Reflections

When reading the New Testament, one should not really ever forget what the situation was like in Palestine at the time. It was under Roman rule. And those Romans were crazy – ask Obelix. They made you hang around at a whim. On a crucifix. If you were a slave, your owner literally held your life in his hands. You were considered an ‘it’ – stripped of humanity. It wasn’t a crime to kill a slave, anymore than it was a crime to kill a dog. Those were bad times in which the story of Christ unfolds. And yet, He NEVER berated the Roman oppressors. He had lots to say about the Jewish religious leaders. But about Caesar? Well, we all know what He said about Caesar... So let’s change the setting: White, racist, apartheid South Africa… So there was this Wit Baas, three blacks employees working for him. They weren’t slaves, neither was he a Roman. He didn’t give them the vote, but he gave them pretty much everything they still have in post-apartheid South Africa. And he cursed them, and call