Where do you begin talking about the first ever Justice Conference South Africa?

Maybe you start with a huge shout out to your wife, Valerie [aka tbV which stands for The Beautiful Val and is only not awkward when i am the one calling her that] who was in charge of bringing the whole thing together and did an incredible job at that.

Or Craig Stewart whose dream it was and who invited Val to head up that dream and the good folks at The Warehouse who agreed it was a dream worth pursuing and seeing become a reality.

Perhaps it’s the quality of people that were there, and i’m not just talking about the Contributors – conferences tend to be about who is on stage and we had some pretty incredible people on stage – from speakers to panelists to spoke word artists to worship leaders to dancers – but i could have sat around tables with groups of people who were there from all over South Africa and deep dived into a number of topics [as we did on occasion] and i think it would have still be completely valuable. A common thread was so many people who get that church is so much more about what happens when you leave the building on a Sunday [or whenever you gather together – looking at you, Mr Kotela!] and live out the stuff you believe in transformative and life-giving ways.

SOME OF WHAT WAS ADDRESSED

Maybe you begin by mentioning just some of the topics that were brought up for conversation sandwiched between the base question of “What has Justice got to do with Jesus?” [Spoiler Alert: Everything. Justice has everything to do with Jesus!] and the closing talk slash spoken word extravaganza by my beloved friend Mahlatse Mashua of “How then shall we live?”. Ranging from ‘What are some of the theologies that have rooted and maintained injustice in South Africa’, ‘Black Jesus/White Jesus’, ‘Decolonising the text’ and ‘Decolonising Education’, ‘Justice vs Charity’, ‘What’s the Deal with Land?’, ‘Reimagining a Just Economy’ and ‘Navigating the Deep Waters of Identity in South Africa’. While also creating spaces for seeing ‘Art as Activism’ with workshops on Spoken Word and Poetry as well as Song-writing. ‘Creative Resistance Strategies’ such as Food is Free and Resistance gardening and a March of the Clowns Positive Protest, ‘Healing Justice’ ‘Everyday Advocacy’ and even looking at ‘Rhythms of Life and Practices that sustain’. And many more. To have the church and the land conversation happening in the same space must be largely unheard of in South Africa.

WHERE MY GUT WAS PUNCHED

When i think back to The Justice Conference, the quote that stands out for me the most was this one:

Person 1 (white): Why must I suffer for what my grandfather did?

Person 2 (black, coloured, indian): Because my family is still suffering for what your grandfather did.

Especially in the midst of people on my Facebook wall begging me to stop looking at the past and the pain and can’t we just focus on what is good and positive – look at all the help that was given to the people of Imizamo Yethu after the fires… while i am begging those very same people to be asking questions about how we are okay that so many people live in the kinds of circumstances that lead to the devastating effects of those fires and not feeling like our comfort needs to be seriously interrupted so that many people like them can live better.

The song that stands out for me and has become my stuck-firmly-in-my-head anthem [juxtaposed against a decision that i can no longer sing the ‘Die Stem’ part of our national anthem]

ujesu phakeme

uphakeme uphakeme

uphakeme uJesu phakeme

 

malibongwe

malibongwe malibongwe

malibongwe igama leNkosi

 

uJesus namandla

unamandla unamandla 

unamandla uJesu namandla

i cannot remember the last time i cried out loud and yet this was the Facebook status i wrote after this particular incident:

Lying face down on the floor at the foot of the stage during worship and went into a deep body shaking weeping as we cried for mercy and forgiveness in song. First time I have really cried in years and it was so deep and refreshing and significant in terms of all the feeling I have for South Africa and South Africans which emanates from a deep love for ALL people here which I don’t think is the feeling all people get from all my writing at all times but that is always at the heart. A deep Jesus moment of calling out to God for forgiveness and mercy and the hope of intimate community between all people here.

The Justice Conference South Africa happened these last two days… and it was good.

But it is far from finished. The real work begins as we leave later tonight. And it will be good.

If My people…

My mate Nkosi got me with this one at the Food Is Free and Resistance Gardening workshop:

“A price tag on food is an exclusionary gesture. We decide who can eat and live and who will die.” Nkosi throwing over some tables in the Creative Resistance Strategies Workshop at the Justice Conference.

Are we comfortable to have a church of the oppressed with no bread and a church of the oppressors with bread? [Nkosi]

In drought, what should be the prayer of a person who lives in a shack because when it rains their house floods? [Nkosi]

A CHANGE OF ANTHEM:

A Facebook status i wrote:

So last night at the Justice Conference the national anthem happened at one point. As we came to the end of the Nkosi sikelele section I found myself quietly saying “Please stop here please stop here. ” But they didn’t and it went on to the Die Stem part.

For the first time ever i couldn’t and didn’t sing that part and i don’t think i ever will again. Which i imagine will make some of my friends sad or confused.

But i am convinced singing it makes even more of my friends sad and those are the friends who have been sad more and so i choose in this small way to stand in solidarity with them.

Besides, i belong to a different kingdom and the anthem we sang for that kingdom last night – Jesu pakheme – moves me far more than any national anthem ever could.

A BIT OF A SHITSTORM:

Just had a short but powerful talk on ‘The Theology of Shit’ fully aware that more people will be upset that the word shit was used than the actual lived out experience of hundreds of thousands of people across South Africa for whom sanitation is a huge issue.

Probably my other favourite quote of the conference came from Nkosi:

If Jesus is the least of these and the least of these are living in shit then Jesus is in deep shit in South Africa. 

Also this quote from my friend Suvuyela:  This doesn’t make sense. We sometimes buy our children toys that are more expensive that what we pay our domestic worker for a month. (Sivuyela Kotela)

OTHER PEOPLE’S THOUGHTS AND SHARES:

Amy Benn: Stephan de Beer at The Justice Conference, “Hiding behind masks of neutrality feels safe, and is convenient. But our convenience often means complicity with bad power, breeding injustice.”

also: Sivuyile Kotela, quoting Steve Biko at The Justice Conference: “It is better to die for an idea that will live, then to live for an idea that will die.”

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Ashley Visagie: As a post-conference reflection: I think one overarching problem that needs to be paid more attention to and which is possibly a greater point of contention to church theology than race and diversity, is the issue of capitalism. Capitalism has to be named as a problem within the church. Many other social issues are only symptoms of a global capitalist agenda that breeds inequality

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Jana Nieuhaus: ‪We cannot always account for the time we spend simply loving others. We cannot define or describe it by using the language of productivity. But there is an urgency to go out and “waste our time on loving people” – Jono Jansen

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Tristan Pringle: I love the word “Catharsis”. It describes the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions. Some may find that by singing or dancing but neither has worked for me. I have found it in hearing others speak the truths that I dont have the words to articulate. I have felt it in the warmth of a knowing smile. And i have found it here at The Justice Conference South Africa.

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Lillian Chang Notayi: I think being able to articulate part of my frustration with church like the fact that we absolutise the relative and we trivialise the sacred.

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Kayla-Tess Pattenden: Wow so many things! But one in particular: I was challenged by the call to model justice in my parenting…To teach my children justice on a daily basis, in the mundane. This is something I would love to engage with more parents about. Hoping to even host a dinner with other parents to talk about what they do to challenge and mold their kids toward justice

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Lerato Kobe: There is something redemptive about The Justice Conference!

Just to have two people sharing the stage, the Black American,and the Black South African. The fact that these two people are articulating what Justice is themselves brings healing to my soul.Suddenly, I can breathe again!.

My heart, my mind, my soul and most importantly my black body and spirit is not just being bombesterd by only words of people who only read about oppression.

My Black Americans stood in that stage and spoke healing to my heart. They spoke about my black body and said to me when God created me, us, the rest of creation he said “It was “Forcefully” Good”. I began to imagine what it must have been like for the Israelites in the bible to hear Moses say ‘ This is what Yahweh says: Let My people go,…’ The way they articulated in that stage and owned their words with tears in my eyes. As I listened to the people taken from Africa without their consent, and enslaved in America. I as a people forced to live in this country as nothing but means to an end for others. I said is it you Lord? Are you saying “Let my people go”?

As I listened I heard the Lord say i have come so you may have life. My heart began to jump, in joy, I began to imagine the excitement that must have been in the hearts of the Israelites to hear ‘Let my people go’…were they able to sleep? Or they were so full of hope that though they were in chains they knew the chains will be no more…Because God was at work for through Moses he spoke, ‘Let my people go’.

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Quite possibly my favourite 17 year old Zach Stewart did some art over the two days which he shared with us from the stage on the last night and it was super powerful – this is just a glimpse of one corner of one of his pictures, showing how much he absolutely gets it.

zach stewart art

Some more words from Zach: Swamped after two days of #JusticeSA2017 . A good swamped. The kind of swamped that comes from seeing something new. From being challenged. From being around the people who inspire me most. From dressing as a clown. Yeah.

And a glimpse of the artworks he came up with in full:

zach stewart art

zach stewart and friends

ENDED WITH A BANG AND NOT A WHIMPER

My last Facebook status update on the final day of the Justice Conference was this:

Deep Dive three nation conversations happening on race and colonialism at 1am post Justice Conference with a group of the contributors and organisers. Love it. #JustSittingQuietlyListeningCosThatsANewSkillForMe

Okay the host literally just cooked us all a meal – like fourteen people – at 1. 30am

i imagine the next little while is going to more musings and sharings related to the Justice Conference but this honestly has been my favourite two day period in a long long time and i loved how it brought two of my absolute favouritest things together: Jesus and South Africa

There is work to be done. Of course. And there are stupid people continually bleating, “Can’t we just move on and forget the bad things that don’t affect us personally.” But these two days have given me [and i suspect a whole lot of other people] a renewed sense of hope and inspiration and i’m excited about what will come directly and indirectly out of this…

Justice Conference stage

My main man Jono Jansen breaking it down on the need for us to “waste time” on people…

[For some more quotes from The Justice Conference click here]

[For a look at some of the process of creating a Justice Conference in a Just way, click here]

[To see the powerful image of leaders serving under leaders, click here]