A World with a Human Face: A Voice from Africa
Njongonkulu Ngundane
(David Phillip)
Powerful speakers in touch with the people, the likes of Desmond Tutu and Denis Hurley, have been South Africa’s prophets of hope since apartheid.
Now that both are retired, and with our country still in a less-than-perfect state of affairs, many have wondered: who will be the post-apartheid Tutu? By the looks of this book, it’s going to be the archbishop’s successor, Njongonkulu Ngundane, to the Anglican See of Cape Town.
This collection of papers — actually talks and sermons delivered in different contexts on different cont-inents — has been skilfully edited to form what might even read, at times, like Archbishop Ngundane’s manifesto — certainly his vision — for what he seeks to contribute to Church and State in the new South Africa.
Ngundane sees globalisation and the fight against poverty and Aids as key to a more humane future for South Africa and Africa as a whole. His is a voice of reason and calm, of non-fundamentalist faith. Drawing from Judeo-Christian scripture, an ecumenical sense of religious tradition, conservative and radical reason as well as personal and pastoral experience (as a political prisoner, priest and bishop), the Archbishop’s argument is sensible yet firm. Globalisation and economic prosperity cannot be attained at the cost of the poor. Health care must be provided.
Practical and pragmatic strategies must be used to spread the anti-Aids message. (It’s amusing for Catholic readers to note how, in the same book, we have a Christian thinker who quotes Pope John Paul II with such obvious high esteem, while adding his support to “condomising” as part of a strategy to prevent Aids.)
An added bonus — both as background and a way of getting to the man behind the mitre — is Ngundane’s short autobiography at the beginning of this book: his involvement in Pan Africanist Congress politics, his vocation “discovered” on Robben Island, his ordination and work against the apartheid law, his academic interests, becoming bishop of Kimberley and Kuruman, and his accession to Cape Town. This is an excellent book — as a social commentary, public theology and an insight into the man who clearly is not just Tutu’s successor.