our culture. Uh, even within a Western context, he answers, um, every apologetic question that we have.

[8:46] He, he has answers to those questions, whether it's questions of suffering, uh, or questions of why is there evil in the world or any of these questions that we have, which we might emphasize strongly in a Western context.

[8:58] Um, Jesus has answers to that. However, those questions might be different from the questions that Africans are asking. So just something to think about, uh, within the context of mission and how we bring the gospel to different cultures.

[9:12] Uh, so this is the, the South African flag, uh, which is a key to remind me to tell you a bit about my time in this, uh, in this country.

[9:24] Um, so I spent five years in, in South Africa, uh, working with an organization called youth with a mission or YWAM.

[9:37] Hmm. I was in Cape town and I was teaching on a Bible school there, uh, for that, for that time. And that experience has shaped me in many ways.

[9:48] It has shaped me as insofar as, uh, the organization I was working for, um, and their emphasis on, on missions. So YWAM is, it is youth with a mission. So there, there's a strong emphasis on missions.

[10:00] Um, even though I was in one place teaching at a Bible school that, that has had an impact upon me as well. Uh, and also there's been, uh, the community I was a part of there had a strong emphasis on bringing the gospel to, to an African context and to, to contextualize that and to make that understandable within that, uh, nation.

[10:24] And so some, some things I learned while I was there. Um, so for two years of my time living in South Africa, I was living, uh, in a house and I had four housemates in that house.

[10:36] And, uh, actually for the first two years that I lived in that house, uh, I was the only non-African living in the house. I was the only white person. Um, which is, is, you know, like I, I got used to living with Africans on, in my previous time there.

[10:52] And, uh, and so I just want to show you a picture. This is just a picture of me and, uh, my housemates from, I guess this would have, this, this picture would have been taken, uh, three, um, could have been three or maybe probably four years ago now.

[11:09] Is one of them a woman or is that girl? Yes. So, uh, uh, this is Liolo. He's a man. This is myself and my friend, Mawande, uh, Busani right there.

[11:19] She is a woman. That one right there. Yeah. Uh, you can't see her, her longer hair, but it's, it's behind her. Uh, and then Michael, uh, on the end. Um, and so I lived with, yeah, with, uh, with those four for, for quite some time.

[11:35] Um, and this was a very, a very good experience for me insofar as, uh, teaching me to look at, look at things with the different cultures perspective.

[11:47] Um, you know, between our, our conversations in the house or in the kitchen, whether it's talking about politics or talking about history or talking even about, uh, our families, um, even about what, uh, some of their families had been through within the context of apartheid.

[12:04] Um, that, uh, definitely taught me a lot about how they see the world and how they see the world differently to me and my background. Um, and so that was a, I think a good experience and a good experience as a missionary to be thinking about what is, what is my context?

[12:21] Um, what is this nation that I'm in and how do I communicate the gospel in a way that people there can, can really relate to and understand? Um, so I'll give you, this is a picture from the apartheid era.

[12:35] So now I'm going to kind of move, move from my experience transition into, uh, a bit of an explanation of, of apartheid, uh, what that was and, and the theology that has come as a result of that in the, in the more recent, you know, 30 years since apartheid has ended.

[12:53] Uh, so this picture is, uh, put it up for two reasons. One, this was, uh, this is actually the beach that was closest to the house that I lived in.

[13:05] Um, so there's kind of these famous colorful, uh, beach huts, which are still there to this day. Uh, Chris, Chris has spent some time there in Musenberg previously.

[13:16] So if you want to ask myself or Chris about Musenberg and this wonderful beach, um, here, you're very welcome. Uh, but this was a sign, this was kind of one of the signs that would have been there during apartheid.

[13:28] And if you can't read it, I know it's very small lettering and it's all in white, so it's hard to make out. Um, so it says in English at the top and then in Afrikaans down here. Uh, so it reads white persons only, uh, this beach and the amenities thereof have been reserved for white persons only by order, provincial secretary.

[13:48] Um, and so this was, you know, for those of you who are familiar with either this, with either apartheid in South Africa or even with the civil rights, um, pre-civil rights era in the United States, this was quite common, um, at the time for, for these signs to be up and for, uh, for there to be this division of races.

[14:08] Um, and so what I did, what I showed you just now with that picture, living, um, living in a house with Africans would have been, uh, in South Africa would have been virtually unthinkable just, just 30 years ago.

[14:21] Um, I'm only 30 years old. Uh, so in fact, like, you know, during my lifetime, um, given what was happening there, that would have been unthinkable, uh, in the, in the late eighties, for instance, um, prior to the end of apartheid.

[14:36] Um, so now I want to now take you into, uh, the paper that I wrote, uh, some of the con, some, a bit more of the context of apartheid and then the theology that comes out of that.

[14:50] Uh, and by all means, at the end, we will, I will leave, um, lots of time for questions and I, I really do value that interaction. So as, as we're going through, please feel free to, you know, brainstorm those in, in your head in advance.

[15:05] Um, so this is a picture of this man, D.F. Malan. Hmm. Uh, Malan was, he was the first, uh, prime minister of South Africa under apartheid.

[15:18] So I think he was prime minister from, I, I'm not a hundred percent sure on the dates, but roughly 1948, uh, to the mid fifties, I believe.

[15:31] Um, and so he was, he was the first prime minister of the apartheid regime. And so he was one of the architects of apartheid as well. Um, interestingly, uh, Malan was an ordained minister in the Dutch reformed church in South Africa.

[15:50] Uh, so he had trained to be a minister. He had actually, uh, received a doctorate in divinity, uh, in Holland at the University of Utrecht. Um, and so he based, essentially he based apartheid upon his worldview, upon his, uh, theology in part, uh, also his anthropology.

[16:10] So his, his idea of how humans worked. Um, and essentially with that, it was that white, white, whites and blacks could not mix. There could be no, um, mixing of those groups.

[16:22] Uh, so I'm just going to show you three quotes from, from him. This, these are all taken from a letter that he wrote to, um, an American, I think it was an American pastor, um, in 1955, just kind of explaining the context, um, why apartheid was, was needed as in a sense, rationalizing it and saying, this is why this is important.

[16:43] This is some of the context, um, as to what you need to know. So this helps, I think us know the context of what this was like and then the results from that. So, Mellon writes, um, and I think this is, this is, this is a helpful quote in the sense that I will read it out, um, in a second, but in the sense that, uh, apartheid was not invented in a sense in 1948.

[17:08] This wasn't something that just came out of nowhere. This is something that started before that. So he writes, it must be appreciated from the outset that apartheid, separation, segregation, or differentiation, whatever the name given the traditional racial policy of South Africa, is part and parcel of the South African tradition as practiced since the first Dutch settlement at the Cape in 1652 and still supported by the large majority of white South Africans of the main political parties.

[17:39] So essentially, Mellon here is saying, look, I mean, this, this whole segregation thing, this has been going on in South Africa since the 1600s, um, which is true.

[17:49] It maybe hadn't been, you know, codified into law as much as it was, uh, in, in the forties. Um, but certainly it was generally speaking how things were done.

[18:02] Um, and, and clearly from, from his quote was still supported by, by most white South Africans at the time. Uh, he goes on. Uh, so he says, um, essentially a positive and non-repressive policy as applied in our enlightened day, apartheid is based on what the Afrikaner believes to be his divine calling and his privilege to convert the heathen to Christianity without obliterating his national identity.

[18:28] Um, and as you have addressed me in our first place as a Christian and a church man, let me at the outset summarize for your consideration the point of view of the Dutch Reformed church with which the Afrikaans churches are fundamentally in agreement.

[18:42] So again, saying, um, broadly that he, yeah, these, these churches are in agreement with, with this policy of apartheid. Um, and you know, you, you do see in this, you do see some, you know, this was not a, in a sense, this was not a, you know, we, we can think of this man as being, you know, we, we might want to think of him as like a Hitler type figure and, and, you know, but you can see in this, he, he, he actually, he does want to convert, he wants to convert the heathen to Christianity, but at the same time he has some strong conceptions about what that means and what that has to look like.

[19:21] Um, so yeah, it's a, it's a complicated, it's a complicated history and I think a complicated situation. Uh, and I'll just give you one last quote and this was actually the quote that I was most struck by as I was writing this paper.

[19:34] And in particular, I've put one word in italics in the middle, which you'll see, um, as, as how this articulates his thinking. So he writes, the deep rooted color consciousness of the white South Africans arises from the fundamental difference between two groups, white and black.

[19:53] The difference in color is merely the physical manifestation of the contrast between two irreconcilable ways of life, between barbarism and civilization, between heathenism and Christianity, and finally between overwhelmingly, overwhelming numerical odds on the one hand and insignificant numbers on the other.

[20:14] Um, yeah, this really spells it out. He, he believes these, these two people groups are, are distinct and that God has, God has created them in that way and they are fundamentally irreconcilable.

[20:25] Their cultures are very different. Um, he, he sees no, no opportunity for, for mixing or for reconciliation in any way.

[20:37] They are, they are distinct and they need to remain separate, um, which is what apartheid, apartheid means separation in, in Afrikaans. Um, so his, his theology obviously comes out of, um, as you might guess from, from some of these quotes, especially, uh, the previous one comes out of a very strong, um, a very strong, uh, Calvinist, uh, tradition, but one which not to say that Calvinism's wrong, but to say that he, he understood it as, he understood as, uh, the Afrikaners.

[21:14] So himself as an Afrikaner and his people as Afrikaners, they were like, he saw them as the chosen people of God, that they, they were called to, to bring the gospel in this nation.

[21:25] Um, and so I think because of that understanding of like, we are people group, uh, our race is the chosen, uh, chosen people. Then that has effects when you start to take that view and impose that on, on others.

[21:39] Um, and you can see even within this quote, how he's separating those two groups, right? They are, they are heathens, they are, um, barbarous or barbarism.

[21:52] Um, and they're very, they're very many and we are, you know, we're few, we're, uh, we're, we're Christians and we're, we're here to bring civilization as well. So, uh, how do we, what, where does this kind of thinking lead?

[22:08] Uh, well, if you read the history over the following, uh, basically half century, um, uh, after this time apartheid continued up until, uh, it was ended officially in 1994.

[22:21] Um, and, uh, and when, uh, they held free elections and, um, the apartheid regime was ended. So what does this all mean in the context of today?

[22:34] How does Christ present himself within this context in South Africa? Uh, so I'm just going to show a couple, um, Bible verses here that I think, uh, bring some light as to what Christ has done.

[22:52] The first is Ephesians chapter two, verses 13 to 16. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace.

[23:06] Who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh, the law with his commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace.

[23:22] And in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which he put to death their hostility. Uh, and also second Corinthians five, similar emphasis.

[23:34] All this is from God who reconcile us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them.

[23:48] And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Excuse me. Uh, so some, some key concepts from this that I, uh, focused on in the paper.

[24:05] Uh, so some key concepts from this that I, uh, focused on in the paper. Uh, so the first of these is this idea of Christ as liberator. So I spoke of this earlier within the Latin American context.

[24:17] Uh, this is also true to some extent within the African context. Um, and this is also related in some ways to the idea and the theme of reconciliation. Uh, so Alan Buesak, who is a South African, um, he's a black South African theologian, uh, who is, I think he's still alive today, but he was really prominent in the, in the 1990s.

[24:40] So he works, he links, uh, Christ's work of reconciliation, or sorry, his work of liberation to the idea of reconciliation. Um, so he, he argues the idea of reconciliation, um, which needs to happen in the post-apartheid context.

[24:56] Now it needs to happen between black and white, between these different people groups that were separated, that were estranged from one another. But in order to have that reconciliation, he argues that that reconciliation presupposes this idea of liberation.

[25:10] Liberation has to come first. In a sense, people first need to be free, um, within their own cultures, within their own contexts. Um, they need to be free to follow Christ.

[25:21] And, and once they're doing that, then Christ is able to reconcile them to himself and also reconcile them to one another. Uh, and I, I chose to focus my paper on this idea of reconciliation because I think this is an image of Christ, uh, very pertinent to the South African context.

[25:40] And it's, it's very important for Christ to be seen as a reconciler within the current situation in South Africa. Um, part of the reason why I titled this presentation, uh, what Christ looks like in the shadow of apartheid is that while apartheid today is over, uh, there are still many divisions within South African society.

[25:59] Yes, the regime is done, uh, and, and much has, has changed in the wake of that. Things are radically different from what they were 30 years ago. Uh, however, for the most part, um, traditionally white neighborhoods, for example, in Cape Town are still mostly white, not exclusively, but mostly.

[26:16] Um, and traditional, uh, traditionally the places where the apartheid government had moved, um, uh, colored or black people into those places. Those to this day are still, um, places where, uh, those people groups live.

[26:30] Uh, if you go to Cape Town, you will see miles. Well, if you go to Cape Town or Johannesburg or any major city in South Africa, you will still to this day see, um, miles of, of shacks of, um, what, what they would call townships in South Africa.

[26:46] Um, and they're just, you know, metal, metal sheeting, uh, kind of, you know, I, I don't even know if they're shacks. They're kind of shacks, I guess, made out of metal sheeting.

[26:58] Um, just one beside the other for, for miles and miles and miles. Um, uh, millions of people, even within Cape Town, the city I was living in, millions of people live, live in that, in that context.

[27:09] Um, so apartheid today is, is, it's, uh, it has its lasting impacts. Um, shall we say. Um, and the other, the other idea I had here within the paper was this idea of Ubuntu.

[27:26] Uh, now Ubuntu, I will, um, explain for you what that is. I'll try to explain what that is. Hmm. This is, uh, a word in a few different South African languages.

[27:39] Um, some of you may have heard it before. Um, and it is a difficult word to translate or to explain. Uh, but I'll give you a few quotes, um, which kind of explain this idea of Ubuntu.

[27:56] All right. So Desmond Tutu writes a lot about this. He says, in Africa, we have something called Ubuntu in Guni languages or, uh, Botu in, or Butu maybe in Soutu, which is difficult to translate into English.

[28:12] It is the essence of being human. It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong.

[28:29] And this is Alan Boussak, who is a contemporary of Desmond Tutu's. A lot of similar, um, elements of their theology. Uh, they're both black South African theologians around the same era.

[28:42] Um, so he says, uh, black theology since, and he, by what he means by black theology is, I think in particular within the South African context, sincerely believes that it is possible to recapture what was sacred in the African community long before white people came.

[28:58] Solidarity, respect for life, humanity, and community. It is, in the most profound sense of the word, gospel truth. Um, the idea of Ubuntu is, is a complex one.

[29:13] And, and I can give you quotes like this and they don't do fully do justice to, to what it means. Although perhaps you're getting a bit of a sense. It has to do with, um, community.

[29:25] It has to do with, I mean, it's often translated as, uh, as the phrase, uh, Tutu had right there, uh, which is, um, or did he, no, he didn't have it there.

[29:35] So another way it's often expressed, sorry, it's not in these two quotes is, um, uh, I am because we are. So that's one way it's often expressed.

[29:47] I am because we are. Um, uh, Tutu actually has a longer video, which is sometimes show, which, which explains, uh, the quote in more detail, but it's this idea of, uh, community of, uh, we are not, uh, another thing Tutu says is I, we, I cannot be human on my own.

[30:06] I need other humans in order to be human. Um, he also talks about even the, uh, the psychological elements of, uh, that we, when we are children, we cannot, we cannot learn how to speak unless we have someone to teach us how to speak.

[30:23] That is how we, we learn. We, we learn words from our parents. We learn language over time. We, we develop that. We, we then are able to speak and to communicate to one another. And so he says, it's this, that, that principle is true for, for us as humanity.

[30:39] We, we can't be individuals in isolation. We have to be in community. Uh, and as Wussak is saying here, I do think this is, uh, an idea which we can see in the Bible.

[30:51] Um, we, we, we need one another. This is why, this is hopefully part of why you were all here this morning, uh, that we can't just be individual Christians and sit at home and, uh, I mean, it's a good thing for us to, to read our Bibles and to have devotionals and quiet times and all that kind of thing.

[31:08] Um, but we also need to gather. We also need to, to be a community together, to worship together, to pray together. Um, because that is who God has called us to be. Um, and so that is a bit of what this idea of Ubuntu is.

[31:23] Um, and I do think this, I, this African concept of Ubuntu relates to this idea of reconciliation, uh, in many ways. Um, there's a lot of crossover between, excuse me, between those, those ideas.

[31:38] Um, and I think within the modern context in South Africa, Ubuntu is this expression of South Africans actually coming together and reconciling.

[31:49] Um, and I have seen, uh, although I have seen the shadow of apartheid in South Africa, I've also seen much of this element of reconciliation that has taken place in the nation, um, I think very deeply and very meaningfully.

[32:04] Um, obviously not for everyone. There are still, you know, you'll still find, um, especially in more rural areas, you'll still find white people that are still, uh, set in the ways that their parents and grandparents taught them and, and still have this apartheid kind of mindset.

[32:20] And similarly, you'll find, um, black people who, uh, who are, you know, similarly, um, you know, just focused on their own people in their own community and have no regard for the outside world.

[32:32] And you get that on both sides. And I think that's part of the, uh, the sadness and the brokenness of, of what apartheid was. Um, but this reconciliation in many ways has happened.

[32:44] This is a picture of the truth and reconciliation commission, which happened in South Africa in the 19, in the late, mid to late 1990s. I think it was from 96 to 98.

[32:56] Um, so Nelson Mandela's government that was put in, in 1994, set up this commission, um, for people to, uh, for people who had come on both sides, both on, from, um, white communities or from black communities who had, uh, oppressed the other, who had even committed, uh, murders or who had committed terrorism or anything.

[33:18] Um, they set up these, these forums for people to be able to come to share, um, their stories, to share also some of the, um, even the, those abuses or, or terrible things that they had done and to receive, uh, amnesty as a result of, of confessing, uh, those things.

[33:39] Um, and I think this, the idea for this commission largely came out of a very Christian ethos. Uh, we need to reconcile with one another. We need to be able to, uh, actually have some forgiveness and have some reconciliation as a nation in order to be able to, in a sense, build a new, a new nation.

[33:58] Um, uh, even, even to this day, South Africans will still, um, often call this, their current nation, the new South Africa to distinguish it from the apartheid regime.

[34:11] Um, and so this, this, this idea of reconciliation, I think, was fundamental in this era to the foundation of the new South Africa as well.

[34:25] Um, yeah. And over that, that commission as well was presiding, uh, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

[34:38] Um, so I didn't, I didn't, I haven't talked about Tutu. I think I've maybe, perhaps I've, um, I don't know if I've foolishly assumed that everyone knows who he is. Uh, but I will, uh, tell you, uh, so Desmond Tutu is an, uh, well, he was an Anglican Archbishop.

[34:54] He is still alive, I believe. Um, although he is, he is old. Um, but he was the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, uh, for quite a number of years and was very involved in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, very involved with Nelson Mandela in that time.

[35:10] Um, and so he presided over the commission, uh, actually, uh, he was invited to do that as, as bishop, as part of his role as bishop. Um, and he has, uh, yeah, he has had a massive influence upon this area of theology.

[35:25] Uh, I did a lot of reading of different works of Tutu for this paper. Uh, and so I'll just leave you, uh, as I close, I'll just leave you with this quote, uh, as Tutu summarizes it.

[35:36] But however we approach it, the heart of the Christian gospel is summed up in the word reconciliation. He was sent into the world to affect atonement, at one-ment, where there was unit, where there was disunity, division, alienation, and estrangement.

[35:56] He established their opposites, fellowship, unity, togetherness, friendliness, community, peace, and wholeness. Jesus unites God's children of all races, colors, cultures, sexes, and nationalities in one fellowship, thereby transcending all those barriers and distinctions humans often regard as overriding.

[36:20] God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Thank you. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[36:31] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

[36:42] Amen. Amen.