Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, ‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.’
Whiteness, privilege, racism, justice and mercy, Jesus and The Church - this is conversation that I’m grateful to have had and that I want to keep having. I am particularly passionate about the kind of God loving and God following that’s not just skin deep - that challenges us to go into the depths where we allow God to search and to soften, to convict and to counsel, to recalibrate and release.
I’m joined by Siviwe & Marcia Notshe. They are the Lead Pastors at Every Nation Church Bryanston - which they planted with a few friends in Jan 2020. They’ve been in ministry for over 13 years and also served as missionaries to South Korea for 2 years. They’ve been married for 12 years and together have three children.
I sat down with Marsh and Siv one winters afternoon at my dining room table. We laughed. And cried. And got angry. You’ll hear kids and dogs in the background and the occasional hand slams on the table - a real, raw and passionate conversation. Just how I like chats around my table. This is not the most comfortable interview I’ve ever done but words create worlds and I am thankful to Marsh and Siv for the worlds they’ve opened up inside of me through this podcast. May these words openup your world as they open up your heart.
We recorded this podcast a few weeks after the horrifying footage and story of George Floyd broke…His death has powered a movement against police brutality and racial injustice. One journalist referred to Floyds death as a time stamp in the prolonged history of violence against black people…Oceans away, here in South Africa, my country, we are not strangers to the stories of violent policing that maintains white supremacy. Any finger pointing at the US has a whole hand pointing back at us in our deep-seated racism and massively unequal society. These incidents are symptoms of a larger disease. The damage done over centuries that we enslaved black people - the true evil being the stories we have created and written and handed down that black people aren’t as good as white people, and aren’t the equals of white people, that they are less evolved, less human, less capable, less worthy, less deserving than white people.
With all this in mind, I wanted to talk - but more than that I wanted to listen. I wanted to hear….
And I’d love to hear from you too.
And if you’d like to download the beautiful music you hear on this episode - https://music.apple.com/za/album/promises-ep/1412386478 Unforseen by Sean Williams, Rebirth & Compass: https://ampl.ink/emkEO