With the reputation of a quietly spoken priest dedicated to the upliftment of the marginalised, Thabo Makgoba, the newly elected Archbishop of Cape Town and Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, is expected to be as effective, but much less high-profile, than his predecessors.
He will assume the position when Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane retires at the end of this year — a position previously filled by the likes of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize-winner in 1984.
His legacy is set to be no less profound: in meeting the challenges of poverty, HIV/Aids and giving moral leadership within Southern Africa; or in debates in the global Anglican Communion over scripture interpretations relating to human sexuality and over a long-brewing power struggle between its traditional centre in the global North and the South, where the number of believers is much larger.
“He has been a wonderful gift to this diocese. He is a compassionate, thoughtful and very humble man — in the best sense of the word — who has always led by example, like encouraging all of us to go for public HIV tests. His mission is not to create a bunch of Christians but to empower people with their rights and responsibilities,” says Suzanne Peterson, vicar general of the Grahamstown diocese, which Makgoba will be leaving on January 1 to assume his new position.
“His mission is not to create a bunch of Christians but to empower people with their rights and responsibilities.”
Oh. dear! :-S
The Anglican churches of the geopolitical Global South are at least as diverse among themselves as the divergence between them and most of the Western provinces. Bishop Makgoba is regarded as rather more of a reasserter than the presumed favorite in the election, Bp. Seoka of Pretoria, but it seems unlikely that there will be any huge changes from the policies of Abp. Ndungane (although the new Abp. will be more diplomatic about them). South Africa and the other countries within the province face some horrifying challenges and I don’t think that Bp. Makgoba is going to be diverted to spend much of his energies on issues elsewhere in the Communion. The “Global South” is not a monolith.
Will Bill C on this journalist’s writing:
I’m sorry, but “he will assume the position”?
Unintended colloquialism, I suppose.
oops…. “WITH” Bill C, not “Will” Bill C…….
[blockquote]His mission is not to create a bunch of Christians[/blockquote]
Apart from the fact that everyone has already been “created” and doesn’t need an archbishop to make them [i]ex nihilo[/i], isn’t it deeply saddening when a journalist can just presuppose that her readers would generally agree it’s a better thing for an archbishop to “empower people” than to commend the gospel to them?
#1
That statement should certainly apply to the HOB.