Ferdie Mulder and Ivette Coetsee, IRSA, 207 pages, 4 of 5 stars
Last year my four oldest children memorized the Westminster Shorter Catechism. I grew up in a Christian home where, by God’s grace, my parents forced my sister and me to memorize hundreds of verses. I use “forced” on purpose because that’s really what they did and you won’t hear a peep of complaint from me. I only wish they would have pressed us to learn more.
But catechisms, sadly, were absent in our spiritual formation. Fast forward to today. As my wife and I catechized our children, we were learning right along with them. Question 64 struck me: “What is required in the fifth commandment?” Answer: “The fifth commandment requires preserving the honor…belonging to…superiors.” Often, this means honoring parents, but not always. “Superiors” also include Christian heroes, like the character of this biography, Tiyo Soga.
Overview
Ferdie Mulder and Ivette Coetsee pen the life story of Tiyo Soga (1829-1871) to help Christians obey the fifth commandment. I had never heard of Soga before but for those who have, you may only remember him as a leader of black nationalism in South Africa. But this mischaracterizes the man. He was first a Christian, family man, pastor, translator, missionary, theologian, and hymn writer.
In 1856 he became the first ordained Xhosa minister in South Africa’s Presbyterian Church. He pioneered mission work for the Glasgow Mission Society, translated Pilgrim’s Progress into Xhosa, composed dozens of hymns in his native tongue, and as a devout Calvinist stood firm against Darwinian evolution and the double entendres of liberalism. He studied theology in Scotland, married Janet Burnside, and raised seven godly children.
Three Strengths
First, the character sketch of Johannes van der Kemp inspired me.
Mulder and Coetsee craft much of van der Kemp’s bio around his 1812 memoirs. Van der Kemp (1748-1811) was a Dutch physician who converted from Deism to Christianity at age 43 after his wife and child were killed in a boating accident. He wrote:
“When the Lord Jesus first revealed himself to me, he did not reason with me about truth and error, but attacked me like a warrior, and felled me to the ground by the power of his arm” (p. 73).
He exchanged the Pharisee’s righteousness for the publican’s humility and soon offered himself to the London Missionary Society. He became the first Dutch missionary to plant an LMS mission station among the Xhosas in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Though he left for the mission field late, Van der Kemp’s life overview alone is worth the price of the book.
Second, the stories of Soga as husband and father were excellent.
I live in a village where boys without fathers are more common than impala leaping across the Kruger. How refreshing to read about an African father that reared his children well, his sons all becoming successful, including a missionary, a journalist, and the first black medical doctor and veterinarian in South Africa. He spent half of his salary on their education. He yearned for their conversion, writing: “My prayer to God is that they may be saved, and be the means of bringing salvation to their own perishing countrymen” (p. 94). Like their father, all but one of his four sons married Scottish ladies.
Third, Soga’s stood fast against Darwinism.
The central root causing much of the racism in South Africa has been the theory of evolution. Darwinism had become the new god of wealthy Cecil Rhodes, for in his view, natural selection not only turned orangutans into members of Parliament but white people into authorities over the “savages”. Just as the Covid elites pounded “follow the science” into our heads, so “science” in Soga’s day created biological racism to confirm white superiority over blacks.
Like a South African version of Booker T. Washington, Soga urged his sons who were studying in Scotland to take a back seat to no one. Success will come through shear hard work and humble self-confidence, he told them. “Whatever you know you can do or say, do it, say it” (p. 142).
Conclusion
Like a foxtail on fire through the Philistian fields, this book destroys the notion that there are no South African heroes to stand upon. Calvin hailed from France, Luther from Germany and Bunyan from England, but where are the champions from South Africa? Mulder and Coetsee offer us Tiyo Soga. I encourage you to take him up and read.