There are these moments in time that are dials or hinges. History turns on that point. June 16th 1976 and the Soweto Youth Uprising was one such turning point. Before that was the Sharpville Massacre of 1960.
As I have shared in the other posts on this topic, George Floyd's murder was another dial. It was also a great exposer of where people in South Africa stood on the discussion of institutional racism and what they were prepared to do about it. The shooting of Charlie Kirk, the 31 year old conservative Christian politician has proven to be another dial. One that exposes a great deal of what people think about all sorts of things from what free speech is ; what being a christian is; what " mistakes" people are willing to overlook for the bigger project; what church in service of empire looks like; what people think racism is and much more. In the South African context the white church is divided . Those who believe Kirk was a saint, a legend, a hero, a leader and martyr and those who think he is a person who sowed hate and division and who was white supremacist's in the outworking of his faith and therefore racist's.
We land here again. What is racism? How does it work out in reality in the lives of individuals and systems? How do we fight it? what is equality? How do we live out our lives as citizens of this world as we call ourselves Christ Followers ? These are huge questions . They are questions that have deep meaning and impact on the lives of those who are recipients of racism, whether we acknowledge racism as something or not.
South African Christianity has proved yet again , to be firmly linked and rooted in the original colonised version of itself . The roots are rotten . It matters not what black people say out loud or to one another about their experiences, white supremacist thinking fights to maintain the status quo. It finds those black voices who are willing to support the very same status quo, sadly and holds those up as proof that racism is dead and unity in the church is reality. It is not.
Christian Nationalism, as argued by Chris Hedges in the video above, is unfolding itself to the climax in the context of the USA. We, in South Africa have seen this playbook before. Apartheid was rooted in the same said Christian Nationalism. Church in service of empire. The roots were not pulled out and remained to bloom again.
Where is Jesus in all this?
I suspect he is busy on the margins where the powerful seldom glance.
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