Good theology, says H. Paul Santmire, is written, first and foremost, in the lives of faithful disciples. “The word has its primordial power, always, as it takes on flesh.” In this book Santmire recounts his intense, three-week visit to South Africa in an attempt to read the revelation of God in the lives of fellow Christians struggling in a life and death situation.
As one of a group of North American Christians, Santmire met with church people throughout South Africa in order to learn more about their situation, to offer them spiritual support, and to bring a message from them back to North America. The message is an urgent one for Christians everywhere. The “shrieking irony” in the South African situation, says Santmire, is that apartheid was invented, and is being administered, in the name of Christianity.
Santmire’s Testament moves from personal encounter with the lives of other Christians to reflections about the Gospel and its meaning. His moving account of the suffering of the South African people is a challenge to all Christians to take their own discipleship more seriously in light of the South African experience.