Thabo Cecil Makgoba
KStJ
The Order of St John, short for Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (french: l'ordre très vénérable de l'Hôpital de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem) and also known as St John International, is a British British monarchy ...
(born 15 December 1960
in
Alexandra
Alexandra () is the feminine form of the given name Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus it may be roughly translated as "defender of man" or "prot ...
,
Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to De ...
) is the South African
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...
archbishop of Cape Town. He had served before as
bishop of Grahamstown
The Bishop of Grahamstown is the Ordinary of the Diocese of Grahamstown in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.
The Bishop's residence is Bishopsbourne, Grahamstown
List of Bishops of Grahamstown
Diocesan bishops
# John Armstrong, ...
.
Biography
Makgoba graduated from Orlando High,
Soweto
Soweto () is a township of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for ''South Western Townships''. Formerly a se ...
, and completed his
BSc
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...
degree at
Wits University
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...
before going to
St Paul's College, Grahamstown to study for the Anglican ministry. He married Lungelwa Manona. Since then he obtained an
MEd degree in Educational Psychology at Wits, where he also lectured part-time from 1993 to 1996.
[ He was made bishop of Queenstown (a ]suffragan bishop
A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations.
In the Anglican Communion, a suffragan bishop is a bishop who is subordinate to a metropolitan bishop or diocesan bishop (bishop ordinary) and so is not normally jurisdiction ...
in the Diocese of Grahamstown
The Diocese of Grahamstown is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. It is centred on the historic city of Makhanda in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The diocese extends to East London, in the east and Port Alfred to the ...
) on 25 May 2002 and became the diocesan bishop of Grahamstown
The Bishop of Grahamstown is the Ordinary of the Diocese of Grahamstown in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.
The Bishop's residence is Bishopsbourne, Grahamstown
List of Bishops of Grahamstown
Diocesan bishops
# John Armstrong, ...
(in Makhanda) in 2004.
Until he moved to the Diocese of Grahamstown
The Diocese of Grahamstown is a diocese of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. It is centred on the historic city of Makhanda in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The diocese extends to East London, in the east and Port Alfred to the ...
as bishop suffragan, Makgoba's ministry had been spent in the Diocese of Johannesburg, first as a curate at the St Mary's Cathedral, Johannesburg and then as the Anglican chaplain at Wits University. After that he was made rector
Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to:
Style or title
*Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations
*Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...
of St Alban's Church, Ferrairasdorp, Johannesburg and later of Christ the King, Sophiatown. He became archdeacon
An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denominations, above that of most ...
of Sophiatown in 1999. He became archbishop of Cape Town on 31 December 2007, the youngest person ever to be elected to this position. He was a Procter Fellow of the Episcopal Divinity School
The Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) is a theological school in New York City that trains students for service with the Episcopal Church. It is affiliated with the Union Theological Seminary. Students who enroll in the EDS at Union Anglican st ...
in the United States in 2008.
As of 2012, Makgoba is currently the chancellor of the University of the Western Cape
The University of the Western Cape (UWC) is a public research university in Bellville, near Cape Town, South Africa. The university was established in 1959 by the South African government as a university for Coloured people only. Other u ...
.
Makgoba graduated with a PhD degree from the University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town (UCT) ( af, Universiteit van Kaapstad, xh, Yunibesithi ya yaseKapa) is a public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university sta ...
in December 2009. He was awarded the Ernest Oppenheimer
Sir Ernest Oppenheimer (22 May 1880 – 25 November 1957), KStJ was a diamond and gold mining entrepreneur, financier and philanthropist, who controlled De Beers and founded the Anglo American Corporation of South Africa.
Career
Ernest Oppenh ...
Memorial Trust Scholarship to study for his doctorate. He is also an adjunct professor at the Allan Gray School for Values at UCT.
Views
Makgoba believes that 'We must each ask, "Who is my neighbour?" and then treat every individual and our whole global community in ways that uphold the sanctity of life, the dignity of humanity in all our differences, and the integrity of creation. These are our touchstones as we follow God's call for social justice
Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...
here and now.'
Makgoba is open to discussions on the orthodox Anglican stance on homosexuality. The Anglican Diocese of Cape Town, after a Synod held in Cape Town, on 20–22 August 2009, passed a resolution calling the Anglican Church in Southern Africa bishops to give pastoral guidelines for homosexual couples living in "covenanted partnerships". At the same time, it was approved an amendment for the resolution which provided that the guidelines "due regard of the mind of the Anglican Communion." Makgoba stated that the resolution was "an important first step to saying: 'Lord, how do we do ministry in this context?' I'm a developmental person. I don't believe in big bangs. If you throw a little pebble into water, it sends out concentric circles and hopefully that way change comes from that." He also said that "South Africa has laws that approve a civil union in this context, but not in the other countries within our province. In central Africa and north Africa, both the Anglican Church and the state say 'no'" and "The reason for this resolution was because we have these parishioners, and the law provides for them to be in that state, so how do we pastorally respond to that?"
In 2016 Makgoba stated he was "pained" after a church synod rejected a proposal to allow bishops to license gay and lesbian clergy who are in same sex civil marriages to minister in parishes and rejected a motion to provide for prayers of blessing to be offered for those in same sex civil marriages. After the synod, which covered churches from Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, St Helena, and Swaziland, Makgoba advised "our lesbian sisters and gay brothers: I was deeply pained by the outcome of the debate".
Political statements
Like his predecessors, he has used his position to make political statements about current affairs. In October 2009, he supported Bishop Rubin Phillip's condemnation of the violence at Kennedy Road informal settlement in which a local militia "acted with the support of the local ANC structures".
Awards
* Cross of St Augustine in 2008, the second highest international award for outstanding service to the Anglican Communion, by the Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Jus ...
.
* Seven honorary doctorates in divinity, from the General Theological Seminary
The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church (GTS) is an Episcopal seminary in New York City. Founded in 1817, GTS is the oldest seminary of the Episcopal Church and the longest continuously operating Seminary in the Anglican Communio ...
(2009) and Huron University College
Huron University College is a university college affiliated with the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. Huron was incorporated on 5 May 1863 and the founding institution of the University of Western Ontario.
It was est ...
( 2013).[Honorary Degree List](_blank)
at GTS
GTS may refer to:
Education
* General Theological Seminary, in New York City
* Grace Theological Seminary, in Winona Lake, Indiana
* Great Torrington School, in Devon, England
Computing
*Giga-Texel Shader, a line of GPUs marketed by Nvidia
O ...
May 2009 Sewanee: The University of the South (2015). Honorary doctorate in literature from Witwatersrand University
The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...
(2016). Received the Chancellor's medal University of Pretoria
The University of Pretoria ( af, Universiteit van Pretoria, nso, Yunibesithi ya Pretoria) is a multi-campus public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 ...
(2015). Honorary doctorate in Divinity University of Stellenbosch
Stellenbosch University ( af, Universiteit Stellenbosch) is a public research university situated in Stellenbosch, a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Stellenbosch is the oldest university in South Africa and the oldest extant ...
(2018). Honorary degree in divinity from Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...
(2019). Honorary degree in divinity from Berkeley Divinity School (2021).
* Knight of Justice of the Most Venerable Order of Saint John
Works
*Faith and Courage- Praying with Nelson Mandela (2018);
*Workplace Spirituality (2012?);
*Connectedness(2005) and
* a number of journal articles
References
External links
The Archbishop Thabo Makgoba Development Trust
Public blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Makgoba, Thabo
1960 births
21st-century Anglican archbishops
Anglican archbishops of Cape Town
Anglican bishops of Grahamstown
Living people
20th-century South African Anglican priests
21st-century Anglican Church of Southern Africa bishops
University of Cape Town alumni
University of the Witwatersrand alumni
Chancellors of the University of the Western Cape