When my home country, South Africa, successfully and peacefully dismantled apartheid and elected Nelson Mandela as president, it was no accident that even the secular press used the word miracle to describe this breathtaking event. For behind the scenes of each careful step made by all parties, the church was on its knees or extending its arms to assist in any way.
The Christian church as a whole has long been an integral part of the process leading to our new day of democracy for all races. But since 1991, Christians have been particularly involved in laboring for peace and reconciliation, in monitoring and reporting violence, in tending to the injuries of those who were wounded, and in seeking to bring about an atmosphere in which the politicians could seek to negotiate a solution and move on to the elections.
By 1993, the church’s role intensified. In addition to the ongoing work of individual churches as well as the South Africa Council of Churches, our own organization, African Enterprise, sponsored six weekend dialogues involving top national and provincial leaders from the Communist party on the far left to friends of Volkstaat advocate Gen. Constand Viljoen on the far Right. In fact, relations formed on these weekends helped lead to conditions that allowed Prof. Washington Okumu of Kenya to bring the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) back into the elections a scant six days before the polls opened.
Prayer, of course, played a huge part in what we have seen. As Tennyson said, “More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.” We have seen that happen in South Africa. Since April 1993, more than 1,000 groups of people have been involved in a round-the-clock “Chain of Prayer.” And just before the elections, nearly 30,000 people came together at the “Jesus Peace Rally” to seek the Lord and his face for our land (Joel 2:15-18). Astonishingly, it was in the VIP lounge of this rally where proposals were given to IFP leader Chief Buthelezi and his African National Congress rival that eventually led to Inkatha’s entry to the elections. Many believe this “miracle” staved off massive civil conflict.
STANDING ON KINGDOM GROUND
What can the church worldwide learn from our experience? First, the church indeed has a prophetic role in society, not just in the Old Testament sense in challenging injustice, but also in terms of the spiritual gift of prophecy as presented in the Pauline writings. Through this gift we are able to discern the purpose of God for a given situation and then speak that word into context. This is not simply a task of leadership, but of the total people of God.
Beyond that, the church must exercise its ministry of reconciliation, not only to find God in Christ through evangelism, but to find each other. By the Calvary way, understanding and reconciliation can be discovered. The spirit of seeking first the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of right relationships, is paramount in all of this.
It is also important to stand on kingdom ground. This is not a neutral, anemic, and harmless middle position, but a prophetic posture embracing all truth. It enables the church to speak to all, whether Right, Left, or center. It also delivers the church from being domesticated and politicized into one or the other prevailing political positions—a special danger for churches in America.
There is much more land to be possessed by the church here. As in the United States, we are about to suffer from a civil war of values and are in danger of throwing out the baby of Judeo-Christian morality with the bath water of apartheid. Some feel that liberalizing on racial and political issues means liberalizing on everything from abortion to sexual behavior. Our challenge, for which we covet continued prayer from American Christians, is to realize that it takes not only a good constitution but righteousness to exalt a nation.
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Michael Cassidy is international team leader for African Enterprise, an evangelistic ministry to the cities of Africa.
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