Matomela

Conversation with Matomela

In an interview with Mkhangeli Matomela who was a member of the ANC but is now founder of Kingdom Governance Movement Brother Gregory answers some of his questions about the Kingdom of God.

Conversation with Brother Gregory of His Holy Church and Mkhangeli Matomela of the Kingdom Governance Movement. Time 1:09

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Notes on the interview:

1. How then as a church can we transform communities and nations when we ourselves still need transforming?

a. Seeking the Kingdom of God is a process that leads us to transformation and liberty under God by the Holy Spirit. We do this by first repenting ... then serving people in a way that strengthens their faith.
b. The Gospel of the kingdom shows us how the disciples were prepared and transformed so that they could properly serve the people in that networking community of love and charity we call the early Church.
c. The journey is the destination. Jesus said to repent, seek, strive, persevere. If we do that He will give the increase.

2. How can those who receive the revelation of the kingdom be that different Church or do we delay the transforming of the community?

a. The term we use today as Church actually means the "called out". It was not a building, a place, or even a congregation but specific people "called out" to be separate from the world for Christ's purposes.
b. The apostles were "called out" like the Levites who were called out by Moses to serve the free assemblies of the people in a common communion as one form of government.
c. The word translated communion in the Greek text is koinonia κοινωνία more often translated "fellowship". People are not coming in the name of Christ if they are not coming in sacrificial service to others in a way that they might be saved.
d. The kingdom is not in the hearts of people who are not sacrificing daily in a genuine effort to seek the Kingdom of God with a righteous "fellowship" and "communion".

3. How does the Church structure itself in the kingdom model so that the people of the world can see the value of the Kingdom of God on earth?

a. The Church should be the alternative to the Benefactors of the world and the Fathers of the earth.
b. We need to require the people to sit down in the tens as Christ commanded so that they may choose to repent, seek, strive, persevere.
c. There is no greater service than to teach others to sacrifice as Christ sacrificed, who taught by being a doer by doing, that we might be saved.
d. With the righteous "fellowship" and "communion" in charity and sacrifice we may provide a righteous alternative daily ministration of pure Religion instead of the covetous practices which makes us merchandise and curse children.

Climate of ideas

"...if our South African friends wish to draw upon the American experience in their efforts to bring about constitutional reform, they would be better advised to look not to what we do today but to what we did when we first embarked on our experiment in ordered liberty more than 200 years ago. More precisely, I contend that America's Founders got it right when they began, in the natural rights tradition, with libertarian substance, then moved to democratic process."^[1]

Roger believed the Progressive Era, got it wrong. People need to focus on the "substance of justice-liberty-and only then on the means for securing liberty". One of those means may include a democratic approach if those fundamental rights are not infringed upon in the process.

He agrees that "four essential elements" of a "limited constitutional democracy" include:

free elections;
the legitimacy of political opposition;
limits on arbitrary arrest, detention, and punishment; and
protection for minority rights

He makes reference to a need for an "independent judiciary and independent private "watchdog" organizations" but he points out that members of the symposium make no mention of economic activity-where he believes "most people spend most of their lives".

While they mention "religious and educational freedom" but neglect "economic liberties-private property and freedom of contract". If there are inherent rights to "entitlements" "to housing, health care, jobs-indeed, to "periodic holidays with pay" then government must also have the inherent right to "coerce the provision of those things from individuals or organizations that may be otherwise unwilling to provide them voluntarily."

This, of course, would make governments the gods of theft and other covetous practices and would soon turn the people into what Polybius calls "perfect savages". He believes that that approach would falsely justify "capitalism as socialism, liberty as tyranny, monarchy as democracy-or, indeed, one-party rule."

There is seldom a danger of tyranny through democratic rule if the right of the minority to rule themselves is respected by the majority. Nowhere is the American vision does freedom come second and government first. Rights are inherent and granted by God and the Law of nature. This would mean that the higher law of right and wrong should be discoverable by right reason but are Polybius's "perfect savages" capable of "right reason".

Those savages who are accustomed to indulging in covetous practices and living at the expense of others that they will usher in a "master and monarch" because they themselves entertain the spirit of the tyrant in their hearts and minds.

The taking of liberty and property through taxation or regulation is defended as a necessary pre-condition of the "social and economic rights" of all who are greedy for entitlements. There is no connection to the immorality of that process in their minds and there are hearts are stones though they cry the loudest for compassion expressed often with anger.

Rogers sees Americans as having traded "principle for policy" due to that advent of the ideas and idolatry of the Progressive Era which was ushered in by the New Deals of FDR and LBJ alike with a "climate of ideas" that chills true compassion.

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Footnotes

↑ Roger Pilon, ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONSTITUTIONALISM: LIBERTY, THEN DEMOCRACY, [American University International Law ] Vol. 8 > Iss. 2 (2015)

[1] Roger Pilon, ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CONSTITUTIONALISM: LIBERTY, THEN DEMOCRACY, [American University International Law ] Vol. 8 > Iss. 2 (2015)

[1]

Matomela

Conversation with Matomela

Climate of ideas

Footnotes

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