THE MARK OF JOY. (The Outcome of Mission and its human effect)

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CHAPTER TWO THE MAKING OF THE MAN.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

As all of us do, Michael Cassidy must have reflected on his name. In biblical and traditional cultures names have great significance. Names can be signposts in a family or group’s history but they also have an extraordinary power to project a characteristic or a destiny. After all,Abram was called Abraham, Sarai called Sarah, Jacob called Israel, Simon called Peter and Saul called Paul if not because of a predestination or foreshadowed destiny hinted at in the name. Names have prospective hope or direction and even prophetic significance. In one of the quadrangles in Michaelhouse school there is a statue of the angel Michael. It is not a very robust or pugilistic representation of this militant spiritual being. But perhaps the young Cassidy, who attended school there, would have considered the courage and aggressive intent of his namesake whose ministry was and is to be a warrior for God, to seek to defend the faithful and to challenge and restrain spiritual wickedness (Rev 12:7). Cassidy was to support these ideas and impulses in contending for the faith and standing for justice.
But Cassidy has always loved another name that he has borne. It is the Sesotho name ‘Mojalefa’ that was given to him as a boy. This name seemed to bind him to Africa and express his rooting in its soil. It made him one with all others in life’s journey on the continent. At the Durban Congress on Mission and Evangelism in 1973, Cassidy made mention of this name in his closing address. He gave a sevenfold vision in this address of what he could see in hope for the church in a new day. In the seventh and final vision he says this: Finally I see a vision of a church with its hands outstretched. One day in our‘Mission 70’ in Johannesburg, in the middle of the rush hour, right there in all the traffic, I suddenly heard a voice ringing out above the traffic. ‘Mojalefa!’That is my Sesotho name. It is the name by which I like to be called. It means ‘the heir’, the first-born son, and heir to the father’s fortunes, which never ceased to amuse my father! I was quite overcome as I looked around, for there on a big coal truck I saw the beaming and glorious face of an African brother. I had never seen him before. Perhaps he had been at our meetings in Soweto. Anyway I leaped through the traffic and raced up to the truck and gripped his hand. He called out: ‘Praise Jeessas!’ And I did a very unAnglican thing. I shouted: ‘Hallelujah!’ Oh it was good, as our hands stretched out to each other. And so in these days I see afresh a church with outstretched hands – of Black to Black, and Black to White, and Englishman to Afrikaner, and African to Afrikaner and denomination to denomination, and South Africa to Independent Africa….(Cassidy: 1974.355).Although this name amused his father, as there was no fortune to inherit, the name Mojalefa did have spiritual significance. There was a Father’s fortune to spend and distribute. The message of the Bible is ordered around the idea of testaments and about sons receiving an inheritance or posterity. In the story of the prodigal a son wastes his inheritance. In the First Letter of Peter the apostle talks about the Father who has given us a new birth and a salvation as an inheritance which may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus is revealed (1Peter 1:3-9).
The treasures of grace were an inheritance that Michael was to receive and he was to declare that, in this, we are all heirs and joint heirs with Christ (Titus 3:4-7). We all have a posterity through the resurrection. An alternative name for this thesis could well have been: ‘Treasures in an earthen Vessel’. Cassidy was to share the treasures of a Heavenly Father.

POWERFUL AND ENDURING CHILDHOOD INFLUENCES.

His parents. Cassidy’s father had come to South Africa as an electrical and mechanical engineer contracted to engineering firms in the old Rhodesia and initially to Reunert and Lenz in Johannesburg where Michael was born into a home in Orange Grove on the 24th September 1936. He was later sent to Basutoland (now Lesotho) on the firm’s behalf to engineer the generation of electricity at the Maseru power station. When Britain took back the colonial administration of the country Charles Cassidy became a colonial servant. Much has been written about the negative effects of colonialism in Africa and India. Yet there was a highminded, caring and enormously competent investment by individuals who built up countries with friendship and goodwill and personal sacrifice and service. Colonialism left huge infrastructures that held out the hope for future development.
Cassidy records how impressed he was by his father’s even-handedness in his oversight of others. He gave no thought to the racial differences in his staff. People were people regardless of their differences. This example took deep root (Cassidy 1983:196). But integrity was the primary attribute. Cassidy recalls a return trip by train from Michaelhouse School to Modderpoort in the Free State (the nearest station to Maseru where the family stayed). His father was to meet him there. He had conspired, as a boyish prank, to avoid the train conductor who clipped the passengers’ tickets. So the prospect of a future free ride with an unused ticket loomed to his delight, especially given the financial limitations of the Cassidy household. He shared his fiscal triumph with his father but, he later ruefully exclaimed, ‘instead of a pat on the back for excellent ingenuity and cunning I received the biggest tongue lashing I ever had in my life.’ His father’s ability to see integrity in large, moderate or miniscule ways never left Cassidy and this perspective was carried by his son into the absolute requirements for the correct and scrupulous handling of finance in the ministries that were to come. His mother Dee had been a music mistress at Roedean in Johannesburg before the move to Maseru. As a person of deep integrity, her impact on her son was profound. But Dee also had an explosive temperament which often had him on the back foot seeking a way to defuse and manage her emotion and the force of her reaction to him on occasion. It was here that he began to develop some feel and skill at peace-making.His mother also had a strong belief in sexual purity and marital faithfulness and she drummed into her son a strong ethic of no sex before marriage because of the spoiling nature of illicit or loose relations. This high view of gender relations later permeated Cassidy’s messages and counselling and was to be a spur in his resistance to same-sex marriage legislation. His very first book was on human relations, he called it The Relationship Tangle. His grandparents. Dee’s father had been an alcoholic. This addiction had had a catastrophic effect. He had lost his assets and had sought on occasion to commit suicide. On one occasion he disappeared with a loaded revolver and the family sought for him through the length and breadth of the country, eventually finding him in a railway station in the northern reaches of the country. Apparently, along his way Christian Scientists had come to his aid and this kindness caused him to convert to their beliefs. He later refused all drugs end even resisted taking an innocuous dose of two Aspirin when he was dying of cancer. The effect on his young grandson was marked. He had tea whenever he came home and this family trauma caused him to exercise in all things a commitment to moderation and restraint. The young Cassidy was also influenced and inspired by the heroic deeds of his maternal grandmother, the Miss Molly Craufurd. During the siege of Mafeking, Molly, a nurse at the children’s hospital in Mafeking, continued to give medical aid and care for the wounded during the dangers of that engagement and with such disregard for her own life that she was awarded the Red Cross (the equivalent to a Victoria Cross) by Lord Kitchener. Molly’s compassion and medical treatment were frequently given in extreme danger and lavished without fear or favour on Boer and Brit alike. Later Molly was put in charge of the concentration camp outside Bloemfontein where Boer women and children were dying like flies under canvas in the bitter winters. Molly was strongly critical of the cruelty of the British strategy of destroying farms and brought this to the attention of Emily Hobhouse. Molly was so traumatised by the death of several Boer children she was trying to nurse back to health that 50 years later in 1951 she called out some of their names as she lay dying.
These evidences of war’s inhumanity, and the story of how his own grandparents had crossed the deep chasm of alienation between Boer and Briton in their committed friendship with the legendary Boer Commander Denys Reitz, caused their grandson to pen these words: ‘It was put into my soul at a tender age the conviction that war, alienation, vendetta and bitterness were not the way: forgiveness and reconciliation were’ (Cassidy:1989:53-59).Friendships.Near the Cassidy home there lived a man whose life and thinking were also to mark the formative development of Cassidy regarding others. Patrick Duncan was the son of the former Governor General of South Africa under Jan Smuts. He was Cassidy’s neighbour and he brought a great breadth of experience and understanding to his instructive conversations about political ethics. Pat, as Cassidy calls him, was a profound friend who shared his love of horse riding and opened the art of living a whole and exuberant life to the young adolescent (Cassidy 1983:196).

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PREFACE
Chapter 1. THE RELEVAMCE OF MICHAEL CASSIDY’S MINISTRY
1.1. The Relevance of Michael Cassidy’s Ministry
1.1.1. Evangelism in Crisis
1.1.2. Following Jesus
1.1.3. The power of Movement and the dangers of Institution
1.1.4. An evolution of the understanding of mission and contextualisation
1.1.5. A struggle for independent theological reflection and church unity
1.1.6. The fellowship principle
1.1.7. A Witness against Apartheid and its elaboration
1.1.8. The Challenges of the New South Africa
1.1.9. A Search for morality and truth
1.2. Hypothesis and aim of the thesis
1.2.1. A renewal of Lay Witness
1.3. Methodology
1.3.1. Quantitative study
1.3.2. Qualitative Study
1.3.3. Participant Observer
1.3.4. Former research
1.3.5. Leitmotiv: The ‘Jesus’ prayer in John
1.3.6. The tone and tenor of the research
1.4. Propositions and axioms
1.4.1. A creeping reversal
1.4.2. A structural imbalance
1.4.3. A Philosophical switch
1.5. Themes
1.6. Key Words
1.7. Overview of the Thesis
Chapter 2.THE MAKING OF THE MAN
2.1. What’s in a name?
2.2. Powerful and enduring childhood influences
2.3. The Christian Persuasion
2.4. The Reasoned Thinking of Anglican Theologians in England
2.5. The example of Independent Missionary Response
2.6. The Billy Graham Connection
2.7. Fuller Theological Seminary
2.8. Packer and Schaeffer
2.9. Abraham Vereide
2.10 Influences out of Africa
2.11.Coherence and congruence
Chapter 3. THE MARK OF MISSION. ( The universal mandate)
3.1. Defining mission
3.1.1. Evangelism and Mission
3.1.2. The relevance of the Gospel
3.1.3. Evangelism Imperilled by its spiritualised focus
3.1.4. Light on the definition of Mission and Evangelism
3.1.5. Evangelism and Social Concern
3.1.6. Incorporating this into African Enterprise
3.1.7. The Lausanne A Structural theology of evangelism
3.1.8. Modalities and Sodalities
3.1.9. The Mustard Seed Foundation congregational project model of mission
3.2. Evangelism to cities
3.2.1. The calling to a City
3.2.2. Perspectives on Urbanisation
3.2.3. The Growth toward an understanding of mission in the city
3.3. The Cosmic Christological Determinant
Chapter 4. THE MARK OF GLORY. ( The Gospel and Proclamation.)
4.1. The glory as repetitious conformity
4.2. Evangelism
4.2.1. But what is Evangelism
4.2.2. Evangelism Communicates a Truth
4.2.3. What is the Gospel?
4.2.4. Christ is the Message
4.2.5. Evangelism, Church and Kingdom
4.2.6. Response and persuasion in Evangelism
4.3. Conversion
4.3.1. Clarity on Conversion
4.3.2. Conversion is not baptismal regeneration
4.4. Discipleship.
4.4.1. Sanctification
4.4.2. Suffering Servanthood and Costly Grace
4.4.3. Mentorship
4.5. Hope
Chapter 5. THE MARK OF UNITY. (Gathering the saints.)
5.1. Unity in Evangelism
5.2. Gathering then Church
5.2.1. Cottesloe.
5.2.2. The Durban Congress on Mission and Evangelism
5.2.3. The Pan-African Christian Leadership Assembly
5.2.4. The South African Christian Leadership Assembly
5.2.5. The Rustenburg Consultation
5.3. Church/Parachurch Unity
5.4. Conclusion and reappraisal
Chapter 6. THE MARK OF LOVE. ( The social Witness of the Gospel.)
6.1. Love in personal perspective
6.1.1. Luthando Charlie
6.1.2. Forgiving slander
6.2. Love as justice
6.2.1. Love as political virtue
6.2.2. The failure of Violence to create an ethos of peace
6.2.3. Two books on Love
6.3. Love as Reconciliation
6.4. Love as Peace
6.4.1. The refusal to use violence
6.4.2. Shalom
6.4.3. Conversion
6.4.4. Analysing violence
6.4.5. Reviewing History
6.4.6. Other peace initiatives
6.4.7. God in politics
6.5. Love and Social reformation.
6.6. Love and Marriage
6.7. The Recovery of the Judeo-Christian Moral
Chapter 7. THE MARK OF TRUTH. ( In defence of the Faith)
7.1. Sacramentalism and Evangelical belief
7.2. Faith precedents and continuities and theological liberalism
7.2.1. The book “Reflections on Christian Basics”
7.3. Contemporary philosophical challenges
7.3.1. Modernism and Post-Modernism
7.4. Religious pluralism
7.5. A view on Liberation Theology
7.6. The Bible as the Source for Truth
Chapter 8. THE MARK OF HOLINESS. ( Witness in but not of the world)
8.1. Culture
8.1.1. Natural Religions
8.2. Worldview
8.3. Ideologies
8.4. The Ethical Reflections
8.4.1.The nature of human beings
8.4.2.The nature of the universe
8.4.3.The nature of God as revealed in Jesus Christ
8.4. The Gay Marriage issue
8.5. Conclusion
Chapter 9. SPIRITUALITY FOR MISSION. (Prayer Godliness and faith)
9.1. A spirituality that frees for mission
9.1.1. Spirituality expresses itself comprehensively
9.2. The sources for Spirituality
9.3. The Cassidy Journals
9.4. Prayer at the Core of the Ministry
9.5. Spirituality by comparison
9.6. A Paradigmatic Complexity
9.7. Shades of Abraham
9.8. Conclusion
Chapter 10. THE MARK OF JOY. (The Outcome of Mission and its human effect)
10.1. Introduction
10.2. The experience of and perceived effect of Cassidy’s ministry
10.3. The administration of the questionnaire
10.4. Experience and perception from the Survey response
10.5. An Analysis of the response
10.6. Continuities.
10.7. Conclusion
Chapter 11. THE MARK OF SUCCESSION.
(Witness, a continuing journey for all)
11.1. Introduction
11.2. Voluntarism
11.3 Cassidy’s calling a fruit of this movement
11.4. The Church Institution and independent initiative.
11.5. The Laity Issue and the Priesthood of all Believers
11.6. The Matter of Lay Apostolicity the Catholic Precedent
11.7. Biblical insight and Precedent
11.8. Apostolic Laity a perplexity in Denominational Institution
11.9. Lay Apostolicity expanded in other contemporary models
11.10. Lausanne in Manila
11.11. Fostering the call to self-offering
11.12. Conclusion
Chapter 11. TREASURE IN AN EARTHEN VESSEL.
An Assessment of a Missionary journey
12.1. Introduction
12.2. An Historical Perspective
12.3. Early Dynamics and developments in Leadership
12.4. Management and Mission and Vision
12.5. Other Leadership Dynamics
12.6. Assessments by his peers.
12.7. The critical assessment of others
12.8. A critical assessment by writer in Conclusion
Chapter 13. CONCLUSION
13.1. Introduction: The knowledge and the presence of God
13.2. The Hypothesis Revisited
13.3. Summary
13.4. Mojalefa, The heir
MICHAEL CASSIDY’S CREED AND PHILOSOPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY