THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS - The Works of F. N. Lee

perspective -- even while he ministers to the needs of his parishioners.There were three rather amusing incidents in South Africa relating to sculptures and such like. OneI have already related -- when some Roman Catholic people tried to erect a crucifix on top of amountain near Cape Town and were ordered by the South African Government to remove it, as adesecration of public property!There was also a tremendous furore some decades ago in South Africa. A public building was thenbeing completed. One of the famous South African sculptors was commissioned to try to representmedical welfare. He created a sculpture of a family of people stark naked -- a father, a mother and alittle child: in quite robust health, and looking ahead. The idea was to embellish the building withthis figure.However, there was a tremendous grass roots reaction against this -- particularly to the nakednessof the woman in this threesome. The bickering became quite acrimonious. For a while, the statuewas amusingly draped with a sheet, to conceal it from the public eye. This kind of thing could onlyhappen in South Africa!Then there was a Jewish painter, who publicly exhibited a very objectionable oil canvas of a figurenailed to a cross with a donkey's head on it and a Christmas cap on top of the donkey's head.Underneath it were the words: "I forgive You, Father; you didn't know what You were doing!"It was, of course, a blasphemous attempt to ridicule our Lord Jesus. It led to a famous Court Caseanent the removal of this work of art (if such it can be called). There were allegedly even threatsagainst the artist -- who then fled to Israel. I am not defending these ways of handling the matter. Iam just giving you some idea of the flavour of the country and its tastes, at least up to the timewhen I left it.I suppose I need to say something about race relations. This seems to be the most interesting aspect(to the non-South African) of what is going on there. I have said something already, so now I willbe brief.In Genesis 1:28, South Africans understand the Bible to be teaching that God told Adam, theforefather of the human race, to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth. If he had done thiswithout sinning, some of Adam's descendants would have gone and settled in Europe; others inAfrica; others in Asia; others in North and South America; and finally, yet others in Australia. Thevarious different races of man would then have come into being -- harmoniously.Race is not regarded in South Africa by Calvinists as being a consequence of sin nor of the curse. Itis regarded as being an intensification of the genes and the genetic possibilities and combinationswhich would have arisen even had man never fallen into sin. By means of selective breeding, aspeople of certain genetic compositions would have gone and lived in different parts of the world inisolation from one another, they would have bred only with their own kind.So a White South African Calvinist would certainly agree that Black is beautiful -- and that Whiteis beautiful too. For all colours are made by God!Unfortunately, however, man did fall into sin. This led to an intensification of the genes -- andperhaps too of the differences which have now developed between man and man. Thus GodHimself at the tower of Babel (in Genesis eleven) split the human race that wanted to hang togetherand to build the first "United Nations Organisation" skyscraper while denying that God wasrelevant.