February 6, 2004

Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ

It is estimated that three-fourths of Christian youth who go to public university in South Africa effectively lose their faith in the process. As one distraught mother lamented, she paid a small fortune to send her daughter to hell. That is, she paid a small fortune to send her daughter to university, where they her turned aside from the path of life in Christ, into the path of death by unbelief which leads to hell (Proverbs 2:10-22). At Frontline Fellowship, we believe in fighting the enemy on all fronts, so while we labour to advance the claims of our Lord Jesus Christ in countries to the north, we also labour to defend our home base in South Africa. To this end we run a course , every year in January called The Summit to prepare Christian youth for the intellectual attacks of the unbelieving academic world. (Ours is a tiny version of a program by the same name which David Noebel has been running in Colorado for decades).

Let me explain why South Africa is a different case from the rest of the countries in our theatre. When I went from South Africa to Zambia, my Zambian friends greeted me saying, "Welcome to the real Africa!" In Zambia, people of European descent are 1 in 400, and Asians another 1 in 400. Otherwise, it's a black man's land. This is typical of most African nations, but South Africa was still a white man's land until the end of apartheid in 1993. Since then, the country has been shifting into black African control and culture. While the whites have been leaving and more blacks have been arriving from other African countries, whites are still 1 in 10. Furthermore, though the black ANC party controls the government, whites are still a large influence in the economy and society because they tend to have many more employable traits, skills and education. Another 1 in 40 is Asian, and 1 in 11 is "coloured", which is a conglomerate of mixed races and Malaysians. The net result is that South Africa is a European-shaped culture, with enough Europeans remaining to keep this heritage alive, even though 3 in 4 inhabitants are black Africans. Thus South Africa is an estuary where black Africa dwells amid European civilization. That is why my Zambians friends said South Africa was not really Africa- the European influence was still too strong for them to feel at home. The strong Christian heritage has made South Africa a base from which many missionary enterprises were supported, but this is increasingly in jeopardy.

Christianity is not a European white man's religion- it did not start there, and the majority of Christians today fit none of the three parts of that description. In many African countries, a much higher percentage of the population goes to church than in the formerly Christian nations of Europe. But aside from a few ancient exceptions, most of Africa is new to Christianity. Most of the customs and traditions are still those shaped by the historic and present prevalence of animistic beliefs. By contrast, European civilization (a.k.a. "Western") was dominated by Christian teaching for many centuries, and this shaped the very warp and woof of Western culture in many excellent ways. While Western is not synonymous with Christian, Western culture is much more compatible with Christianity than others, because Christianity made Western civilization to be so.

In a typical African country, we are labouring among the churches to displace heathen notions in the minds of the people, and competing with the secular humanists to provide the new culture. In South Africa, we are fighting to defend many traditions of Christian origin against the attacks of the ungodly. While it was a bastion of Western civilization, it is being culturally demolished both by Africans promoting African tribal culture and by Western unbelievers who are betraying their own Christian heritage in favour of secular immoral living. Regrettably, the apartheid legacy is used to blacklist and attack the entire heritage of the Afrikaners (Dutch) and English. For instance, opposition to homosexual activism is likened to advocating apartheid. Stung with shame for the apartheid years, Christians are not putting up much fight about the destruction of morals. As Jean-Francois Revel said, "A civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does and thinks will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself when its existence is threatened."

So, among other labours, we run The Summit course to withstand the unbelievers' efforts to subvert the next generation of Christians. This year it was held from 9-16 January at a conference centre in Simonstown, just south of Cape Town,. It's a beautiful complex, situated on a mountain slope overlooking False Bay. Just a few kilometers away is a beach where thousands of penguins nest. It seems that penguins do not insist on polar ice fields as a habitat, as there is no ice on the African coast, though the water is cool here at the Cape.

The course is geared for students coming out of secondary school and going into university, though there were also some older pupils as well. Since most of them were teenagers, we worked hard at wearing them out, lest they should stay up late and cause us grief. We kept the days packed, from PT (physical training) at 06:30, to the end of the night's video at 23:00. Mildly disconcerting to me was the fact that a few of these 18 year old guys could outrun me in the morning jog. Just a few, mind you. Be it resolved, for next time I shall have to train harder to compensate for my advancing years.

Our lecture topics covered the sort of topics that one finds in university classes and discussions, such as: Biblical vs Humanist worldview, Our Christian Heritage, Creation vs Evolution, Christian Astrophysics vs. Humanist, Biblical Economics vs. Socialism, History of Communism, analyzing rock music and movies, Courtship and Marriage, History of Law, Abortion, Media Bias, homosexual political agenda, and more. Our goal is to equip these young people to recognize that many things which are portrayed as the undeniable facts of reality are actually lies of unbelief. We also seek to show them how much there is to be proud of in Christianity's legacy, lest the world's malicious lies defaming our heritage should make them be lacking in vigour to defend the faith. As the evil Karl Marx said, "The first battlefield is the re-writing of history." (His re-writing has ultimately led to innumerable real battles, the slaughter of millions, and the destruction of many Christians and churches).

At our mission house the following week we hosted our Week of Action, which is a practical course in Christian political/social activism. Activities included election canvassing, radio programs, letter writing, protests in front of porn shops and brothels, street evangelism, and visiting parliament. This was a much smaller group, eleven, as opposed to about seventy at The Summit.

Personally, I had the time of my life participating as course staff. I had the privelege of delivering a few of the addresses, and continual oppurtunities to interact with and mentor these young people. I enjoyed it all immensely. In the service of our Lord, there is fulness of joy (Psalm 16:11, John 10:10, Psalm 34:8-14, Psalm 37:3-5).

In Christ,
Lawren M. Guldemond
Frontline Fellowship

"As long as I see anything to be done for God, life is worth living; but O, how vain and unworthy it is to live for any lower end!" -David Brainerd