The Soweto student Uprising, Desmond Tutu, and TEE College - some painful and hopeful history

Here is a bit of painful, and hopeful, history.

This is an extract from the minutes of the first TEE College meeting that took place on 18 June 1976. Desmond Tutu was elected as the first Chair of the board of the college. As you will see in these minutes, after opening the meeting, he was called away to Soweto to support the community after the horrific police brutality of what is now known as the ‘Soweto Student Uprising’.

TEE College was set up by the Eccumenical Churches to train women and men for ministry during a period when South Africa’s apartheid government would not allow black women and men to study theology at Universities.

In the years since 1976 TEE College has trained tens of thousands of persons for ministry and service via ‘extended’ learning (allowing persons to study while being employed, thus not taking scarce skills and limited resources away from the communities in which they were serving).

TEE College offers a Bachelor of Theology Degree, a Diploma in Theology, and numerous Higher Certificates in Theology and Ministry. We currently have over 3000 registered students.

I am very grateful to serve as the current Chairman of the Board of TEE College. It offers a wonderful service to the Churches and society, with a gifted and dedicated staff based at our new Campus in Brackenhurst.

See the Facebook page for more details: https://www.facebook.com/TEECollege

The classroom - a room of class? On Theological education and justice

What is the purpose of learning and knowledge? Does it hold value in the world today? In what ways do we learn, and should we learn, for appropriate discipleship as Christians? What is the relationship between education and justice?

In this VLOG we talk about the different ways in which persons are formed for Christian life and consider some different approaches to theological learning. We look at the traditional knowledge, values and skills approaches (head, heart and hands) and discuss how each holds value. Moreover, we consider the different ways in which the discourse and discussion around Higher Education is shaped by the metaphor of geography (the models of the University as Athens, Berlin and Calcutta).

The papers that I mentioned in the show are:

Olivier, B. 2011. Ethical Challenges Regarding Globalization of Higher Education. US-China Education Review, 6(B):816–823.

Kinsler, F.R. 1978. Theological Education by Extension: Service or Subversion? Missiology: An International Review, 6(2):181–196.

This book by Stanley Hauerwas is a helpful resource on education and the ethical considerations, ‘The state of the University: Academic knowledges and the knowledge of God’

And, this book ('Doing Ethics from the margins') gives a wonderful insight into how the two-thirds world thinks about education and justice, as De La Torre points out, the classroom is indeed a room of class (one can very quickly, and sadly, see how class impacts and plays itself out in contemporary higher education. Who gets to study, when they study under what conditions do they do so, what is their previous educational background etc.).

Find out more about Stellenbosch University (where I teach) at:

http://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/theology

I'd love to hear your take on these thoughts! Leave a comment here, or on youtube.

Such inspiring words! Happy 94th birthday Nelson Mandela

Mr Mandela is a great inspiration. His life is an example of courage supported by grace.

This quote expresses something of his great nature. Happy birthday Mr Mandela.

The value of education?

I came across this great quote today.

Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

— G. K. Chesterton

I used to tell my students the following (in jest of course!)

In my Bachelor's Degree I came to learn a little bit about quite a lot. Then in my Honours degree I read a little bit more about a little bit less. I my Masters degree I came to know quite a lot about very little… And, in my Doctoral studies I got to know everything about nothing!

Of course a good education is a worthy thing! But, the purpose of education is to gain knowledge, skills and values that can serve humanity. Some tend to think that the purpose of education is to become 'important', or to distinguish themselves from others.

Learn in order to serve. And, serve in order to learn. It makes your education much more useful to society. What do you think?

Can we afford to be ignorant? The recolonization of Southern Africa.

Every now and then while I am doing my devotions, I am 'arrested' by something that someone has said, this happened to me this morning so I decided to go back and find my little notebook from 2004. I always carry a little Moleskine notebook with me (I use the Moleskine folders to keep cards, notes etc, and then cut the small, cheap, ruled notebooks to put into the first folder - here's a picture of one of mine).

The notebook that I was looking for in this instance dates back to November 2004 - I was at the Methodist Church of Southern Africa's Mission Conference in Umtata. At that conference the President of the all Africa Council of Churches, Rev Dr Mvume Dandala, was speaking.

This picture was taken in South Korea, in it is Mvume Dandala in the center, Trevor Hudson on the right, and myself (about 10 kg's heavier than I am now!) on the left. Ah, those were the days.

Back to the point, in his keynote address Mvume said something to the effect of, "If we [Southern Africans, and particularly the Churches in Southern Africa] do not wake up to the crisis of HIV / AIDS we shall be re-colonized within the next generation".

I was shocked by that statement, but there was truth to it. He went on to say that AIDS is killing so many young people, skilled, gifted African women and men, that we shall soon have very few people between the ages of 20 and 60, and much fewer skilled persons between those ages. When that happens we will be colonized once again. However, this time we shall not be colonized by a nation state (such as America, China, or England), rather we shall be colonized by multinational corporations who wish to exploit the natural resources of our fair lands. If we have gold, oil, platinum, coal, and a host of other precious commodities , yet there is no-one left to extract, refine, and use these resources, those who have the power, the money, and the skill, from elsewhere in the world will do it for us, and eventually, they will do it in spite of us.

This colonization is a concern, but of greater concern is the reality that we are loosing a whole generation of people because of poor choices, hidden truths, and a lack of knowledge.

I worry about such things... Perhaps it will never happen in the way Mvume described it, but if I can do anything to stave the spread of this disease, and in some small and insignificant way help Africans to benefit from the blessings of Africa, I need to do so!

Then it struck me, I can make a difference - the difference that I can make is in the sphere of Education! I see this magnificent sign at least once a week when I go onto the University of South Africa (UNISA) campus. It is a picture of our past President, Nelson Mandela, the caption reads: "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world". I believe it! What we need is education that does a number of things:

• First, we need a very basic and simple form of education that teaches persons their value and dignity. Education that helps people to realise just what a gift they, a gift from God to the world. Life is precious and must be guarded and valued.

• Second, we need education that helps people to survive in the face of great challenges - in particular we need to help our young people (and our old) to make wise choices for life. It scares me to death to think that when I was at school, if I had a sexual relationship with someone the worts that could happen is that she could fall pregnant. Now, however, my daughter or son could die from just one bad choice! We need education to prevent such tragedies!

• Third, we need education that helps people not just to survive, but to truly live. This is the kind of formation and development that helps people to rise above the ordinary, to become the best that they can be; moral leadership, intellectual leadership, all matched with exceptional skill.

Perhaps what I am asking is that those of us who have some measure of influence should ask God to give us the courage to use it for the common good. If you write, write about what matters, when you pray, pray about what matters most, as you work spend your energy not just in pursuit of gain and pleasure, but spend yourself to bring healing and transformation to individuals and society.

I shall say it once again - if you are the best, the very best, if you're a lawyer, a doctor, a journalist, a parent, a gifted thinker, a passionate feeler, if you can do anything in the whole world, then do it for God!

Let's counteract ignorance with love, and spend our lives in service of Christ's mission to heal and transform the world - petty theological arguments, minuscule points of difference, differences in taste, these things should not stop us from being effective for Christ.

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