The University of South Africa (Unisa)’s Chief Albert Luthuli Research Chair in partnership with the Luthuli Museum, will host the 2024 Founders Lecture at the Unisa Muckleneuk campus in Pretoria under the theme: “Where is the Church? Revisiting the role of the Church in modern society”.
This year’s keynote address will be delivered by a renowned politician and anti-apartheid activist Reverend Professor Allan Boesak, followed by responses from key academics and scholars, which include Reverend Euodia Volanie: Minister, United Congregational Church of Southern Africa and Professor Thinandavha Mashau: Deputy Executive Dean, College of Human Sciences, Unisa.
Boesak is a South African Dutch Reformed Church cleric who studied at the University of the Western Cape and was ordained in Immanuel Dutch Reformed Mission Church in Paarl in 1968 at age 22.
In 1970 he started advanced studies at the Theological University at Kampen in the Netherlands and was awarded the Doctor’s degree in Theology in June 1976. A week after the Soweto Uprisings, he returned to South Africa to become Chaplain to students at the University of the Western Cape, Peninsula Technicon, and Bellville Teachers College, and then minister at Bellville Dutch Reformed Mission Church.
Over the years, Boesak became a world-renowned liberation theologian and a coveted speaker at global ecumenical events.
His involvement in public life and South Africa’s freedom struggle began in 1976 with his leading role in resistance politics in South Africa. Along with Beyers Naudé and Winnie Mandela, Boesak won the 1985 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award given annually by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights to an individual or group whose courageous activism is at the heart of the human rights movement and in the spirit of Robert F. Kennedy's vision and legacy.
In his values of leadership, Chief Albert Luthuli’s teachings were shaped by his Christian faith and theology, and he considered himself a Christian first and foremost and his Christianity then informed his other roles, including being a politician.
Chief Albert Luthuli would have provoked the churches and their silence. This is because in his values of leadership, the voices of people mattered, including those of the youth and women, as his teachings were shaped by his Christian faith and theology. We therefore host this lecture as a platform for reflection, provocation and collective reimagination. It is a call to action as we continue to exist in turbulent times.
The lecture will take place this Friday from 5.30pm at Function Hall, 4th floor, Kgorong Building, Unisa Main Campus in Tshwane.