Promiscuity, unfaithfulness and unprotected sex are an offence against the sanctity of life, according to the head of the Anglican Church in South Africa.
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba made the remarks in a “moral state of the nation address” delivered at an interfaith function in Johannesburg on Wednesday night, and released on Thursday.
Although he did not mention President Jacob Zuma, his comments come amid controversy over the news that Zuma has fathered his 20th child with a woman who is not one of his wives.
Makgoba said it would be easy just to preach “no sex outside marriage”, which was what Christians and others upheld because it made for strong families and healthy societies.
“Makgoba listed Mahatma Gandhi’s “seven deadly social sins”, one of which, he said, was “pleasure without conscience”.”
Amen …. that pretty much describes culture in these days — pleasure without conscience”. Personal pleasure, at the expense of others, is the root of so many abuses — not just sexual.
I wonder when there will be a knock on the door at the Abp’s residence in the dead of night.
That’s wives, plural. Is Zuma an Anglican? A Christian of another variety? A Muslim? Is polygamy legal in South Africa?
If he is a Christian, it seems like it would be a problem for him to be fathering children with multiple women full stop — even if the mothers were all legal wives of his.
Furthermore, fathering 20 children even with one legal wife seems pretty irresponsible.
Jon (#3),
The 69 year old Jacob Zuma has three wives, but I doubt that he is an Anglican. He’s been a member of the South African Communist Party since 1963, although he’s also the head of the country’s dominant party, the African Nationalist Congress (ANC).
Even more troubling in some ways is that in 2005 he was accused by a 31 year old woman of raping her. He was tried and acquited, claiming the sex was consensual (his word against hers), but perhaps most telling is that during the trial it came out that he had unprotected sex with her, even though he knew full well that she was HIV positive. And this is the guy who is supposed to be leading the effort to help cut down the massive AIDS epidemic in South Africa (where an appalling 11% of the national population have HIV).
I don’t think that having 20 kids is necessarily irresponsible. But committing adultery sure is, and having unprotected sex with someone who has HIV sure is. And of course, raping a woman is naturally far worse. What a jerk!
David Handy+
F. Handy,
He’s also no rocket scientist. During the rape scandal, when the matter of his not using a condom with an HIV positive woman came up he said that it was OK because he’d taken a shower afterwards.
Not just an immoral thug, but a stupidly irresponsible one as well.
Someone better nominate him for a Darwin Award.
#4–Based on his background he is probably not Anglican–but maybe he is Episcopalian.