DESPITE the tense political climate, politicians once again joined religious leaders from across denominations and thousands of congregants to put party politics aside as they participated in the Diakonia Council of Churches Easter service. on Friday, 14 April.
The annual Service is an important day in the South African Christian calendar as well as a highlight event in the Durban Easter holiday cultural line up.
Cardinal Wilfrid Napier OFM, of the Catholic Archdiocese of Durban preached around the the theme for 2017: Whom shall I send? (Isaiah 6.8). Cardinal Napier said South Africa’s great challenges facing Christianity today was rampant relativism and resurgent paganism.
“Relativism is an ideology, which places the individual, his rights, his values, his needs and desires at the centre of and above everything else. The individual is the only reference point.”
“There is no place for other people, their rights, their values, their needs and desires – least of all, the poor and marginalized. Indeed, rampant Relativism has no place for God, for Jesus Christ, for his Church, for the Community or for Creation. Its only focus is the EGO,” said Cardinal Napier.
Speaking of the resurgence of paganism, he said, “For us this challenge comes mainly, but not solely, from Africa. It too is manifest in a similar rejection of Christianity, in favour of dubious traditional beliefs and practices at odds with Christianity,” he said.
Politicians Sihle Zikalala, Mayor Zandile Gumede, Social Welfare MEC Weziwe Thusi and Human Settlements MEC Ravi Pillay and DA Provincial leader,
Zwakele Mncwango also got into the reconciliative spirit of Easter at the Good Friday Service, carrying the cross on its last leg of the procession to the foot of City Hall where it was symbolically flowered, concluding the service.
