What a delight to commence a couple of years without elections and put our energy into transforming the country.
The purpose of government is to govern, to lead all sectors of society to show ourselves and the world what a modern African country can really be. It requires vision and an agenda for prophets.
- Proclaim the spiritual dynamic. There is enough vision, caring, justice, hope and honesty to blast away the fetid breath of cynicism, greed, corruption and laziness. The world needs a vitality drawn from the shared values of all religions. We inherited that global spiritual capital, but recognise additional resources within our own South African experience to develop a sense of spirituality, and the politics and economics which spring from it.
- Believe in our faith-energy. Faith is energy, a force that provides the belief that South Africa can succeed. Constant carping by those without vision is not defeated by argument but by people with the exuberance of faith.
- Recognise the agenda is set by the world. Everyone has agendas but the agenda for the world is set by powerless people in need. The world’s agenda includes banishing poverty; HIV/Aids; building a creative culture with young people; human rights for women and children and victims of racism; saving the environment; moral regeneration; caring; and underlying them all is the quest for an economic system to replace the dictatorship of capital. Prophets look for programmes for a just social economics, but also expect investments in the social sector from the wealthy whose hearts are in the correct place.
- Challenge the conservatism of religious institutions. The critique of Church theology in the Kairos Document of 1985 still applies. “Social and political matters are seen as worldly affairs that have nothing to do with the spiritual concerns of the Church. Spirituality has been understood to be private and individualistic … It is this kind of spirituality that when faced with the present crisis in South Africa leaves so many Church leaders in a state of near paralysis.” Prophets challenge religions to do their thing properly: preaching, reflecting, inspiring, caring, involving in the transformation of our land. There is an abundance of what Paul Gifford calls “intellectually reputable Bible courses and modern mainstream theology” available, and many books on inter-faith understanding , but neither the churches nor other leading religious bodies seem to press this on their preachers.
- Confront the fundamentalist heresies. The fundamentalist exclusiveness of some religions and political parties needs to be confronted. They concentrate on the past, heaven and individuals, and are as heretical as they were in the apartheid era, undermining the transformation of our society.
- Encourage collective action in secular society. Oppressors have always sought to confine people into little boxes labelled “religion”, “soul”, “family values”, “racial identity”, “cultural purity” or “classes” which leaves the oppressors free to dominate the world outside the boxes. Transformation means breaking out from individualism to collective reflection and action.
- Reassert the cooperation of religious institutions. Five years ago the National Religious Leaders Forum was formed, and ran a highly publicised Moral Summit presided over by former president Nelson Mandela: but it disappeared from sight. Perhaps now is the time for it to discover a new lease of life. Prophets can encourage religious institutions to work in harmony with one another and other sectors of society. To do this some religious bodies will need new leadership, replacing those who expect to be accorded special places because of their past with others who see a future of religious cooperation.
- Focus on the impact of local communities. Nations can only be transformed neighbourhood by neighbourhood. Change can now happen when local mayors and councils and leaders of religions, business, labour, politicians, and educators come together at the local level and make it happen. The prophetic agenda does not depend on national leaders and national conferences, but on neighbourhood meetings, sharing cultures in homes, cooperative action on empowering the people who live round the corner.
- Support the initiative of prophetic groups. Society does not advance from the top, but from small prophetic groups lower down. The key to transformation is to discover and empower the emerging collectives, caring communities establishing their piece of nation, think tanks stirring renewal in religion and politics and economics; and ngos tackling issues on the world’s agenda. It is time to deliver, and in every sector we need prophets encouraging people to let their spirituality burst out of the private sphere and transform the public sphere around them.