The chicken or the egg:

After so many years of debating this contentions topic, have we come any closer to discovering the answer to this question? I am probably as far from the answer to this question as I am to the question that was posed to me today: do you have a specific set of moral and ethical standards due to your religion or would you have had this guide in your life without religion?? Per implication my guest was asking me if I thought that he was an immoral person because he was a-religious.

We had an interesting morning, and I am not quite sure how religion became part of the conversation, no infact, we were driving up, across form Houtbay to Llandudno, after a splendid lunch, he’s Jewish, so I asked if he kept Kosher, in order for me to arrnage for appropreate food at all our function venues, and he said – don’t worry I do not see myself as Jewish, and I love all pork products.

My knee jerk answer to his question was YES, YES and YES. Its what I believe that makes me who I am. Its Gods love, His Spirit, and His grace that makes my attempts at LIFE the way it is, that gives me the foundation, the moral and ethical platform for the way I live, that makes me reach out to people the way I do. But the next question, do I then belief that people like himself who lives without religion have less of a change to have this moral and ethical foundation, as although they live as humanitarians their motivation is not necessarily humanity, but simply because it’s the right way to live, to do good, to influence your environment, and to do good to all people, that stumped me. How did Nelson Mandela (and at the moment my guest is visiting Robbin Island, so this question was quite relevant) who comes across, and have never in public refer to believing in God(at least I have not heard it), did what he did. How did his moral and ethical foundation develop, if religion played no role. Or should we discredit what he has done due to his non-religious believes? I think if he had chosen any other example I would have been quick to give him the “religious-correct” answer. But using Madiba as the comparator, stumped me a bit.

I want to belief that this graceful man, is surely knowing or unknowing, God inspired. That he just like Beyers Naude were raised up, from our nation, to be His voice, in directing His people into a different direction. Like when He told Moses to part the Red Sea so that the Israelites can escape death on the banks of the Sea, so He re-directed us out of the way of death on the banks of Apartheid, to the promised land, using these 2 incredible people.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said that God must have a good sense of humour, to choose somebody like Beyers Naude, a clergy in the NGK, an Afrikaner, the son of the founder of the Broederbond, to speak out against Apartheid, the most unlikely candidate, almost like Saul. So that takes care of Oom Bey. He knew God therefore, we can assume that his foundations dictated or predicted his believes and thus his actions.

But what about Madiba??? And others like him, who changes the directions of peoples lives dramatically, who influence, at the very core of peoples lives, by sitting with children, by crying with grown men, by reaching out to their oppressors, by laughing at themselves through telling Old South Africa jokes, so that people from both sides can laugh together, but who have been so disappointed in the way that Christians think and live, so disappointed by the verdicts of the past (I heard a recording of Dr Verwoerd, saying that Apartheid was a gift of God to the Church) of people who claims to be following GOD.
…….and this makes me pull back my knee, makes me think a bit longer before giving the religiously correct answer, makes me filled with emotion, knowing that what I need to do, is build this relation, with this international customer of my organisation, with whom I have the privilege to travel for a week, so that I can learn form this wise man, and so that I can serve him, maybe he grows fond of me, and see in me the reason why I am who I am, maybe just maybe he sees a slither of my motivation, maybe I can talk to him without using my voice, by living what I believe, maybe just maybe he can make up his own mind about my chicken and egg predicament.