Racial Injustice in South Africa
I write not out of mere concern, but out of deep disgust and disbelief at Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s one-sided, uninformed, and shamefully biased position regarding the racial realities in South Africa today.
It is beyond clear that he has no true understanding of—or worse, no interest in acknowledging—the full truth of what is happening on the ground. His blind alignment with a politically fashionable narrative ignores the grotesque and escalating discrimination, threats, and violence faced by minority white South Africans today. The suffering of these communities is not only overlooked—it is actively dismissed by voices like Bishop Rowe’s under the guise of historical justice.
His stance is not only an affront to truth; it is a betrayal of his calling as a Christian leader. His silence and indifference toward the racial targeting and vilification of a vulnerable minority group—based solely on the color of their skin—make him complicit in the very kind of injustice he claims to oppose. Justice that is not applied equally is no justice at all. One does not get to pick and choose who deserves compassion and protection.
Bishop Rowe has shown a staggering lack of integrity, balance, and moral courage. To ignore the facts, the testimonies, the brutal farm murders, the exclusionary policies, and the state-enabled racial hostility is not simply ignorance—it is willful blindness. And in his position, that is utterly inexcusable.
If he genuinely cares about reconciliation, human dignity, and justice, then I challenge him to open his eyes to the entire reality of South Africa—not just the parts that fit a sanitized, politically acceptable narrative. Until then, his voice on this matter carries no moral weight.
I urge Bishop Rowe to reconsider his position and to engage honestly with what is happening in my country—not just from behind a desk, but by facing the hard truths he has clearly chosen to ignore.
Leon De Kock
Hartswater
Northern Cape Province
South Africa
Don’t Hide the Gospel
I shake my head with regularity at the excuses many good Christians make in denying my people the right to hear the Good News of Jesus. I grew up an Orthodox Jew in Kansas City and attended Washington University. I lived in the Delmar Loop (St. Louis) and was very committed to my religion, even bringing other Jews into deeper commitment to Judaism.
According to Stewart Clem in his review of Paul Griffiths’ Israel: A Christian Grammar (TLC, July 7), I should have remained a practicing Jew and never heard about the gospel. Griffiths avers that if I somehow did come to faith in Jesus, I should not have been baptized.
I’m so glad both Clem and Griffiths are wrong. I’m so glad others had the holy chutzpah to offer me the hope that is only found in the grace of God through the death of Jesus, the Messiah. Back in Bible days, the Lord used a four-cornered sheet filled with what might be today bacon double cheeseburgers and Red Lobster shrimp to get Peter to take the gospel beyond Jewish hearers, to Gentiles. What will it take for God to get the church today to share the Good News with Jewish colleagues and friends? A six-cornered sheet filled with pastrami on rye and some matzo ball soup?
What was the gravest mistake of the church in 1940? Some would shout, “Silence.” Will we self-incriminate again by being silent in light of Jesus telling his followers to go to his own people … and to the whole world? What part of panta ta ethne did Jesus exclude?
I believe we should leave the Jews alone … as much as Jesus did.
Bob Mendelsohn
Jews for Jesus
Sydney, Australia
A Response
I suspect that if Bob Mendelsohn were to read Griffiths’ book he would still find plenty to disagree with, but it should be noted that Griffiths would likely deny Mendelsohn’s claim “I should have remained a practicing Jew and never heard about the Gospel.” Griffiths does not deny that the good news of Jesus Christ is for the Jew as well as for the Gentile. What he does deny, however, is that the Jew must fully assimilate into the Christian Church, as if the covenant with the Jews has been abolished. This is why he claims that Christians should not require Jewish converts to be baptized.
Note that he does not say that a Jew who desires to be baptized should be discouraged from being baptized (also note that I expressed misgivings about this point in my review). He is ultimately concerned about the integrity of the Synagogue, alongside the Church, within the shared category of “Israel.” I hope that our readers will take Griffiths seriously and consider what it might mean for Jews and Gentiles to follow Jesus in distinct but complementary ways.
The Rev. Stewart Clem
St. Louis
Keep Communion Options
I read with interest the Rev. Matthew S.C. Olver’s reposting of a letter he wrote to Episcopal bishops suggesting that it is time to end intinction as a regular method of distributing Holy Communion and that the bishops ought to do something about that. This leaves me a bit confused about the assumptions behind the letter, and the remedy requested.
To start, I don’t know Fr. Olver’s sitz im leben. I didn’t know there was a problem. All churches I have visited in recent years offer the wafer in the hand, and the common cup, as is traditional. Many provide the option of an intinction cup, but since the communicant has already received the wafer by hand, and a common cup is visually prominent, it seems unnecessary to elevate the issue to intervention level.
I generally agree with Fr. Olver’s explanation of eucharistic theology and the ideal ways in which Communion should be distributed as wafers and wine in the common cup. I disagree with the presumption that the bishop should direct, decree, and enforce compliance with traditional practices in congregations where the people, or their clergy, are taking a more careful approach. A bishop suggesting via a pastoral teaching letter that, in congregations that do not offer a common cup, that it is time to do so, is valid and reasonable. Are there really many such congregations out there?
I’m now retired, and working as a priest in charge. I was not working during the pandemic, but I was working during the transition to normalcy after the COVID pandemic. When it was time to restore the traditional practice of the common cup, I did not remove or eliminate the intinction chalice. I simply added the common Communion cup. People had options.
In the months and years since, the number of people drinking has increased, and the number dipping has decreased. But it would have been the cruelest pastoral action of all if I forced those who wish to intinct to stop doing so. They would have felt excommunicated, and that’s not what a priest is supposed to impose upon communicants.
The Rev. John Sorensen, retired
Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina
TLC Editors
