my contemplations

I’m not a human rights expert, so maybe I got this all wrong. But in our context at least, I think I got it right: Does humanism and human rights have anything to do with each other? Human rights isn’t received very positively in our Afrikaner Calvinist communities. In the common tongue it’s associated with “criminal rights”, protecting criminals who actually took away worse rights from others. And this is not the religious or political right only! Now, South Africa do have the second most liberal official understanding of human rights in the world (second to The Netherlands only), so maybe people anywhere wouldn’t have been that fond of our way of doing, I don’t know, I’m just observing for now.

Humanism is not being thought of very positively either. It’s associated with atheism generally. I remember times when I’ve been talking about social justice, that Christians would say that we must just be wary that we are not “only humanising” society, instead of “Christianizing” (obviously, my own choice of capital letter probably point out that I have my biases as well). Again, this is not only the evangelicals, but steady, mainline reformed Christians who are actively searching for social justice.

So, do the church have anything to say about human rights? About humanism? My first reactions when I heard these kind of sayings was that as Christians we should at least be humanists, at least take human rights very seriously. A few years later, I still think the same things. Maybe this was the reason I found it quite interesting when a lecturer told me the other day that Barth in his theology said that we should work for the humanization of society. I actually read a paper Barth delivered shortly after WW2, but forgot about it until that comment. What I remember is a very strong Christian approach (although this was delivered at a secular converence on humanization), but a very strong voice saying that the church has something to say about humanism, about the humanization of society.

I say this still sitting within a tradition that know the evangelicals very well, and that know christendom very well, and that sometimes forget that the ideals associated with these is gone. Within this new world, what should the church do? In South Africa the government is realizing that churches actually has abilities to help with the humanizing of society which the state do not. We have an infrastructure which the state do not. And should we play this role? Yes and no…

But for today, I’ll stick with yes. Yes, we need to work for the humanization of society, and we need to do this together with humanist organization, with human rights groups, we are fighting for the same thing. We need to do what we can, in South Africa also where the are of government cannot reach. There is a no, which says that we still need to be a critical voice, although a positive critical voice, and that we should not simply become the social work arm of a government, this church-state relations have cost us dearly, but I’ll leave that for another day.

We need to be a critical voice, a voice for the voiceless, for those who cannot speak for themselves. The strangers in our land, the strangers in our neighbouring country. We need to be a voice against governments when they do not recognize peoples human rights, do not recognize the humanization of society. But on the other hand we need to work with everyone else in the common goal of humanizing society.

This post is part of the May 2008 synchroblog on human rights, and below you will also find a list of the other synchroblog contributions from a group of Christian bloggers who post on the same general topic on the same day. We also join thousands of other bloggers around the world in blogging for human rights.

Other Synchrobloggers

• Adam Gonnerman on Guantanamo Bay in the eyes of God.
• Julie Clawson on Human rights and Christian comfort.
• Steve Hayes on Human rights and Christian faith.
• Steve Hayes (again!) on Human Rights and Amnesty International.
• Alan Knox on My charade is the event of the season.
• Sally Coleman on If.
• Sonja Andrews on Human wrongs.
• Cobus van Wyngaard on Christianization and Humanization and our task in Zimbabwe.
• Janice Fowler on “Voice overs needed” (oe “Wake up — speak up”).
• Bryan Riley on Bloggers unite for human rights.
• Prof Carlos Z on A new examination of human rights.
• KW Leslie on For those who say Christians have no rights.
• Mike Bursell on Human rights (and Christian responsibilities).
• Phil Wyman on Monks to Iraq.

And for a list of some of the other “Bloggers unite” posts, click here. 

I preached on Genesis 11:28-12:9 on Sunday. I started preparing real early, reading Brueggemann’s Genesis commentary on Monday, and Von Rad’s shortly after, but never quite got around to making the sermon. I knew what I wanted to say though. God call Abram, promise to bless him, but in the same breath call Abram to also be a blessing to those around him (see some thoughts in Afrikaans here). God call Abram, but he doesn’t call him out of this world, but to be wholly part of this world (see some more thoughts in Afrikaans here). In Genesis, it is the creator God who now become further part of the creation-gone-bad by calling Abram, and by becoming involved with human history.

But last week we again had two armed robberies on houses in our congregation. In one the people were wounded, in the other a man was killed, leaving behind a wife and kids. Shot in the head when he wanted to press the alarm button. This happened on Friday evening, on Saturday I finally got around to finalizing the sermon. Furthermore, the reports on Zimbabwe started coming in, I blogged on that here while I was preparing the sermon.

How do we preach in this context? What do we say? As I said to the congregation at one stage: In church many would say we are not supposed to talk politics. But in this context, and reading the story of Abraham, I cannot do other but talk politics. But politics isn’t about who is right and who wrong, I never spoke about Mugabe for example. Maybe what we call politics in the church, is actually just ethics. Public Theology.

I believe the message, even for this hurt congregation, and believe me, our congregation, and community, is hurt. The violence have been going on for weeks now, every week the reports come in, for this congregation also, the message is that we should bring hope. There is a message that God bring hope to the world, but the other side of the coin is that God bring hope through us as well.

We need to preach on South Africa. We need to preach on Zimbabwe. Telling the stories of the people there, telling the story of the Bible, realizing that the story of the Bible is forcing us to, in some way I don’t understand yet, take part in the story of suffering ongoing around us. Our congregation is starting to talk about our role, a missional role, in the context of violence around Kameeldrif.  It’s not a new conversation, but we took it upon ourselves in all earnesty. I’ll be getting together with Arthur tomorrow to have some talks on Zimbabwe. What is the role of the church in a time like this? What can we as a church do?

It’s been years now since we started talking about Zimbabwe. I remember hearing the stories of farmers being forced from their farms, even of farmers being killed. I still think it was a crime, and I still think it was quite stupid and didn’t help the country at all. But life went on, the farmers lost their farms, they got new farms in Australië, or new jobs somewhere. Somehow, throughout all this, I still thought that much worse problems was going on in the world. But I think that might have changed:

The evening after first hearing about the ship full of weapons on it’s way to Zimbabwe, I told my flatmate that: “now, for the first time, I am really worried about Zimbabwe”. At that point I started thinking about Rwanda, Uganda, and the other worst case stories of Africa. Could it be? Is this really where Zimbabwe is heading?

Yesterday I’ve been hearing some of the stories about the current situation in Zimbabwe. The personal accounts stand out more than the news. One pastor told about people he know very well who actually are still farming in Zimbabwe. ZANU-PF (Robert Mugabe’s party) are doing “voters education” on the farms. So they had to leave and go stay in town, so that ZANU-PF could “educate” the workers. This education involved the chopping of of fingers, of hands, the cutting of of lips…

Arthur sent me a mail yesterday with an article written by a friend of his who was there, the photo’s ain’t nice…

The things which happened over the past years in Zimbabwe was bad. It was really bad. But when we all thought that Zimbabwe has hit rock-bottom. When we thought that now the people would throw out Mugabe and start something new, it got worse! We assumed that Morgan Tsvangirai will win the election. A friend who is onto economy and things like that said a few weeks ago that within 5 years a lot could again be back on track in Zimbabwe… that idea has changed.

What do we do? What should the church do?

Our denomination has started a project to help feed Zimbabwe. We made an arrangement with Makro to pack crates of food which is then sent to Zimbabwe and can be picked up be church leaders there to help the people of Zimbabwe. Currently a crate cost R15000 (approximately $2000). This certainly is needed, and even if political problems stop today, would still be needed for quite some time. Anyone interested in contributing to this could mail Dr Gustav Claasen.

I think the church have a mayor role to play in forming people thoughts on this. We need to talk politics in church! We can no longer turn our heads away. How about using Hotel Rwanda, Last King of Scotland or The Interpreter and discussing the Zimbabwean situation along with them. After first seeing The Interpreter I remember thinking that this is telling the story of Zimbabwe (that was some years ago). Today I fear that Last King of Scotland, or worse still, even Hotel Rwanda might be telling the story of what is approaching in Zimbabwe! For more information on Zimbabwe you could also visit this site posting updates on the Zimbabwe Situation, or this blog from a Civic Action Group keeping you up to date on the situation in Zimbabwe.

But what next? Is it maybe time for the church to start saying out loud that the world powers should play a much stronger role in Zimbabwe? Could it be time that the United Nations step in in Zimbabwe? Should the large church organization, the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church not say very loud that “enough is enough!“? What about other faith or philosophical traditions, almost all of these would agree that what is going in is deeply unethical. I’m not a politician, and surely don’t understand everything. But I do know a little bit about ethics, and I know that the right to self-government should be respected, and that Zimbabweans should have the opportunity to govern themselves, and do things in their way, which might differ from developed countries. But I also know that the right to life had priority over the right to self-government. And when this right is taken from the people of Zimbabwe, how long can the world take part in active non-participation?

If your not taking part in this months bloggers unite yet, I urge you to join in. On Wednesday bloggers all over the world would be joining hands to blog about human rights. And when blogging about human rights, remember Zimbabwe.

Let us be a voice for the voiceless…

Just heard about the latest fight concerning Rowling’s copyright of the Harry Potter books and the encyclopedia that Steven Vander Ark want’s to bring out. It stands in a comical contrast to the previous post. Blog writers are generating content at a tremendous rate, and some are saying “please copy my content”, not caring where it is discussed as long as it is discussed. Book writers are generating content and fighting about copyright. OK, so some blog writers also worry about copyright.

I just can’t see how the extreme copyright fights of the past can be sustained in this climate. Can Rowling, or any blog writer, claim the copyright for everything they write? Doesn’t the community in which it was written, which provided the environment for the creativity to come out also have right on the “intelectual property” of what was written? Can an individual really claim “intelectual property” of anything? Obviously plagiarism is just wrong, but is that because it is stealing, or because it limits the conversation between humans if we don’t take you back to the source of an idea? Well OK, this was just a short thought, maybe I’ll put my thoughts into writing some other day.

Went to see Juno on Tuesday and I cried laughing while still getting the feeling that this film is getting me to think, is spreading a message, that the story is opening a window onto real-life questions. Things I seldom seem to find in typical comedies. The film tell the story of a 16 year old girl that become pregnant, consider abortion, but then decide to carry the child through pregnancy and give it up for adoption. Although some have critiqued this as pro-life, Ellen Page, playing the role of Juno, deny this. Nonetheless, I think the film do open up the conversation, and also open up the possibility that teenagers can carry on with a pregnancy.

I grew up with the concept that abortion was wrong, and that was the beginning and the end of the conversation. A lot of my ideas on things have changed over the years, but in general I am still very much against it. A few weeks ago I did an exercise with some of the Engineering students in my class: After giving them a certain moral dilemma, I asked them what their gutt-feel is about how we should think about this. This was at about week 3 or 4 of an introductory course in ethics. I then let them argue their point, but they had to use utilitarianism or deontology, with the various sub-forms we taught them to make the case. The purpose of the exercise was to shoe them how they actually are using certain ways of thinking unconsciously already, and how their gutt-feel fit into the approach they would choose in the end. I guess what I’m writing is a similar exercise.

Somehow the pro-life/pro-choice argument don’t seem to work for me. Also, it seems to be an American conversation, since I haven’t found these categories working that strongly in South Africa, and we’ve also been through the whole process of legalizing abortion. Furthermore, and for once in my life I need to protect the conservatives, I’ve found it strange how documentaries such as Jesus Camp or Baby Bible Bashers portray the fight against abortion as one of the worst things Evangelicals can do. Am I missing something? What’s the big deal? OK, I don’t like the whole “you’re sinning and going the hell because the Bible tell us so” language that sometimes get used myself, but is it so wrong to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves? Isn’t that something we find with the historical Jesus as well? Isn’t one of the most outstanding features of the historical Jesus his approach to children (see for example Andries van Aarde’s Fatherless in Galilee - not for the faint of heart)? On Parchment and Pen a while ago. Micheal Paton wrote this post on a theological understanding of abortion, also saying that we cannot defend abortion theologically in any way.

Back to Juno. This movie paints a beautiful picture of teenage sex. It paints a picture of teenagers going into casual sex, but also of teenage relations that can actually be really serious. I’m not going into this controversial question today, but rather, I think the movie does something that Christians need to do to get past the pro-life/pro-choice argument. Juno opens up possibilities for pregnant teenagers. It open up the possibility that there is teenage life after pregnancy, while still living with the reality that people at school will be looking weirdly at you. It open up the possibility that there is good adoption parents out there, even if they do have mistakes and get divorced and are somewhat weird.

I guess the question is not an easy one. What do we make of a girl that gets pregnant because of rape? And with rape being such a reality in South Africa, this is the problematic part of the conversation we are being confronted with. And from a pastoral perspective, I can really understand some girls choice for abortion. The task of the church is also to fight for the defenseless parts of creation. This would also include the unborn baby. But we also have the task of fighting for the mothers who cannot see light in the dark tunnel of pregnancy, to point out new possibilities, and help them to carry it through. Hopefully this would be a little different than those standing outside abortions clinics with posters with guilt-laden messages.

I leave you with some questions:

Why is abortion considered pro-choice? Is it not more pro-adult? Saying that the needs of the adult human being are more important than that of the infant human being?

Shouldn’t the church maybe be blamed for abortion being so popular, since we have made it so difficult for girls who got pregnant, and helped create a society that really give pregnant teenagers little hope and a lot of despair?

I just came out of a public lecture by Patrick Moore on ecology. This is part of the great thing of being at TUKS in Centenary year, they have arranged all these wonderful speakers on different topics. Moore was a cofounder of Greenpeace in 1971, was director of Greenpeace International for a number of years, but has left Greenpeace because he thinks they have become irrational in their approach, and has then founded the company greenspirit.

He did quite a good job of attacking An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore film on global warming, making all kinds of claims about CO2 and warming not being that closely together, and that the earth are currently in a cool faze, thus warming isn’t unnatural. This was done by looking at the last 1 billion years, whereas Gore look at the last 600 000 as far as I can remember. Oh, he didn’t ever say the name of Gore, but I found it quite obvious where he was going. The fact that his graphs and Gore’s graphs differ is complicating things a little bit. I’m not quite sure why Moore still fight for reducing the CO2 footprint though, but he does.

His basic thing is: more nuclear, more wood. The nuclear part I agree with totally. I first found it when reading James Lovelock, he made the statement: Nuclear is the new Green. Moore spent a large part of his 90 minute speech to point out that Nuclear can be done safely today. I think he has a point, replace fossil fuel for Nuclear, at least where Hydrogen isn’t possible.

The other thing is to make more of trees, grow more trees, to take more CO2 from the atmosphere, and use the wood as building material and energy source (no, I can’t understand why he would want to burn more trees, causing more CO2, maybe I’ll read his book sometime and understand). Moore is currently into the trees and ecology business. There is a lot in his idea to use wood as building material, a natural sustainable resource.

But all in all, I was a bit uncomfortable with Moore’s presentation. I might be missing something significant somewhere, but he seem to make things a little too easy. The chances of messing things up doesn’t seem to exist when I listen to him. Where Lovelock, who is on the total other extreme, notice the fact that most species become extinct, and warn us that humans might not be invulnerable, Moore notice that all of us have the genes of surviving in us, since we are part of an evolutionary line which have survived throughout the ages.

I think noticing the differences between people like Moore, Gore and Lovelock is forcing me to realize even more the complexities involved with ecology, and possible ecological disasters.

Each year the Theological faculty at Pretoria hosts a theological conversation as it’s “faculty opening”. It’s usually quite well-attended by ministers from our church, but this year they held it a few days later, after classes has started, and we also had a number of students attending. Or maybe it was because Prof Allan Boesak was speaking, whatever the reason, this year the event was very well attended.

Allan Boesak and Etiene de Villiers (professor of Ethics at UP, but not as well-known as Boesak), was the main speakers, and the topic was “Can the Dutch Reformed Church still play a role in South Africa”. Their deliveries can be found in about a week at teo.co.za. Both answered “yes”, but both said that then some things in our church would have to change. For the emerging people reading this, you would have enjoyed it, lot of Kingdom talk, lot of justice talk.

But what really caught me was that both talked about the role of the broad church in broad society. They talked about the problems of HIV, globalization, economic capitalism, environmental destruction (on a large scale) and poverty (on a global scale), and the role of the church in this. It was all about the relationship between church and government etc. On the other hand, the conversation in many congregation is more and more focusing on the local community. Poverty in the people living among us, unemployment in people around our congregation etc. The local issues.

I’m struggling to see how these two sides get together. People talking about the larger role of the church in society is, I believe, addressing the real problems. People focusing only on local level tend to sometimes miss the real problems of society, and rather focus on some petty things we see. Not that these are not important. We need to look after old age homes, and be nice to those working for us. But these is problems that are threatening to kill a world, and local congregations seldom seem to talk about this. But people talking about these large societal problems seem to miss the people, they don’t talk to those in congregations, the people who need to address these issues, rather, they talk about the role of the “church”, church being so broad that many times I can’t see what that would mean for my own ministry.

If we can get these two things together. The broad societal problems, yes, on a global level, and the role of the local congregation in this, then I believe we can start changing things. I love what is happening in thousands of local congregations who start looking at their direct context, addressing the issues in their communities, but sometimes they would need to look past their own horizons, and then someone would need to know what they would do then.