Eschatology in Michael Curry’s Royal Wedding Sermon

 

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD; Visiting Professor, Kyungpook National University, Sangju Campus, South Korea, Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College.

 

There are moments when Brittain conquered the Commonwealth and when that happened in the past, it was an African who produced an eschatology pulled down into our present world, back then in the Victorian period and Saturday 19 May 2018 in the St. George Cathedral. A sermon by Bishop Michael Curry captivating the audience and which is on Youtube cited below as source.

 

He preached that “love is the way”. He started off with Dr. King’s words about love and fire and ended with it confirming that it is right. He read from a Psalm out of which most of his words came.

 

As he preached he walked ahead in our future and wish to invite all to love with the God-love one another until a new world-order is entered. All realize they are actually family. All came from the same source. When love is the way.

Slowly he envisage an eschatology that reach the earth, heaven coming down, and cited from Micah 4:3 where heaven is a place where swords are laid down and war are not taught any longer.

An African-American preaching in the Royal Palace Wedding of England.

He preaches to the empire with a black choir singing and a black musician also participating.

Love will take us into a present world eschatology so that heaven comes before Christ comes! This is unbiblical but nevertheless God’s dream for all people even if heaven will not become before Christ comes. He is wrong on that but right that the remnant has to have this reality of love in them and among them and with all people around them. Even their persecutors at the End-Time.

A great sermon. Awesome. Inspiring. Well presented and in classical American Ebony preaching, well ended with a sudden stop, taking the notes and turn around, just like the great American Ebony preacher in Seventh-day Adventism, C. D. Brooks at 3ABN in Youtube.

The British getting close to the African and black commonwealth in this way with a Black preacher using Micah 4:3 to anticipate and call for eschatology to arrive in our time. The 19th of May 2018.

Wait a second.

It also happened similarly in the Victorian period. The setting was Kwazulu Natal. “When Colenso travelled to the Zululand in 1859 he took along with a party of Ekukhanyeni residents and converts which included Magema Fuze, William Ngidi and Ndiane” wrote the Zulu historian H. Mokoena.

The British colonized Natal and after the war in 1856 an Anglican missionary William Ngidi described the war in a similar way as the other two mentioned above, since they were taught by John Colenso the missionary to write, but Ngidi added an eschatological passage to his Zulu audience in Zulu.

“Yes, indeed, my brothers, the weapons of war should be beaten into ploughs for cultivating the ground, and war-shields be sewed into garments of clothing, and peace be proclaimed, on the north and on the south. And on both sides, through the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Unkulunkulu, who ever liveth, and all evil become peace, I mean become goodness.”

Ngidi pleaded with his nation that if they are to survive in Africa in Natal with the presence of England soldier and imperial royal power around them, they are to do Micah 4:3 and lay down weapons of war and beat them into instruments to cultivate the ground.

These words by a black missionary in Zululand of Natal of bringing eschatology to their present future after 1856 or make heaven come down by some action on their part, is what black preacher Bishop Curry did Saturday 19th of May 2018 in the St. George in the presence of the royal empire again also.

 

Sources:

Wedding Sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhV0PL49d3Y

H. Mokoena, “Kwaluke impi: War and rumours of war in the writings of Magema Magwaza.

Downloaded from http://www.kznhass-history.net/files/seminars/Mokoena 2006. Pdf.  

A. W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Cape Town.