MEC MABONA'S ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE PREMIER

Master of ceremonies
His Grace Archbishop Ndlangamandla
Bishops and priests
Members of the Zionist Foundation
Distinguished guests
Ladies and Gentlemen.

We come together this morning bound by our faith in a mighty God, with genuine respect and love for our country, and inheriting the legacy of great ancestors.

Today we pause and give praise and honor to God for being good enough to allow us to be at this place, at this time. My right and my privilege to stand here before you has been won, won in my lifetime, by the blood and the sweat of the innocent.

The victory that we have scored against apartheid has laid the firm basis for all the people of South Africa to discover who we really are.

As a people we need to come to a proper understanding of those whose history has been most grievously affected by the ravages and distortions of apartheid and colonialism.

Bound up with the knowledge of our history is the false notion that before the advent of the white man we had no religion, no theology.

Remember always that our history did not begin with the coming of the whites to these shores, but with our ancient kings queens, scientists, sages, and artisans of Africa.

Our religion reflected a cultural transformation from a diversity of individual African tribal beliefs to a distinctive Afro-Christianity.

Afro-Christianity voiced deep ancestral, traditional values as well as reflected the changes of the new constricting environment. Those who came before us did not accept the Christianity evangelised to them by our colonisers.

In fact they resented that those who enslaved them called themselves Christians.

One theologian called Douglas explains that our forefathers saw the religion of some of the missionaries as a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,- a justifier of the most appalling barbarity 2 .

A sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, - and dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slave holders find the strongest protection.

He claims that if he were again "reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity which could befall me.

Instead of the Christianity of their masters, our forefathers adapted Christianity to their unique situation and indigenous beliefs. They worshipped a new Christian deity in traditional African ways and made European religious forms serve African religious functions.

In the United States the slave owners hoped Christianity would promote slave forbearance and the belief that those who worked the hardest in this life would be rewarded richly in heaven. To an extent, religion did serve this purpose.

However, the altered Afro-Christianity showed that slaves were as concerned with freedom in this world as they were with salvation in the next.

Few disciplines have felt the need to `sort African culture out' and establish an unequivocal opinion on it more than the discipline of Christian theology 1 .

Western theological efforts to analyse African culture were motivated mainly by a desire to convert Africans. Often this goal was pursued with such zeal that Africans and their cultures were superficially understood and `ruthlessly' converted.

The conversion motive continues to influence much theological interest in African culture and African religion in our own times -- only more subtly.

I wish to question the validity of all conversion-motivated interest in African culture by Christian theology -- unless conversion is radically redefined as being, at least, a two-way process.

Related to the conversion motif are other `tyrannies' such as the equation of the Bible with the `revealed Word of God' .

This equation can and has been a powerful tool used to legitimise the rejection and dicreditation not only of current black experiences but of all black culture within Christianity.

It is about time that the insights gleaned from more than thirty years of black and African theologies were used as a basis for the development of a truly African Christian theology.

Such insights include the insistence that in the same way that (African) cultures are various, so are `Christianities'.

Therefore all unqualified references to generic and monolithic Christianity, especially when African culture is under discussion, ultimately intend to deny the validity of African cultures.

More importantly, not only are different cultures and different Christianities possible, these are not necessarily at peace with one another.

We must consistently refuse, as we have done in the past, to regard African culture as a set of detached, somewhat exotic attitudes and rituals. It must continue to insist that African culture is structural, material, contextual and contemporary.

And we must continue to insist, as we have so eloquently done before, that Africans have valid and respectable religions and cultures.

Cultures and religions which are not only independent of Western Christianities but are seldom comfortable and therefore often in combat with many versions of Western Christianity.

This is our only hope for redirecting our nation on a more humane, just and peaceful course.

We are gathered here today to take the first step in what is clearly a long and arduous journey: the journey to an Afro-Christian theology. A journey that will inspire, expand, unify and direct us to a better understanding of who we really are.

As children of God we preach among the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised.

They are restless and seek relief. They've voted in record numbers. They have invested faith, hope and trust that they have in us.

That is why as government we shall always respond when you call us. Why? Because we are your children. We belong to you. We live amongst you. Yes, because we care.

We must, all of us, mitigate the misery of our nation. We can part the waters and lead our nation in the direction of the Promised Land.

Our country is emerging from one of its most hard fought battles for the improvement of the lives of the people.

Christians of all shades and colours must have a shared passion for social justice. We must seek a revival of the spirit, inspired by a new vision and new possibilities. We must return to higher ground.

For us as a nation, we can only overcome the obstacles facing us if we work together as traditional leaders and government, as youth, women, business people, each playing a vital part.

This must include the mobilisation of our people properly to respond to the health threats that confront us as a people.

These include the AIDS epidemic which, among other things, requires that we change the habits of our people with regard to issues that relate to sexual behaviour and life style.

What will guide us in everything we do will be the challenge to build a caring society.

As we reconstruct South Africa and reclaim the whole country for all, we break down all the divisions and attitudes of the past, freeing everyone from the last vestiges of oppression 3 .

We meet to assert the humanity of persons one to the other; to seek unity and reconciliation; to set shoulders to the wheel in building a better life for all.

As in the past, and as it will always be in the future, we are one people with one destiny.

I thank you.