The greatest religious challenge in the 21st century is the maintenance of what has become an amalgamation of spiritual and political leadership, especially as displayed in the life and thought of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In my previous work on Tutu, Reconciliation: The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu (Pilgrim Press) and The Wisdom of Desmond Tutu (WestminsterJohnKnox), I have shown that at the heart of Tutu’s thought are his Anglican ecclesiology (common prayer) and African concept of ubuntu (i.e., communitarian identity), both of which inform how he appeals for South Africa to move beyond the theological constructions of apartheid. Movement beyond insidious apartheid was ultimately done through forgiveness. This was (and is) being done in light of an ecclesial ubuntu that disallows recourse to radical, interpretative schemes of black political discourse in order to save white people from the effects of black rage. Such rage would only further patterns of violence and abuse, thereby locking a nation in perpetual turmoil – such nations are too plentiful. In short, I argued in my book that Tutu’s gift to South Africa (and to the world) is in how Christian orthopraxy is narrated in a context of conflicting racial identities in a manner that makes their lives intelligible to each other.

Now that major spiritual leaders in South Africa are dead, retiring or moving to more reflective stages in their lives, a tear rips between spiritual leadership per se and spiritual leadership that also addresses political life. Such ripped fabric has always existed in the U.S. My immediate concern here, however, is that much of the world has depended terribly on the spiritual-political voice of Tutu to articulate why forgiveness (what he calls "restorative justice") is better than retributive justice. From my concern the frightening question is raised: What will happen when the world is faced with political crises, while perhaps having little recourse to major public, spiritual leaders like Tutu? The reason this question becomes crucial is that Tutu has offered us navigation skills by which to refuse the false dichotomy between the spiritual and the political.

Tutu adheres theologically to a metanarrative of God’s forgiveness in which conflicting racial identities are expressed and defined in the reconciling concept of imago dei revealed through Jesus Christ, who manifests the plentitude of relational personhood. Tutu’s role as national confessor operates from a distinctively theological model of forgiveness in which human identity depends on a Trinitarian image of God, namely, the flourishing relation of Persons. Not to forgive assumes there is no such image of God among humanity. For Tutu, more specifically, not to forgive assumes no future at all (hence the title of his latest book: No Future without Forgiveness).

Naturally, the question is now raised: If there is only forgiveness, can there ever be justice? This question faced Tutu every day of his chairing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Tutu’s response is in the synergy that always must exist between forgiveness and repentance. In other words, to forgive at all in the tragic circumstances of apartheid demanded a complete turn around (repentance) of power and oppression. To truly be able to forgive in the circumstances of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission meant that South Africa was at the point in their nation’s story when those who were victims had won the war. And most of all, it was at the point in the story when the protagonist would proclaim that there would never be the creation of such victims again. And to this day, South Africa has constructed the most inclusive national constitution that exists on this planet – vowing never to oppress any category of people again. So, yes – there can be justice and forgiveness. This leads me back to where I began – with a search for future spiritual-political leaders. There will be many more circumstances when the victims win again, but will there be only the bloodcurdling scream for revenge ringing in our ears – thereby perpetuating cycles of abuse and oppression? Will there be only John Wayne-type Texas presidents who only understand solutions through the barrel of a gun?

As I prepare my latest book, A Christian Spirituality of Nonviolence (forthcoming in spring 2003, Mercer University Press), my dream is that we will all learn from Tutu, Gandhi, and ultimately from Jesus how to stop the redundant cycles of abuse – those siren songs of violence.