The Family Policy Instite is planning a "10 000 Real Men March Against Violence Against Women & Children" to Parliament on Saturday 16 March 2013 at 10:00
It is ok and good to march to parliament and hand over a memorandum with a list of demands of laws that government should jack up and put in place to arrest the scourge of violent crime in our country, especially the violent sexual crimes against our women and children.
But I think this is also a sacred opportunity for the Church to take a hard serious look at herself, and ask if we as believers are doing anywhere close to what the Gospel demands from us, who are called to be, Spiritual Soldiers of the Cross.In choosing to march to parliament we have actually chosen the easiest action on this very serious matter.
By choosing this action we are actually deferring the responsibility of our calling.The Church has a much higher calling than just marching to parliament to hand over a memorandum.The Church is also called to intervene in the lives of the many wounded children of God in our Country.
The Church musn't just be seen to be calling for retribution, tougher laws and tough action to address a problem which actually highlights the level of brokeness in our communities.What our country needs right now is Healing and Restoration.
We come from an extremely oppressive past which was imposed on our nation with brutal force and violence. It stripped all our people of our God-given human dignity and reduced us to much less than we were created to be.Some of us were made to believe that we were more superior than the other children of God, and many of our churches advanced this position.Many of these children of God are still battling to free themselves from that untruth. They find it difficult to reconcile with this very important truth, that we are all created equal, in the image and likeness of God.On the other hand, many more of our brothers and sisters are battling to restore their human dignity, so that they can just take up their rightful place at the table of God's Family.It is only when we can, all of us, all of God's children, be made to feel welcome at the table of God's Family, that we can restore our own family, in every home, in every community of our Nation.
Government cannot legislate Respect and Morality and Values and Character. Government programmes will never have the same power, the same impact, as the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, to restore the Family of God.
Jesus took the powerful message of Healing and Restoration out of the Temple, into the streets where the people were to be found, to the fishermen, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the lepers, the marginilised.He ministered to them right there in their environment, in their circumstances, with compassion and care.
Right now, the Church, the Temple, the Synagogue and the Mosque are much better placed to engage with South Africans of all walks of life, to share and to minister the grace of God, to Heal our Nation.
People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.
The answer to the seemingly overwhelming scourge of violence and crime in our country doesn't lie in building bigger and better prisons. Our country's people need healing and restoration.
And the Church right now, is in the best position to deliver that healing and restoration.The Harvest is plentiful.
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