{"id":13623,"date":"2017-06-22T19:26:42","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T02:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=13623"},"modified":"2017-06-22T19:26:42","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T02:26:42","slug":"what-tribe-are-you-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/what-tribe-are-you-in\/","title":{"rendered":"What \u201cTribe\u201d are You In?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2000, I invited a young South African, Brendon, to live with us and work for our church.\u00a0 Together, we worked from New York and he from Johannesburg, to get a \u201creligious workers visa\u201d.\u00a0 I had met this young man through Youth for Christ.\u00a0 He was traveling with a South African YFC group that was visiting schools during the week and churches on Sunday talking about apartheid and the power of racial reconciliation. \u00a0Little did I know this young man would become my son-n-law, marrying my oldest daughter.<\/p>\n

My knowledge of South Africa was greatly enhanced from a personal level.\u00a0 He, being white, living in and near some of the neighborhoods that Mark Mathabane describes in his book, Kaffir Boy:\u00a0 The True Story of a Black Youth\u2019s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa.\u00a0 <\/em>When you read Mathabane, you want to believe that there was a great deal of poetic license…the truth can sting!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kaffir Boy, <\/em>is the journey of a young man from the shanties of Alexandra to attending a university in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0 The book stems the tide from extreme poverty to racism to the redemptive power of Christ.\u00a0 The challenge, for those of us detached from ap\"\"<\/a> artheid, is the violence, rancor, and hostility that ruled South Africa.<\/p>\n

You want to question how could it have gotten to the degradation that it did.\u00a0 Degradation of extreme poverty, hatred, the lack of respect for human life, and systems that promoted it, seem to be expected and even embraced.\u00a0 The difference of your outcome was the distinction of what \u201ctribe\u201d you came from.\u00a0 The word \u201ctribe\u201d began to jump out at me throughout the book.<\/p>\n

Mathabane\u2019s mother offers insight, \u201cYour father grew up in tribes, as you know.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t come to the city until he was quite old.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to stop doing things when you\u2019re old.\u00a0 I, too, do rituals because I was raised in the tribes.\u00a0 Their meaning, will become clear as you grow up.\u00a0 Have patience.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 For Mark Mathabane, it never did make sense even though his father attempted to force feed it to him.<\/p>\n

God was not divorced from the South African mindset.\u00a0 God just happened to be you\u2019re your individual interpretation made Him out to be.\u00a0 Mathabane\u2019s mother said it best, \u201cChristianity is essentially the religion of white people, therefore it makes sense that the Christian God should be thought of as a white person.\u00a0 Just like we, in our religions, have our black God.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Analysis<\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201ctribe\u201d analogy was daunting and haunting at the same time.\u00a0 I, as well as the other seven billion residences of the planet Earth, come from and are influenced by a \u201ctribe\u201d.\u00a0 That \u201ctribe\u201d can manifest itself in a multitude of facets from socio-economic to the \u201cflavor\u201d of the year spiritually.\u00a0 Why is it that we think our \u201ctribe\u201d is the best and only one on the planet?<\/p>\n

Over the years, when I have mentioned to others that my son-n-law is from South Africa, you sense people wanting to ask \u201cthe question\u201d. \u00a0Would it make a difference in their interpretation of my family if he did not meet their \u201ctribe\u201d criteria?\u00a0 Where did our \u201clenses\u201d originate and what perpetuates this ongoing division?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I don\u2019t mean to spiritualize the book too much, but there is a strong message to be gleaned about our personal interaction, respectability, and understanding of our transcendent God that needs to be brought in to the conversation of how we interact and treat others.\u00a0 There also needs to be a rekindling of a love for the impact and power of Scripture.\u00a0 Mathabane, when speaking of his mother said, \u201cBecause she could not read, my mother always requested that I read her several verses every night before she went to sleep.\u00a0 I gladly obliged; that was the least I could do at the moment to show appreciation for all she had done and was doing for me.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Eventually, his mother’s conversion and compassion caused Mathabane to reassess his view of God.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I encourage all of us to check our \u201ctribe\u201d and to know why we belong and how we should treat others around us.\u00a0 Who knows,\u00a0our \u201ctribes\u201d may come into conflict.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy:\u00a0 The True Story of a Black Youth\u2019s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa, <\/em>(New York:\u00a0 Free Press, 1986), 33.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid., 61.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid., 217.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction In 2000, I invited a young South African, Brendon, to live with us and work for our church.\u00a0 Together, we worked from New York and he from Johannesburg, to get a \u201creligious workers visa\u201d.\u00a0 I had met this young man through Youth for Christ.\u00a0 He was traveling with a South African YFC group that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1001,1009],"class_list":["post-13623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mathabane","tag-tribe","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13627,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13623\/revisions\/13627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}