Saturday 21 December 2013
Friday 20 December 2013
Thursday 19 December 2013
Break the Drought Over Your Life
Break the Drought Over Your Life
One thing God loves to do is show off. I know this is hard to fathom, but God loves to display His power andglory to make a point that you’ll never forget. In 1 Kings 18, God marks the memory of His people by consuming a sacrifice by fire.
One thing God loves to do is show off. I know this is hard to fathom, but God loves to display His power andglory to make a point that you’ll never forget. In 1 Kings 18, God marks the memory of His people by consuming a sacrifice by fire.
Some of you may know the story of how Elijah challenged 400 prophets of Baal. This was a showdown between Baal and the God of Elijah during a severe drought in the land. Elijah had declared a drought over the land, and it was so bad that people were eating their children to live.
During this time, water was as precious as gold. Elijah prepared his sacrifice and asked for 12 large jars of water to be poured out on the altar. You have to wonder where Elijah stored 12 large jars of water when everyone else had no water. He was pouring out the most precious commodity of that time on God.
Elijah poured out what was most valuable on the altar. God responded immediately by consuming the water and the sacrifice by fire: “Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, 'The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!'” (vv. 38-39, NIV).
Are we living in the Past, the Presence or the Future? Part 3: Living in the Future.
Are
we living in the Past, the Presence or the Future?
Part
3: Living in the Future.
Today
in 2014, we are living in an uncertain world and where the certainties of the
past are no longer certain. Throughout
the world we see that we are affected in various ways because we live in a time
of uncertainty.
Throughout
the history of humanity there have been times of social, economic and political
uncertainty, we have seen the decline of old nations, old methods of economic
structure and old political systems and their replacement by new nations, new
methods of economic structure and new political systems. Many have tried and failed to hold on to the
old in the face of the challenges of the new, then again many have embraced the
new and dismissed and destroyed the old. Old enemies have become friends, and
old friends have become enemies!
We
are seeing the decline of Europe and the continuing rise of the so called BRIC
nations, Brazil, Russia, India and China, if anything the replacement of the
currencies of some countries in Europe by the single currency or Euro has
hastened this decline, instead of making Europe a economic and political
superpower, the Europe of 2013 onwards is becoming an ever declining shadow of
it’s former glory.
In
at attempt to halt this decline we’ve invented new economic structures and new
political systems which are really modified old economic structures and
political systems, or we have embraced the old ways of doing things because
they give us some form of structure in a time when we’re no longer aware of
what structure should be!
When
we walk down our high streets we see boarded up shops with the for sale or to
let signs, we’ve all chosen in the past to forsake our high streets in favour
of the out of town shopping centres
or shopping online with companies like
Amazon, because of the word convenience, the religion/s of our fore fathers
have been replaced with the new religion/s such as consumerism, our theology
and our ethics are no longer guided by religious texts such as the Bible but by
the mantras of human rights and equality.
We
have turned our backs on the old way of doing things because we have been told
there is a better way and a simpler way, and when we’ve travelled this new
road. We have found to our cost, that we have been misled. There are those who would wish to throw the
Church and the Christian Faith into the dustbin of history, and see the
Christian Faith and Religion in general as an anathema to their new religion of
tolerance and equality.
It
seems that all hope is gone, and the Church of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of
God are on their last legs, but as Jesus, our Lord, our Saviour, our Redeemer
has said in Matthew 16:18b ESV, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades
will not overcome it.”
The
Old Testament Prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 54:17 NIVUK. “No weapon forged
against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.
This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication
from me, declares the LORD.”
There
is hope, there is certainty, we the Church are God’s Messengers of Hope,
Deliverance, Salvation , we are God’s Messengers of Transformation, yes we face
challenges and difficulties but he is within us is by far greater than he is
within the world see 1 John 4:4-6 read here.
I
know that despite all the difficulties, the opposition that we face as The
Church, we like our brothers and sisters
from past generations will stand, God
has raised the heroes of faith, both men and women, in the past the people like
John Wesley, William & Catherine Booth, Smith Wigglesworth and others some
unknown and others known, that despite
what politicians, scientists etc say about us and tell us, that The Lord is coming back for a victorious
army not a defeated army, that are waiting on the beaches for a Heavenly Rescue
Mission. God will raise us up to take our place as the Church Militant
alongside the Church Triumphant
We
the Church need to take our stand, hold our ground and advance, one famous
military tactician once said, that the best form of defence is attack, so let
us take back the territory that we and others in the past have lost to the
enemy, let us as we win the lost for the Lord, and are lead and equipped by
those God has placed in the forefront,( see Ephesians 4:11-13 read here) advance
to recapture lost terriority
Rise
up o Church; let us advance for the sake of our Lord, Saviour & Redeemer
Jesus Christ and His past, present and future Kingdom.
Yours
in His Grace
Blair
Humphreys
Southport.Merseyside.England
Views, Visions and Values.: Are we living in the Past, the Presence or the Fut...
Views, Visions and Values.: Are we living in the Past, the Presence or the Fut...: When I first wrote this post, My mind is thinking about a very important Football March that was played in Wembley Stadium b...
Views, Visions and Values.: The Endurance of the Saints
Views, Visions and Values.: The Endurance of the Saints: The Endurance of the Saints 2 Tim 2:11- 13 New International Version 11 Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, ...
Wednesday 18 December 2013
Anger at SNP plan to ‘bribe’ migrants into Scotland
Anger at SNP plan to ‘bribe’ migrants into Scotland
The First Minister wants thousands more immigrants to pour into the country following a Yes vote in next year’s referendum.
Mr Salmond is determined to pursue a different immigration policy than Westminster to aid economic growth.
The SNP leader wants to lift restrictions on non-EU immigration if voters back the break-up of Britain.
He also plans to bring in more immigrants by adopting a points-based system that would encourage foreigners to move to geographically remote areas.
Tuesday 17 December 2013
Monday 16 December 2013
Sunday 15 December 2013
Friday 13 December 2013
Thursday 12 December 2013
Why don't we make war films that celebrate British courage any more? Screenwriter claims producers won't glorify UK soldiers fighting in modern conflicts because it's too politically sensitive
By TOM WILLIAMS
PUBLISHED: 23:57, 11 December 2013 | UPDATED: 01:42, 12 December 2013
This Christmas, like many men up and down the land, I shall doubtless find myself settling down with a mince pie (or three) to enjoy a great British war film.
It won’t matter to me which staple of the Christmas TV schedules it is: The Dam Busters, The Bridge On The River Kwai, Cockleshell Heroes, The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare or The Guns Of Navarone.
Yes, I’m aware those last three were made with mostly American money, but so are many ‘British’ films today, and The Great Escape and the others celebrate British heroism and were dependent on British talent in front of and behind the camera.
Courage: Royal Marines are pictured during an operation to clear Taliban from Kajaki, Helmand Province in 2007. But why are film producers too scared to make a modern British war film?
Such films, mostly made in the Fifties and Sixties, brilliantly showcase the nobility, the camaraderie, the black humour, and the raw courage often displayed by the British Armed Forces in the most perilous of situations.
But then look at that list again. They’re all films set in World War II and were made nearly half a century ago. Have our forces stopped fighting wars since then? Of course not. So why aren’t the stories being told?
More...
As someone who writes screenplays, I’m forced to draw the conclusion that there is a disturbing tendency for the British film industry to ignore the heroic exploits of our brave men and women in uniform.
This question has been occupying my mind following the success of my first film, Chalet Girl, a romantic comedy starring Bill Nighy, Felicity Jones and Brooke Shields.
In its wake, I was considering what to write next. As I well know, there is always a market for romcoms, and as someone who needs to pay the rent, I decided to write some more.
But as any good writer knows, you also have to find a new gap in the market, and try to fill it. And what puzzled me — and continues to do so — is that there is a huge gap marked ‘Great British War Film’.
Silver screen: Geoffrey Horne, William Holden and Jack Hawkins in 1957's The Bridge Over the River Kwai. But films celebrating the courage of British forces are now deemed politically too hot to handle
Our finest hour: The film Battle Of Britain was a box office smash in 1970
Star studded: The cast of A Bridge Too Far from 1977 included Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Edward Fox, Michael Caine, Anthony Hopkins, James Caan, Laurence Olivier and Robert Redford
In fact, hardly any films have been made about the many wars Britain has fought since 1945. There has been the odd TV drama, such as Tumbledown about the Falklands, or Occupation, about the invasion of Basra, which largely focused on what happened when the boys came home.
More...
And then there was a TV ‘comedy’ about a bomb disposal unit in Afghanistan called Bluestone 42, which many soldiers I know found in poor taste.
There was also Bloody Sunday, in which the British Army is the bad guy.
When I rack my brains, the best and perhaps the only post-World War II Great British War Movie that I can think of is Who Dares Wins, starring the great and very recently late Lewis Collins, but that was a terrorist thriller and hardly a classic in the mould of The Dam Busters.
Screenwriter Tom Williams laments the demise of the great British war film
This huge gap was made even more apparent to me when I came across the story of what happened one day near an Afghan village called Kajaki, which I immediately knew I wanted to turn into a war film.
At 11am on September 6, 2006, a three-man patrol from 3 Para left an observation point on a ridge overlooking the Kajaki Dam in Helmand Province.
As he hopped over a dried-out gully at the bottom of the ridge, Lance Corporal Stuart Hale stepped on a land mine, blowing off his right leg.
A rescue party was hastily assembled and soon a dozen men were helping to clear a route across the minefield to a spot from where a helicopter could winch Hale to safety.
Then another mine went off. Then another. Then another.
In four hours, the lives of ten or more men were changed for ever. Three soldiers lost limbs, and several more were badly wounded.
Corporal Mark Wright, who co-ordinated the rescue effort and kept his men’s spirits up until he drew his last breath, died on the helicopter ride back to Camp Bastion. He was posthumously awarded the George Cross for his efforts.
This was the kind of raw courage I had been wanting to write about. Undoubted heroism, extraordinary regimental spirit and life-saving sacrifice. The story didn’t hang upon questions of why we were in Afghanistan, who the enemy was, who was right and who was wrong.
After all, the mines detonated that day had been laid down 25 years earlier by Russian troops during their own invasion and occupation of the country in the Eighties. The enemy was invisible, inevitable and lethal. The enemy was war.
Together with director Paul Katis, I researched the story in more detail. We read the Army’s own Board of Inquiry report, and the subsequent coroner’s inquest.
We met Bob and Gem Wright, Mark’s parents, and got their blessing for our endeavours. We met some of the personnel involved who have since left the Army, including the 3 Para Commanding Officer, who experienced the day’s horrendous events via radio back at Camp Bastion.
Chocks away: The Dam Busters from 1954, starring Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd, is a Christmas TV mainstay
Broadsword calling Danny Boy: Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton disguise themselves as Nazis in the ever popular Where Eagles Dare
Richard Attenborough pops his head out of a tunnel while Steve McQueen keeps watch in 1963's The Great Escape. Although many of the classic British war films were made with mostly American money, they still celebrate British heroism
And once provisional Ministry of Defence approval had been secured, we met or spoke to almost all of the still-serving soldiers who were involved in the attempted rescue that day. I wrote the script, although in fairness, it wrote itself.
So we had a script, a low budget and a tough but totally compelling story about modern warfare. Why don’t we make British war films any more? I was about to find out the answer.
The first people we approached were the various publicly funded subsidy organisations and broadcasters who are the gatekeepers to the British film industry. They all said nice things but, politically, it was too hot for them to handle.
‘This is the kind of film that should be made, but we can’t put any money into it,’ they told us. This, in spite of the fact that politics didn’t come within a thousand miles of the story we were telling.
So we took it out to the industry — the distributors, sales agents and financiers that clog the narrow, noisy lanes of Soho in Central London.
And we got the same reply. Very strong material. Very difficult material. Are people ready for a film about Afghanistan? Isn’t it a bit miserable? Have you thought about TV?
Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a moan about why no one wants to finance my precious script. Perhaps the story isn’t as great as I think it is, or perhaps they had concerns about backing a little-known director.
I understand the realities of financing a movie, and I don’t begrudge a single person who said thanks, but no thanks. But there was something more going on here. Something systemic.
While the rest of the country has got behind the military over the past decade, with charities such as Help for Heroes and Walking With The Wounded — not to mention the time-honoured Poppy Appeal — achieving record levels of support and donations, the British film and television community seems to have looked the other way.
Yet if we had attempted to launch our project on the other side of the Atlantic, I am sure we would not have had such problems. Over the past decade, the U.S. has certainly not shied away from making films about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hollywood movies such as The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Three Kings and Black Hawk Down have not only superbly portrayed these modern conflicts, they have also unearthed stories that a mainstream cinema audience wants to see.
With films such as The Hurt Locker, Hollywood has refused to shy away from portraying modern conflicts
But in this country, and in spite of the huge commercial success of most of these movies, the film industry still does not want to know.
Is there a liberal sensitivity within my profession which deems any film showing British soldiers doing anything courageous or worthy of our admiration and gratitude to be ‘not the kind of story we want to tell’?
Has an institutional obsession with victimhood and ‘telling the other side’ led the industry to turn its back on those who defend our freedoms?
I’m not saying that our military adventures over the past decade are without controversy, but surely we can at least depict the human side of these conflicts?
Instead, the industry sticks to the predictable holy trinity of Brit flicks: social-realist misery, escapist romantic comedies and Guy Ritchie-style gangster thrillers.
So now, in our efforts to be the first modern British war movie in more than 30 years, Kajaki has had to look outside the industry for finance.
The Ministry of Defence has supported us. The soldiers are behind us. The general public is behind us. But still the film industry looks the other way.
■ To help fund the film, visit indiegogo.com and search ‘Kajaki’.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2522278/Why-dont-make-war-films-celebrate-British-courage-more.html#ixzz2nEl3GTKg
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The Real St. Nick Saved 669 Children From Hitler
The Real St. Nick Saved 669 Children From Hitler
With the Christmas season ahead, plastic statues of the man they call Santa Claus will adorn front lawns all over the world. Grown men will dress up like him, and children will sit on his lap, sharing their Christmas wishes.
That Saint Nick is a fairy tale. He doesn’t come down chimneys, and word has it he’s probably diabetic and lactose-intolerant—so don’t leave him milk and cookies.
However, there is genuine, living Saint Nick who is a hero among men. He is a 104-year-old Englishman, where he is known as the British Schindler. Born Jewish and later converting to Christianity along with his family (today we would call them Messianic Jews, not converts), Sir Nicholas Winton lived all over Europe working in the banking industry.
Wednesday 11 December 2013
What ‘Cool’ Churches Could Learn From Abercrombie & Fitch
What ‘Cool’ Churches Could Learn From Abercrombie & Fitch
If you’ve ever wandered into an Abercrombie & Fitch store, you know about coolness. The retailer markets its line of sweaters, hoodies and overpriced T-shirts using dim lighting, funky music and wall-sized photos of buff models wearing $98 jeans. But the store began losing customers this year when it became known that CEO Mike Jeffries only wanted thin, popular teens to wear his clothes.
“A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes],” Jeffries said in an interview, adding that he only wanted “cool, good-looking people” wearing the A&F label. His policy has now officially backfired. Upset parents threw out tons of the retailer’s clothes, activist teens staged a boycott, and a guy from California launched a video campaign urging people to give the uber-cool A&F duds to homeless people in protest.
All this proved that sometimes being cool is, in fact, not cool—especially when cool becomes exclusionary.
When I read about the demise of Abercrombie & Fitch, I couldn’t help but compare the store with some churches I know. I’ve never heard a pastor say from the pulpit that he “only wanted the cool people,” but sometimes we send this message subliminally. In today’s market-driven church culture, cool is the goal. We pursue it in several ways:
Cool music. I love high-energy worship as much as anyone, and I try to keep my playlists updated. But I hope we aren’t using trendiness as the gauge to measure the depth of our worship. Cool music can sometimes turn out to be a shallow performance. Sometimes it might be best to dig out a 30-year-old chorus or a 200-year-old hymn just to remind ourselves that our generation isn’t the center of the universe. And speaking of age: It might not look cool to include older people in the worship team, but I have a feeling God would prefer to affirm every age group.
Cool technology. I knew a young man who attended a popular worship school for six months. When he came back to his home church, he complained that leaders “didn’t know how to do church” because they didn’t follow the latest rules about PowerPoint, lighting and Internet broadcasting. He was bitten by the cool bug—which can sometimes turn people into jerks. I have no problem with technology, but I fear we are using it as a substitute for the anointing of the Spirit. If God shows up in one of our services and everyone hits the floor, I doubt we will care too much about what we had planned to project on our 72-foot-wide screens.
Cool people. I used to be part of a ministry that targeted university students with the gospel. It was a great strategy, but it had its downside. Since we were trying to reach young people, the old people were not cool. This also applied to blue-collar types, single moms and homeless folks who occasionally wandered into meetings. It got so bad that one woman was asked to get off the worship team because she was overweight. Yet Jesus didn’t judge people based on body type, ethnicity or age. He reached out to widows, dying children, blind beggars, soldiers, lepers and even demoniacs. And sometimes the really cool people—like the rich young ruler—walked away from Him.
Cool crowds. We often define coolness in our culture by the size of the audience. We get an adrenaline rush when we jump on the bandwagon with everyone else. Crowds can be great (it would have been cool to be an eyewitness at the feeding of the 5,000), yet many people in the Bible defined courage by standing alone in defiance of the crowd. I have spoken to large and small audiences and everything in between, and I’ve learned that the Holy Spirit is just as willing to move among a group of 25 as He is in the biggest church in town.
Cool theology. This is where we really need to be careful. Today it’s cool to preach safe, seeker-sensitive messages about love and grace just to get people in the door of the church. To avoid offending anyone, we stay away from certain topics that our culture has deemed off-limits. It’s definitely not cool today to preach about (1) the consequences of sin and the need for repentance, (2) why sexual sin is still unhealthy or (3) the fact that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.
Abercrombie & Fitch made a huge marketing mistake by pursuing coolness. If we use a similar strategy to grow churches, it will backfire. Jesus never said, “Follow Me, and everyone will think you are cool.” Rather He told us, “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20, NASB). We are called to make faithful disciples—and that will never be cool in the eyes of the world. At some point, we have to leave the adolescent realm of cool to reach spiritual maturity.
J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma and the director of the Mordecai Project(themordecaiproject.org). You can follow him on Twitter at @leegrady. He is the author of The Holy Spirit Is Not for Sale and other books.
Views, Visions and Values.: Some Great Quotes by a Great Man, my tribute to N...
Views, Visions and Values.: Some Great Quotes by a Great Man, my tribute to N...: Nelson, " Madiba " Mandela, 1918 - 2013 I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made ...
Tuesday 10 December 2013
There is a Fountain
There
is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And
sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose
all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And
sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
The
dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day;
And
there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Washed
all my sins away, washed all my sins away;
And
there have I, though vile as he, washed all my sins away.
Dear
dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power
Till
all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
Be
saved, to sin no more, be saved, to sin no more;
Till
all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.
E’er
since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming
love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And
shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming
love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
Then
in a nobler, sweeter song, I’ll sing Thy power to save,
When
this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lies
silent in the grave, lies silent in the grave;
When
this poor lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Lord,
I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For
me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
’Tis
strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To
sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine.
Monday 9 December 2013
Sunday 8 December 2013
Let the River flow
Lyrics:
|
Let the poor man say
I am rich in Him Let the lost man say I am found in Him Let the river flow Let the blind man say I can see again Let the dead man say I am born again Let the river flow Let the river flow Let the river flow Let the river flow Holy Spirit come Move in power Let the river flow |
I've got a River of Life flowing with me
This
morning at Church, my Pastor, Geoff
Grice started to sing this when he was preaching, I’ve managed to find the full words and a
video, I remember this great song,
many, many of years ago in South
Wales, and it was a real blessing to
hear it again.
I’ve
got a river of life flowing within me;
It
makes the lame to walk and the blind to see.
It
opens prison doors, sets the captives free.
I’ve
got a river of life flowing within me.
Spring
up, O well, within my spirit!
Rise
up and tell, so all can hear it!
Spring
up, O well, so I experience
That
life abundantly.
I’ve
got a river of life flowing within me;
It
started gushing up when God set me free.
That
I keep the flow is my only plea.
I’ve
got a river of life springing within me.
Once
I call His name there’s a flow within;
It
turns me from my day, makes Him Lord again.
As
my spirit burns, Satan cannot win.
Calling,
“Oh Lord Jesus,” keeps the flow within.
Source:
http://www.hymnal.net/hymn.php/ns/37#ixzz2mtYwzF8i
Saturday 7 December 2013
Nelson Mandela and the Ironies of History by Alfred Mohler
On Thursday, South African President Jacob Zuma announced the death of Nelson Mandela at age 95. One of the most significant and vital figures of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela became known not only as the father of his nation, but as the father of an entire people.
All this goes back to 1918 when Mandela, then known by the name Rolihlaha, was born into the royal line of the Xhosa tribe in South Africa. Later, his name was changed to Nelson when he was baptized by Methodists. When he died he was known by Africans merely as Madiba, representing his traditional clan. By then, he had become one of the most respected figures on the world stage.
Nelson Mandela came to adulthood as the minority white government of South Africa was instituting apartheid, the radical system of total racial segregation and discrimination that forced the native African majority in the nation into a state of humiliating oppression. Apartheid required the social, economic, and political separation of whites and blacks in South Africa, and it was enforced with brutality and murderous force.
Apartheid was a multidimensional structure of repression, humiliation, and prejudice. Americans would be hard-pressed to imagine how such a system could exist until they realize that a similar system of racial apartheid had existed throughout most of the 20th century in the United States, especially in the South.
Under apartheid, many of the African tribes were put onto tribal lands and territories where they had no access to modernity, to modern goods, or to the modern economy. Black South Africans were denied access to the political process, blocked by an entire system of laws that treated them as second-class citizens in the nation of their birth.
Apartheid flies in the face of the Christian understanding of the equality of every single human being. Our true human equality is not based in a political promise, it is biblically and theologically grounded—unquestionably grounded in the fact that the Bible clearly reveals that every single human being is equally made in God’s image. We are separate and distinct from other creatures precisely because we alone as a species—as human beings, as Homo sapiens—we alone bear God’s image. And we bear God’s image equally, male and female, regardless of any racial or ethnic consideration; and for that matter—as in these days we must argue over and over again—regardless of any other kind of consideration, including age or process of development.
The death of Nelson Mandela represents a landmark in terms of history. But it is also, in terms of the Christian worldview, a cause for our deepest thinking about the intersection of history and destiny, of human rights and human dignity, and of character and leadership. Nelson Mandela, long before World War II, came into contact with what became known as the African National Congress. The sole effort of the African National Congress (better known as the ANC) was to overthrow the apartheid regime by any means necessary.
As a young man, Mandela joined the ANC when it was, to use the only word that would fit, a terrorist organization. And yet, he also became a major figure in world politics and statesmanship. He spent many years in prison after several treason trials for acts against the government of South Africa. He found himself on the infamous Robben Island as a prisoner for almost twenty years; and then he spent almost another decade in a separate prison. By the time he emerged from his prison cell at age 72, he was understood to be the only man who could save his nation from total chaos and violence. Less than four years after his release from prison, Mandela took the oath of office as the democratically-elected President of South Africa.
What changed? Well, you might say everything changed.
In the 1990′s, Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with F. W. de Klerk, the last of the white Afrikaner presidents of South Africa. De Klerk shared that Nobel Prize with Nelson Mandela precisely because it took a cooperative effort by the last white president of South Africa and the first black president of South Africa to put together a system that would not lead to national collapse, but would create a national future.
South Africa remains a deeply troubled nation in many ways, but it is an economic powerhouse. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out in its obituary on Nelson Mandela, South Africa is the economic powerhouse of Africa: it stands out economically from every other African nation. And much of that is due to the transition that took place in the 1990′s away from apartheid and toward a new future for South Africa, that very process that was negotiated by F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela.
Nelson Mandela lived a very long life. His life encompassed most of the 20th century and at least the first decade and more of the 21st century. He retired twice from national life. He served only one term as president, offering a rare model of political modesty. His nation has never again achieved the political stability he gave it.
When you think of Nelson Mandela and reflect on his life, and now on his death, there are many worldview issues that are immediately implicated. One of them has to do with the fact that Nelson Mandela was, by any honest analysis, a terrorist. That immediately raises a deep moral issue. How can someone be so honored who had at any point resorted to terrorism in order to achieve a political objective?
Well, while we’re thinking about that question, let’s reflect upon some less convenient facts of history. For instance, we should look at Menachem Begin, who became one of the most powerful prime ministers of Israel, and who signed the Camp David peace agreement with then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat during the American presidency of Jimmy Carter. Like Nelson Mandela, Menachem Begin shared the Nobel Peace Prize, but he was also a terrorist as a young man—a Zionist terrorist. He was directly implicated in the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 that led to the deaths of at least 91 people. He was known as a terrorist; he was wanted as a terrorist. And yet, he later became the Prime Minister of Israel and also shared the Nobel Peace Prize. Likewise, Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Menachem Begin, also began his political career as a terrorist against the British.
While we’re thinking about terrorism, we probably also ought to think about someone from our own nation’s history, like George Washington. Had the American Revolution turned out differently, George Washington would in all likelihood have been hung as a traitor. He would also have been accused of being what we now call a terrorist.
All this is not to give moral absolution to terrorists, so long as they win and eventually have political victory. It is, however, to remind ourselves that in the process of politics in a fallen world, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
In the United States, we speak about the efforts that led to the overthrow of the British colonization as our national revolution, the birth of a nation. The British called it treason.
Similarly, Nelson Mandela is seen as a great hero by the people of South Africa, as was Menachem Begin by the people of Israel. This pattern certainly does not absolve the use of force. It does not absolve terrorists of their tactics, it just raises the point that when we talk about terrorism, character, and historical change, we must think honestly.
That honest assessment recognizes that when you look at the process of political change, the kind of change on a scale necessary to overthrow something as powerful as apartheid, it looks in a fallen world as if force, more often than not, becomes necessary. That is lamentable; but we ought to note it honestly. This is a crucial moral factor in our consideration of the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela.
So is the issue of character and conviction. In my book on convictional leadership, The Conviction to Lead, I mention both Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr. They raise many of the same
issues. Martin Luther King, Jr. was known as an ordained minister. He was also known as a serial philanderer. Nelson Mandela became known as the father of his nation, but he was also known as a serial adulterer. He was a man who was deeply, morally conflicted and inherently complex. His early political philosophy was a variant of Marxism and, unlike King, Mandela renounced nonviolence as a political strategy. Much of this is deeply troubling to the Christian conscience.
And yet, when we look at his legacy in terms of the overthrow of apartheid, we recall the fact that Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the most influential theologians in America at the middle of the 20th century, argued that there are times in which certain men, certain historical figures, appear to be historically necessary, even if they are far from historically perfect. That seems so often to be the case in a fallen world. In a sinful world, a world in which every dimension is marked by sin, the most effective political leaders are those who have the strongest convictions; but often those strong convictions and ambitions are met by a somewhat less than stellar character.
Nelson Mandela’s character, however, is not limited to, but certainly includes his sexual behavior. It also includes his personal courage. His moral character includes the deep conviction he had about the future of his people. He was a man committed to democracy: he did not overthrow apartheid in order to put in place an African National Congress dictatorship.
When it comes to human rights and human dignity, Nelson Mandela has to be put on the side of the heroes, not only of the 20th century, but of any recent century. He is, as an ironic view of history would remind us, one of those necessary men. A necessary man who nonetheless is a man whose feet were made of clay, as his biography reveals very clearly.
Hollywood is now releasing a major film about Nelson Mandela that tells both sides of this story. And as Americans perhaps see that story, it’s likely that they will be confronted with many of these worldview issues. It is unlikely that anyone is going to try to help them think about these questions and to think about them as Christians.
American Christians looking at Nelson Mandela must eagerly affirm that we are thankful that he was used in order to achieve freedom and human dignity for his people. But perhaps we should also be thankful that we know a little bit more of the story so that he is not merely held up as a hero to be emulated in every respect, but is known as one who was a morally complicated man. And when it comes to figures on the world scene, every single one of them is morally complicated, each in his or her own way.
That’s why a look at the span of human history causes us to recognize that our Christian responsibility is to look at this morally complicated picture with courageous honesty, to take it all as evidence, not only of why human history is important, but why our ultimate redemption can come only from Christ.
Reinhold Niebuhr’s great theological contribution was to remind us that history reveals the inescapable irony of the human condition. Everything we do is tainted by human sin, and the huge characters who change world events often demonstrate grave moral faults, even as they achieve great moral change. Nelson Mandela was one of those men. He was essential—even indispensable—to his nation and to the eradication of apartheid. But no man’s life is heroic in every respect, and no human hero can save.
God alone can save us from ourselves, and he saves us through the atonement accomplished by the Son, Jesus Christ. There is salvation in no other name, no matter how honored on earth.
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