Sabelo Stanley Ntwasa was a priest in the

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

Anglican Church 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 t ...

. He is remembered especially for his friendship with

Black Consciousness Movement The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Afr ...

founder

Steve Biko Bantu Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known a ...

and his importance in that movement. He was a powerful speaker and very outspoken politically, often spending time in prison for his criticism of the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

regime. He was also one of the early preachers of

Black theology Black theology, or black liberation theology, refers to a theological perspective which originated among African-American seminarians and scholars, and in some black churches in the United States and later in other parts of the world. It context ...

, a movement related to

Liberation theology Liberation theology is a Christian theological approach emphasizing the liberation of the oppressed. In certain contexts, it engages socio-economic analyses, with "social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples". ...

and

Négritude ''Négritude'' (from French "Nègre" and "-itude" to denote a condition that can be translated as "Blackness") is a framework of critique and literary theory, developed mainly by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians of the African ...

, which pushed individuals to stand up for themselves and to take pride in their personal worth. This emphasis was in stark contrast to the pacifist emphasis of many South African clergymen on

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...

's teachings that

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

should " turn the other cheek". Ntwasa wrote that the emphasis on God as all powerful was a tool of the oppressor, and thus used the imagery of "God as Love" and "God as Freedom".Sabelo Ntwasa and Basil Moore, “The Concept of God In Black Theology,” in Black Theology: The South African Voice, pp. 18–28.

References

20th-century South African Anglican priests South African Christian pacifists {{christian-clergy-stub