Archive for the ‘South Africa’ Category

Posted on September 16, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Acts29 Church Planting Conference: Cape Town

If you have a Facebook account then you can sign up to attend the Acts29 Church Planting Conference happening in Cape Town from the 2nd to the 4th of February 2009.I’m sure there will be a more official sign up shortly but start by signing up on Facebook.

Posted on September 10, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

aKing

No its not the name of a cheesy Christian band but a really cool up and coming South African band that deserves a listen. BTW – if you look carefully you’ll catch glimpses of the beach apartments of Sea Point in the background, the area we’re church planting in next year.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z5PZJNmZE4]

(HT – Burgo – dude is that the name the Aussies have given you?)

Posted on September 10, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Julius Malema Pulls the Race Card on Zapiro

Yes, I think the cartoon was in bad taste and, whilst conveying the convictions of a ton of people in this country, in general I think it was a mistake on Zapiro’s part. What I find completely ludicrous however is Julius Malema’s suggesting that the only motivation that lies behind such a cartoon is racism on the part of white journalists.

There will be no progression in this country if people like Malema keep pulling out the race card. Racism,  especially because of its sensitive nature in this country, needs to be treated like other criminal activities – the individual must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. We can’t keep publicly denouncing each other as racists without any sort of judicial enquiry. It creates and stirs up the wrong emotions amongst our people. So where Zapiro was out of line in terms of tact and provoking unhelpful emotive responses towards the ANC and its partners, Malema, to my mind, is equally out of line in appealing to the race card out of nothing more than his own speculation and opinion.

Posted on September 9, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Zapiro’s Jacob Zuma Cartoon

What ought a Christian to make of Zapiro’s latest offering of political satire. It looks pretty over the top even though many of us might agree with the sentiments he’s trying to portray. I guess he could have been a bit more careful. Jacob Zuma was acquitted of rape charges and so Zapiro should be careful of undermining the very judicial system he’s suggesting that Zuma and co. are raping. Some people have commented that the woman in the cartoon is white whilst the rest are all blacks – I’m not sure if I can see that it – let’s not turn this into a race issue again because I don’t think that’s Zapiro’s line given contributions he made to the struggle during apartheid.

You can read more here (for) and here (against). And you can see the cartoon, with commentary, here.

Posted on September 8, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Illiteracy in South Africa

I was listening to SAFM on the way home today and a discussion about literacy levels in South Africa at present. To date there are over 4 million people who are completely illiterate and a further 4 million who are semi-literate but to the point that the written word has no benefit to their quality of life. That leaves us with just under 9 million  people who technically qualify as illiterate in this country. Now surely that has to impact upon ministry? What do you think?

Posted on September 3, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Driscoll’s Hard Words for Sydney – and maybe us?

Well Mark Driscoll has a reputation for being controversial and he kept that intact down-under with two talks he presented to the Sydney crowd at a training day. His second talk – from the notes I’ve read – seems to be something of quite a brave critique of operations in Sydney. I think it’ll generate quite a few blog responses in the not to distant future. For the low down you can check out Michael Jensen’s brief thoughts here, Mike Jolly’s summary of Driscoll’s points here and Gordon Cheng’s notes from the two talks here. With my own denomination, the Church of England in South Africa (CESA), borrowing a ton from Sydney I wonder if Driscoll would have pretty much the same critique for us? I’d have to listen to the talk myself before passing judgment, but from a surface point of view I resonate with a lot of his points from my own experience here. That said, a few of his points don’t quite make sense to me and I fear he might be missing the boat a bit on some – but they’re all worth looking at and thinking through (In reading remember that, as Mike points out, this is friendly-fire).

Posted on September 2, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Start a Blog Campaign

I want to see more reformed and evangelical South African Christian blogs – I want to see more people talking about what it means to be the church in South Africa in the contemporary world in which we live. So I’m laying down a challenge to anyone out there who is a South African Christian to start a blog.

Now most people think its a stack load of work to keep up a blog – and I guess if you want to post everyday then it is a bit of work and time. But I think its also very rewarding (read my post on the 10 benefits of blogging I’ve experienced in the last 2 years) and you don’t have to post everyday to write a good blog. So go over to Blogger or Wordpress (blogging platforms) and get going.

Here are some tips to start off with:

• Start reading other good Christian blogs (browse through the links on my sidebar)
• Learn how to use a feed reader and syndication (I use Google Reader and Feed Burner)
• Don’t write long complicated posts
• Sign up with Amatomu
• Link, link and link to other similar blogs
• Make sure the template or layout you choose is simple and easy to read
• Categorize or tag all your posts
• Don’t use corny pseudonyms – use your real name!
• If you can, make your name the url
• Always give credit to material you find on other blogs by linking back to the source
• Don’t promo your blog by dropping spam comments on other people’s blogs telling them to check out your site
• Don’t rant and preach too much on your blog – people will get tired of you – write posts that encourage dialogue rather
• Have fun…

If you decide to take up this challenge then leave a comment below with a link to your new blog. Come on your bloggers…

UPDATE: If you already write a reformed, evangelical South African blog then introduce yourself and leave us a link in the comment section to your blog.

Posted on September 1, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

New South African Blog

The small community of evangelical Christian bloggers in South Africa has just grown by one. My friend, Martyn Kilian, has decided to take the plunge into the Christian blogging world. Martyn is the pastor of the Church on the Hill in Simon’s Town. Go over to his blog and give it a read: newLIFE

Posted on August 28, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Right to Equality vs. Religious Freedom

Well it was going happen at some stage…It appears that the South African law court has decided that the constitutional right to equality trumps the constitutional right to religious freedom. What do you think about this issue?

Posted on August 27, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Black Economic Empowerment and Individualism?

In thinking a little further about the whole Yebo Yethu thing a thought struck me – I know it doesn’t happen often, and when it does happen its not always that profound but just try stick with me on this one…

I’ve been doing a huge amount of thinking and research into the whole subject of community and even doing the odd talk on the subject recently. This has all been in the context of ecclesiology – my study of the church – which, for obvious reasons, is quite high on my priority list at the moment. An issue that I continually bump into is the rampant individualism of the modernist west and how it has saturated our lives, thought patterns and the structures in which we work, live and have our being. But thinking about the Yebo Yethu issue got me thinking about Black Economic Empowerement (BEE) in general in South Africa. I wonder, just wonder, if the reason that so many white people can’t stomach BEE is partly because they’re wrapped up in an individualist worldview.

So a white, individualist might look at something like Yebo Yethu and conclude that it is discriminatory in nature because it doesn’t allow HIM/HER, the individual, to invest in Vodacom shares. The collectivist (whatever colour he/she is) on the other hand looks at Yebo Yethu and sees that THEY, the collective group of non-whites who make up the majority of the country and who have often in the past had limited opportunity and know how in the area of investment, are being given a chance to invest and learn more about investment. A collectivist could then look at the whole situation and conclude that South Africa as a nation (white/black/coloured/indian etc) will benefit from this programme. Now obviously there would be a number of caveats I’d have to include – so for example if these programmes were attempting to build up the nation at the extreme exclusion of a minority group then I think it would also have a problem, but as I see it whites in this country still have plenty of investment opportunites – so I don’t think the exclusion can be described as extreme. And I do think that ultimately it is for the good of the collective.

So my my thought is: I wonder, just wonder, if western individualism is stopping us from building this country into the country it should be. Maybe I’m just a naiive optimist who hasn’t in any way, to date, incurred loss due to BEE or affirmative action – or maybe I’m right. What do you think?