I'm pleased that the internet age means that compared with 1997, we can get far more news on-line, and no be so reliant on TV or radio.
Now why do I say 1997? Because that was the year Princess Diana died. Although the death of any 36-year old woman in a road accident is tragic, especially if the woman in question was the mother of a future king, the saturation coverage of her death, even on Radio 4, my preferred news medium of the time (for all its faults) was distinctly overblown.
Had we still been living in the technology world on 1997, it would have been just the same with the death of Nelson Mandela. Even on the internet, it has been hard to get away from all and sundry putting in their pennyworth as South Africa's first black president was laid to rest.
Furthermore, his death has produced some pretty extreme reactions. Some people regard him as worthy of sainthood, while others are keen to point to his Marxist past, and his support for violence in order to achieve the ANC's goal of majority rule and the end of apartheid.
is it possible to step back from the hysteria and give a balanced assessment of his life? - in particular, a Christian assessment? Maybe not, but I'll have a go.
Firstly, 350 years of white colonisation of South Africa led to the creation of a very complex country. From a biblical point of view, the segregation of people in buses and railway carriages is hard to justify, but the architects of apartheid took as their justification Noah's curse of Canaan, the son of Ham, who they believed to be the ancestor of the blacks of Africa. "A servant of servants" he was to be unto his brethren. Blacks therefore could be treated as second class citizens.
You're not convinced? Nor am I, but unscrambling the legacy of this ideology was always going to be a tough task, once it became clear to the last white president, FW de Klerk, that white minority rule was untenable. Whatever Mandela may have been in his past, his presence unquestionably helped ensure that the transition did not turn into the bloodbath many feared. We can therefore see him as providentially given by God for that period, whatever his alleged faults. However, so, likewise was FW de Klerk, who is unlikely to draw so many world leaders to his funeral, when it takes place.
One quality for which Mandela has been widely praised has been his willingness to forgive. Forgiveness doesn't come easily in some circumstances, but Christians nevertheless are told that only as we forgive others will our Heavenly Father forgive us (Matthew 6:14-15). The Christian has been forgiven so much in Jesus Christ. Any forgiveness we are required to show towards those who have wronged us pales into insignificance alongside the huge pile of sin for which each of us needs to seek the God's forgiveness. Did Mandela become a Christian? That is a question to which only God knows the answer. I certainly wouldn't rely on the hundreds of articles you can find on the internet that have attempted to answer this question. There are plenty of quotes by Mandela on the subject of Christianity, but none which mention sin or the atonement. He certainly had a strongly religious upbringing, and attended church, but this doesn't make you a Christian. The bottom line is that he certainly wasn't when he was incarcerated in Robben Island prison, for at this time, not only was he a member of South Africa's Communist Party, but also the leader of a militant wing of the African National Congress which planned to further their cause through bombing campaigns. Mandela may never have murdered anyone himself, but then, neither probably did Mao, Stalin or Hitler.
But God can save hardened sinners. Whether the forgiving spirit he exhibited on his release came from a conversion experience, we cannot say, but this exhibition of a Christian virtue was, once again, an example which helped prevent the bloodshed widely anticipated with the transition to majority rule.
However, his personal life was a mess - he married three times and divorced twice - while his legacy is a country which is even more of a mess. Now he is removed from the scene, we will find out whether he really did save South Africa from a bloodbath or merely postponed it. His successors, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, have presided over a sclerotic economy and the steady transformation of South Africa into one of the most violent countries in the world. Thousands still live in squalor, while the ANC has become riddled with corruption. Marxism, discredited in most parts of the world, still has a strong foothold, particularly among the ANC's youth wing. It does not bode well for the future. Perhaps all one can say is that without Mandela, it would have been worse.
Now why do I say 1997? Because that was the year Princess Diana died. Although the death of any 36-year old woman in a road accident is tragic, especially if the woman in question was the mother of a future king, the saturation coverage of her death, even on Radio 4, my preferred news medium of the time (for all its faults) was distinctly overblown.
Had we still been living in the technology world on 1997, it would have been just the same with the death of Nelson Mandela. Even on the internet, it has been hard to get away from all and sundry putting in their pennyworth as South Africa's first black president was laid to rest.
Furthermore, his death has produced some pretty extreme reactions. Some people regard him as worthy of sainthood, while others are keen to point to his Marxist past, and his support for violence in order to achieve the ANC's goal of majority rule and the end of apartheid.
is it possible to step back from the hysteria and give a balanced assessment of his life? - in particular, a Christian assessment? Maybe not, but I'll have a go.
Firstly, 350 years of white colonisation of South Africa led to the creation of a very complex country. From a biblical point of view, the segregation of people in buses and railway carriages is hard to justify, but the architects of apartheid took as their justification Noah's curse of Canaan, the son of Ham, who they believed to be the ancestor of the blacks of Africa. "A servant of servants" he was to be unto his brethren. Blacks therefore could be treated as second class citizens.
You're not convinced? Nor am I, but unscrambling the legacy of this ideology was always going to be a tough task, once it became clear to the last white president, FW de Klerk, that white minority rule was untenable. Whatever Mandela may have been in his past, his presence unquestionably helped ensure that the transition did not turn into the bloodbath many feared. We can therefore see him as providentially given by God for that period, whatever his alleged faults. However, so, likewise was FW de Klerk, who is unlikely to draw so many world leaders to his funeral, when it takes place.
One quality for which Mandela has been widely praised has been his willingness to forgive. Forgiveness doesn't come easily in some circumstances, but Christians nevertheless are told that only as we forgive others will our Heavenly Father forgive us (Matthew 6:14-15). The Christian has been forgiven so much in Jesus Christ. Any forgiveness we are required to show towards those who have wronged us pales into insignificance alongside the huge pile of sin for which each of us needs to seek the God's forgiveness. Did Mandela become a Christian? That is a question to which only God knows the answer. I certainly wouldn't rely on the hundreds of articles you can find on the internet that have attempted to answer this question. There are plenty of quotes by Mandela on the subject of Christianity, but none which mention sin or the atonement. He certainly had a strongly religious upbringing, and attended church, but this doesn't make you a Christian. The bottom line is that he certainly wasn't when he was incarcerated in Robben Island prison, for at this time, not only was he a member of South Africa's Communist Party, but also the leader of a militant wing of the African National Congress which planned to further their cause through bombing campaigns. Mandela may never have murdered anyone himself, but then, neither probably did Mao, Stalin or Hitler.
But God can save hardened sinners. Whether the forgiving spirit he exhibited on his release came from a conversion experience, we cannot say, but this exhibition of a Christian virtue was, once again, an example which helped prevent the bloodshed widely anticipated with the transition to majority rule.
However, his personal life was a mess - he married three times and divorced twice - while his legacy is a country which is even more of a mess. Now he is removed from the scene, we will find out whether he really did save South Africa from a bloodbath or merely postponed it. His successors, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, have presided over a sclerotic economy and the steady transformation of South Africa into one of the most violent countries in the world. Thousands still live in squalor, while the ANC has become riddled with corruption. Marxism, discredited in most parts of the world, still has a strong foothold, particularly among the ANC's youth wing. It does not bode well for the future. Perhaps all one can say is that without Mandela, it would have been worse.