Because my parents were members of the Dutch Reformed Church, I had to attend the church service and Sunday school every week. What fun! The dominee (minister), speaking in the ridiculously pretentious accent learnt at the kweekskool (seminary), usually warned in apocalyptic terms against the evils of sex before marriage (or sex with an Engelse meisie or a black woman - after marriage), Satanism, masturbation, homosexuality and the twin evils of communism and majority rule.
Sometimes the dominee also warned us that one had to pay at least one tenth of one’s income to the church to demonstrate one’s love for Jesus our Lord. (Loving Jesus was not too difficult for me, as the pictures in my Children’s Bible of a semi-naked Jesus on the cross, his six pack rippling, his long blonde hair styled in the way that was so popular amongst hairdressers in Benoni and Brakpan in the nineteen seventies, was almost as sexy as the adverts for Jockey underpants in Huisgenoot.)
The Dutch Reformed Church, whose dominees almost all belonged to the secret and shadowy Afrikaner Broederbond, was all-powerful – the National Party at prayer – and played a pivotal role in legitimising and defending apartheid. It also ensured that a narrow, bigoted, morality was enforced on society as a whole: there was no movies or sport allowed on a Sunday and even at the Hennenman swimming pool (which was only open from 2-5 pm on a Sunday) one was not allowed to dive from the diving board on a Sunday out of respect for the Church and perhaps even for God.
After 1994, Afrikaans Churches pretty much lost their moral authority as more and more white Afrikaners faced up to the fact that the church had supported an evil and immoral system under the guise of high moral principle. In 1998, staying at the Parktonian Hotel in Braamfontein, I was therefore not surprised when I looked out of my hotel window across the street and spotted the face brick Dutch Reformed Church, now all boarded up with a huge “For Sale” sign in the front.
The church and its particular brand of bigoted and racist moralism had become truly bankrupt and was now completely delegitimised. From now on, I thought, we will look towards the Constitution as a guide for ethical living – not towards any church or the teachings of some odd men in Penguin suits.
But in the moral universe of President Jacob Zuma (in which it is perfectly acceptable to take more than a million Rand from a crook, to do favours for that crook and then to submit a fake loan agreement to Parliament to cover up your tracks) and some (but luckily by far not all) of the members of the ANC, churches and a particular brand of narrow minded and bigoted morality is making a comeback. Hey, in this world, it is ok to steal other people’s money and to be corrupt - as long as one prays to God and hates homosexuals and woman equally.
Recently the shadowy and far-rightwing group called the Family Policy Institute (FPI) teamed up with the Film and Publications Board (the predecessor of the censor board who, under the guidance of the Dutch Reformed Church, “protected” apartheid South Africa from the “immorality” of being shown woman’s naked breasts and the “dangers” of the speeches of Nelson Mandela and Oliver Thambo) to hold a seminar warning against the so called dangers of pornography.
This was not, let’s be kind, an event where scientific or academically plausible research was shared or discussed: it was a progapaganda exercise promoting narrow and very particular religious views.
For some scary entertainment on the laughable and unfounded views of the FPI, one can peruse their website which warns that pornography destroys the human soul (if one can find the soul at all) and morality (as defined by some people who believe that if we only fear a god we cannot see and whose existence we cannot prove we will all live happily ever after in a heaven where we will all love each other, sing Kumbaja while holding hands, before retiring to bed to recite Amore Vittone songs backwards to make us go to sleep). The document also warns that pornography is so strong and evil that it destroys marriages (the heterosexual and non-polygamous kind, of course) and also causes poverty and corruption. (Well I lied about the poverty and corruption, but you get the drift.)
The fact that a state body like the Film and Publication Board, with the assistance and support of the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, teamed up with a very reactionary, homophobic, anti-abortion, religious group, is truly shocking as it sends a signal that a state institution has chosen sides against the values of openness, respect for difference, freedom of religion and opinion and human dignity ensrined in the Constitution.
It suggests the Department of Home Affairs and the Film and Publication Board have decided to endorse the mad ramblings of a reactionary group who feigns interest in saving our soul while eying our wallets. What do all the many strong and progressive woman and men in the ANC think of this, I wonder?
Another such scary group now gaining in influence amongst members of the new elite in the Eastern Cape is an outfit called the “Godly Governance Network” (lovely name, not such lovely people). In an email advertising its “prayer focus” for the next two months, the Network states:
Repent before the Lord for the sexual immorality and adultery that is filling our Province resulting in unwanted pregnancies (and often abortion), break up of marriages and the rapid spread of HIV/Aids. Repent on behalf of the government’s policies that have encouraged this…..
Pray for the re-education of this generation on family values according to the Word of God, i.e. a man shall be a husband of one wife (Titus 1:6); sex outside of marriage is sin (Hebrews 13:4); homosexuality is sin (1 Cor 6:9); divorce is not God’s will(Mark 10:6-12); husbands should love their wives (Eph 5:25,28); wives should respect and honour their husbands as head of the home (Eph 5:22-23, 1 Pet 3:1); children should honour and obey their parents ( Ex 20:12; Col 3:22)
The Network is also trying to resist the teaching of evolution in schools and argues that evolution is “Satanic”. These people are crackpots of the first order and they make those omies of the Dutch Reformed Church almost look kind and reasonable. In one of their “Concept Documents”, published in 2008, they write:
Hence most organizations and political parties, from the recently liberated countries find themselves controlled and manipulated to implement the secret agenda of the New Age Movement by adopting constitutional models and systems of government that are aimed at installing the fascist Luciferian World Order and Government. South Africa, the African National Congress and other parities are not immune to this global conspiracy. It is not a surprise to discover that most of its social and economic transformation policies and legislative framework are so alien and foreign to the general citizens of the country. The agenda is to control and manipulate people to adopt Illuminati Policy Agenda through a centralized system of government.
Of course, section 15 of the Constitution guarantees for everyone the right to make a fool of him or herself and proudly to display his or her ignorance and bigotry for all to see. Well, that is not exactly what section 15 states: it says that everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion - but you get the drift.
While people have a right to hold religious views, no matter how scary or hateful (just as they have the right to believe that religion is a lot of codswallop), it becomes rather troubling when religious groups like those mentioned above attack the very basis of our democracy: the Constitution. Even more troubling is the fact that they seem to have some official sanction from elements in the government. If these people were journalists they would long since have been arrested. The Constitutional Court has made clear that the right to freedom of religion prohibits the state from enforcing the religious views of some onto society as whole. But that is exactly what the groups mentioned above is agitating for.
Why is it then that in the email I received from the Godly Governance Network, I am told I can contact the Eastern Cape Legislature where the Speaker’s Office will assist me with information about a prayer service conducted in the legislature every Thursday between 4:30 to 6:00 in the Speaker’s Conference Room? Surely, no self-respecting ANC MP would want to be associated with these crackpots?
Or are we seeing a gradual move back to the pre-democracy era where the government of the day, trying to regain some of the legitimacy it has lost through its immoral and greedy actions, endorses censorship of the press and embraces ever more reactionary religious groups in the hope that ordinary people will be blinded by a misguided moral righteousness and will therefore forget that they are suffering because of the actions of incompetent or corrupt government officials?
How long before Ministers (of the church and of the government) starts warning us again the evils of homosexuality, Satanism and masturbation? How long before a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion is taken away and pictures of naked women and men are banned – along with novels like Lolita, Lady Chatterleys Lover and Chinua Achebe’s When Things Fall Apart? Is this not the way that government’s go when they run out of ideas and have to admit that they are incapable of creating a better life for all?
Off line, just a bit.
Prof, I have realised there is too much corruption in getting a drivers licence in this country. Can you not write about this topic one day, at least for the topic/analysis to include what can be done for security measures such as those tantamount to remarking/appeal in case where one fails unnecessarily (because they did not bribe).
Can a brave Journo like Wa Africa not manage to write about this scourge that is spreading like an HIV virus?
I think I may make a point of downloading as much porn as I can now and forward it to the department of home affairs for the attention of the deputy minister. Surely the film and publications board doesn’t even fall under his portfolio??
Prof.
Whilst the fracas about the information and media tribunal bill were on the go – it seems to have gone unnoticed that Gicaba announced the intention to introduce a law compelling all internet providers to institute filters to block porn on the internet.
“To protect children …”
Gicaba, said we must follow countries such as China, Venezuela and United Arab Emirates.
Religious righteousness: last refuge of the wicked.
Prof, I’m intrigued by your suggestion that we should ‘look towards the Constitution as a guide for ethical living’. Do you really think we South Africans should take moral guidance from the Constitution in our day-to-day lives? I certainly agree with your criticism of any encroachment of religious-morality in public life and erosion of the separation between church and state. But surely it’s a long way from agreeing with that to agreeing that the the Constitution – i.e. the law – should be used as a means to make South Africans good or virtuous or morally upstanding people? That, ironically, seems to me the very definition of an illiberal state. A possible solution is a distinction (although blurred and difficult) between the public or political sphere (where the Constitution should provide legal and arguably moral guidance) and a private or non-political sphere (where the Constitution should provide only legal guidance, but not moral guidance) – and consequently a distinction between ‘public reasoning’ in which religious views should play no part, and ‘private reasoning’ in which religion plays whatever role people want it to play. But I suspect you might argue that any such public/private distinction is mistaken, used to hide power-imbalances, etc.
Pierre, I agree that one should not make a particularistic religious faith the source of official policy. Nevertheless, I see benefit in educating our young people to bring the tsunami of masturbation under control.
First, I see as onanism unAfrican, and, frankly a colonial imposition. Older relatives tell me this filthly habit was rare (but not unknown), before the white man came.
Second, auto-sexuality is, like the liberal media, broadly antithetical to the project of NATION BUILDING.
Thank you.
have to admit that your turn of phrase always raises a belly laugh from me, Pierre.
Though your suggestion here is chilling … and very possible, given the gullibility of many safricans. If the ANC pins its censorship campaign to a verkrampte religious theme it could very well win this battle.
… and, as you imply, it would take the ANC one step closer towards mirroring the tactics of the old NP.
Pierre, julle Sondagskool het ook seker ‘n oom Labuschagne gehad wat ore getrek het van die outjies wat rumoerig geraak het. Ek hoop hy het sy belt ook afgehaal!
Ask yourself one simple question: Is South Africa a better place now, in 2010, than when we used to practise Sunday Observance?
You see, you’ve already starting qualifying and rationalising the respects in which South Africa is better today, like non-racialism, universal franchise….
That is not how it was supposed to be, now is it?
The true name is Yahushua, Jesus = Zeus. Aside from this… why must the State dictate to us what is morally correct ? Its ok for a president/king to be corrupt and practice adultery… but for the underclass it is a no-no ?
The “moral regeneration program” is little more then an attempt to mould Citizens to the parties ideology. No more individualism, because individualism is a curse (according to the political, economic and spiritual elitists) Collectivism as advocated by the Nazi Party and the Communist Party of the USSR saw the death of individualism and where did it place the Republic ?
The Republic of South Africa is facing another dark age… lets hope those with illumination can rid us of this darkness.
Leaving aside the somewhat emotional and partisan approach to the topic under discussion, it seems that the argument in this post amounts to the following: if person X ascribes to two positions, A and B, and A accords with government policy yet B is contrary to the constitution, then the government ought not to co-operate with X in relation to policy A. X is forever sullied by holding position B. This is a startling argument. Speaking personally, I am not in favour of the state permitting abortions. Many other people around the world, of different cultural backgrounds and religuous persuasions, share this view. On the argument advanced in this post, the government should not engage with me, or co-operate with me, or others of my kind, on any issue. My disagreement with one aspect of the constitution thus excludes me from democratic participation on other issues. On this argument I suppose the government should not hold seminars with a number of civil organisations, and perhaps they should not even meet with themselves.
What a fascinating little diatribe – clearly written before taking the anti-paranoia pill. A few highlights (lowlights?): “Of course, section 15 of the Constitution guarantees for everyone the right to make a fool of him or herself and proudly to display his or her ignorance and bigotry for all to see. Well, that is not exactly what section 15 states: it says that everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion – but you get the drift.” Quite correct Prof de Vos; after all you have proudly displayed your ignorance and bigotry for all to see. Obviously, the “democratic” and “constitution-loving” professor believes that only non-Christians should be allowed to participate in formulating policy in this country. “… the right to freedom of religion prohibits the state from enforcing the religious views of some onto society as whole”. Cry me a river … are you upset because you can’t force your minority views onto society as a whole? What comes around, goes around, ne?
marco polo … you obviously didn’t get the drift of this piece, ne?
But in the moral universe of President Jacob Zuma (in which it is perfectly acceptable to take more than a million Rand from a crook, to do favours for that crook and then to submit a fake loan agreement to Parliament to cover up your tracks) and some (but luckily by far not all) of the members of the ANC, churches and a particular brand of narrow minded and bigoted morality is making a comeback. Hey, in this world, it is ok to steal other people’s money and to be corrupt – as long as one prays to God and hates homosexuals and woman equally.
______________________________________________________________
How did this paragraph get its way into this comment? I will assume that you have proof on these allegations which you state as fact. I hope your proof is not that, one fool was arrested and therefore everyone is guilty as you previously tried to convince us. You make a serious allegation in this paragraph and you phrase as if it has been proven. Please give us the proof or information you might have in this regard.
Do you think that throwing allegations at people will help the cause of trying to stop the media tribunal?
Interesting story in The Times.
Steel men play hardball
Company ignores order to reinstate woman fired for having sex change
Aug 16, 2010 11:07 PM | By SALLY EVANS
——————————————————————————–
Christine Ehlers was left feeling humiliated yesterday morning when her bosses at multinational steel retailer Bohler Uddeholm Africa ignored a court ruling that she be given her old job back.
——————————————————————————–
Ehlers, 43, won her labour court battle with the company on Friday, a year after she was fired for undergoing a sex change.
Judge Ellem Francis ruled that her dismissal was unfair and unconstitutional, and ordered her immediate reinstatement.
However, Ehlers arrived at work to be told she could not start as the board had not seen the judgment.
“I arrived at 8am and they made me wait until 9am before they saw me. They gave me a letter saying that they had not received a copy of the judgment and until the board has seen it I cannot return to work. I am feeling deflated and totally dejected,” Ehlers said.
Her lawyer, Andre Schmidt, said he was shocked by the company’s claim that it had not seen the judgment because he had been with Bohler Uddeholm Africa’s lawyer on Friday, when he copied the judgment.
Schmidt said a letter had been sent yesterday morning to Bohler Uddeholm Africa’s lawyer “requesting a written undertaking that they will comply with the court order”.
Yesterday afternoon Schmidt said there had been no response from Bohler Uddeholm Africa.
“We are now instructing council to proceed with an urgent application for contempt of court,” Schmidt said.
When The Times spoke to Ehlers on Sunday, she said she was “excited” about returning to her old job and that it felt like the “beginning of my life”.
In his judgment, Judge Francis said he found the attitude of Bohler Uddeholm Africa “appalling”.
“It is shocking that such sentiments still do exist,” he said.
The judge ruled that the company must pay Ehlers from the time she was fired in January last year, write a letter of apology to her within a week, and “take steps to prevent the same unfair discrimination and to report to this court within three months on the steps taken”.
Fear not , its back to Bloomsbury for the Rainbow Nation .
“[T]he Bloomsberries, as they called themselves with a giggle, promoted peaceable cosmopolitanism and the incomparable sweetness of the private life well lived, the worldly salvation to be found in art and love, comfort and abandon. In Lytton Strachey’s words, “a great deal of a great many kinds of love” was the desired apex of civilized living.
Young Apostles
In the 1939 memoir “My Early Beliefs,” John Maynard Keynes—perhaps the past century’s most influential economist, and a writer of elegant clarity whom Saul Bellow called the foremost English prose stylist of his time—describes the impact of the Cambridge philosopher G.E. Moore’s Principia Ethica (1903) on the young Apostles who sat at his feet.
Nothing mattered except states of mind, our own and other people’s of course, but chiefly our own. These states of mind were not associated with action or achievement or with consequences. They consisted in timeless, passionate states of contemplation and communion, largely unattached to “before” and “after.” …The appropriate subjects of passionate contemplation and communion were a beloved person, beauty and truth, and one’s prime objects in life were love, the creation and enjoyment of aesthetic experience and the pursuit of knowledge. Of these love came a long way first.
Keynes and his friends turned Moore’s philosophy into a religion—and one without morals. To have said so explicitly, however, would have offended their belief in the scientific rationality of Moore’s thinking and their own. What they thought about included such questions as whether the beloved person should be good-looking; they tended to agree, quite scientifically of course, that he or she should. Love was about as close as the young philosophers would come to action; they disdained “the life of action generally, power, politics, success, wealth, ambition, with the economic motive and the economic criterion less prominent in our philosophy than with St. Francis of Assisi, who at least made collections for the birds….”
Although the middle-aged Keynes says he has essentially continued to live by this youthful immoralist’s religion, he acknowledges where it went wrong.
We were not aware that civilization was a thin and precarious crust erected by the personality and the will of a very few, and only maintained by rules and conventions skillfully put across and guilefully preserved. We had no respect for traditional wisdom and the restraints of custom .”
Fear not , the Bloomsbury understanding of civilization is well embedded in SA’s advanced, Liberal Constitution .
Thomas, the state has proven these facts beyond reasonable doubt. See the judgments by Squires, the SCA and the Constitutional court – all who found the facts as stated to have been proved by the state beyond reasonable doubt.
Well Pierre why not go the whole hog and endorse murder, theft and corruption.
Surely these must also be fake morals ?
After all, they were passed down by a God in whom you don’t believe (thou shalt not kill etc). So what’s stopping you from going on a killing spree ? Surely not your morals ? Or are you afraid of man made law ?
It seems you want to be selective and have you cake and eat it as well
Thomas says:
August 17, 2010 at 7:33 am
Hey Thomas,
“Do you think that throwing allegations at people will help the cause of trying to stop the media tribunal?”
As far as I understand it, the debate raging is not to stop the media tribunal (most sensible people agree that more needs to be done with regards to the media), rather it is around who should constitute the MAT.
I hope you will agree that politicians are not the most suitable for that important oversight role.
The return of fake morality?
Aug 16th, 2010 by Pierre De Vos.
Because my parents were members of the Dutch Reformed Church, I had to attend the church service and Sunday school every week. What fun! The dominee (minister), speaking in the ridiculously pretentious accent learnt at the kweekskool (seminary), usually warned in apocalyptic terms against the evils of sex before marriage (or sex with an Engelse meisie or a black woman – after marriage), Satanism, masturbation, homosexuality and the twin evils of communism and majority rule.
Sometimes the dominee also warned us that one had to pay at least one tenth of one’s income to the church to demonstrate one’s love for Jesus our Lord. (Loving Jesus was not too difficult for me, as the pictures in my Children’s Bible of a semi-naked Jesus on the cross, his six pack rippling, his long blonde hair styled in the way that was so popular amongst hairdressers in Benoni and Brakpan in the nineteen seventies, was almost as sexy as the adverts for Jockey underpants in Huisgenoot.)
The Dutch Reformed Church, whose dominees almost all belonged to the secret and shadowy Afrikaner Broederbond, was all-powerful – the National Party at prayer – and played a pivotal role in legitimising and defending apartheid. It also ensured that a narrow, bigoted, morality was enforced on society as a whole: there was no movies or sport allowed on a Sunday and even at the Hennenman swimming pool (which was only open from 2-5 pm on a Sunday) one was not allowed to dive from the diving board on a Sunday out of respect for the Church and perhaps even for God.
After 1994, Afrikaans Churches pretty much lost their moral authority as more and more white Afrikaners faced up to the fact that the church had supported an evil and immoral system under the guise of high moral principle. In 1998, staying at the Parktonian Hotel in Braamfontein, I was therefore not surprised when I looked out of my hotel window across the street and spotted the face brick Dutch Reformed Church, now all boarded up with a huge “For Sale” sign in the front.
The church and its particular brand of bigoted and racist moralism had become truly bankrupt and was now completely delegitimised. From now on, I thought, we will look towards the Constitution as a guide for ethical living – not towards any church or the teachings of some odd men in Penguin suits.
But in the moral universe of President Jacob Zuma (in which it is perfectly acceptable to take more than a million Rand from a crook, to do favours for that crook and then to submit a fake loan agreement to Parliament to cover up your tracks) and some (but luckily by far not all) of the members of the ANC, churches and a particular brand of narrow minded and bigoted morality is making a comeback. Hey, in this world, it is ok to steal other people’s money and to be corrupt – as long as one prays to God and hates homosexuals and woman equally.
Recently the shadowy and far-rightwing group called the Family Policy Institute (FPI) teamed up with the Film and Publications Board (the predecessor of the censor board who, under the guidance of the Dutch Reformed Church, “protected” apartheid South Africa from the “immorality” of being shown woman’s naked breasts and the “dangers” of the speeches of Nelson Mandela and Oliver Thambo) to hold a seminar warning against the so called dangers of pornography.
This was not, let’s be kind, an event where scientific or academically plausible research was shared or discussed: it was a progapaganda exercise promoting narrow and very particular religious views.
For some scary entertainment on the laughable and unfounded views of the FPI, one can peruse their website which warns that pornography destroys the human soul (if one can find the soul at all) and morality (as defined by some people who believe that if we only fear a god we cannot see and whose existence we cannot prove we will all live happily ever after in a heaven where we will all love each other, sing Kumbaja while holding hands, before retiring to bed to recite Amore Vittone songs backwards to make us go to sleep). The document also warns that pornography is so strong and evil that it destroys marriages (the heterosexual and non-polygamous kind, of course) and also causes poverty and corruption. (Well I lied about the poverty and corruption, but you get the drift.)
The fact that a state body like the Film and Publication Board, with the assistance and support of the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, teamed up with a very reactionary, homophobic, anti-abortion, religious group, is truly shocking as it sends a signal that a state institution has chosen sides against the values of openness, respect for difference, freedom of religion and opinion and human dignity ensrined in the Constitution.
It suggests the Department of Home Affairs and the Film and Publication Board have decided to endorse the mad ramblings of a reactionary group who feigns interest in saving our soul while eying our wallets. What do all the many strong and progressive woman and men in the ANC think of this, I wonder?
Another such scary group now gaining in influence amongst members of the new elite in the Eastern Cape is an outfit called the “Godly Governance Network” (lovely name, not such lovely people). In an email advertising its “prayer focus” for the next two months, the Network states:
Repent before the Lord for the sexual immorality and adultery that is filling our Province resulting in unwanted pregnancies (and often abortion), break up of marriages and the rapid spread of HIV/Aids. Repent on behalf of the government’s policies that have encouraged this…..
Pray for the re-education of this generation on family values according to the Word of God, i.e. a man shall be a husband of one wife (Titus 1:6); sex outside of marriage is sin (Hebrews 13:4); homosexuality is sin (1 Cor 6:9); divorce is not God’s will(Mark 10:6-12); husbands should love their wives (Eph 5:25,28); wives should respect and honour their husbands as head of the home (Eph 5:22-23, 1 Pet 3:1); children should honour and obey their parents ( Ex 20:12; Col 3:22)
The Network is also trying to resist the teaching of evolution in schools and argues that evolution is “Satanic”. These people are crackpots of the first order and they make those omies of the Dutch Reformed Church almost look kind and reasonable. In one of their “Concept Documents”, published in 2008, they write:
Hence most organizations and political parties, from the recently liberated countries find themselves controlled and manipulated to implement the secret agenda of the New Age Movement by adopting constitutional models and systems of government that are aimed at installing the fascist Luciferian World Order and Government. South Africa, the African National Congress and other parities are not immune to this global conspiracy. It is not a surprise to discover that most of its social and economic transformation policies and legislative framework are so alien and foreign to the general citizens of the country. The agenda is to control and manipulate people to adopt Illuminati Policy Agenda through a centralized system of government.
Of course, section 15 of the Constitution guarantees for everyone the right to make a fool of him or herself and proudly to display his or her ignorance and bigotry for all to see. Well, that is not exactly what section 15 states: it says that everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion – but you get the drift.
While people have a right to hold religious views, no matter how scary or hateful (just as they have the right to believe that religion is a lot of codswallop), it becomes rather troubling when religious groups like those mentioned above attack the very basis of our democracy: the Constitution. Even more troubling is the fact that they seem to have some official sanction from elements in the government. If these people were journalists they would long since have been arrested. The Constitutional Court has made clear that the right to freedom of religion prohibits the state from enforcing the religious views of some onto society as whole. But that is exactly what the groups mentioned above is agitating for.
Why is it then that in the email I received from the Godly Governance Network, I am told I can contact the Eastern Cape Legislature where the Speaker’s Office will assist me with information about a prayer service conducted in the legislature every Thursday between 4:30 to 6:00 in the Speaker’s Conference Room? Surely, no self-respecting ANC MP would want to be associated with these crackpots?
Or are we seeing a gradual move back to the pre-democracy era where the government of the day, trying to regain some of the legitimacy it has lost through its immoral and greedy actions, endorses censorship of the press and embraces ever more reactionary religious groups in the hope that ordinary people will be blinded by a misguided moral righteousness and will therefore forget that they are suffering because of the actions of incompetent or corrupt government officials?
How long before Ministers (of the church and of the government) starts warning us again the evils of homosexuality, Satanism and masturbation? How long before a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion is taken away and pictures of naked women and men are banned – along with novels like Lolita, Lady Chatterleys Lover and Chinua Achebe’s When Things Fall Apart? Is this not the way that government’s go when they run out of ideas and have to admit that they are incapable of creating a better life for all?
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Sebjeni Moyahabo says:
August 16, 2010 at 15:48 pm
Off line, just a bit.
Prof, I have realised there is too much corruption in getting a drivers licence in this country. Can you not write about this topic one day, at least for the topic/analysis to include what can be done for security measures such as those tantamount to remarking/appeal in case where one fails unnecessarily (because they did not bribe).
Can a brave Journo like Wa Africa not manage to write about this scourge that is spreading like an HIV virus?
JFA says:
August 16, 2010 at 15:57 pm
I think I may make a point of downloading as much porn as I can now and forward it to the department of home affairs for the attention of the deputy minister. Surely the film and publications board doesn’t even fall under his portfolio??
zoo keeper says:
August 16, 2010 at 16:45 pm
Prof.
Whilst the fracas about the information and media tribunal bill were on the go – it seems to have gone unnoticed that Gicaba announced the intention to introduce a law compelling all internet providers to institute filters to block porn on the internet.
“To protect children …”
Gicaba, said we must follow countries such as China, Venezuela and United Arab Emirates.
Religious righteousness: last refuge of the wicked.
Alistair Price says:
August 16, 2010 at 16:50 pm
Prof, I’m intrigued by your suggestion that we should ‘look towards the Constitution as a guide for ethical living’. Do you really think we South Africans should take moral guidance from the Constitution in our day-to-day lives? I certainly agree with your criticism of any encroachment of religious-morality in public life and erosion of the separation between church and state. But surely it’s a long way from agreeing with that to agreeing that the the Constitution – i.e. the law – should be used as a means to make South Africans good or virtuous or morally upstanding people? That, ironically, seems to me the very definition of an illiberal state. A possible solution is a distinction (although blurred and difficult) between the public or political sphere (where the Constitution should provide legal and arguably moral guidance) and a private or non-political sphere (where the Constitution should provide only legal guidance, but not moral guidance) – and consequently a distinction between ‘public reasoning’ in which religious views should play no part, and ‘private reasoning’ in which religion plays whatever role people want it to play. But I suspect you might argue that any such public/private distinction is mistaken, used to hide power-imbalances, etc.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
August 16, 2010 at 17:06 pm
Pierre, I agree that one should not make a particularistic religious faith the source of official policy. Nevertheless, I see benefit in educating our young people to bring the tsunami of masturbation under control.
First, I see as onanism unAfrican, and, frankly a colonial imposition. Older relatives tell me this filthly habit was rare (but not unknown), before the white man came.
Second, auto-sexuality is, like the liberal media, broadly antithetical to the project of NATION BUILDING.
Thank you.
Belle says:
August 16, 2010 at 17:44 pm
have to admit that your turn of phrase always raises a belly laugh from me, Pierre.
Though your suggestion here is chilling … and very possible, given the gullibility of many safricans. If the ANC pins its censorship campaign to a verkrampte religious theme it could very well win this battle.
… and, as you imply, it would take the ANC one step closer towards mirroring the tactics of the old NP.
Brett Nortje says:
August 16, 2010 at 18:20 pm
Pierre, julle Sondagskool het ook seker ‘n oom Labuschagne gehad wat ore getrek het van die outjies wat rumoerig geraak het. Ek hoop hy het sy belt ook afgehaal!
Brett Nortje says:
August 16, 2010 at 18:24 pm
Ask yourself one simple question: Is South Africa a better place now, in 2010, than when we used to practise Sunday Observance?
You see, you’ve already starting qualifying and rationalising the respects in which South Africa is better today, like non-racialism, universal franchise….
That is not how it was supposed to be, now is it?
Eric says:
August 16, 2010 at 21:10 pm
The true name is Yahushua, Jesus = Zeus. Aside from this… why must the State dictate to us what is morally correct ? Its ok for a president/king to be corrupt and practice adultery… but for the underclass it is a no-no ?
The “moral regeneration program” is little more then an attempt to mould Citizens to the parties ideology. No more individualism, because individualism is a curse (according to the political, economic and spiritual elitists) Collectivism as advocated by the Nazi Party and the Communist Party of the USSR saw the death of individualism and where did it place the Republic ?
The Republic of South Africa is facing another dark age… lets hope those with illumination can rid us of this darkness.
Gingerbread says:
August 16, 2010 at 21:51 pm
Leaving aside the somewhat emotional and partisan approach to the topic under discussion, it seems that the argument in this post amounts to the following: if person X ascribes to two positions, A and B, and A accords with government policy yet B is contrary to the constitution, then the government ought not to co-operate with X in relation to policy A. X is forever sullied by holding position B. This is a startling argument. Speaking personally, I am not in favour of the state permitting abortions. Many other people around the world, of different cultural backgrounds and religuous persuasions, share this view. On the argument advanced in this post, the government should not engage with me, or co-operate with me, or others of my kind, on any issue. My disagreement with one aspect of the constitution thus excludes me from democratic participation on other issues. On this argument I suppose the government should not hold seminars with a number of civil organisations, and perhaps they should not even meet with themselves.
marco polo says:
August 16, 2010 at 23:06 pm
What a fascinating little diatribe – clearly written before taking the anti-paranoia pill. A few highlights (lowlights?): “Of course, section 15 of the Constitution guarantees for everyone the right to make a fool of him or herself and proudly to display his or her ignorance and bigotry for all to see. Well, that is not exactly what section 15 states: it says that everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion – but you get the drift.” Quite correct Prof de Vos; after all you have proudly displayed your ignorance and bigotry for all to see. Obviously, the “democratic” and “constitution-loving” professor believes that only non-Christians should be allowed to participate in formulating policy in this country. “… the right to freedom of religion prohibits the state from enforcing the religious views of some onto society as whole”. Cry me a river … are you upset because you can’t force your minority views onto society as a whole? What comes around, goes around, ne?
Belle says:
August 16, 2010 at 23:47 pm
marco polo … you obviously didn’t get the drift of this piece, ne?
Thomas says:
August 17, 2010 at 7:33 am
But in the moral universe of President Jacob Zuma (in which it is perfectly acceptable to take more than a million Rand from a crook, to do favours for that crook and then to submit a fake loan agreement to Parliament to cover up your tracks) and some (but luckily by far not all) of the members of the ANC, churches and a particular brand of narrow minded and bigoted morality is making a comeback. Hey, in this world, it is ok to steal other people’s money and to be corrupt – as long as one prays to God and hates homosexuals and woman equally.
______________________________________________________________
How did this paragraph get its way into this comment? I will assume that you have proof on these allegations which you state as fact. I hope your proof is not that, one fool was arrested and therefore everyone is guilty as you previously tried to convince us. You make a serious allegation in this paragraph and you phrase as if it has been proven. Please give us the proof or information you might have in this regard.
Do you think that throwing allegations at people will help the cause of trying to stop the media tribunal?
Thomas says:
August 17, 2010 at 7:39 am
Interesting story in The Times.
Steel men play hardball
Company ignores order to reinstate woman fired for having sex change
Aug 16, 2010 11:07 PM | By SALLY EVANS
——————————————————————————–
Christine Ehlers was left feeling humiliated yesterday morning when her bosses at multinational steel retailer Bohler Uddeholm Africa ignored a court ruling that she be given her old job back.
——————————————————————————–
Ehlers, 43, won her labour court battle with the company on Friday, a year after she was fired for undergoing a sex change.
Judge Ellem Francis ruled that her dismissal was unfair and unconstitutional, and ordered her immediate reinstatement.
However, Ehlers arrived at work to be told she could not start as the board had not seen the judgment.
“I arrived at 8am and they made me wait until 9am before they saw me. They gave me a letter saying that they had not received a copy of the judgment and until the board has seen it I cannot return to work. I am feeling deflated and totally dejected,” Ehlers said.
Her lawyer, Andre Schmidt, said he was shocked by the company’s claim that it had not seen the judgment because he had been with Bohler Uddeholm Africa’s lawyer on Friday, when he copied the judgment.
Schmidt said a letter had been sent yesterday morning to Bohler Uddeholm Africa’s lawyer “requesting a written undertaking that they will comply with the court order”.
Yesterday afternoon Schmidt said there had been no response from Bohler Uddeholm Africa.
“We are now instructing council to proceed with an urgent application for contempt of court,” Schmidt said.
When The Times spoke to Ehlers on Sunday, she said she was “excited” about returning to her old job and that it felt like the “beginning of my life”.
In his judgment, Judge Francis said he found the attitude of Bohler Uddeholm Africa “appalling”.
“It is shocking that such sentiments still do exist,” he said.
The judge ruled that the company must pay Ehlers from the time she was fired in January last year, write a letter of apology to her within a week, and “take steps to prevent the same unfair discrimination and to report to this court within three months on the steps taken”.
Nimrod says:
August 17, 2010 at 7:49 am
Fear not , its back to Bloomsbury for the Rainbow Nation .
“[T]he Bloomsberries, as they called themselves with a giggle, promoted peaceable cosmopolitanism and the incomparable sweetness of the private life well lived, the worldly salvation to be found in art and love, comfort and abandon. In Lytton Strachey’s words, “a great deal of a great many kinds of love” was the desired apex of civilized living.
Young Apostles
In the 1939 memoir “My Early Beliefs,” John Maynard Keynes—perhaps the past century’s most influential economist, and a writer of elegant clarity whom Saul Bellow called the foremost English prose stylist of his time—describes the impact of the Cambridge philosopher G.E. Moore’s Principia Ethica (1903) on the young Apostles who sat at his feet.
Nothing mattered except states of mind, our own and other people’s of course, but chiefly our own. These states of mind were not associated with action or achievement or with consequences. They consisted in timeless, passionate states of contemplation and communion, largely unattached to “before” and “after.” …The appropriate subjects of passionate contemplation and communion were a beloved person, beauty and truth, and one’s prime objects in life were love, the creation and enjoyment of aesthetic experience and the pursuit of knowledge. Of these love came a long way first.
Keynes and his friends turned Moore’s philosophy into a religion—and one without morals. To have said so explicitly, however, would have offended their belief in the scientific rationality of Moore’s thinking and their own. What they thought about included such questions as whether the beloved person should be good-looking; they tended to agree, quite scientifically of course, that he or she should. Love was about as close as the young philosophers would come to action; they disdained “the life of action generally, power, politics, success, wealth, ambition, with the economic motive and the economic criterion less prominent in our philosophy than with St. Francis of Assisi, who at least made collections for the birds….”
Although the middle-aged Keynes says he has essentially continued to live by this youthful immoralist’s religion, he acknowledges where it went wrong.
We were not aware that civilization was a thin and precarious crust erected by the personality and the will of a very few, and only maintained by rules and conventions skillfully put across and guilefully preserved. We had no respect for traditional wisdom and the restraints of custom .”
Fear not , the Bloomsbury understanding of civilization is well embedded in SA’s advanced, Liberal Constitution .
Pierre De Vos says:
August 17, 2010 at 8:30 am
Thomas, the state has proven these facts beyond reasonable doubt. See the judgments by Squires, the SCA and the Constitutional court – all who found the facts as stated to have been proved by the state beyond reasonable doubt.
______________________________________________________________
Does this then mean that in South Africa you can be convicted without standing trial? I am no constitutional judge or expert but I find this defamatory. We can go through many cases in South Africa and find people implicated in crimes but never prosecuted. Must we regard this as proof to their wrong doing? The Prof has shown his disregard to the constitution many times on this issue. This is very worrying from one who feels that we must abide by the constitution. It is interesting that you take evidence in one trial to convict someone who has not been tried. If in future JZ is found to be guilty of corruption it still won’t justify your statement here.
Sorry for the comment above somehow everything on the page was copied.
Pierre De Vos says:
August 17, 2010 at 8:30 am
Thomas, the state has proven these facts beyond reasonable doubt. See the judgments by Squires, the SCA and the Constitutional court – all who found the facts as stated to have been proved by the state beyond reasonable doubt.
______________________________________________________________
Does this then mean that in South African you can be convicted without standing trial? I am no constitutional judge or expert but I find this defamatory. We can go through many cases in South Africa and find people implicated in crimes but never prosecuted. Must we regard this as proof? The Prof has should he disregard to the constitution many times on this issue. This is very worrying from one who feels that we must abide by the constitution. It is interesting that you take evidence in one trial to convict someone who has not been tried. If in future JZ is found to be guilty of corruption it still won’t justify your statement here.
Thomas, you are conflating two different things. First, proven facts is one thing. Second whether those proven facts mean that somebody not before the court is a criminal is another. I do not claim President Zuma would have been convicted of a crime – only a court can decide that. I am merely restating the findings of various courts of law, which did not find President Zuma guilty of any crime (as the intention to commit a crime would have had to be proven beyond reasonable doubt first) but did find that certain facts existed which, perhaps in some other countries, would have at least meant the end of the political career of the person so implicated. The President has never cared to explain himself. His silence is understandable because he might still be recharged in future. If he is ever charged, he would have rather a lot of explaining to do. Meanwhile I would think as President he has explaining to do to the electorate. No one has suggested that any of the vidence in the Shaik trial was fabricated or that in essence the findings of the various courts that confirmed his conviction were wrong. At the very least, it leaves our President with a very serious case to answer.
Thomas
You confuse criminal convictions and the standards of evidence for criminal trials with normal inferences drawn by normal people.
Criminal trials have certain standards of evidence to protect the accused from the State.
JZ used every single trick in the book to avoid trial. A trial of his corruptor Shaik found corrution had taken place. The Scorpions had obviously tried Shaik first so as to ensure their case was watertight before heading after the deputy president (as he then was). It is quite obvious from the farcical dropping of charges that a political solution was made because JZ had lost every single application including appeals on those applications (what was the number – 43???) that counted and had his back to the wall.
It is reasonable for the observer to deduce that JZ is corrupt. Shaik even admitted in his papers to the ConCourt that he bribed JZ.
To now state that the citizens must close their minds and see things through the same lens as a court has to, is fictitious in the extreme.
Please also check the law on defamation. If its true, or in the public interest its not defamation. If it is revealed to be true after publication there is no defamation.
Living with a free press is not for sissies.
Ask yourself why JZ has not prosecuted his action against Zapiro?
That’s all I expect from you Prof. To say the evidence SUGGESTS that the president has a very serious case to answer.
You talk about proven facts yet you and many including judges quoted a judge to have uttered words that he didn’t. How can I trust judges that made an obvious mistake: Judges that send the message that to make a judgement you don’t need to read the transcript of the trail but newspapers. We have argued this point before and I know you seem to think that the judges interpreted the phrase from the trial judgement, but how did they write exactly the same word as a famous publication in their interpretations? Coincidence?
zoo keeper: So everything in the public domain is true to you?
Thomas, yes it is always better to ignore the facts where those facts implicate one’s hero. Otherwise one would have to admit to the facts – proven BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT – and that would have to force one into very painful admissions about one’s hero. That might make it difficult to hold one’s hero in high esteem. So either you must argue that the judge in the High Court, the three judges in the SCA and the eleven judges in the Constitutional court were all wrong in finding these facts beyond reasonable doubt, or you have to pretend that the facts do not exist. I assume you choose the second option. If you choose the first option, an anaklysis of the three judgments and the evidence presented in court would be required. I note no such analysis has been rpesented and I guess such an analysis is not forthcoming. This is not surprising as you would have a pretty difficult task showing that the 15 judges all got it wrong and that the facts as proved were all fabricated (perhaps by the Tooth Fairy or by forces of darkness?).
zoo keeper says:
August 17, 2010 at 9:34 am
hey ZooK,
“JZ used every single trick in the book to avoid trial.”
Isn’t that what accused people do?
@ Brett
“Ask yourself one simple question: Is South Africa a better place now,
in 2010, than when we used to practise Sunday Observance?”
Brett, funny you should bring this up, because I ask myself this simple question almost every day. My invariate answer is that we are markedly WORSE off, now we no longer rise early on Sunday to worship The Lord in respectful obedience, with songs of praise and Scriptural invocations.
Instead, many people now sleep in. Some even linger in bed with coffee, perhaps a rusk, and an Avusa publication. And those with companions commonly engage in long, lazy “morning sex.” Worse, those of us “flying solo” routinely please ourselves (manually), often achieving several releases before 11 am!
Thanks.
@ Maggs
“most sensible people agree that more needs to be done with regards to the media”
Maggs, you have planted a chilling thought in my mind: is it possible that I am not “sensible”?
But seriously, what is your basis for this claim?
Zoo Keeper, please refer to ‘the elephant in the room’ again!
That leaves everyone in a good mood the whole day.
Thomas says:
August 17, 2010 at 9:39 am
Hey Thomas,
“Judges that send the message that to make a judgement you don’t need to read the transcript of the trail but newspapers.”
That was a pretty awful blunder by the SCA – that’s why our system works to protect accused people.
If I recall correctly, the Nicholson judgment was also supposed to have considered more than the evidence placed before the court, including stuff from the newspapers and TV and the Judge’s imagination of what that meant.
And while the SCA erred the error did not impact on the finding, while the “news” impacted on the Nicholson judgment.
I may be wrong but that is how I recall it.
Maggs Naidu, change agent!
Michael Osborne says:
August 17, 2010 at 9:56 am
hahaha.
Note I did say “most”, not all – the fine print attached clearly says “exclude Michael Osborne; …”
The basis for my opinion is the usual, i.e. the media.
Thank you, Dworky, for reinforcing my point: You cannot give an unqualified ‘YES!’.
Immediately, you have to start rationalising what aspects of life are better, and none of them are inconsistent with Sunday Observance.
Lets start the comparisons (before and after) with the worst. Murder rates.
Maggs, really, what do you see as wrong with the present ombuds-person system, backed up with the standing law of defamation?
Of course I agree with you, Brett. Instead of praising Jesus on Suday morning, people now either:
(a) Copulate mindlessly, failing to build the nation.
(b) Commit GENOCIDE.
(c) Construct elaborate ON/OFF devices for use in (b).
Pierre, what if Thomas is simply not interested in ‘right/wrong’ ‘just/unjust’ moral distinctions? Does that not go to the heart of your blog which might just be an unhelpful assault on much of our negotiated objective morality?
Is that not the major challenge this country faces – that most people could care less about the difference between right and wrong and have lost their sense of shame?
Jy sien, Dworky!
A ‘Eureka!’ moment!
Thank you, Marco Polo and Gingerbread for your insightful comments. Thomas, your blustering defence of corrupt ANC politicians, aside from insulting any reader here with more than half a brain, shows you up as someone who puts blind loyalty to your party ahead of honesty and good governance. Do you get paid to post such disingenuous nonsense?
Michael Osborne says:
August 17, 2010 at 10:05 am
Hey Michael,
I did say ‘sensible people’ – as you (and more frequently Brett) pointed out, I don’t quite qualify to hold a view on that. Maybe our Mossad Guy will speak for me in that regard.
Despite that, my view is that there is a huge over-reaction regarding bad hackery or as they like to call themselves these days, scribery – rather like taking a sledgehammer to crack a peanut.
The ombudsman, like the law societies and the medical & dental council, don’t inspire confidence that it is ready to protect society in a proactive and determined way – rather that first and foremost is protecting their own.
I have read and heard a lot about corrupt politicians and civil servants (as should be reported) – but there is very little reported on about corrupt, crooked, slimy journalists and journalism.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
August 17, 2010 at 10:11 am
LMAO!
Hey Dworky – you’re a nutcase!
BTW is there an ON/OFF device for (a)?
Chinua Achebe’s book is Things Fall Apart.
@ Maggs
“I have read and heard a lot about corrupt politicians and civil servants (as should be reported) – but there is very little reported on about corrupt, crooked, slimy journalists and journalism.”
Maybe that is because there is just more political corruptions than slimy journalism. Who knows?
Anyway, go and look at the Press Councils website. You will find many, many cases in which the press has been required to issue retractions, apologise, etc.
The highest appellate body under the current system is a three person panel consisisting of a retired SCA judge, and only one media person. What is wrong with that? Do you know of any instances where this panel has been obviously pro-media and anti-complainant?
Michael Osborne says:
August 17, 2010 at 10:47 am
“Do you know of any instances where this panel has been obviously pro-media and anti-complainant?”
Not really – to find that out I have to peruse the Press Council’s website.
It kinda makes the case for poor press around bad press.
Perhaps I should add that I think that a free, but not unrestrained, media is as vital for our democracy.
The view that “the media is not elected” is perhaps the most outrageous of all the comments made as to why the media should be restrained.
I will only support the cause of the media if;
1. Mondli Makhanya starts featuring Black semi-naked women on the back of the Sunday Times. I am tired of the Whites Only choice. I have to buy the Sunday Sun in order to see beautiful black girls.
2. If the Sun stops referring to us foreigners as Aliens.
@ Maggs
What gave you the impression that “most sensible people agree that more needs to be done with regards to the media”? In a later post you refer to the media but even according to the media there seem to be no such consensus. And what do you mean by “more needs to be done”? As far as I can see, most sensible people (at least outside the ANC) still believes that the idea to create a media tribunal should be scrapped. You seem to be jumping to conclusions – or to present the media tribunal as a fait accompli, thereby making it an inevitability. Also, can you come up with one example of a democratic country with a media tribunal of the kind envisaged by the ANC? I think it would be very difficult.
@ John Roberts,
What do you mean by the rejection of murder being false morals (based on Prof. de Vos’ blog)? Most people, including non-Christians, find murder, theft and corruption abhorrent and there are many arguments, based on religion, philosophy, ethics etc, to argue for murder etc being wrong even without basing it on the Bible. So what is you point – that only Christians have the answers to moral questions?
@ Ricky (and Michael).
As the season of calls to curb the media’s power in South Africa is upon us again, maybe there is a way to bring warring parties together in an institution that would be trusted and respected by everyone – and have some real teeth.
The fact is it’s very easy for any publication to get away with metaphorical murder in this country. How often do we see newspapers, radio stations, websites and, of course, television stations, getting something wrong? Quite often, actually. Sometimes they can be very badly wrong, actually having a negative impact on future events. And when someone’s reputation is harmed, the media’s response is a rather laconic: “Oh, just sue us.” Knowing full well that it’s simply too expensive and too risky for someone who has been harmed to actually pursue that route.
Then there’s the press ombudsman. Joe Thloloe is an honest and hard-working man, the perfect choice for the job. But to pursue that route, you first have to give up your right to sue. And his findings are almost never published in the same size type in which the original damaging headline first saw the light of day.
A change is called for. But quite frankly, government, by which we can mean the ANC, who is doing the complaining here, cannot be trusted to do it.
http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/article/2010-07-19-analysis-media-tribunal-the-way-it-should-be
@ Ricky (again),
Thank you for asking “… can you come up with one example of a democratic country with a media tribunal of the kind envisaged by the ANC?”
Here is South Africa’s “Press Council” :
http://www.presscouncil.org.za/pages/welcome/members-of-press-council-of-sa.php
Here is the UK’s :
Er, notice any difference???
And, btw, in the UK 5. What is the PCC’s greatest sanction?
The PCC’s greatest sanction is issuing a critical adjudication against a newspaper or magazine (see above for a full explanation of this). This is a very strong deterrent which effectively acts as a powerful ‘name and shame’ sanction as editors do not like having to publicise their mistakes to their staff, readers and competitors. Under the system of self regulation the publication will then have to publish this text in full on its own pages, with a headline reference to the PCC, and with ‘due prominence’.
If the breach is particularly serious, the Commission can also refer the editor to his or her publisher. As most editors (and, increasingly, many journalists) have adherence to the PCC Code written into his or her employment contract, a serious breach can have severe consequences in terms of their future employment.
http://www.pcc.org.uk/faqs.html#faq1_3
Here is where they are heading :
Effectiveness
Tougher scrutiny rules
The existing Business Sub-Committee should be abolished and replaced by an Audit Committee with wider terms of reference to scrutinise the service received by complainants, overall performance, risk and financial management.
More industry engagement with the system
Editorial service on the Commission should become more widespread, and be regarded as a duty of editors. PressBof should take active steps to encourage this. Industry members should be encouraged to refer ethical issues themselves to the PCC for consideration.
Independence
A stronger Board
The PCC should draw more heavily on the experience of its Board, especially its lay (i.e. public) members. This should be reflected in the annual planning of activities; the routine engagement of the Board in considering what steps should be taken to deal with issues of public concern; and the use of Board working groups to develop thinking in challenging areas of policy. A new role of Deputy Chairman should be established to enhance the influence of the lay majority and support an improved scrutiny function.
A stronger lay voice on the content of the Code
New rules are needed about consultation of the Commission by the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee to ensure the lay voice is properly represented prior to the annual review of the Code.
Oops – UK’s Press Council members
http://www.presscouncil.org.za/pages/welcome/members-of-press-council-of-sa.php
Has my little laptop gone haywire and connected commentary from some different blog, or did the good prof have some other epistel up that everyone commented on and he than sneakily wrote something different?
Prof, personally, I loved your summary version of article 15, and henceforth I think we should use your shorthad version of it: the right to make a fool of yourself.
However, the rise of the influence of the under-cover (under-blanket?) rightwing reactionaries over the poilitical office bearers is much more common than you perhaps think. It’s not just Gigaba – regularly, government meetings are now starting with a prayer. The shadowy, laughable Networks and others have a very active following. Of course, just like in the US, the influence if such sin-sellers rises at the same rate as the intelligence of the office bearers drops. And we, quite simply, seem to have managed to gather the most stupid, uninformed, unskilled and incapable bunch the ANC could possibly find, and have distributed them over core departments, Parliament and other institutions. Perhaps we’re just lucky that 85% of them doesn’t know how to switch a computer on?
For my friends and fellow commenting consumers, for those of you not regularly exposed to government – this epidemic of evangelical/scary right wing nutters with designs on our public policy is not limited to Film and Publications Board. It’s all over – and it reminds me of the US. These guys (and they’re mostly guys) are exceedingly well funded, and are out to ‘save the natives’ whilst making a quick buck. Sort of Mathias-Rath in drag without the vitamins.
If you think the free press (free from what, I wonder – Free from Murdoch?) is a problem, wait for these guys. And there’s no defence against stupidity – as the ANC is currently proving in spades.
And those of you who believe in this rubbish that the ‘media is not elected’ – you need your head read. It’s being elected every day – every time someone hands over money to buy a piece. That’s a real election, not like the sham ones you’re used to, every 5 years.
@ Maggs,
Thanks – if you read the rest of the article (which I am sure you did) Mr. Grootes writes ” The solution is probably some kind of beefed up ombudsman, with real power.” – so, as far as I can see, he does not propose a media tribunal but a strengthening of the present system?
Since you refer to the Daily Maverick, I wonder if you have read the piece today by the current Press Ombudsman, Mr. Thloloe? There he also touches on the issue that persons have to sign away their rights to go to the normal courts (to prevent forum shopping). He also says that if the problem is that the courts are too slow and expensive, the government should try to fix this problem rather than blaiming the press.
Talking about the slow and expensive courts, is this not also a problem for persons with other kind of grievances, e.g. against the public service providers? How come the ANC has not proposed a quick and easy and cheap tribunal for such complaints?
Ricky says:
August 17, 2010 at 12:04 pm
“Talking about the slow and expensive courts, is this not also a problem for persons with other kind of grievances,”
France has a novel solution for dealing with matters of poor press – kinda like the special courts we had during the SWC.
And it works well according to reports.
Maggs:
Please say why you think the current 3 person panel — consisting of only 1 press rep, and chaired by an SCA judge — is not adequate. Refer please to actual cases that should have been decided differently and/or harsher penalties should have been imposed.
If you cannot do so, it is hard to take seriously you suggestion that the current system is broken.
Thomas
When things are posited as fact and supported by enough documentation and a lack of rebuttal then a factual finding can be reasonably assumed.
As for media – it needs to be free and unrestrained.
For the ombudsman, if a publication makes a mistake it must carry the correction in a more prominent place than the original.
If a publication is faced with losing its front page to carry a retraction or correction it will be enough of a stick to encourage better editorial oversight. If the ombudsman can fine the publication and the fine is payable to the complainant, that should give immediate succour and only the most damaged will go any further.
Self-regulation then has some kind of teeth and the public can be confident what they see is correct.
As for restricting information – wrong, very, very wrong. The only things which should be classified are details of military hardware and technology and military operations in a foreign country in a state of war. Thats all.
@ Michael,
As I said earlier “The ombudsman, like the law societies and the medical & dental council, don’t inspire confidence that it is ready to protect society in a proactive and determined way – rather that first and foremost is protecting their own.”
p.s. Whether I am taken seriously or not matters little – the issue is, in relation to perceptions, the profound impact of the media on our society and how that is managed.
@Thomas is it morally correct to use state organs namely the NIA to spy on the NPA and then get the NPA to drop charges against a certain individual ?
Is it morally right to get an ANC member (Shaik) to setup companies or fronts to siphon off funds from state contracts into party coffers ?
Is morally right for members of certain religious bodies to be seen politricking with certain politicians in order to gain favour ?
Maybe, just maybe if the State & ruling party were shining bastions of morality I might consider buying into their moral regeneration project…
Maggs – “restrained” media is not free media. The remdies are already there for those that are aggrieved. We don’t need ANC stooges regulating the content of articles or slaping fines on people. The courts and press onbudsman are there for that and do a fine job by all accounts. Is it so hard to understand?
I have yet to read a credible argument justifying why such control is required and how it would advance anything other than the facist tendencies of our corrupt and inefficient neo nationalist government.
Come on – lets have some examples…
Really, Pekkil?
And what does the nation have to show for the 16 years during which your world view was the prevailing one?
But Maggs, if the perception that the current press council system does not work is just wrong, surely the solution is to correct the false perception, not to mess with the system itself?
By the same token: There is a wide preception that the current system of criminal justice is badly broken, because it permits corruption defendants with limitless funds to drag the litigation out forever, and even get the charges dropped.
If that perception is right, then we should fix the criminal justice system.
If that perception is wrong, then the public should be educated to understand that the Constitution demands that even very powerful people have the right to a fair trial, and that the unavoidable consequence thereof is that sometimes scoundrels will get off.
Not so?
Michael Osborne: An example has been given above where the media got something wrong: Misquoted a judge and this misquote was even written by the SCA as fact. The Ombudsman did nothing to make the paper retract this statement.
Michael Osborne says:
August 17, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Hey Michael,
What’s the difference broadly between the suggestion here of some kind of media tribunal and the the essence of UK’s Baroness Buscombe’s Governance Review in which it is proposed that for example The existing Business Sub-Committee should be abolished and replaced by an Audit Committee with wider terms of reference to scrutinise the service
received by complainants, overall …
Accountability
More rigorous examination of performance
The role of Independent Reviewer (formerly the Charter Commissioner) should be expanded to hear challenges to decisions based on substance as well as handling. The Board should establish annual objectives and publicly report whether it is achieving them. The Commission should evaluate its own performance, and that of its Chairman, on an annual basis.?
(http://www.pcc.org.uk/assets/441/Independent_Governance_Review_Report.pdf)
A letter from Baroness Buscombe published in today’s Fininacial Times
A letter from the Chairman of the PCC, Baroness Buscombe, has been published in today’s Financial Times (Thursday 5 August):
PCC system fills a gap left by the law
Sir, I agree with your editorial (“English libel law no longer works”, August 3) that English libel law is in need of reform. I do not feel, however, that you give sufficient credit to the public service that the Press Complaints Commission provides in a way that complements the law. The tortuous process for delivering reform and the length of time that libel law reform has taken (and, indeed, is still taking) contrasts sharply with the flexibility of the self-regulatory system. The PCC system allows for continuous evolution. We can adapt to cultural change, influencing and reflecting in our decisions what is, and what is not, acceptable in our society. The PCC performs a critical role in filling the gap left by the law and ensures the speedy and cost-free resolution of disputes.
The PCC has authority. We demand prominence of apologies and levels of standards. We also work to prevent, indeed pre-empt, harm and to encourage editors to think before possibly breaching the Editors’ Code of Practice. The system demands a degree of trust and integrity from all those who buy into it. It works because editors are held ultimately responsible.
Peta Buscombe,
Chairman,
Press Complaints Commission
http://www.pcc.org.uk/news/index.html?article=NjU2OQ==
Interesting read: http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/burningpaper/2010/08/10/does-the-anc-have-a-point-about-the-media/
The media Ombudsman is a joke.
Joe Thloloe refused to come to gun owners’ aid because I had a photocopy of an article published in a PE paper which was reproduced in all the Independent rags – which you can still find online.
Gun Owners sent copies of our complaint to the MedicalResearchCouncil ethics committee about the MRC’s biased intimate femicide study to every newspaper editor in the country. Independent’s trolls like Michelle Jones and Catherine Boulle continued using the discredited study in the Independent rags to cheerlead for Gun Free SA and, in the process, allowed the NPA and the SAPS to be made fools of by GFSA.
I complained to Tony Weaver. His kneejerk reaction was the whitewash the disinformation campaign his reporters became accessories to.
Sorry. I meant:
I complained to Tony Weaver. His kneejerk reaction was TO whitewash the disinformation campaign his reporters became accessories to.
Is there a media SETA?
I demand journalists be subjected to the Skills Act and the National Qualifications Framework like gun owners were.
And, I wanna write the Unit Standards!
@ Maggs
I have not studied the UK system, and so cannot comment on it.
But do you take my point that the fact that there are negative “perceptions” cannot in itself compel change — and this applies both to the press and to the way corruption is handled?
Do the people with negative “perceptions” even know that the panel is chaired by an SCA judge? Did you?
@ brett
Pray tell, what is my worldview? And I choose my words carefully
Brett, I share your fury at the way the Ombudsman has treated you and all gun owners.
But there is an even worse outrage:
Why has the press not been disciplined for its cover-up of the GENOCIDE that is going on under its noses? And why are there no reports and investigations of the ON/OFF switch you have so vividly described?
Hey?
Michael Osborne says:
August 17, 2010 at 12:49 pm
I think the negative perceptions are informed by real life experiences.
In addition, South Africans by and large, are optimistic about our country and the political processes – the prominent media seems to be at odds with that.
As an example it was published that some 20 cases of corruption are being investigated around Human Settlements – a massive R2 billion is involved (presumably a portion only of the total corruption and wasteful expenditure).
The total number of settlements is in excess of 10 000 – not much about the good work in the over 99% of that.
Yeah – I am aware of the panel and the Press Council. I am sure than many people are aware of it too.
Dworky, the only reasonable explanation is that journalists are a bunch of dumbasses….
@ Brett,
You request us to aske the question “Is South Africa a better place now, in 2010, than when we used to practise Sunday Observance?” But why?
Unless you can somehow substantiate a correlation between Sunday Observance and whether SA is a worse or better place, it seems pretty pointless.
Maggs and Brett are right
Maggs, I am especially touched by your account of how disappointed most sensible South Africans are with the relentless NEGATIVISM of the media. Have you looked at the Ecuadoran Press Code? I believe that every national paper is required to publish at least one HAPPY FACE story every day.
I am not saying we should adopt the Ecquador approach. But it is one model to consider.
Thanks.
Confucius say: He who lives in glass house stop pissing out window!
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
August 17, 2010 at 13:22 pm
Hey Dworky,
No happy faces here.
In respect of unconfirmed reports, the Press Ombudsman said it was not enough to put such reports to the person in question. Rather, the newspaper should seek corroboration.
“Reporting the rumours and then stating that they are ‘unconfirmed’ is not enough to exonerate the newspaper,” the ombudsman’s office said.
It also stated that no part of the Press Code gives publications a licence to publish allegations and rumours after they have been put to those accused without further corroboration.
“Allegations are put to subjects if there is some substance to them…
“The basic spirit of the code is to be truthful, accurate and fair. If newspapers and magazines were allowed to publish any allegations after they had obtained a denial from their subjects, they would do huge harm in our society.”
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20100817113358592C774431&singlepage=1
Dworky
Is Ecuador under a State of Emergency because it has been swamped by the masturbation tsunami you warned about earlier?
Is this spirit of individual liberty eroding Ecuador’s moral fibre so badly that front page news is always about the Jonas Brothers?
I was hoping the ‘Tsunami’ Dworky was talking about was my pigeon Natascha De Jaeger’s grandmother.
Perhaps Dworky is highly stressed?
Thomas, you cite that misquote re “generally corrupt relationship” in the Shaik matter as an example of the inadequacy of the current press code. Let me ask you this:
1. Was a complaint ever filed with the Ombudsman?
2. Was there an appeal?
3. What was the outcome?
@ Maggs
The Maverick piece you quoted takes the matter no furher. If you are unhappy that the font or prominence of any retraction is too small, that can be taken on Appeal.
(Are you aware of whether there has ever been appeal on this basis? In fact, have you ever read a single decision of the Appeal Board? (Freely available on the internet.) If you have serious objection to the current system, perhaps your time would be better spent examining how the system actually works in South Africa than in reading about the British, French, or even Equadoran, models.)
Maggs, your major complaint about the media is that they are too pessimistic. Brett, your complaint is that journalists are stupid and sloppy. I would ask you each to specify precisley how the Bill would address each of these issue.
“Judge Squires went on a painful protest during the Shabir Shaik trial when he was broadly misquoted by the media. In what was a flagrant contempt of court, the media quoted Judge Squires as having said Shaik had “a generally corrupt relationship” with President Zuma during the trial. That was in fact the prosecution that had alleged that and not Judge Squires. The judge even wrote a letter to the editor complaining about this.”
I agree with John Roberts and Marco Polo.
This morality thing is indeed archane.
Thomas, my question was whether the matter was taken to the Ombuds, and, if so, what the outcome was.
Michael Osborne says:
August 17, 2010 at 15:25 pm
Hey Michael,
Maybe I said something to lead you to that conclusion, but I am not unhappy with the media.
They do a pretty good job under very challenging circumstances and generally keep us well informed.
I have great respect for many journalists – and we are lucky to have as many good and plucky ones as we have here.
That said – there is still a need for a strong effective body to oversee the media.
Do you really think that it’s ok for the SABC to ban our former President Mbeki????
Michael Osborne: That is the exact reason the tribunal is needed because how many of us will waste time laying complaints with the Ombudsman when an obvious lie has been printed. Your argument on the other hand is that the print media is allowed to lie as long as no one complains to the Ombudsman.
By the way the media printed stories that he did not utter such. Why did the Ombudsman not act on such a “HUGE ERROR” or is his job only to stick to complaints.
Its like saying police must not investigate a murder if there is complainant.
Sorry
Its like saying police must not investigate a murder if there is no complainant.
Michael Osborne says:
August 17, 2010 at 15:25 pm
Hey Michael,
I am very interested in what is done in established democracies.
Until today (thanks to Ricky), I was naively of the view that the media there was completely unbridled.
Now I know that the attempt to portray us as some kind of mad dictatorial state relative to the established democracies, because there is a call for more oversight, is rather disingenuous to say the least if not seriously dishonest.
It would seem that the UK and France are way ahead of us in this regard – perhaps we can learn some lessons from them.
@ Tell us, Thomas, where does it say in the pending Bill that falsehoods will be investigated even if there is no formal complaint lodged. Do you imagine there will be a group of censors, sitting in Pretoria, scanning the papers for lies?
Maggs, I am comforted by your words. I remain worried that you may be more interested in other democracies than in the dreary details of our current system.
Thomas, judge Squires found as follows:
“It would be flying in the face of commonsense and ordinary human nature to think that he did not realise the advantages to him of continuing to enjoy Zuma’s goodwill to an even greater extent than before 1997; and even if nothing was ever said between them to establish the MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL SYMBIOSIS that the evidence shows existed, the circumstances of the commencement and the sustained continuation thereafter of these payments, can only have generated a sense of obligation in the recipient.”
So, I have a question. What is the difference between a “generally corrupt relationship” (as alleged by the prosecution) and a “mutually beneficial symbiosis” (as found by Squires), which generated a sense of obligation in one party (Zuma) and lead to the conviction for corruption of the other party (Shaik)?
Michael Osborne says:
August 17, 2010 at 16:46 pm
Hey Michael,
Why should we not look at what is being done elsewhere in order to conform with best practice?
I may have read incorrectly, but seem to recall that you relied heavily on the US during our exchange on s. 9(2).
So why not around the media?
Pierre De Vos says:
August 17, 2010 at 16:51 pm
Thomas is relying on the fact that the SCA were influenced by the media to the extent that they actually, as a direct consequence, incorrectly quoted Judge Squires.
He seems to be suggesting that if the media are that influential, then somehow there need to be a strong oversight.
I asked Michael earlier if he really thinks that it’s ok for the SABC to ban our former President Mbeki – he is yet to respond.
Should fmr Pres Mbeki raise the issue with an Ombudsman or is it ok to leave that matter be?
@ Thomas,
You seem to say that the media tribunal should look into matters on its own initiative (your analogy about the police investigating murder without a complaint). Is this really how the Media Tribunal is to work? If so, it is hardly a tribunal, is it? And how would it work if the Media Tribunal should take up matters on its own initiative – should it work like Judge Dredd, being prosecutor, judge and executioner in one?
Do you really want a Media Tribunal spending its time reading through the papers to find matters to investigate and prosecute?
@Maggs,
In what way has France and UK established Media Tribunals similar to what is proposed by the ANC? As far as I have understood, it is the ordinary courts that are being referred to in France. Given the independence of the courts etc. this is unproblematic. With respect to the UK, the Press Complaints Commission does NOT refer to the Parliament (like I understand is proposed by the ANC) but is truly independent. The Chair is appointed by the Newspaper and Magazine Industry and no members are appointed politically. So, if we learned some lessons from e.g. UK in this respect, it would be good.
@ Michael
Your question to Maggs and Brett how their complaints would be addressed by the Bill is excellent. Many of the examples used in the debate are either mis-understood – or frigthening if they are correct.
Ricky says:
August 17, 2010 at 17:16 pm
I think you’re confusing issues.
Firstly the ANC is entitled to make any proposals it wishes – that’s called democracy. Unless you think that the ANC should consider or develop policies that it feels is appropriate, in which case we can have that debate.
It does not mean that the policies that the ANC makes will translate into national policy or law without moderation.
I would really like to see any other political party engage so broadly in policy making as does the ANC.
In any event, it’s unlikely that we will have a law that says that , if there is to be a MAT of whatever form, that parliament will have any functional oversight.
Re the UK – the chair may be from the media but the revisions proposed suggests that the deputy chair is from one of the lay members and their lay members outnumber the media reps. Have a look at the composition of their PCC.
Oops
Unless you think that the ANC should not consider or develop policies that it feels is appropriate, in which case we can have that debate.
Maggs yes of course the SABC shoul not be permitted to ban TM. But that is because it gets state funding. If I open a newspaper I can ignore Mandela or Mbeki or anyone else.
@ Maggs
I do not think that anyone would disagree that there need to be lay representatives on a media commission, ombudsman or similar – but the British parliament has (to my knowledge) no influence on the composition of the PCC. And complaints are considered based on the Editor’s Code (which, again to my knowledge, is NOT a document decided by Parliament). On the Appeal board of the SA press ombudsman there is also a majority of non-press persons.
I do not know what issues you think I am confusing. And I have never said that the ANC cannot make the proposals that it wishes. When that is said, one would hope that party with a strong majority would be very attentive not to overstep any boundaries since the checks and balances in a more “normal” parliament do not exist in SA.
I, for one believe that SA has magnificent newspapers (although the Sunday Times is now almost a horrid tabloid) and also a magnificent history of investigative journalism, going way back beyond even Helen and her Biko revelations. I think the SCA judge who made the comment Maggs referred to, probably respects the level and quality of investigative journalism in SA, particularly from certain journalists, even though the judge was in error to say so. Freudian slip, perhaps.
I grew up with the New York Times, Washington Post, Canada’s Globe and Mail. The quality of the Watergate investigative journalism for example, in my humble view, and I was an adult at the time, was no greater than, for example, M&G’s investigative exposes which seem to occur weekly.
I ask, how often, in hind sight, have they been wrong. Always better to error on the side of freedom.
Bravo to SA press; we your readers are never bored.
Brett and Maggs are right. We must be sheltered from lies and sloppy journalism by an objective panel of independent censors. We are a new democracy, and can ill afford the instability fostered by sensationalism.
The ABC rarely acts timely on anything, perhaps it the way of politicians who serve themselves. Its actually too late for a Tribunal or blanket censored information. They’ve missed the boat.
We’re in a new world, the times have actually already changed.
However, perhaps our not so diligent or honest government will manage some feeble dictatorial template. It won’t hold, not here in SA, although time may be required. They have heated a frying pan with nothing in it, having forgotten what they originally were planning to cook. The ABC is in effect destroying itself.
Perhaps you’ve already heard the rumor, though I doubt ABC has. In various parts of the world there is sincere belief that Jesus has already returned but only reveals himself to the truly virtuous and open hearted.
I was once told by a wise man that virtue doesn’t flow from morals, but rather from principles.
Ricky says:
August 17, 2010 at 18:24 pm
“When that is said, one would hope that party with a strong majority would be very attentive not to overstep any boundaries since the checks and balances in a more “normal” parliament do not exist in SA”
I suspect that the stepping over boundaries is a real possibility.
We have two strong checks against that – the CC and “x” every five years.
If we want to be able to shape the final form MAT, it’s best we be prepared and reasonably informed about what happens elsewhere, otherwise we’ll all end up like the Mossad Guy, just attacking everything with written kitchen sized nukes!
The term used in Canada regarding free press, and with special emphasis on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – the national government sponsored broadcaster) is that the government and the corporation must remain at ‘arms length’. With respect to all forms of press in Canada, that is the policy, ‘at arms length’, meaning, stay out of it.
Considering that a self regulated free press is the principle protection of Democracy, for without it even law is hidden and thus weakened or decimated, in SA we must strive for an ‘arms length’ relationship between government and legal communications of any sort , whether it be press or personal.
Canada’s greatest prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, said in the sixties: ‘the government has no business in the bedrooms of its citizens…’ likewise, the government has no business in the newsrooms of our press.
Would it matter one bit if the media could never expose another corrupt politician or a malfunctioning government department? Absolutely not. Anyone who’s lived in this country since 1994 and who speaks to people who have, or who have had, dealings with a government department (at local, provincial or national) level or a parastatal knows they are riddled with corruption and inefficiency. One must live a rather sheltered existence or be very naive to think otherwise. Here’s my suggestion: why doesn’t the media “expose” those government institutions/politicians who aren’t corrupt or inept – if they can find any? “Read all about it! No corruption in govt. dept!” “Stop the presses: politician found to be honest!”
Mikhail Onin Fassbinder says:
August 17, 2010 at 18:37 pm
So, what were we supposed to do, Dworky?
Let Cathy Boulle and Michelle Jones cheerlead as Gun Free make a mockery of the NPA and the SAPS by citing the MedicalResearchCouncil’s biased, discredited intimate femicide study again and again when we had warned their editor of the study’s shortcomings???
Why should there not be a media SETA?
Why should journalists not be subjected to the Skills Act and the National Qualifications Framework like gun owners were?
Why should they not pass Unit Standards before being allowed to exercise their media freedom?
“Principle’ should read ‘principal’ protection…’ as in: first, highest, or foremost in importance.
Wasn’t Pierre Trudeau a Fiberal?
Either way, Sirjay, seeing that you raised the issue, it might surprise you to look into the way the ANC has perverted the publication requirement of South African statutes.
Subscribers only!
Ricky says:
August 17, 2010 at 18:24 pm
It seems that the British went through experiences similar to what we are going through now, leading up to their PCC :
Brief history of the PCC
6. The UK press has been subject to self-regulation for more than 50 years. From 1953 to 1990, the relevant authority was the Press Council, which enforced no Code of Practice and issued rulings without receiving first-party complaints. It also acted as a defender of the press.
7. The conflict between issuing rulings against, and defending, the press contributed to the Press Council losing the confidence of many people in the industry as well as within Parliament. In 1990, the government appointed a committee under David Calcutt QC to consider “what measures (whether legislative or otherwise) are needed to give further protection to individual privacy from the activities of the press and improve recourse against the press for the individual citizen”2. Its main recommendation was the establishment of a new organisation which – assuming it could prove its effectiveness – would be kept free from statutory control.
Maggs is right. We can learn a lot from the British. Maybe pick up their notorious Official Secrets Act, and Blair’s anti terror measures too!
Right on Gingerbread. You speak my kind of language.
Maggs, while you are at it, please also see if we should adopt Britain’s Official Secrets Act and Blair’s charming detention without trial laws!
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
August 18, 2010 at 6:17 am
Hey Dworky,
The Mossadland stuff is more exciting.
Do tell what the homeland has.
Maggs,in my country of birth we lived by the dictum “No news is good news.”
Hey Dworky,
No news = See not evil, hear no evil.
Do no evil = unpatriotic bastard!
Thomas
What is the difference in meaning between the following two phrases?
1. “… and even if nothing was ever said between them to establish the mutually beneficial symbiosis that the evidence shows existed, the circumstances of the commencement and the sustained continuation thereafter of these payments, can only have generated a sense of obligation in the recipient…”
2. “a generally corrupt relationship existed between them…”
Guess Who?
A University of Cape Town academic has offered to hand over a year of his salary to the chief state law adviser if the Protection of Information Bill passes scrutiny by the Constitutional Court.
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/Politics/Academic-bets-salary-on-info-bill-20100817
I wish I could be so confident!
Pierre kry hopeloos te veel zak by UCT!
En, hy is “obsessed with openness and availability of information”!
LOL!
Tony in Virginia: The difference is that the Judge disputed categorically saying “generally corrupt relationship.” Yet you say he did say so. He is the one that disputes this, not me. Maybe you need to ask your question to the judge.
Professor de Vos is an accademic at a university that blantently applies racial screening of the candiates it enrolls. I am not sure that being employed in such an environment which he presumably supports, given that he has never been critical of it, gives him litlle authority to speak and even less to judge.
Dear Professor can you kindly explain constitutionally speaking the legal test for determining the race of a child that was born in 1995? If I am white was born after 1995 and say I am black how will you or anyone else determine that I am not? My parents? The colour of my skin? My physical apprearance?
If you do intend betting your salary on the ability of the current legislation of information control to stand teh test of the C have the decency and guts to bet the same test being withstood by your employer’s admission policies.
Objective 101: I am plead ignorance. Can you assist with more information.
UCT assigns points for matric subject marks. If your are “black” you need say 60 points to be eligeble to enroll, if you are “coloured” you need need 70 points to qualify to enroll. if you are “indian” you need 80 points to qualify to enroll and if you are “other” you need 90 points to qualify to enroll. My question remains if I was born after 1995 an apply to enroll and state that I am black omn what grounds which are constitutionally acceptable is UCT going to say I am not.
That aside I would have expected that a senior accademic accademic who is so vociferous about consitutiona rights and wrongs woudl be equally as vociferous when such wrongs are perpetuated by his employer. Amazingly so most of the other political laqueys at UCT hav been silent about the proposed information bill.
Is this on the UCT web site?
Yes sure is and has been criticised by one or two of its own “non white” lecturing staff, but no one else.
@ Objective
With respect, Objective, if UCT loves AA so much, how do you explain that Africans are so badly under-represented on the teaching faculty?
In fact, I have heard it said that at least one white male academics at UCT, who happens to have a commitment to affirmative action of burning intensity, had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into his Chair. Poor man was agonised, torn up inside, by the realisation that his appointment would aggravate an already appalling racial imbalance on the academic staff!
Thanks.
Mr Fassbinder I am refrring to the admission policy for students. I have no knowledge or interest regarding the employment policies of the University as I have no intention of working there.
Incidentally when most people purchase a motor car they are interested in how it works, not who put it together. SA’s racial imbalances will remain for ever so long as the education system provided by the state remains as it is.
If fairness and so called equal opportunity had to come into what you say are AA policies you would conduct psychromteric tests on all candidates select the ones who score above your threshold and where two scores are equal select in terms of AA requirements. Fact is that does not happen and the scores are not even equal. Nevertheless I would be grateful if you could explain to me how you would determine the race of a child who was born after May 1994.
UCT admission policy
http://www.uct.ac.za/downloads/uct.ac.za/about/policies/admissions_policy_2011.pdf
No Thomas. I did not say that that is what the judge said. I merely asked that question because after the judge denied uttering those words, spin doctors were all the media trying to convince us (they may have succeeded in convincing some other gullible souls) that the judge actually said the opposite.
Fact of the matter is that the judge may not have said that in so many words, but his words, most definiteley, imply it.
Oopsie! I did not see that Pierre had asked the exact same question earlier on. Next time, I’ll read all posts before opening my e-mouth. Sorry.
I agree, the ANC should be able to propose anything it likes if this were a proper democracy. It this isnt and looks more like a kleptoctratic state/ruling party trying to prevent expose’s of its nefarious, corrupt and inneffiecient administration. If it was the ANC making the proposal at the behest of a minority party which felt it was not getting a fair shake from the media, perhaps then it would be met with less scepticism. The overiding impression is that self interest, perhsps the self interest of only a few people is behind the tribunal and POI Act.
Objective 101, the UCT policy is perfectly in line wirh the Constitution. Go and read the CC judgment in Minister of Finance v Van Heerden to confirm this. Besides, if UCT did not have an aa policy I would have been one to make a big stink about it. Without aa one merely perpetuates the status quo and white priviledge in such an unfair way that it could never be squared with the vision of the Constitiution which talk about the “achievment of equality”..
Thomas says:
August 18, 2010 at 10:04 am
I’m just curious Thomas, if it was not for the press, would you have known about this so called discrepancie between the Squires judgement and the SCA judgement? Did you hear/read it in the media, or did you get the knowledge by studying the two judgements?
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
August 18, 2010 at 11:41 am
Hey Mossad Guy,
Objective seems so very much like you, not as refined though.
He’s probably young and needs time to learn.
Dear professor the CC judgment you refer to does not accept negative discrimination but be that as it may you have still not answered the specific question I have asked. How will you determine that a child born after after 1995 is of a specifc race. That is a question that noen of teh legal experts has dared answer yet. Why? That is what I have asked
The fact that you cow tow to your paymaster’s indefensible policy and speak from a dual ethical baseline is by the by. We are all painfully aware of the past which you included were part of, however, with respect AA is one thing, a clearly race based admisson policy is another. It is qute interesting to note that a few of those accademics at UCT who are not on a guilt trip have disagreed with it, openly as well, giving credit to what they stand, fought and unlike yoru good self were imprisoned for.
Objective 101, there is no such concept recognized in our law as negative discrimination. Discrimination is either fair or unfair. Funny, the only people ever asking the question of how we will know who belongs to which race are white people who operated during apartheid as if they did not have a race at all – only black people had a race because whites were human and therefore race-less. The sad fact is that race – although it may be a construction – is very much part of our lived reality. Every day people experience their race as real. We all know what race we are because this is deeply embedded in our culture. Hopefully this will change in future. To claim that it has already changed is preposterous – no one who lives in South Africa and walks the streets could make that claim with a straight face. We LIVE our race and experience it as real every day in this country – even if we do not want to. My sister has a black child and although he was brought up in a white family he tells many stories of how no one at his school is ever going to let him forget that he is black. This is because we live in a race obsessed and racist world. Only those who normally do not experience day to do racism (usually people born white) can claim race is difficult to determine. Our experience of racism burns race into our beings and to claim otherwise is of course to the advantage of the racial group who used to benefit from their race in the past but benefit less from their race now.
Pierre,I humbly beg you never again to say “race is a construct.” It may be the most revolting US academic cliche, circa 1982, that survives. If you believe it, find some other articulation. Please.
Dear Professor I was not born in SA nor educated in it for most part of my life. Where I was educated I had “african american ” friends whom were no different to me either than in their physical appearance. For being a society that is trying to break the so called shackles of an inbred system that ajudged everything and everybody on the colour of their skin things have not changed much, and not only from the prespective of the advantaged but also from the perspective of the disadvantaged (ask them). For being a rainbow nation everything is SA is seen in black and white. Rather than accepting that we are diferent and that because of that we are nevertheless equal beings with equal aspirations irrespective of what we look like we are trying to create a superhuman unprejudiced being that belongs only the figment of the immagination but no where else in the world. Prejudice of whatever kind is a natural human trait and one should rather accept to live with it and learn to live past it than deny it is inbred. Finding logical reason though for accepting sterotyping and racial prejudice cannot be excused no matter how good the reason for it you may believe you have. Sorry I beg to differ. Your sister’s child will not suceeed until people accept their differences and learn to live past them, which as things stand will never happen in this country. You are more concerned about who makes the car I am more concerned about how well it works. Given your response I find it hard to understand how you cannot justify and accept the current moves to control freedom of expression, it seems like a huge contraddiction of terms in the ideals you purport to expouse.
My reference to postive discrimination is in simplistic terms that you cannot employ a blind pilot i.e you have to discriminate against a specific group of physically disdvanted persons for the safety of the rest which is, in any society acceptable. Most societies do not however accept the kind of racial discrimination that is being openly enforced in SA in the name of equity, no matter what their past may have been. Any way I resubmit my question to which I have yet to receive an answer. How can you tell the race of a child who was born after 1995 in a manner which cannot be challenged in a court of law?
Will some , or all, of the legal experts out there please explain the impact of this :
A high court ruling which made an educational fund for poor white girls available to girls from all races was disputed in the Supreme Court of Appeal.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article618768.ece/Whites-only-fund-fights-to-stay-white
Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.
While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire’s sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce’s leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.
In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.
This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes – from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.
Like those who have gone before us in the faith, Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace, to protect the intrinsic dignity of the human person and to stand for the common good. In being true to its own calling, the call to discipleship, the church through service to others can make a profound contribution to the public good.
DECLARATION
We, as Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical Christians, have gathered, beginning in New York on September 28, 2009, to make the following declaration, which we sign as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities. We act together in obedience to the one true God, the triune God of holiness and love, who has laid total claim on our lives and by that claim calls us with believers in all ages and all nations to seek and defend the good of all who bear his image. We set forth this declaration in light of the truth that is grounded in Holy Scripture, in natural human reason (which is itself, in our view, the gift of a beneficent God), and in the very nature of the human person. We call upon all people of goodwill, believers and non-believers alike, to consider carefully and reflect critically on the issues we here address as we, with St. Paul, commend this appeal to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.
While the whole scope of Christian moral concern, including a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, claims our attention, we are especially troubled that in our nation today the lives of the unborn, the disabled, and the elderly are severely threatened; that the institution of marriage, already buffeted by promiscuity, infidelity and divorce, is in jeopardy of being redefined to accommodate fashionable ideologies; that freedom of religion and the rights of conscience are gravely jeopardized by those who would use the instruments of coercion to compel persons of faith to compromise their deepest convictions.
Because the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage as a union of husband and wife, and the freedom of conscience and religion are foundational principles of justice and the common good, we are compelled by our Christian faith to speak and act in their defense. In this declaration we affirm: 1) the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being as a creature fashioned in the very image of God, possessing inherent rights of equal dignity and life; 2) marriage as a conjugal union of man and woman, ordained by God from the creation, and historically understood by believers and non-believers alike, to be the most basic institution in society and; 3) religious liberty, which is grounded in the character of God, the example of Christ, and the inherent freedom and dignity of human beings created in the divine image.
We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right—and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation—to speak and act in defense of these truths. We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence. It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season. May God help us not to fail in that duty.
LIFE
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10
Although public sentiment has moved in a pro-life direction, we note with sadness that pro- abortion ideology prevails today in our government. Many in the present administration want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense. Majorities in both houses of Congress hold pro-abortion views. The Supreme Court, whose infamous 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade stripped the unborn of legal protection, continues to treat elective abortion as a fundamental constitutional right, though it has upheld as constitutionally permissible some limited restrictions on abortion. The President says that he wants to reduce the “need” for abortion—a commendable goal. But he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available by eliminating laws prohibiting government funding, requiring waiting periods for women seeking abortions, and parental notification for abortions performed on minors. The elimination of these important and effective pro-life laws cannot reasonably be expected to do other than significantly increase the number of elective abortions by which the lives of countless children are snuffed out prior to birth. Our commitment to the sanctity of life is not a matter of partisan loyalty, for we recognize that in the thirty-six years since Roe v. Wade, elected officials and appointees of both major political parties have been complicit in giving legal sanction to what Pope John Paul II described as “the culture of death.” We call on all officials in our country, elected and appointed, to protect and serve every member of our society, including the most marginalized, voiceless, and vulnerable among us.
A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable. As predicted by many prescient persons, the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized. For example, human embryo-destructive research and its public funding are promoted in the name of science and in the cause of developing treatments and cures for diseases and injuries. The President and many in Congress favor the expansion of embryo-research to include the taxpayer funding of so-called “therapeutic cloning.” This would result in the industrial mass production of human embryos to be killed for the purpose of producing genetically customized stem cell lines and tissues. At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and “voluntary” euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”) were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of “liberty,” “autonomy,” and “choice.”
We will be united and untiring in our efforts to roll back the license to kill that began with the abandonment of the unborn to abortion. We will work, as we have always worked, to bring assistance, comfort, and care to pregnant women in need and to those who have been victimized by abortion, even as we stand resolutely against the corrupt and degrading notion that it can somehow be in the best interests of women to submit to the deliberate killing of their unborn children. Our message is, and ever shall be, that the just, humane, and truly Christian answer to problem pregnancies is for all of us to love and care for mother and child alike.
A truly prophetic Christian witness will insistently call on those who have been entrusted with temporal power to fulfill the first responsibility of government: to protect the weak and vulnerable against violent attack, and to do so with no favoritism, partiality, or discrimination. The Bible enjoins us to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to speak for those who cannot themselves speak. And so we defend and speak for the unborn, the disabled, and the dependent. What the Bible and the light of reason make clear, we must make clear. We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition.
Our concern is not confined to our own nation. Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and “ethnic cleansing,” the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS. We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research. And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.
MARRIAGE
The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24
This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Ephesians 5:32-33
In Scripture, the creation of man and woman, and their one-flesh union as husband and wife, is the crowning achievement of God’s creation. In the transmission of life and the nurturing of children, men and women joined as spouses are given the great honor of being partners with God Himself. Marriage then, is the first institution of human society—indeed it is the institution on which all other human institutions have their foundation. In the Christian tradition we refer to marriage as “holy matrimony” to signal the fact that it is an institution ordained by God, and blessed by Christ in his participation at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. In the Bible, God Himself blesses and holds marriage in the highest esteem.
Vast human experience confirms that marriage is the original and most important institution for sustaining the health, education, and welfare of all persons in a society. Where marriage is honored, and where there is a flourishing marriage culture, everyone benefits—the spouses themselves, their children, the communities and societies in which they live. Where the marriage culture begins to erode, social pathologies of every sort quickly manifest themselves. Unfortunately, we have witnessed over the course of the past several decades a serious erosion of the marriage culture in our own country. Perhaps the most telling—and alarming—indicator is the out-of-wedlock birth rate. Less than fifty years ago, it was under 5 percent. Today it is over 40 percent. Our society—and particularly its poorest and most vulnerable sectors, where the out- of-wedlock birth rate is much higher even than the national average—is paying a huge price in delinquency, drug abuse, crime, incarceration, hopelessness, and despair. Other indicators are widespread non-marital sexual cohabitation and a devastatingly high rate of divorce.
We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage and to model for the world the true meaning of marriage. Insofar as we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce and remained silent about social practices that undermine the dignity of marriage we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.
To strengthen families, we must stop glamorizing promiscuity and infidelity and restore among our people a sense of the profound beauty, mystery, and holiness of faithful marital love. We must reform ill-advised policies that contribute to the weakening of the institution of marriage, including the discredited idea of unilateral divorce. We must work in the legal, cultural, and religious domains to instill in young people a sound understanding of what marriage is, what it requires, and why it is worth the commitment and sacrifices that faithful spouses make.
The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex and multiple partner relationships is a symptom, rather than the cause, of the erosion of the marriage culture. It reflects a loss of understanding of the meaning of marriage as embodied in our civil and religious law and in the philosophical tradition that contributed to shaping the law. Yet it is critical that the impulse be resisted, for yielding to it would mean abandoning the possibility of restoring a sound understanding of marriage and, with it, the hope of rebuilding a healthy marriage culture. It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life. In spousal communion and the rearing of children (who, as gifts of God, are the fruit of their parents’ marital love), we discover the profound reasons for and benefits of the marriage covenant.
We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct. We have compassion for those so disposed; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity; and we pay tribute to the men and women who strive, often with little assistance, to resist the temptation to yield to desires that they, no less than we, regard as wayward. We stand with them, even when they falter. We, no less than they, are sinners who have fallen short of God’s intention for our lives. We, no less than they, are in constant need of God’s patience, love and forgiveness. We call on the entire Christian community to resist sexual immorality, and at the same time refrain from disdainful condemnation of those who yield to it. Our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners. For every sinner, regardless of the sin, is loved by God, who seeks not our destruction but rather the conversion of our hearts. Jesus calls all who wander from the path of virtue to “a more excellent way.” As his disciples we will reach out in love to assist all who hear the call and wish to answer it.
We further acknowledge that there are sincere people who disagree with us, and with the teaching of the Bible and Christian tradition, on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage. Some who enter into same-sex and polyamorous relationships no doubt regard their unions as truly marital. They fail to understand, however, that marriage is made possible by the sexual complementarity of man and woman, and that the comprehensive, multi-level sharing of life that marriage is includes bodily unity of the sort that unites husband and wife biologically as a reproductive unit. This is because the body is no mere extrinsic instrument of the human person, but truly part of the personal reality of the human being. Human beings are not merely centers of consciousness or emotion, or minds, or spirits, inhabiting non-personal bodies. The human person is a dynamic unity of body, mind, and spirit. Marriage is what one man and one woman establish when, forsaking all others and pledging lifelong commitment, they found a sharing of life at every level of being—the biological, the emotional, the dispositional, the rational, the spiritual— on a commitment that is sealed, completed and actualized by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh, not in some merely metaphorical sense, but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation. That is why in the Christian tradition, and historically in Western law, consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility, even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation.
We understand that many of our fellow citizens, including some Christians, believe that the historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a denial of equality or civil rights. They wonder what to say in reply to the argument that asserts that no harm would be done to them or to anyone if the law of the community were to confer upon two men or two women who are living together in a sexual partnership the status of being “married.” It would not, after all, affect their own marriages, would it? On inspection, however, the argument that laws governing one kind of marriage will not affect another cannot stand. Were it to prove anything, it would prove far too much: the assumption that the legal status of one set of marriage relationships affects no other would not only argue for same sex partnerships; it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships. Should these, as a matter of equality or civil rights, be recognized as lawful marriages, and would they have no effects on other relationships? No. The truth is that marriage is not something abstract or neutral that the law may legitimately define and re-define to please those who are powerful and influential.
No one has a civil right to have a non-marital relationship treated as a marriage. Marriage is an objective reality—a covenantal union of husband and wife—that it is the duty of the law to recognize and support for the sake of justice and the common good. If it fails to do so, genuine social harms follow. First, the religious liberty of those for whom this is a matter of conscience is jeopardized. Second, the rights of parents are abused as family life and sex education programs in schools are used to teach children that an enlightened understanding recognizes as “marriages” sexual partnerships that many parents believe are intrinsically non-marital and immoral. Third, the common good of civil society is damaged when the law itself, in its critical pedagogical function, becomes a tool for eroding a sound understanding of marriage on which the flourishing of the marriage culture in any society vitally depends. Sadly, we are today far from having a thriving marriage culture. But if we are to begin the critically important process of reforming our laws and mores to rebuild such a culture, the last thing we can afford to do is to re-define marriage in such a way as to embody in our laws a false proclamation about what marriage is.
And so it is out of love (not “animus”) and prudent concern for the common good (not “prejudice”), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman and to rebuild the marriage culture. How could we, as Christians, do otherwise? The Bible teaches us that marriage is a central part of God’s creation covenant. Indeed, the union of husband and wife mirrors the bond between Christ and his church. And so just as Christ was willing, out of love, to give Himself up for the church in a complete sacrifice, we are willing, lovingly, to make whatever sacrifices are required of us for the sake of the inestimable treasure that is marriage.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. Matthew 22:21
The struggle for religious liberty across the centuries has been long and arduous, but it is not a novel idea or recent development. The nature of religious liberty is grounded in the character of God Himself, the God who is most fully known in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Determined to follow Jesus faithfully in life and death, the early Christians appealed to the manner in which the Incarnation had taken place: “Did God send Christ, as some suppose, as a tyrant brandishing fear and terror? Not so, but in gentleness and meekness…, for compulsion is no attribute of God” (Epistle to Diognetus 7.3-4). Thus the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the example of Christ Himself and in the very dignity of the human person created in the image of God—a dignity, as our founders proclaimed, inherent in every human, and knowable by all in the exercise of right reason.
Christians confess that God alone is Lord of the conscience. Immunity from religious coercion is the cornerstone of an unconstrained conscience. No one should be compelled to embrace any religion against his will, nor should persons of faith be forbidden to worship God according to the dictates of conscience or to express freely and publicly their deeply held religious convictions. What is true for individuals applies to religious communities as well.
It is ironic that those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled and also a right to engage in immoral sexual practices, and even a right to have relationships integrated around these practices be recognized and blessed by law—such persons claiming these “rights” are very often in the vanguard of those who would trample upon the freedom of others to express their religious and moral commitments to the sanctity of life and to the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife.
We see this, for example, in the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses, and therefore to compel pro-life institutions (including religiously affiliated hospitals and clinics), and pro-life physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, to refer for abortions and, in certain cases, even to perform or participate in abortions. We see it in the use of anti- discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or go out of business. After the judicial imposition of “same-sex marriage” in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex households in violation of Catholic moral teaching. In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital “civil unions” scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality. New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here.
In recent decades a growing body of case law has paralleled the decline in respect for religious values in the media, the academy and political leadership, resulting in restrictions on the free exercise of religion. We view this as an ominous development, not only because of its threat to the individual liberty guaranteed to every person, regardless of his or her faith, but because the trend also threatens the common welfare and the culture of freedom on which our system of republican government is founded. Restrictions on the freedom of conscience or the ability to hire people of one’s own faith or conscientious moral convictions for religious institutions, for example, undermines the viability of the intermediate structures of society, the essential buffer against the overweening authority of the state, resulting in the soft despotism Tocqueville so prophetically warned of.1 Disintegration of civil society is a prelude to tyranny.
As Christians, we take seriously the Biblical admonition to respect and obey those in authority. We believe in law and in the rule of law. We recognize the duty to comply with laws whether we happen to like them or not, unless the laws are gravely unjust or require those subject to them to do something unjust or otherwise immoral. The biblical purpose of law is to preserve order and serve justice and the common good; yet laws that are unjust—and especially laws that purport to compel citizens to do what is unjust—undermine the common good, rather than serve it.
Going back to the earliest days of the church, Christians have refused to compromise their proclamation of the gospel. In Acts 4, Peter and John were ordered to stop preaching. Their answer was, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required. There is no more eloquent defense of the rights and duties of religious conscience than the one offered by Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Writing from an explicitly Christian perspective, and citing Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas, King taught that just laws elevate and ennoble human beings because they are rooted in the moral law whose ultimate source is God Himself. Unjust laws degrade human beings. Inasmuch as they can claim no authority beyond sheer human will, they lack any power to bind in conscience. King’s willingness to go to jail, rather than comply with legal injustice, was exemplary and inspiring.
Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.
Anastasis now I know why as a baptised and confirmed christian I will never to back to church. Karl Marx stated that relgion is the opium of people, your script is living proof. Pardon the expression but in my view you fall within the sect of religious zealots who one one side shout about sanctuity of life whilst on the other shout for the re-introduction of the death penalty.
Unlike you I believe in freedom of choice and as much as you may think that we all owe Christianity, many of us would rather prefer to believe they are principled without believign that to be so they have to belong to a specific cult. I prefer to think that my deeds will show how I am not which temple I frequent over the weekend.
Incidentally Christianity did not fare too all well for a few thousand years where it was responsibel for soemfo the most heinous crimes, in the days when being different was preceived as being the re-incarnation of the devil and for that you became braai meat.
To this day most people who during the weekend worship the christian faith in one guise or the other feel no grief every other day of the week about treating their fellow human beings like their dogs or even worse
Until that mind set changes in SA your argument is flawed ab initio.
Where are the Elijahs of God?
To the question, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” we answer, “Where He has always been – on the throne!” But where are the Elijahs of God? We know Elijah was “a man of like passions as we are,” but alas! We are not men of like prayer as he was. One praying man stands as a majority with God! Today God is bypassing men – not because they are too ignorant, but because they are too self-sufficient.
Our abilities are our handicaps, and our talents our stumbling blocks! Out of obscurity, Elijah came on to the Old Testament stage, a full-grown man. Queen Jezebel, that daughter of hell, had routed the priests of God and replaced them with groves to false deities. Darkness covered the land and gross darkness the people, and they were drinking iniquity like water. Every day the land, fouled with heathen temples and idolatrous rites, saw smoke curling from a thousand cruel altars.
Elijah lived with God. He thought about the nation’s sin like God; he grieved over sin like God; he spoke against sin like God. He was all passion in his prayers and passionate in his denunciation of evil in the land. He had no smooth preaching. Passion fired his preaching, and his words were on the hearts of men as molten metal on their flesh. If we will do God’s work in God’s way, at God’s time, with God’s power, we shall have God’s blessing and the devil’s curses. When God opens the windows of heaven to bless us, the devil will open the doors of hell to blast us. God’s smile means the devil’s frown!
Mere preachers may help anybody and hurt nobody; but prophets will stir everybody and madden somebody. The preacher may go with the crowd; the prophet goes against it. A man freed, fired, and filled with God will be branded unpatriotic because he speaks against his nation’s sins; unkind because his tongue is a two-edged sword; unbalanced because the weight of preaching opinion is against him.
Preachers make pulpits famous; prophets make prisons famous. The preacher will be heralded; the prophet hounded. We love the old saints, missionaries, martyrs, reformers: our Luthers, Bunyans, Wesleys, Asburys, etc. We will write their biographies, reverence their memories, frame their epitaphs, and build their monuments. We will do anything except imitate them. We cherish the last drop of their blood, but watch carefully the first drop of our own!
Much of our praying is but giving God advice. Our praying is discolored with ambition, either for ourselves or for our denomination. Perish the thought! Our goal must be God alone. It is His honor that is defiled, His blessed Son who is ignored, His laws broken, His name profaned, His book forgotten, His house made a circus of social efforts.
Does God ever need more patience with His people than when they are “praying”? We tell Him what to do and then how to do it. We pass judgments and make appreciations in our prayers. In short, we do everything except pray! No Bible school can teach us this art. What Bible school has “prayer” on its curriculum? The most important thing a man can study is the prayer part of the book. But where is this taught? Let us strip off the last bandage and declare that many of our presidents and teachers do not pray, shed no tears, know no travail. Can they teach what they do not know? The man who can get believers to praying would, under God, usher in the greatest revival that the world has ever known.
There is no fault in God. He is able. God “is able to do according to the power that worketh in us.” God’s problem today is not communism, nor yet Romanism, nor liberalism, nor modernism. God’s problem is – dead fundamentalism! “So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth.” – Rev. 3:16
Sin today is both glamorized and popularized, thrown into the ear by radio, thrown into the eye by television, and splashed on popular magazine covers. Churchgoers, sermon-sick and teaching-tired, leave the meeting as they entered it – visionless and passionless!
Oh God, give this perishing generation ten thousand John the Baptists! Just as Moses could not mistake the sight of the burning bush, so a nation could not mistake the sight of a burning man!
God meets fire with fire. John the Baptist was a new man with a new message. As a man accused of murder hears the dread cry of the judge, “Guilty!” and pales at it, so the crowd heard John’s cry, “Repent!” until it rang down the corridors of their minds, stirred memory, bowed the conscience and brought them terror-stricken to repentance and baptism!
After Pentecost, the onslaught of Peter, fresh from his fiery baptism of the Spirit, shook the crowd until as one man they cried out: “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Imagine someone telling these sin-stricken men, “Just sign a card! Attend church regularly! Pay your tithes!” No! A thousand times no!
“If in our cultivated unbelief and our theological twilight and our spiritual powerlessness, we have grieved and are continuing to grieve Thy Holy Spirit, then in mercy spew us out of Thy mouth! If Thou cannot do something with us and through us, then please God, do something without us! Bypass us, and take up a people who have not yet known Thee!”
Thank you, Anastasis, for putting into words, and so beautifully, what I would never be able to do.
The Family Policy Institute, which has been derided in this article by Pierre de Vos, would, I am sure, endorse everything you have said.
We need people and groups such as yourselves to protect and uphold all the good and Godly values that are so lacking in our society. What the writer and others who have posted here don’t realise, is that when all the values you have mentioned are side-lined, everything else falls apart. They don’t realise that ANY and EVERY good value and principle etc can be traced back to the first 10 Commandments. God placed them there for our general good and well-being, not to thwart our pleasures. Immoral pleasures become a bitter pill and cause so much hurt and heartache, and I dare anyone to say otherwise.
People do not like to have their right to sexual freedom tampered with, not realising that it has so many repercussions and while they might think it is OK, there are many child-prostitutes and sex-slaves who would beg to differ.
One cannot say that abortion is painless and safe. No woman who has gone through such a procedure will ever be the same. There IS a deep hurt which she will try to hide with harmful measures such as drugs, alcohol abuse etc, unless she finds forgiveness and restoration in Christ.
Much of the problem is that people do not like to be called ‘sinners’, but so are we all. It is only the grace of God that turns our lives around, bringing healing and positive benefits. (I am not talking of pious and pompous Dominees here, Pierre!) Christianity has taken a lot of flak due to the sinful nature of its members… Thank God, He is still at work despite our flaws and failings!
@ Anastasis.
I have just read your response to Objective 101.
It is a sad indictment on our churches that we are so dead in our hearts and deeds!
I am reading Brother Yun’s book, Living Water and wow! what a challenge he is! In China the pastors consider a stay in prison as a ‘break’ from their preaching, although, of course, they spend their time in prison sharing the good news of the Light of the world, and bring many to faith in Christ. what so many people don’t realise is that Christianity is NOT a religion, it is about a relationship with the Living God of the Universe and he changes lives.
Sadly, we who have the Living Water so often live as though we don’t. We have lost that passion of which you wrote so passionately yourself!
It is true that much wrong has been done in the name of Christianity, and for that I, as a Christian, am deeply ashamed – of where I myself have fallen short and where others, as history (including our own history) shows us, have fallen short. However, the shortfalls of Christians do not change the message of Christianity (a message of love, grace & mercy) and, as Africangirl points out, God is thankfully still at work despite our shortcomings. But surely the religious background of a particular group should not disqualify it from participating in policy decisions? Perhaps we should not be so concerned with the religious background of people/organisations participating in government policy decisions, but rather with the particular change that is being put forward, and whether or not it is good for society. Exercising our so-called ‘rights’ often results in us squashing someone else’s rights. Should we not act in love rather than demand our rights? (Christ is the supreme example of this). If the ‘right’ to access pornography is, for example, harming innocent children, then surely we should be prepared to sacrifice that ‘right’ for the sake of others (regardless of our religious background)? It is sad that we are sometimes so focussed on our own rights that we don’t give a thought to how the exercising of our ‘rights’ harms others.
Tracy it is exactly of peple like you that I tread in fear of. Those who impose their morality on others in the name of a cult they allege to believe in and live by. The coquistadores unhilated entire populations in the name of their religion and their god. The romans were no different neither was Henry the VIII the same. 1000 years or so of crusades brught nothing but destruction and death. History is littered with death brought about by people in the name of their god and their morality. The germans and the jews, the jews and the palestinians, the hindus, the muslims of current day. Sorry but when erring I would rather err on the freedom of individual choice bounded by the morals and rules of society at the time. If a god exists then those responsible will suffer retribution when their time comes, until then live and let live.
Hey, I have a pigeon named Conquistador – perhaps that is why I can spell it…
Perhaps 101 can tell us why Christ’s message is so objectionable, and in what respects?
I am shaking you, says the Lord. This is not a violent or destructive shaking; it is a gentle but persistent shaking to awaken you from the sleep of complacency and the doldrums. I am calling you to awaken from this slumber of religious routine and spiritual boredom to renewed awareness and excitement of spiritual reality. Many of you, My people, have shifted your focus from life in the Spirit to life in the flesh. It is time to renew your commitment and stir up your desire and zeal for the things of the Spirit. You are living in perilous times where the greatest peril of all is to be asleep spiritually.
Marsha Burns
Matthew 25:1-13 “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”
Brett, with respect, Christ’s message is objectionable in many ways, but for me it is his rampant PACIFISM that irks the most.
How can we defend ourselves and our property if we live by such nonsense as “turning the other cheek,” “do not resist the evil man,” and “put away thine sword”?
(The Socialist redistibutionism message of the Gospels also bothers me no end.)
Your Christ is someone else’s antichrist. Accept the beliefs of others and rather worry living according to yoru own than what others belive in. I suppose you would consider a tribesman in Papua New Guinea who worships the sun a savage in terms of your morality. As I said live and let live, You are trying to convert the world when the world does not want to be converted. You are just as much of a relgious zealot as any muslim who belives that all non muslims are infidels. You are one and of the same kind.
HHS Yields to Public Pressure, Releases Abstinence Study
Posted by Catherine Snow
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reluctantly bowed to public pressure on Monday and released a pivotal abstinence study with results that fly in the face of the Obama administration’s policy of “zeroing out” all abstinence-education funding.
CitizenLink and pro-family organizations alerted people Wednesday that the administration had refused to release the study. The HHS website was shut down on Friday, due to the overwhelming response. On Monday, the study was posted online.
The taxpayer-funded research, “The National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents,” comes as critical funding for abstinence programs is set to end Sept. 30.
The U.S. Congress and the administration canceled all abstinence-centered program grants for the FY2010 budget, putting at risk more than 2 million students who are expected to attend 176 abstinence programs this fall.
Up until now, cash-strapped states reportedly have been “on the fence” about applying for federal abstinence-only sex education program funds. States have until Aug. 30 to apply.
States that participated in the 2009 Title V abstinence-only education program were:
Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington and West Virginia.
According to reports, Arkansas, Illinois, Oklahoma and Hawaii – four states that rank highest in teen pregnancy rates –have chosen to apply for federal funding to teach the Personal Responsibility Education program – an administration-backed initiative that focuses on contraception, as well as “safe sex” considerations for gay-identified youth.
Activists have been pushing the Obama administration to remove all abstinence funding, calling it “draconian and profoundly anti-LGBT…”
The abstinence study’s executive summary indicated that:
70 percent of parents agreed with the statement: “It is against your values for your adolescents to have sexual intercourse before marriage.
70 percent of parents agreed with the statement: “Having sexual intercourse is something only married people should do.”
Adolescents had similar responses for the two questions.
Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, was elated by the release of the study, but said, “We are greatly concerned that the sex education policy being implemented by this administration does not reflect the values of what most parents and teens clearly want.”
Why is one-sided promotion of homosexuality happening in your child’s school?
One reason could be that your school officials are being heavily pressured by special interest groups. That’s why they need to hear your voice too!
Often, schools are told they must comply with these advocacy groups’ demands — such as mandatory “diversity” training or pro-gay curricula—or they could face legal liability for not making their school “safe.”
“Safety” is being used as a political arm-twisting tool to force an adult agenda into schools.
You can help by equipping school officials with a more balanced perspective based on legally accurate facts.
In addition to being legally inaccurate, pro-gay advocacy groups’ one-sided messages also are irresponsible, and even dangerous, from a psychological perspective.
We know from social science research, that children are still developing both physically and emotionally during the middle and high school years. So a significant percentage of kids experience sexual confusion during this crucial time period.
Clearly, schools shouldn’t be opening their doors to messages that push vulnerable children into prematurely embracing a sexual identity based on the demands of special interest groups.
And the truth is—as taxpaying parents and community citizens—you have more of a stake in what happens in your schools than these outside advocacy groups.
Your concerns, and your voice, deserve equal respect.
Pierre, is it too much to ask that athiests respect those who do believe in a God or higher power – rather than taking every opportunity ridicule or belittle them? Irrational and stupid as other people’s beliefs may seem to you, they are just as sacred to those people as is the Constitution to you.
@ Respek
I agree with your sentiment that we atheists should not belittle the faith of others. When atheism is arrogant, it becomes a religion itself.
That being said, ridicule is an appropriate reponse to the attempt by certain Christians to impose upon the rest of us the reactionary barbarism that some self-proclaimed followers of Jesus (especially Americans), have adopted. Christians (and Jews and Muslims) deserve the utmost scorn if they seek to banish evolution from schools, or promote homophobia, or use the power of the state to ban pornography.
God Has A Word For This Hour
This is a tremendous hour in human history. There are ominous movements in the world. But I am constrained to ask, Has the Lord no plan for this hour? Has the church no message? Is there no word from the Lord concerning the spiritual recovery of this hour? If not, then this is the first time in history that a major crisis has arisen under a silent heaven.
Before God destroyed the earth with a flood, He put His message of warning in the mouth of Noah. When God judged Egypt, He sent Moses and Aaron to Pharoah with a divine pronouncement on their lips. God raised up Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah in times of crisis in Israel and Judah. They had God’s word for the hour in which they lived (Heb. 11:7; Exodus chapters 5 to 14; 1 Kgs. 17:1).
And God has a word for this hour!
A Call to Repentance!
People are awakening to the fact that we are living in a solemn hour, and that our nation’s greatest need is a revival that will bring us to God. There is a swelling tide of intercession to God – pleading for God’s intervening mercies and for a new Pentecost upon the churches.
What was true of Israel of old is true of us today. Whenever declension of spiritual power is felt, the root cause is sin in the church. Whittled down a little closer, the root cause of conditions in the world is the sin of individual Christians. This is a time for flaming messages, inspired of the Holy Ghost, preached fearlessly by men who do not fear the consequences – calling men everywhere to repentance!
Unconfessed Sins
In God’s program for this hour, repentance must begin with Christians, who must turn in penitence from their worldliness, prayerlessness, indifference, and the dangerous sloth and sleep. They must repent of their carnal strivings for position and place, and of their deadly church quarrels and denominational jealousy. The unrepented, unconfessed sins of God’s people have chilled the atmosphere of the church until people are driven away.
It is high time for the pulpit to thunder and burn with the power and fire of the ancient prophets and apostles of our Lord! It is high time for God’s people to awake from their Laodicean slumber, and strip themselves from their love of the world and love of self, and from the deceit, sham and hypocrisy of their shallow professions – and to turn to the Lord with all their heart, with fasting and tears, and with contrition and confession and restitution.
Where is the church “terrible as an army with banners”? (Song 6:4). Where are the Lord’s people whose prayers, like John Knox’s are the terror of evil rulers like Bloody Mary, Queen of Scots? Where is the Gospel being preached with such unction and power from God that the enemies of God say, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also”? (Acts 17:6).
Why are not these things true of us today? Because of the failure of God’s people, because sin is tolerated in their lives and hugged to their bosoms. It is not perhaps great, blatant sin. It may be only a multitude of little chiseling sins which have cooled off our love for Christ and our passion for lost souls, and dulled our spiritual ears so we cannot hear the voice of the Lord, and dimmed our spiritual sight so we have lost the vision of a world ripe for harvest, and palsied our hands and made us unfit for His service – leaving us carping and critical Christians (Song 2:15; Eccl. 10:1; 1 Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:9).
“By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them” (Matthew 7:20)
In the Song of Solomon, which contains wonderful church truth in figurative language, the Heavenly Husbandman says: “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes” (Song 2:15).
If we are to see a great harvest, we must take out the little foxes. They seem innocent and harmless but they kill the fruit. The little sins and compromises with the world, the flesh and the devil – these kill our usefulness. They must be taken out of our vineyard of the Lord.
Let us confess and forsake all. We will be amazed to find how greatly we need a spiritual housecleaning if we will let God search us and the Spirit probe us to rock-bottom (Psa. 139:23-24; 1 Chr. 28:9).
Some of us will find we have not put God first in our lives but rather we have given place to personal ambition, carnal comforts, and have yielded to the demands of friends and relatives and made God second.
Some of us have sinned directly towards God by rebelling against His known will and stopping our ears to His call to lay down our lives in His service.
Then there are the gross sins of the uncrucified self-life – self-will, self-pleasing, self-seeking, self-pity, self-glorifying, self-confidence, selfish affections, desires, motives, choices – all of which grieve the Spirit and unfit us to answer the call of the Lord to His people in this hour.
Some of us readily get angry, pouty, irritable. There is among us an unforgiving spirit, jealousy and envy (Jas. 3:14-18). With others there are secret and presumptuous sins – but they are not hidden from God (Psa. 19:12-13). There are also the deadly sins of gossip, backbiting, talebearing (Jas. 3:2-13; 2 Cor. 12:20). All of these God hates (Prov. 6:16-19). They close His door of blessing and hinder His answer to our prayers for our home, our community, our nation and the world.
“Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear… Your hands are defiled…your tongue hath muttered perverseness. None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth” (Isa. 59:1-4).
We need God! We tremendously need a revival of the supernatural. Nothing but a great visitation of the grace of God can in any wise redeem these present perilous hours. Impending disasters warn us. God’s Word warns us. The Holy Spirit warns us. “It is time for Thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void Thy law” (Psa. 119:126). “Revive Thy work in the midst of the years” (Hab. 3:2).
I believe this is God’s hour for the Spirit’s outpouring. But God’s great present purposes in grace are dependent upon the whole-souled response of us – His people.
Therefore it is of vast importance to us whose hearts have been stirred about a visitation of God – that we leave no stone unturned in ourselves, meeting conditions for revival in our own heart, in our church, our community, our nation and the world.
Even if we cannot find in Scripture a specific promise of God’s mercies to us in this hour, there is, in almost every divinely sent message of judgment, the promise of salvation and deliverance if men and women will humble themselves and seek the face of God in repentance and in faith.
Think of the salvation of Nineveh, that wicked heathen city of ancient times. God’s prophet Jonah was sent with the message of doom, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jon. 3:4). No mercy was promised. But the king and the people must have reasoned like this, “If God had no gracious thought toward us, He would not have sent us this warning.” So they repented in sackcloth and ashes and with fasting cried mightily unto God, and God was moved to mercy and revoked His edict of judgment (Jon. 3).
If the God of all mercies would do so much for heathen Nineveh, when she repented, will He not do as much for His own people, if we repent and turn from our worldliness and selfishness to seek the Lord till He come and rain righteousness upon us? (Hos. 10:12).
Plus God
The annals of sacred history are filled with accounts of God’s undefeatable minorities. To the worldly-wise they appear foolish, weak, contemptible. But – plus God, they have become mighty, invincible, unquenchable and triumphant! They have time and again altered the course of history, and changed the face of nations. Without strength, they have wrought prodigious works. Without influence, they have transformed their generation. Of such was the Apostle Paul, Luther, Wesley. Thank God their tribe has not perished in these – our times.
“Go all-out” was a slogan of World War II. Factories ran day and night. Everyone meant business. Housewives left their homes, some by day, some by night, to work in defense plants. What would happen today if Christians would cease to trifle – and go all-out for God?
What if we would obey the Lord and fast and pray day and night, that we might be avenged of our enemies? (Luke 18:7-8). What if we would get right with God, and with each other? Without doubt this would bring a visitation of God.
I pray you do something today about the evils and dangers all about us. It is a time for fasting and tears and prayer unceasing. Begin today! If you will, we shall have one of the greatest visitations of all time!
Revival Is the Beginning of a New Obedience to God
“If ye walk in My statutes, and keep My commandments, and do them; then I will give you rain (revival) in due season, and the land shall yield her increase …and ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you…And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight” (Lev. 26:3-8).
For Michael Osborne:
Anti-hatred legislation in Western countries
In 2001 the Australian state of Victoria passed into law a Racial
and Religious Tolerance Act. This law prohibited citizens from
engaging “in conduct that incites hatred against, serious
contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of” another person
or group on the ground of their religious belief or activity.
An exception written into the Act was conduct “engaged in
reasonably and in good faith – in the course of any statement,
publication, discussion or debate – for any genuine religious
purpose”. Yet in 2005 two pastors were convicted under this
law for making critical statements about Islam in a church
seminar. Although the Supreme Court of Victoria subsequently
upheld their appeal, many Australian Christians fear the
suggested introduction of similar laws nationally, believing that
Muslims will try to use them to stifle all criticism of Islam.
Then in 2007 a Racial and Religious Hatred Act came into
effect in the UK. It outlawed the use of threatening words or
behaviour meant to incite hatred against groups of people
because of their faith. Unlike the law in Victoria, this Act
requires the prosecution to prove that any defendant intended
to stir up hatred. This stipulation was introduced in a House of
Lords amendment that was accepted by the Commons against
the wishes of the government.
The draft law was also intended to prohibit the proselytising of
adherents of one religion by those of another, and insulting or
making jokes about any religion. The House of Lords was
concerned that these provisions violated the right to freedom of
speech, and carried amendments designed to protect it. Again
the government was determined to reject these, but they were
nonetheless passed in the Commons, though one of them by
only one vote. Baroness Cox said, “Britain’s fundamental
freedom of speech hung by a thread on that day.”
But despite the limited scope and wide exemptions of this law,
anxieties remain about how it will be used and implemented.
Government ministers profess to accept that religious beliefs
are a legitimate subject of public discussion and debate, but in
a context where Christianity has become increasingly
marginalised their commitment to free speech may be severely
tested by an increasingly confident Muslim minority.
@ Anastasis
Thanks for posting that report, with which I wholeheartedly agree. Atheists have fought for 300 years against Britain’s blasphemy laws, which have always been used to defend Christianity against well-deserved ridicule. What an irony to see such laws resurrected under the guise of politically-correct cosseting of Islam.
@ Anastasis
“After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture
Do you think this made up for Christians’ destruction of the Library of Alexandra, perhaps the greatest repository of learning at the time?
Michael, forgive me if I’ve misconstrued your point but you seem to claim that when one is confronted by over-ardent worshippers, an appropriate response to their wrongheadedness is to ridicule them. I’m going to disagree with you. These firebrands that you describe – people who are at once willing to impose their views on others and unwilling to entertain even well-meaning and moderately articulated criticisms of their beliefs – are probably angry people anyway. And inasmuch as mockery could well make angry people even angrier, it seems a mightily counterproductive way to respond. Better by far to respond calmly, politely and intellectually decisively.
Leigh, perhaps you have a point. Ridicule and provide a certain emotional satisfaction — but will noy win over the earnestly convinced.
But suppose one deems the fanatics to be beyond reason, or persuasion? The battle then is not to change their minds, but to win the battle of public opinion, to persuade the the majority in the middle. Does not scorn play an important rhetorical part here?
Posit that your target is a pompous puritan. What better way to defeat him than to reveal that he lives a private life utterly at odds with his public persona? Many U.S. televangelists have been thus brought low.
By the same token, the best way to show up Mr Malema may not be to debate with him the pros and cons of nationalisation, but to establish his preference for exclusive brands of drink, and note his residential suburb of choice. (Bloody agent! Bastard!)
noy = not
Michael, I’ve just had a look at another point that you made and with respect mate, its seems that your general inclination to rationality takes a turn for the worse when you talk about religion.
You say, in your post dated August 25 ay 16:06, that when ‘atheism is arrogant, it becomes a religion itself.’ But surely this claim is predicated on the dubious assumption that religion is arrogant. If that’s truly your assumption – and on the formulation that you opted for, it seems it could be – then I would love to hear a defence of the claim that religion is arrogant because I don’t see the sense in it. (And if I’ve correctly unpacked your assertion, and if you are willing to defend it, kindly start with a general definition of religion.)
Leigh, if you’re going to regress to crass innuendo about Michael being as judgemental as some televangelists I would be very disappointed in you!
Michael I’ll concede that scorn may, at times, be of limited rhetorical value – it could, for instance, sharply expose some fanatical idiocy and thereby win over some swing votes as it were. That being said, I think the question you might want to ask yourself is whether responding scornfully with a view to winning over swing votes is the best strategy. I’m not sure that it is.
My guess is that while scorn may attract some swing votes, it could also cost some as well. That is, rudeness, it would seem, often tends to put off more people than civil candour. So insofar as scorn could cost endorsement that might be won by way of a little civility, it seems a moderately misguided strategy in the one-step-forward-two-steps-back sense thereof.
Let me just make two final points: first, as you’ll know, I can’t prove my view that civil robustness is a better strategy than scorn. (Although happily you’re obviously a seasoned philosopher so argument by conjecture should be familiar terrain). And secondly, I’ve never thought and do not think of you as judgemental – although I’ve noticed that religion inspires your suspcion.
OK, since none of you post-Christians wants to come forward with why you find Christ’s message so objectionable (a message which would have you swooning if it was a made-for-TV movie or the Christ and Disciples were an NGO being reported on in your favourite newspaper or magazine):
Please tell us what you feel is to be gained by mocking the idea of living godly lives and turning Christianity into a wasteland when is a such a huge source of common ground between white and black in South Africa?
I don’t believe this is about winning over “swing votes”. Some arguments and beliefs are so toxic and hateful that they need to be deligitimised because they are an affront to the human dignity of others. I am not going to have a polite debate with a person who says his religion tells him that black people are morally and intelectually inferior to white people to “win over” swing votes. That would just legitimise his point of view and give it a credibility it does not deserve. Similarly, when a person relies on his or her ligion to defend discrimination against or even hatred of gay men and lesbians, I am not going to legitimise that hatefulness by engaging in polite chatter. That itself would require me to dehumanise myself for the sake of “respect” for someone else who does ont respect me and is preaching hate against me.
I believe there should be nothing special about religious beliefs. Like all beliefs they are often held sincerely and strongly but in a democracy we have a right to contest such beliefs, to ridicule them and to argue why the beliefs are perverse, morally disgusting and dangerous. In doing so I personally take my cue from the values and rights enshrined in the Constitution. Luckily for me, this constitution is supreme and in the legal arena trumps the superstitions and hateful beliefs of others – whether these beliefs and superstitions are informed by religion or somehing else.
I will not attack or ridicule anyone for believing in God. I will attack and ridicule a person for believing that a group of people deserve to be discriminated against because God said so.
Our poor health facilities kill more than the strikes.
One death is too many but these never made the headlines, mainly because they were poor and voiceless.
Shame on us, we only shout when we want to further selfish positions.
http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2010/08/26/infant-deaths-shock—64-babies-die-in-one-month
Professor, you essentially claim that we seek to invalidate (or ‘deligitimise’) offensive arguments and beliefs because they are an affront to human dignity. And you appear to make this claim with a view to showing that this discussion – presumably the passage wherein Michael and I exchange some ideas – is not about swing votes. I disagree. And curiously enough, it is your own submission which bolsters the view that the discussion in question is largely about precisely that: swing votes.
One question goes to why one would seek to invalidate views in the first place. One does not do so for one’s health. Rather, a pretty central goal of invalidating views is to convince people to abandon them. One would be hard-pressed to persuade firebrands to jettison their beliefs. And one does not have to convince already right-thinking people to reject unsustainable views which are offensive – bit like preaching to the choir that. So if one doesn’t really aim at the extremes, then the question becomes: exactly who does one have in mind? The obvious answer is that one is probably thinking about the middle.
So with respect Professor, it appears that swing voters are pretty close to the heart of the discussion in which I engaged Michael.
Leigh, my intervention is to try and push the middle to one side. If we accept that in the middle reasonable people can debate about about whether gay men (or black South Africans) are human one concedes the middle ground. If one forcefully argues that even arguing about such things is beyond the pale, over time one might isolate those who have these views and marginalize them as bigots and racists (which, in my view) they are. I am very much in favor of changing minds. I just follow a different strategy from yours more in line with keeping my own dignity in tact.
Professor, if you’re willing, let me run something by you: it’s pretty much trite that the constitution necessarily informs the laws which create our normative order. But within that normative order, there is surely room for our decisions to be informed by other sources of information and values – provided, of course, that the conclusions reached are not constitutionally offensive. And additionally, it seems arguable that the Constitution will not always be the best source of values. At times like those, it could well be the wiser course to start somewhere else and then, if one envisions one’s conclusions bearing upon the lives of others, to check those resolutions for constitutional consistency.
So Professor, while I continue to benefit from your learning, and while I appreciate that as it’s your blog, it’s your prerogative to set the parameters, let me respectfully say that even in the context of a blog that is largely devoted to constitutionalism, there may be times when scarcely critical reference to the constitution will not adequately substantiate contentions.
FOR Pierre de Vos: get a new life!!
Redeemed! 10 Ways to Get Out of the Gay
Life, If You Want Out
by Charlene E. Cothran, Venus Magazine Publisher, October 2006
Over the past 29 years of my life I have been an aggressive, creative and strategic supporter of gay and lesbian issues. I’ve organized and participated in countless marches and various lobbying efforts in the fight for equal treatment of gay men and lesbians. I have kept current on the issues and made financial contributions to those organizations doing work about which I was most passionate.
As the publisher of a 13 year old periodical which targets Black gays and lesbians, I have had the opportunity to publicly address thousands, influencing closeted people to ‘come out’ and stand up for them selves, which is particularly difficult in the African-American community.
But now, I must come out of the closet again. I have recently experienced the power of change that came over me once I completely surrendered to the teachings of Jesus Christ. As a believer of the word of God, I fully accept and have always known that same-sex relationships are not what God intended for us.
I don’t expect that this message will be widely received, quite the contrary. But, I do know that there is someone, possibly reading this very article, who is tired and unhappy living this way. Someone, in your heart of hearts, is searching for a way out, but you just can’t seem to break free on your own. I am speaking to my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters who want real peace; the kind you’ve heard about, sung about, read about. It is simpler than you think to acquire it and there is no condemnation once you’ve entered it.
Although I have lived as a lesbian for my entire adult life, it is without a doubt my soul’s purpose to use my gifts to LOVINGLY share the truth about how we got here: how we came to be gay or lesbian, how we came to enjoy our ‘lifestyle’ and how we came to believe that this was OK with God. [Romans 1:21-28]
Many argue that each individual should determine for themselves what God intends for him or her. This would indicate that we each have a separate set of biblical rules to live by. This is untrue. If you are ready for change and willing to open yourself to the truth, God’s love can bring your current belief system in line with His Word. Jesus will cleanse and forgive all confessed sin from a willing heart. Homosexuality is only one of them. It is no greater sin than any of the others, but it is sin.
By now you’re asking, ‘Has she lost her mind? My answer is NO. I didn’t lose it, I gave it away! In fact, I traded it in for a new one! [Romans 12:1-2]
ONE TUESDAY MORNING
I was minding my own business one fine New Jersey morning when I received a call from a local pastor, the Rev. Vanessia M. Livingston. I had never spoken to her previously. She was calling to add a statement to an article about her gospel group in another paper we own called the Kitchen Table News.
I don’t remember how we got on the subject of salvation but she could not have known how much I had been struggling with trying to reckon my spiritual upbringing with my lesbian lifestyle.
My stiff-necked resistance to the truth arose in me as she ministered. I honestly figured that if I simply mentioned the ‘L’ word that she’d drop the phone, anoint it with oil and that would be the last I’d hear from her. But that’s not what happened. The pastor prophetically confirmed what I’ve known for years, ‘one day you will come out of the world and bring many gay and lesbian souls out with you.’ She asked if today was the day that I would choose but I said no. I felt the power of conviction upon me as she spoke but I resisted and hardened my heart against the truth as I had done many times before. I was not willing to hear her or give up my all to God, especially knowing that I had a confirmed speaking engagement scheduled the following week at the Schomberg Center during New York City Gay Pride.
HAVE MERCY
As I blurted out that I was a proud card-carrying lesbian, the pastor reminded me that God’s mercy allowed me to survive my experiences as He developed my gifts, all as a part of His plan to lead others to Him, others who will not perhaps hear her or other ministers who have not LIVED this experience.
She could not have had a clue about my encounters with the mercies of God. Mercy had indeed covered me during those dark 1993 days when my good friend Venus Landin, for whom this magazine is named, was shot and killed. I recalled how I went with her to her ex-lover’s home to recover her things, how the woman had built a fire using Venus’ precious journals as fuel, how she burned her clothes and how the flames and debris had fallen out of the fireplace’s box and were ablaze along the carpet.
I remembered the look on the woman’s face and in her eyes. I know in my heart that she had intended to murder Venus that night but she did not expect me to arrive with her. There, I stood at the very gates of hell. Given her state of mind, there was no reason for the woman not to have killed us both, then turn the gun on herself as she did Venus a week later. When I received the call that they were both found dead, I knew instantly that mercy had covered me, but why?
I YIELD
The spirit of God spoke directly into my soul and said you will choose this day who you will serve and if you make the wrong choice, I will allow you to drift so far away from me that you will never hear my voice again.
I gave God my heart and soul in the parking lot of the mall, right there in my car. A river of tears flowed as Jesus washed me and forgave me and redeemed me for His work. I intend be just as ‘out’ about my transformation as I was about my lesbian life. I have given every gift I have back to God, including VENUS Magazine. The target audience will remain the same but the mission has been renewed. Our new mission is to encourage, educate and assist those in the life who want change but can’t find a way out. My brother, my sister, please follow me out of this.
1. Establish and accept for yourself that God’s Word is true AS-IS. Do not allow gay theology to divorce the Old testament from the New or the written words of the Apostles from the spoken words of Jesus Christ. This is a good trick, but its no longer working because God is preparing to bring millions of gays and lesbians back to His feet. He has already chosen many of us for this specific purpose and He is waiting for YOU to accept His call.
2. Seek the truth within the scriptures about homosexuality and it will be revealed to you as you read and pray. Know that we were NOT born this way. This myth was fashioned by the gay establishment as a basis for changing laws in favor of gay rights. Again it works for their purposes, but it is biblically UNTRUE. There is no way that anyone, without an agenda, can come away from the bible with an endorsement by God of the gay lifestyle. Gay theology starts with an agenda [‘Let’s make the bible say gay is O.K.’] in order to arrive at its conclusions, but it is a lie.
3. Do not resist God’s call on your life. Get alone with God and let Him minister the truth directly to you. That conviction you feel is a gift to keep you near the cross. If you keep resisting Him and hardening your heart, He will eventually stop calling you. You can then have a great time fulfilling all the fantasies of the flesh without feeling a thing, but what awaits you at the end of such a life? [Romans 2:28]
4. Know with certainty that you are loved by God exactly where you are and that your experiences are of great value for kingdom work. I had BEEN tired, but the enemy kept my mind trapped for years by convincing me that I could not be of any real use to God having lived as an openly gay publisher, but that was a lie.
5. Say Yes. That’s really all it takes to accept the truth which is accepting Jesus Christ. Pray this prayer of repentance with me now. “Lord, I’m coming to you because I believe your Word and I need your help. I can’t change myself, I’ve tried. Please forgive me for every thing I’ve done that did not glorify you. I believe that you ARE the Word, I believe that Jesus IS your son, I believe that He DIED for my sins, and BECAUSE I believe this, I AM NOW SAVED BY YOUR GRACE. Thank you for saving me! Amen.”
6. Make your salvation real. Keeping the good news of your personal salvation a secret is another trick the enemy uses to buy time as he tries to pull you back to your former life. We must believe with our hearts AND confess with our mouths. You don’t need to ‘out’ yourself but clobber the enemy by immediately sharing your testimony with SOMEONE about how the Lord has revealed the truth directly to you; about the level of joy and peace you now have which you could not reach without full repentance; about the welcomed change this brings in your life, and all the wonderful things He has done for you. [Romans 10:9]
7. Experience paradise NOW! Consult God first, then go ahead and live your life! Welcome new friendships, start that new venture, expand your experiences, obtain nice things, just don’t put them before God. Enjoy your life to a new degree, without the burden of sin AND with the confidence of ALL of God’s promises on your side! It is totally possible to live for God in this present age and enjoy yourself immensely. When I say live for God I mean totally ‘sold out’ for God. But you cannot be ‘sold out’ for God and live a gay/lesbian lifestyle at the same time. [Titus 2:11-12]
It’s possible to have a BETTER time than you did in the clubs, in the parks, BETTER than all those secret encounters with folks whose names you’ve long forgotten, BETTER than your long-term relationship, BETTER than all your priceless possessions, BETTER than money! Most of us have experienced some of this AND WE WERE STILL MISERABLE. But thanks to God’s mercy and saving grace we don’t have to wait years and years to get to heaven to experience paradise. The earth is the Lord’s, the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein. Enjoy God’s earth, now. [Psalms 24:1]
8. Walk Carefully or ‘circumspectly’ as the scriptures describe. This is about being careful to keep your spirit clean and fresh. Prayer, along with reading and hearing the Word AND seeking ways to apply it to your daily life is the way to STAY saved and delivered from any sinful habit.
Isn’t it interesting that we sometimes give our garments of clothing more care than we give our very souls. When we put on an outfit, we’re so careful not to lean against anything that might soil it. We protect it while we’re eating so as not to get a spot on it. We sit in such a way to prevent it from wrinkling. Treat your soul’s salvation with at least this much care. [Ephesians 5:15-16]
9. Have fellowship with believers. We know that the church has largely failed gays and lesbians by not being a welcoming place for those who have sought spiritual change. The invitation to ‘come as you are’ seems to be extended to everyone but us. However God has people everywhere who are open, real and willing to walk out with you. Ask the Lord to lead you to a loving, caring, bible-believing fellowship where you can be nurtured, be blessed, grow AND be a blessing. [Hebrews 10:25]
10. Stay in touch. We’d love to hear from you! If this article has helped you, please let us know. Also, if you’d like to share YOUR testimony with VENUS readers, email us at editor@venusmagazine.org or write The EVIDENCE Ministry, Inc., P. O. Box 353378, Palm Coast, FL 32135. Include your day and evening number.
Professor, just two points: first, and with respect, I think that when it comes to choosing strategies, the probable efficacy of the strategy has to be a pretty weighty consideration. That being said, I suppose I can understand how you feel.
Secondly, even demonstrating how the hateful views that you outline above are beyond arguing about would, I should imagine, involve argument. That is, surely you’d offer an exposition as to why such views are hopelessly unsustainable and wretchedly conceived.
So with respect, I get the impression that if one rejects the view that arguments (however repulsive they may be) can be dismissed by merely calling them repulsive, then your strategy almost collapses into mine.
Pierre De Vos says:
August 26, 2010 at 18:29 pm
Prof you tread on dangerous grounds. Your line of thinking justifies mob justice as that may be in line with the thinking at the time. Surely not. As objectionable as you may find ideas they still have a right to exist and to a place in the sun. You may not share them or find them objectionable but that is your choice. I cannot stand relgious zealots, for my own reasons, but that does not mean that creeds should be banned so long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.
Anastasis provides some anecdotal material for us to consider. Thereby, he/she joins a very rich tradition on Christian crusaders out to show the rest of us how to live – whether we’re interested in what they have to say or not.
But in his/her fervour, our country person overlooks a significant shortcoming of the anecdotal material provided: some gay couples are very happy together. (And on a personal note, some of them make great couples
Leigh says:
August 26, 2010 at 19:13 pm
In a country in which there is freedom of religion the term crusader is most inapproriate
@ Anastasis
“Has she lost her mind? My answer is NO. I didn’t lose it, I gave it away!”
Anastasis is right.
Thanks.
Objective,
What makes you say that in a country that recognises freedom of religious beliefs, the term ‘crusader’ is inappropriate?
Leigh says:
August 26, 2010 at 19:39 pm
Ask someone who is Muslim they’ll give you a good answer.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
August 26, 2010 at 19:23 pm
Hey Dwork,
As the Asterix frequently points out – those Romans must be wise!
Objective, it’s too bad you don’t see the value in providing direct answers – at least you it seems that on this occassion you don’t. But on the off chance that I might do some good, let me say this: by articulating an answer yourself, you would afford yourself a chance to investigate your own claim. You see it might be the case that you don’t actually have a tenable point. We won’t know unless you actually argue.
Anastasis says:
August 26, 2010 at 18:54 pm
Hey Anastasis,
Whoever Charlene E. Cothran is, I suspect that the marbles have been lost.
Forever!
Objective 101: It was absolutely not my intention to impose my morality on others, and I’m sorry that you misunderstood my message. Rather, I wanted to point out that society might benefit if we (regardless of religious background) sometimes considered how our behaviour affected those around us, over and above demanding our rights. I am, in fact, as much against the wrong that has been done in the name of religion as you are. But if God exists, and I have been living contrary to him, then I certainly don’t want to face him one day! That is the beauty of the message of Christianity – we can find forgiveness here & now, and make right with God before we have to stand before him one day. But of course we are free to choose, and to be responsible for, our own beliefs. I do not support the shoving of any beliefs, including my own, down anyone’s throat.
Leigh, your points are compelling and impeccably logical.
How about this: Sometimes what people say in public is not instrumental — in the sense of seeking to win over one’s adversaries, or even persuade the moderate middle — but rather subjectively expressive.
That may be the point of hurling abuse at someone you view as an implacable enemy.
Tracy, well said. While I’m not Christian myself (and I certainly won’t appreciate anyone trying to convince me to give it a shot) for what it’s worth, your views seem pretty healthy.
Michael, fair enough.
Thanks Leigh, I’m glad you think so.
@ Samantha and others
Does this look familiar?
http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/2010/09/07/da-mp-accused-of-rape
Dear Pierre,
I too used to enjoy the sight of Jesus on his cross and his rippling six-pack during my Sunday morning services. Though the one in my church was brunet, still as sexy though. (And i happen to be of the female sex).