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Suffering, hope and forgiveness: the ubuntu theology of Desmond Tutu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2009

Charles G. Haws
Charles G. Haws*
Affiliation:
Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta, GAcharlesghaws@gmail.com
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Abstract

Blaise Pascal once said, ‘Knowing Jesus Christ strikes the balance [for theology] because he shows us both God and our wretchedness’. Indeed, the majesty of Christ is that in him the despair of wretchedness and the hope of God are held together. Theology often does not reflect this balance, leading towards either anthropocentrism or nihilism. The ubuntu theology of Desmond Tutu does, however, by proclaiming the inherent interconnectedness of humankind. Tested by the context of South African apartheid, this notion called ‘ubuntu’ counters segregation and violence with reconciliation and justice. It refuses to execute retribution upon transgressors, instead committing itself to re-membering the disinherited of Christ's inclusive body. Forgiveness is the only future for this body and, though it remains an aporia in the context of radical evils such as apartheid, it is the only way to achieve justice without economising balance. That is, only forgiveness can realise ubuntu because it progresses forward toward justice not backward toward vengeance. Ubuntu is the prophetic balance of a divine gift that transforms the wretchedness of human atrocities. It represents Tutu's attempt to realise the way of God in his context, an attempt from which all theologising can benefit.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , November 2009 , pp. 477 - 489
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 2009

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References

1 See Pascal, Blaise, Pensées, trans. Krailsheimer, A. J. (New York: Penguin Books, 1995)Google Scholar.

2 McClendon, James Wm. Jr., Systematic Theology, 2nd edn, vol. 1, Ethics (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2002), p. 53Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., p. 54.

4 Tutu, Desmond, Hope and Suffering (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984), p. 23Google Scholar: ‘If there is to be unity at all, it must be ultimately based on the value of justice’. And on p. 42: ‘Injustice and evil and oppression will not last for ever. They have been overcome by God in the cross of Jesus Our Lord.’

5 This article only briefly mentions Tutu's biographical witness, though a sustained survey would be both enlightening and intriguing. As opposed to the historical examples of Tutu's witness, this article develops the theological implications of Tutu's non-dialectical ubuntu concept.

6 Gish, Steven D., Desmond Tutu: A Biography, Greenwood Biographies Series (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004), pp. 1–2Google Scholar.

7 North, James, Freedom Rising (New York: Macmillan, 1985), p. 35Google Scholar.

8 Tutu, Hope and Suffering, pp. 166–72.

9 Ibid., p. 97. See also, Gish, Tutu, pp. 20–2.

10 See Tutu, Hope and Suffering, p. 52.

11 North, Freedom Rising, p. 40. In 1980, only 1 of the 130 people executed was not black.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., p. 41.

14 See Gish, Tutu, pp. 15–16.

15 Battle, Michael, Reconciliation: The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1997), p. 26Google Scholar.

16 Gish, Tutu, p. xii. See also p. 129.

17 On 13 March 1988, Tutu and Allan Boesak held a joint service at St George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa. They stated during the service that the church was the only institution black South Africans had left to protest about apartheid nonviolently. See Gish, Tutu, p. 127.

18 Ibid., p. 64.

19 Tutu, Hope and Suffering, p. 155.

20 Ibid., p. 45.

21 Ibid., p. 114.

22 Ibid., p. 115.

23 Ibid., p. 147.

24 Ibid., p. 147.

25 See Battle, Reconciliation, pp. 4–5, wherein: ‘Tutu's theology must be viewed through the lens of ubuntu’. Also, see p. 73.

26 Ibid., p. 39.

27 Ibid., p. 65.

28 Ibid., pp. 40–1.

29 See Tutu, Hope and Suffering, pp. 161–2.

30 Battle, Reconciliation, p. 136.

31 Ibid., p. 137. Tutu also believes that ‘God says, it is precisely our diversity that makes for our unity. It is precisely because you are you and I am me that [God] says, “you hold on together”’ (ibid., p. 64).

32 Ibid., pp. 112–13.

33 Ibid., p. 180.

34 See Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (New York: Doubleday, 1999).

35 Jones restates this idea: ‘Christian forgiveness includes words spoken and the transformation of inner emotions, but it is much more than that. Christian forgiveness recognizes the timeful process by which God's grace works in our lives and in our relations. It also involves us in activities where we learn to be forgiven and forgiving by engaging in activities other than those associated with forgiveness. Christian forgiveness aims at reconciliation and involves the task of responding to God's forgiving love by crafting communities of forgiven and forgiving people’. Jones, L. Gregory, ‘Crafting Communities of Forgiveness’, Interpretation 54/2 (April 2000), p. 122Google Scholar.

36 McClendon, Ethics, p. 229.

37 Hylen states that one must see ‘forgiveness not only as the responsibility of the one who has been wronged, but also as the responsibility of the community, which takes seriously the wrong committed and seeks to be involved in the process of accountability, repentance, and forgiveness’. For Tutu, the church is the community that is best equipped – by the spirit of God – to actualise this responsibility. Hylen, Susan E., ‘Forgiveness and Life in Community’, Interpretation 54/2 (April 2000), p. 147Google Scholar.

38 McClendon, Ethics, p. 227.

39 Ibid., p. 228.

40 See Gish, Tutu, p. 149: Gish differentiates between ‘restorative justice’ and ‘retributive justice’.

41 See the following article by Russ Eanes, a Mennonite pastor in Johnstown, PA: http://www.tribune-democrat.com/editorials/local_story_282105244.html. See also another article that concerns September 11: Shriver, Donald W. Jr., ‘Forgiveness? Now?’, Christian Century 118/29 (2001), pp. 6–7Google Scholar.

42 Caputo, John D., Dooley, Mark and Scanlon, Michael J. (eds), Questioning God, Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001), p. 7Google Scholar.

43 See McClendon, Ethics, pp. 227–8: ‘Resentment . . . is God's good gift, protecting us in an injurious world from greater harms and inciting us to secure a justice we might otherwise be too placid or too compassionate to enforce. . . . One who forgives [consequently] knows the other's offense to be offense.’ Cox's article is intriguing as well, for it discusses the possibility of forgiveness in the face of ill-intention: Cox, Harvey, ‘The Ethics of Forgiveness: Best of Intentions’, Christian Century 121/24 (2004), pp. 32–8Google Scholar.

44 Caputo et al., Questioning God, p. 8.

45 See Fasching, Darrell J., Narrative Theology After Auschwitz: From Alienation to Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

46 Perhaps the name most readily associated with forgiveness in Christian literature is Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In his polemic against cheap grace, entitled The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer argues that forgiveness is neither therapeutic nor easy. ‘As he confronted the Nazis in his life and in his death’, Jones adds, ‘he had to face the challenge that forgiveness is ineffective – that only force, and more particularly violence, is effective’; Jones, L. Gregory, Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 8Google Scholar.

47 Caputo et al., Questioning God, pp. 37–44.

48 Moyo's article applies forgiveness to the context of post-apartheid South Africa: Moyo, Ambrose ‘Reconciliation and Forgiveness in an Unjust Society’, Dialog: A Journal of Theology 41/4 (December 2002), pp. 294–301CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Tutu, Hope and Suffering, p. 10.

50 Gish, Tutu, p. 147.

51 John Reuben, ‘There's Only Forgiveness’, The Boy vs. the Cynic, Gotee Records, 2005, CD.

52 Tutu, Hope and Suffering, p. 128.