A theological/biblical and socio-economic and political rationale of why we should be involved in poverty alleviation and development as ASF.
By Thabo Makgoba Bishop of Grahamstown
ASF Conference, UWC, 26 June 2006
1. Introduction
Thanks for inviting me to your conference and to address you on the topic of poverty alleviation and development. It has been at least25 years since I came to my first ASF and then felt lost at what these Christians were talking about. I have never looked back and now appreciate scripture where it says God did not give us the spirit of timidity but of courage. ASF has fostered that within me and many others before me and hopefully within you and those that will follow after you.
Having listened to the Archbishop and your comments this morning, I was forced to re-look at what I want to say to you this afternoon. The Archbishop painted in broad strokes key issues around your theme, and that is the role of a keynote speaker to some extent. He challenged us to put content and to critique the available tools at our disposal in terms of the contextual issues that we face in this century.
I want to also in broad strokes first make certain assumptions about ASF, the theme and then go on to attempting to address the task the Arch left before us, that of putting some content onto his challenges. But if I left it there, with some content, I shall have missed his other challenge, that of being rigorous in our dealing with content or critical thinking. I will first paint the context, biblical, socio-economic and political around the task that you have given me. Then I will provide a possible tool, that you could use in your interrogation of your content and context and then conclude with specific challenges or questions that you want to discuss in groups.
