The Arsenal of Grace

Another reading from Philip Yancey's book Grace Notes is the reading for today, titled The Arsenal of Grace. It's taken from his book, What's So Amazing About Grace, (135-136). Food for thought . . .

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"Like a gale of pure air driving out stagnant clouds of pollution, peaceful revolution spread across the globe. In 1989 alone ten nations comprising half a billion people experienced nonviolent revolutions. In many of these, the Christian minority played a crucial role. Stalin's mocking question, "How many divisions has the Pope?" got its answer.

"Then in 1994 came the most surprising revolution of all, surprising because nearly everyone expected bloodshed. South Africa, though, was also the mother lode of peaceful protest, for it was there that Mohandas Gandhi, studying Tolstoy and the Sermon on the Mount, developed his strategy of nonviolence (which Martin Luther King Jr. later adopted). With much opportunity to practice, South Africans had perfected the use of the weapons of grace. Walter Wink tells of a black woman who was walking on the street with her children when a white man spat in her face. She stopped, and said, "Thank you, and now for the children." Nonplussed, the man was unable to respond.

"In one squatter's village, black South African women suddenly found themselves surrounded by soldiers with bulldozers. The soldiers announced through a bullhorn that the women had two minutes to clear out before their village would be razed. The women had no weapons, and the men of the village were away at work. Knowing the puritanical tendencies of rural Dutch Reformed Afrikaners, the black women stood in front of the bulldozers and stripped off all their clothes. The police fled, and the village remains standing to this day.

"News reports barely mentioned the key role that Christian faith played in South Africa's peaceful revolution. After a mediation team led by Henry Kissinger had abandoned all hope of convincing the Inkatha Freedom Party to participate in elections, a Christian diplomat from Kenya met privately with all the principals, prayed with them, and helped change their minds. (A mysteriously malfunctioning compass on an airplane delayed one flight, making this crucial meeting possible.)
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Taken from Grace Notes by Philip Yancey. Reading for September 24, originally in Philip Yancey's book What's So Amazing About Grace?

Grace in Action

Again, from Philip Yancey . . . this post from his book Rumors of Another World (222-24), Zondervan 2003.

" . . . We live in a world that judges people by their behavior and requires criminals, debtors, and moral failures to live with their consequences. Even the church finds it difficult to forgive those who fall short."

"Grace is irrational, unfair, unjust, and only makes sense if I believe in another world governed by a merciful God . . . "Amazing Grace," a rare hymn that in recent times climbed the charts of popular music, . . . John Newton, a gruff and bawdy slave trader, "a wretch like me," wrote that hymn after being transformed by amazing grace."

"When the world sees grace in action, it falls silent. Nelson Mandela taught the world a lesson in grace when, after emerging from prison after twenty-seven years and being elected president of South Africa, he asked his jailer to join him on the inauguration platform. He then appointed Archbishop Desmond Tutu to head an official government panel with a daunting name, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC]. Mandela sought to defuse the natural pattern of revenge that he had seen in so many countries where one oppressed race or tribe took control from another.

"For the next two-and-a-half years South Africans listened to reports of atrocities coming out of the TRC hearings. The rules were simple: if a white policeman or army officer voluntarily faced his accusers, confessed his crime, and fully acknowledged his guilt, he could not be tried and punished for that crime. Hard-liners grumbled about the obvious injustice of letting criminals go free, but Mandela insisted that the country needed healing even more than it needed justice.

"At one TRC hearing, a policeman named van de Broek recounted an incident when he and other officers shot an eighteen-year-old boy and burned the body. Eight years later van de Broek returned to the same house and seized the boy's father. The wife was forced to watch as policemen bound her husband on a woodpile, poured gasoline over his body, and ignited it.

"The courtroom grew hushed as the elderly woman who had lost first her son and then her husband was given a chance to respond. "What do you want from Mr. van de Broek?" the judge asked. She said she wanted van de Broek to go to the place where they burned her husband's body and gather up the dust so she could give him a decent burial. His head down, the policeman nodded agreement.

"Then she added a further request, "Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him. And I would like Mr. van de Broek to know . . . that I forgive him . . . I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real."

"Spontaneously, some in the courtroom began singing "Amazing Grace" as the elderly woman made her way to the witness stand, but van de Broek did not hear the hymn. He had fainted, overwhelmed.

"Justice was not done in South Africa that day, nor in the entire country during months of agonizing procedures by the TRC. Something beyond justice took place. "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good," said Paul. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu understood that when evil is done, one response alone can overcome the evil. Revenge perpetuates the evil. Justice punishes it. Evil is overcome by good only if the injured party absorbs it, refusing to allow it to go any further. And that is the pattern of otherworldly grace that Jesus showed in his life and death."

(From Rumors of Another World by Philip Yancey, published in 2003 by Zondervan. From pages 222-24)

Grace in Action