GOD FORBID??? OR THE FALL???

Opinion / Letters

LETTER: In the name of God, go

Cabinet reshuffle puts more people on gravy grain

08 March 2023 - 16:18 

 

President Cyril Ramaphosa. Picture: DWAYNE SENIOR/BLOOMBERG

The cabinet reshuffle by our president shows how out of touch he, the ANC leadership and alliance partners are (“Reshuffle fails to cultivate market confidence”, March 8).

One of the traits of a failing government is not only tone deafness to the plight of the voters but an insistence that it can double down on its failed policy of buying itself out of trouble by paying off key constituents. The ANC believes enough people will be persuaded by those that have their palms greased by inclusion in the cabinet to buy the “life will be better next year” line.

Ramaphosa will soon discover that it is not the size of the cabinet that will turn things around, but rather the ability of those in key ministries to act to fundamentally change the direction of the country. Keeping the same jockeys on dead horses is not smart politics  — as Boris Johnson found.

The likes of Gwede Mantashe, Pravin Gordhan and Bheki Cele have long since ceased to inspire anyone, especially the majority who are experiencing a serious deterioration in their livelihoods. Setting expectations is easy; meeting them always far more difficult. After 30 years of promising everything and delivering little, you would think the ANC would realise this. 

The currency market’s response to the cabinet reshuffle clearly indicates a lack of trust. Oliver Cromwell said it best when dismissing the rump parliament for their disastrous attempts to turn around the misfortunes of the state, “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. In the name of God, go.”

John Catsicas
Via email

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LINK:  https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/letters/2023-03-08-letter-in-the-name-of-god-go/

BUSINESS DAY

TGIF

 

Thank God it’s Friday

By Njamba Kapalu,

• 10th March 2023

• Lifestyle

Very few people are able to remember what they learned or did in primary school. We tend to remember only moments that had an emotional impact on our lives. One such moment for me was a school play. I cannot recall anything else of substance about this play except what was the summary or the conclusion of the matter.

A young boy in grade two was given the opportunity to end the play with the moral of the story. With this being his only line, he came to the front with great enthusiasm and shouted, “If you do not eat, you do not work.” You may have figured out that this was not correct, so did the audience. They all burst out laughing. I imagine the parents thought how ridiculous it would be if that is how the world worked. What he should have said, which should be our belief, was “if you do not work, you do not eat.” This is the principle that we, the children, were meant to take away from this.

Unfortunately, this is not our culture today. Leisure is such an important part of our life that work is seen as a secondary reason for living – something done once the eating or leisure has been concluded. “Thank God it’s Friday” or TGIF is how we hail the weekend, our opportunity to do what we assume life is meant for. Once the work is done, at 5pm we do not then strive to keep our minds engaged until the dreaded Monday morning has arrived.

Generation Z, those born after 1995, have generally grown up in a comfortable Zambia. The drive and passion that drove their parents who knew that without hard work they would be resigned to a village, dependent on the rich relative who made it out, pushed them to do great things. Many had no inheritance to speak of, were the first in their family to get to university and were one failed exam away from abject poverty. They knew that without hard work, they would not eat. Not so with the youth.

Unless we stop seeking pleasure as the goal and not as a secondary reward, we cannot expect to develop. It is true that easy times make weak men. Many of us are still young enough to get past this and work. However, a continued pursuit of leisure will only continue the creation of weak men, weak leaders, weak fathers, and in the larger scheme of things, a weak country.

There is room for rest and leisure. If you truly give of yourself to labour and the pursuit of generational wealth, your body will tell you to reset. Burnout is not the goal. Work hard enough that the next generation of Zambians will stop to look to the government as the source of all help. Work hard enough that your children will desire to imitate you. In this way, God will be gracious to bless the works of our hands that we may then eat. That we may thank Him for designating a day of rest.

LINK:  https://diggers.news/lifestyle/2023/03/10/thank-god-its-friday/

GOD @ ALL TIMES!

 

God in the Mess

By Nathan GroenewoldMarch 8, 2023

Listen To Article

I worry that our discipleship groups, catechism classes, and sermons teach us how to defend a God who needs no defense.

Our faith prioritizes being correct, not meeting the God who invites us on a journey, on a path alongside others who are nothing like us. We become people with answers instead of people with the Spirit, people who end conversations instead of start them.  

The cohort of young adults I lead traveled to Washington, D.C., last week for our first big learning intensive: a 10-hour road trip in a 12-passenger van, a full-day visit to the Museum of African American History and Culture, a 3-hour conversation with Navajo author and leader Mark Charles, a panel with D.C. leaders, and a celebration of HBCUs at a Black Baptist church founded in 1802. All in three days. 

We’re a diverse group from varied spaces: Black, brown, and white, richer and poorer, Baptist, Methodist, and Reformed. Last night over my mediocre cornbread and better-than-average venison chili, we debriefed the trip with a simple question: “How did you experience God last week?” 

As I listened to our cohort share, I noticed that we had all found God most fully in the trip’s messiness and tension, in raw and honest wrestling, not in neat and tidy doctrines. It was encountering ideas, opinions, and views that challenged, pushed, and prodded us to look at scripture through fresh eyes, to rehash our theologies as they intersected most directly to real suffering and real hope. 

Mark Charles

The most impactful experience of God for the majority of our Cohort was our conversation with Mark Charles. Mark spent two hours openly sharing his own wrestling with a God who didn’t seem present on the Navajo reservation, a Jesus who didn’t seem to like Gentiles (calling the Canaanite woman a dog), and more presently: our nation’s push for the sort of reparations that seem more like a thinly veiled attempt to redistribute stolen land from one unrightful owner to another. This was hard stuff that did not lend itself to tidy answers. 

I think we resonated with Mark Charles because we felt a sense of deep belonging in his theological honesty. We didn’t need to meet his wrestling with fear, anxiety, or an immediate rebuttal. Instead, we met God. 

The enthusiasm these hard conversations generated for our cohort made me think of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who wrote, “But we note that some of the best theologies have come not from the undisturbed peace of a don’s study, or his speculations in a university seminar, but from a situation where they have been hammered out on the anvil of adversity, in the heat of the battle, or soon thereafter.” And Allan Boesak, South African anti-apartheid leader, who echoes Barthian language when he wrote, “It is in the concrete experience of actual human experience that the word of God shows itself alive and more powerful.”

These D.C. wrestlings so genuinely brought our cohort into a deeper love of God and love for scripture. It makes me wonder if we often approach discipleship from the wrong direction. We start with clarity — with clear and simple answers — and then move into messiness if we have the time. But perhaps, we encounter God most fully when we begin in the middle of the mess.

Nathan Groenewold

Nathan Groenewold is an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church and founding director of Cohort Detroit, a ministry which aims to raise up a new generation of young leaders who love God deeply, work for justice, and humbly serve marginalized Detroit communities. He fills the cracks in his summers with disc golf and gardening. 

LINK:  https://blog.reformedjournal.com/2023/03/08/god-in-the-mess/