Kairos, Crisis, and Global Apartheid

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Allan Aubrey Boesak

   Pages 1-7

3. Hearing the Cry and Reading the Signs of the Times: A Humanity with a Kairos Consciousness

   • Allan Aubrey Boesak

   Pages 9-37

4. At the Heart of It All: Kairos, Apartheid, and the Calvinist Tradition

   • Allan Aubrey Boesak

   Pages 39-68

5. The Time for Pious Words Is Over: Kairos, Decision, and Righteous Choices

   • Allan Aubrey Boesak

   Pages 69-92

6. The Inclusiveness of God’s Embrace: Kairos, Justice, the Dignity of Human Sexuality, and the Confession of Belhar

   • Allan Aubrey Boesak

   Pages 93-117

7. The End of Words? Kairos, Challenge, and the Rhetoric of the Barricades

   • Allan Aubrey Boesak

   Pages 119-140

8. Speaking Truth to the Tower: Kairos, Dissent, and Prophetic Speech

   • Allan Aubrey Boesak

   Pages 141-167

9. Combative Love and Revolutionary Neighborliness: Kairos, Solidarity, and the Jericho Road

   • Allan Aubrey Boesak

   Pages 169-197

10. That Which Avails Much: Kairos, Public Prayer, and Political Piety

    • Allan Aubrey Boesak

    Pages 199-211

11. Back Matter

    Pages 213-272

    PDF

In 1985, the Kairos Document emerged out of the anti-apartheid struggle as a devastating critique of apartheid and a challenge to the church in that society. This book is a call to discern new moments of crisis, discernment and kairos, and respond with prophetic resistance to global injustice.

• Kairos
• global apartheid
• prophetic witness
• prophetic preaching
• resistance
• faith and politics
• Kairos consciousness
• revolution
• social justice
• society
• theology
• religion and society

"This book reminds us of the need for an ongoing commitment to the struggle against exclusion and exploitation. As we read reports of growing racial and economic disparities in the United States, we cannot help but see the ongoing need which makes this work very timely." - Rev. Dr. Cheryl B. Anderson, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, USA

"This important work advances our quest to develop theologies that are truly Christian theologies that are practiced with the tender and sympathetic heart of the priest, the clear and illuminating vision of the prophet, and the hope and action of the royal servant." - Nico Koopman, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

"Boesak saw apartheid in South Africa for what it was: heresy. Thirty years later he sets his eyes on the apartheid girdling our globe, making critical connections between issues too-often presented as separate. Reading the signs of our time, Boesak urges us to resist. A prophet speaks. We would do well to listen and act in hope." - Melanie Duguid-May, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, USA

"It has always been impossible to hear or read Boesak's words of power without being deeply challenged both to see differently and respond with seriousness. This book is no exception." - Dirkie Smit, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

"Boesak serves up a hermeneutic and a theology for our times. Forged in the battle to free his South African homeland, renewed by the calls ofthe Palestinians and of indigenous struggles worldwide, and tempered by his own suffering in the struggle for the soul of post-Apartheid South Africa, Boesak's voice stirs our souls and pierces our hearts. More urgently than we may care to realize, we need his voice now." - Mark Braverman, Executive Director, Kairos USA

Allan Aubrey Boesak is Desmond Tutu Chair of Peace, Global Justice and Reconciliation Studies at Christian Theological Seminary, USA.

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