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To: Theme Committee 1.
Re: Item 2: Character of State.
I am a South African citizen, deeply
thankful for the changes that have taken place in our country and for the
emergence of the new
democratic State.
My purpose in writing is to ask that
the first six words of the Constitution be retained.
In humble submission to almighty
The State is not God and does not
claim to be God, and it is important that this should be made clear.
I
write as a Christian. Christians form an absolute majority of the South African
population - 66.4% according to a recent estimated)
Together with Jews, Muslims
and other theists, they believe that God is the Creator and that the earth is
the Lord's. Loyal to the
State, they can never put the State above God.
In
the North Atlantic countries, particularly the U.S.A and Great Britain, there is
a current tendency to divide human life into private
and public domains. and to
separate fact and value. We do not have to follow this trend, in which the
public world is seen as the
world of facts that are the same for everyone, while
the private world is a world of values, where all are free to choose their own
values. This spiritual relativism has the effect of destroying the basis of all
faiths, reducing them to a minimal level of purely
personal opinion where all
choices are equally unimportant.
This concept is sometimes presented as an
even-handed neutrality
t.
and as a product of modern tolerance. In fact, it is a very old idea which
was present in the attitude of the Roman State at the
beginning of the Christian
era. The Roman Empire under the Caesars thought that it was tolerant about
religion. Christians were
asked, "Why not sprinkle a few grains of incense at
the statue of the Emperor?" When they replied, "We cannot worship the Emperor,
we worship God alone", they were executed for this declaration of faith.
A
hundred and fifty years ago, the great English statesman, William Ewart
Gladstone, wrote these prophetic words:
"Rome ... added without stint or
scruple to her list of gods and goddesses, and consolidated her military empire
by a skilful medley
of all the religions of the world". But when Christianity
"had made actual and solid truth the common inheritance of all men, then
the
religion of Christ became ... an object of jealousy and of cruel persecution,
because it would not consent to become a partner
in this heterogeneous device,
and planted itself upon truth, and not in the quicksand of opinion ... Should
the Christian faith become
but one among many co-equal pensioners of a
government, it will be a proof that subjective religion has again lost its
God-given
hold upon objective reality"... And "this will prove that we are once
more in a transition-state ‑that we are travelling back
again from the
region to which the Gospel brought us, towards that in which it found
us".(2)
Anne Applebaum, whose family is Jewish, has seen the value
of
shared experience in nation-building. In a recent newspaper
article she points out that to suppress Christmas decorations and
Nativity scenes for the supposed protection of those of other faiths
or of none
is an act of intolerance - "intolerance of the delicate fabric of tradition
which holds nations together". The modern
State, she believes, "remains
cohesive only by making occasional concessions to majority opinion, even
reserving a place for the
majority religion in public life".(3)
In the new
South Africa we can be thankful that the State will not enforce beliefs; but it
would be very sad indeed if we were to
become a community without character or
cohesion. To avoid this we need to put first things first.
John Carter,
29.12.1994.
(The Rt. Rev'd. John Carter, 80 The Ridge, Clifton, 8001.
Telephone: (021) 438-5806.)
NOTES: (1) This figure was taken from an article by Professor
Dons Kritzinger in 'Woord en Daad'.
(2) W.E.Gladstone: The State in its relation to the
Church. Quoted in A.R.Vidler: The Orb and the Cross,p.142-143.
(3) Anne Applebaum: Is Christmas a rude word to the intolerant? Top of the
Times supplement to the Cape Times, 23.12.1994. (Reprinted
from The Telegraph,
London).
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