Now for the gospel according to Zuma
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President Jacob Zuma has blamed religion, particularly Christianity, for the loss of humanity in society.
The ANC leader, who was ordained as a priest of the Full Gospel Church, in KwaZulu-Natal in 2007, said yesterday that the arrival of Christianity brought problems for Africans.
"As Africans, long before the arrival of religion and [the] gospel, we had our own ways of doing things.
"Those were times that the religious people refer to as dark days but we know that, during those times, there were no orphans or old-age homes. Christianity has brought along these things," he said.
Zuma was speaking at KwaMaphumulo, on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast, during the launch of a road safety and crime awareness campaign.
It is not the first time that Zuma has raised eyebrows with his comments on religion.
In June this year he was forced to apologise to the SA Council of Churches for "misusing" Jesus' name during the local government elections campaign.
As the ANC prepares to celebrate its centenary, Zuma's statements fly in the face of the ruling party's rich history of association with the churches.
The ANC was formed in 1912 at the Dutch Reformed Church in Waaihoek, Bloemfontein, and its founding president, Dr John Langalibalele Dube, was a priest.
Yesterday, African Christian Democratic Party leader the Rev Kenneth Meshoe lambasted Zuma and said his comments were "hypocritical".
"Firstly, the president needs to be rebuked for hypocrisy because for him to blame Christianity when he knows churches were at the forefront of the struggle is disappointing," Meshoe said, "and he knows that what he said is not true, having claimed to be a Christian himself.
"Secondly, during elections he doesn't run to the graveyards to get votes from the ancestors, but he runs to churches."
On the "orphanages" and "old- age homes" issues, taught children to look after their parents.
"It is ridiculous for the President to make such suggestions. It's tantamount to foolishness to blame old-age homes on Christianity. In fact we teach children to take care of elders. We teach them against 'dumping' of parents at old-age homes."
Yesterday, Zuma said it was crucial that South Africans return to the "old days of doing things" because the modern way had caused problems in society.
"We have passed laws that prohibit you as a parent [from using] corporal punishment. Today, when, as a parent, you bring your child [to] order by using corporal punishment, you are breaking the law, but the person who passed that law cannot raise your child the way you want to.
"I am not blaming such legislation but I can't be diplomatic about this. It's a fact," Zuma said.
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Posted 517 days agoaugustrain
Botha-Lezi
I'll just quote from the Bible, so no-one will be without an excuse... this you can then accuse us Christians of doing...
2Ch 7:12-16 KJV And the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice. (13) If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; (14) If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (15) Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place. (16) For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there forever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.
Akobena
Akobena
Gaara
Posted 517 days agoSydneyButler
child4real
Daffy
Posted 517 days agoAbdulla-Saleeh
Posted 517 days agoAbdulla-Saleeh
Posted 517 days agoWas it god that put Jz in government? Then your god is clearly a failure.
Jz was put in power by the voter. And I see them put him back again at the next election irrespective of his countless flops.
nkosipeter
Posted 517 days agoThe Rhema church was used as a vote puller.
Scosh
Posted 517 days agoaugustrain
Posted 517 days agoMisterWendal
Posted 517 days agoMethinks the "loss of humanity in society" is rather the result of poor governance by inept, corruption-driven individuals with false delusions of grandeur!
ThamsanqaMalinga
Posted 517 days agoTake charge and lead the country and stop with all excuses. For once please show prove us wrong by being a leader becuase some of us still believe you are a mistake for a leader.
Botha-Lezi
“It has become obvious, since the post-apartheid ANC government came into power, that there has been an agenda to undermined Christianity in South Africa.” Says Rev Theunis Botha, Leader of the Christian Democratic Party (CDP).
“They have, from the start, taken Christianity out of the school syllabus and prayer from the assembly. They have also restricted Christian Radio Stations thus neutralizing their influence. Christian prayer in government circles have been substituted with a minute of silence, while the Christian Ascension day has totally disappeared.
“The official opposition (DA) does not appear to want to make this an issue, and their silence actually makes it seem as if they agree with the ANC.
“There have however been many from grass roots level, who have taken their stand and refused to bow to this form of intimidation.
“Until this last census, there was a question concerning our religious persuasion which proved that over 79% of the people residing in South Africa adhere to Christianity. With our latest census this question was omitted. One can only speculate as to the reason for this.
“President Zuma, who has in the past put on a Christian facade, has now obviously decided that no one believed him, so he is rather going the route of attacking Christianity by inferring that they are at fault for the woes of South Africa as they established old aged homes and are looking after orphans. He actually says that before religious people interfered, the situation was better because “we had our own way of doing things.”
“When Christians develop institutions, it is usually because there is a need which they recognise and then do something about improving the bad situation.
“For President Zuma to blame all our woes on Christianity, seems to be pointing the finger at someone else, when everyone is pointing their fingers at him.
“Are these the last dying protests of a President who is trying to keep on going while he can see the writing on the wall? Or maybe it is the entire ANC party that is breathing its last breath? Especially when a top ANC official such as Mathole Motshekga, who is apparently a strong proponent of traditional African religion and ancestral worship says “the ANC needed to remain steadfast as the ruler of South Africa until Jesus returned to the world” (Tuesday 20th December 2011)
Theunis Botha 0836572482
MisterWendal
Posted 517 days agoHe should beware of the backlash from churches - even right here in South Africa, the church and other religions played a huge role in bringing down a government which didn't comply with their beliefs!
How about some commentary from the Arch?
ben.ade
FZappa
Posted 517 days agoMGZ
the_original_MommaCyndi
Posted 517 days agoMonkeybusiness
Posted 517 days agoAMS-Dammer
Why can a BLACK PERSON not ADMIT that the MAJORITY are INCOMPETENT????
SIMPLE statement...!!!
King_Biko
Posted 517 days agoThe-Monq
Posted 517 days agoIn Africa, the people who are directly from this land, have been coverted to praise and uphold a different society's (ies') culture and religion, when our own ones were in a limbo.
This happened especially with the churches being missionaries missions, and with their introduction of the 'church's way of life', it meant that African people were being turned against their own beliefs and cultures which are the only known things to African people that meant something in religious terms- and now without these practices of their cultures and religion, and adopting new one, it meant that the African people had a challenge in getting used and adapted to the religions of the other world tribes, and their way of life. This poses a serious series of challenges for all the African people as what makes sense for the people of these western religions, does NOT necessarily make sense for African people as their religious-cultural is that one linked to the nature of life, NOT the ideas of theology and dominion- IT is even the most widely known but ignored fact that GOD never handed a man a church and said that he wanted a man to commit themselves to a mortar and brick institution in order to know HIM.
This is something (if people are willing to truthfully look into things, and be objective still), that did away with our moral-fibre in our societies. As African people we do so much religiously that we DO NOT understand, and work so much to adapt to (which we never do because once we achieve something here, to keep it consistent is a new challenge to Africans), which Africans never get live by ultimately. African will compromise, and they will even allow themselves to compromised by theological ideas. So in sharp stance, JZ is correct in his statement- you go out there learn about African people, and observe their current way of life (especially to do with religion) you immediately notice and see the evidence of these people struggling to keep up, and remianed comprehensional to what this form of religions teach them, how it guides them, and what relationship do they build with GOD from here.
Yes Africans believe in ancestors, but they know and uphold GOD as the first in all the possible life-chains. Africans slaughtered for their ancestors, understabding that the ancestors are the closest spirit (especially in that these spirit know and are related to them), making easier to find sympathisers in them as they are still family members, and would be the best medium to use when communicating with GOD (after all, we all understood that men could ahve never been able to communicate with GOD directly and they needed the 'go-betweeners' - ANCESTORS).
So these African people have been turned against their way of life by the church (when the church said you could NOT slaughter for your ancestors because it meant that you uphed them, and the church's take is that only GOD should be upheld - of which GOD was NEVER that greedy about how people come to and know HIM, when the churches decided to demonise our ancestor because they had relation with man, and the church said only GOD was deserving of man's relation- all these were done within the realm of teaching theoligically.
It is true that church played a larger part in a man's life (the world-over) to change even for the worst. The people that believe to have brought church to others NEVER understood that there are different manners that could be employed in interacting with the DEVINE being, making everybody seem as though they never knew GOD. Church has been very detrimental in Africans livelihood.
the_original_MommaCyndi
I think the crux of the matter is that the christian religion has warped a lot of the traditions into some kind of horror. The people of Africa tend to take the worst part of their own traditions and the worst part of the religions that were introduced, mash them together and use the mangled mess to justify wrongs.
child4real
I just dont think Jacob Zuma knows anything about Christianity and the people who will be seeing Christianity as a bad influence better be ashamed of themselves. Quickly...the opposite of Christianity is satanism,so be real about your facts South Africans.