That is the refrain i hear quite a lot from many white people when it comes to issues of reconciliation and marches and freedom and South Africa: Can we just please stop saying it’s about race? So i thought let’s give that a try. And the way i want to do that is by telling a few stories. Now try and not get distracted by the kind of message you think i want to [...]
Yesterday at the Cape Town #ZumaMustFall march, my friend Craig Stewart, who helps lead the Warehouse in Wetton, gave an excellent speech and here, with his permission, is the transcript of what he said, along with the video link if you would like to see him saying it: This is the draft of a speech I gave at a Unite Against Corruption event in the Company Gardens on Dec 16 2015. The gathering was in [...]
So today was The Day of Reconciliation in South Africa and as long as you stayed off the comments sections of anyone posting anything about any of the marches it felt a little bit just like that. This was my Facebook status at the beginning of the day: […]
Continuing with a read through of this chapter from Ron Sider’s ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’ starting where we left off: Possessions are highly dangerous. They lead to a multitude of sins, including idolatry. Western Christians today desperately need to turn away from their covetous civilisation’s grasping materialism. = = = = = THE RING AND THE BELOVED Possessions are dangerous. But they are not innately evil. Biblical revelation begins with creation. And [...]
As we continue to seek out A Carefree Attitude Towards Possessions through the lens of Ron Sider’s challenging book, ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’ let me go back a paragraph to remind us where we are and then continue with words i hope you will wrestle with and share with your friends: = = = = = Matthew, Mark and Luke all recall the terrible warning: “How hard it is for those who [...]
Continuing the passage i am sharing from the Ron Sider book, ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’, i’ll back up one paragraph just to remind us where we were: = = = = = If there are poor people who need assistance, Jesus’ carefree disciple will help – even if that means selling possessions. People are vastly more important than property. “Laying up treasure in heaven” means exactly the same thing. “In Jewish literature, [...]
By now you may know the drill, Trevor Swart from the Positive Thoughts and Conversations blog, Swart Donkey, have a five comment, 100ish word each, conversation around a particular topic one of us brings up and then we share the back and forth with you. This one is all about Listening Better and has a lot to make you think: […]
Sometimes well-meaning people do bad things. Let’s work together to not be one of those… i have two good friends who have recently faced different kinds of grief – one is desperately sick at the moment and the other lost his mom a couple of weeks back. They are surrounded by a lot of well-meaning people. Which sounds like a good thing. But sometimes it’s not. Here are a few things i’ve learnt/observed: [...]
The past two weeks have been an incredible time. Yes, some of the conversations on Social Media got a little aggro, but there were also some really incredible interactions, both online and off and it feels like the #FeesMustFall movement and events really got a lot of people thinking. And introduced many new people to some of the conversations we have been having on Privilege and Restitution and Racism and more. There were a number [...]
With great Social Media activity, comes great Responsibility. Or something like that. A short while ago i wrote this piece urging you to take a moment to fact check before sharing something newsworthy on Facebook. Especially if something is particularly dramatic or inflammatory or involves the supposed death of some celebrity. There is a lot of rubbish that goes around on the internet and when we share a hoax or a scam that we could have [...]