By: Kristin Hamilton on June 23, 2017
My heart hurts. That’s the thought that keeps rolling through my mind as I try to figure out how to put my feelings about Kaffir Boy, Mark Mathabane’s autobiography, down on paper. It hurts because Mathabane’s description of coming of age in South Africa’s apartheid once again shines a light on just how cruel human…
By: Stu Cocanougher on June 22, 2017
A few weeks ago, as I looked at the list of readings for my Doctor of Ministry program, I saw that a book was available in audio form. The book was Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane. Upon downloading it, I saw that the book was a daunting 18 hours and 33 minutes in…
By: Phil Goldsberry on June 22, 2017
Introduction In 2000, I invited a young South African, Brendon, to live with us and work for our church. Together, we worked from New York and he from Johannesburg, to get a “religious workers visa”. I had met this young man through Youth for Christ. He was traveling with a South African YFC group that…
By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on June 22, 2017
This week we read a book that was not an academic account of the historical events that occured during the Apartheid in South Africa. We have been reading books from theologians who have fever and passion about shifting the narrative back to its origins. The origin of our Christian faith which belongs now and has…
By: Jim Sabella on June 22, 2017
“In South Africa there’s a saying that to be black is to be at the end of the line when anything of significance is to be had. So these people [living in Alexandra] were considered and treated as the dregs of society, aliens in a land of their birth.”(1) As I read the painful accounts…
By: Marc Andresen on June 22, 2017
“There is a death far worse than physical death, and that is the death of the mind and soul…” [1] This is a poignant summary of the fascinating yet overwhelming book, Kaffir Boy, written by Mark (Johannes) Mathabane. It is a powerfully moving book, in part, because it shows the devastating impact of bad leadership.…
By: Aaron Peterson on June 22, 2017
Kaffir Boy is the sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes hopeful, autobiography of Mark Mathabane who grew up in the horrendous environment of apartheid in South Africa. One theme throughout the story is religion. At first Mark’s mother becomes a Christian for the material perks being a Christian offers to blacks in South Africa. This part reminded me…
By: Katy Drage Lines on June 22, 2017
THE WHITE & THE BLACK While I’m gone, white mother, kill the fattened oxen And feed your dear ones well, prime meat and curds Overspilling so the dogs too lap the juice, And still enough is left to throw a surplus To your close kin across the seas. And you, black mother, hold…
By: Rose Anding on June 22, 2017
Introduction Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa is authored by Mark Mathabane. The playwright narrates how he was brought up in overwhelming poverty and received education in cruel boulevards and the most distressed ghetto of South Africa, where bloody gang battles and midnight police incursions…
By: Jennifer Dean-Hill on June 21, 2017
There were two perspectives I came from as I read “Kaffir Boy”: #1- Professionally, as a therapist, understanding the emotionally damaging effects of living in an oppressive state and the power of compassion. #2- Personally, viewing my first experiences of overt discrimination and my ethnic friendships. #1- Professionally, understanding the effects … To live…
By: Pablo Morales on June 21, 2017
Author Mark (Johannes) Mathabane wrote his autobiography in 1986 in order to give people a window into the atrocities of Apartheid. The book Kaffir Boy describes life in the segregated township of Alexandra through the eyes of a child who eventually escapes the suffocating claws of poverty and segregation through the pursuit of education. Through his love for tennis, Johannes eventually gets…
By: Lynda Gittens on June 21, 2017
KAFFIR BOY young students in Soweto, South Africa (Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church Mission trip) People moving out, people moving in. Why, because of the color of their skin. Run, run, run but you sure can’t hide. Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration, Aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation. Ball of confusion. Oh yeah, that’s what…
By: Mary Walker on June 21, 2017
I had to believe in myself and not allow apartheid to define my humanity.[1] Mark Mathabane The delusion lies in the fact that no matter how well we think we know the Other, we still judge from within the imprisoning framework of our own limited cultural criteria, we still speak within the cliché of the…
By: Josiah Philipsen on June 21, 2017
Queen Lynda Wright Gittens was born in Houston, Texas during an era where the hope of achievement in America was held and inspired by her parents, church leaders, and teachers. She was born in the era of segregation where her kind was referred to on paper a colored. Through her lifetime she has been identified…
By: Claire Appiah on June 20, 2017
Mark Mathabane—Kaffir Boy an Autobiography: The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa Introduction In this raw and captivating autobiography, Mark Mathabane, utilizes the imaginative creativity of his journalistic skills to depict the poignancy and triumphs of his first eighteen years of life under South Africa’s apartheid system. He…
By: Chip Stapleton on June 16, 2017
I read our assigned reading for this week, Christianity and African Traditions by Matthew Michael, with quite a bit of interest. The church I currently serve is about 50% Cameroonian, and as such, I often – on a weekly, sometimes even daily basis – see and try to account for and understand the intersection of our…
By: Geoff Lee on June 16, 2017
Following on from our earlier considerations of contextual theology and folk theology, this book looks at how to marry classic Christian theology in the Judeo-Christian tradition with specific African traditions and culture. Dr. Matthew Michael carries out a sweeping review of various systematic theological categories and considers how they fit in with and can be…
By: Kristin Hamilton on June 16, 2017
Whenever I read a book that analyzes another culture, especially one written by someone who has personal knowledge and understanding of that culture as well as a research knowledge, I know I am at a disadvantage from the start. Such is the case with Christian Theology and African Traditions by Matthew Michael. As Michael works…
By: Christal Jenkins Tanks on June 15, 2017
“Christianity has “a prefabricated theology, a book theology . . . what she reads in books written by European theologians. . .” and “what she is told by Europeans is accepted uncritically and given out undigested in preaching or teaching.”Similarly, the theological discourse of those times is characterized by unhealthy reactionary to Western misrepresentations of…
By: Stu Cocanougher on June 15, 2017
When we think of traditional missions, we think of missionaries trekking jungles, mountains, and deserts in search of tribal people who have never heard the name of Jesus. Alternately, we may think of missionaries who share the good news with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or Communists. Yet, there are some areas in today’s…
