South Africa finally shows Zuma the door

SOUTH AFRICA: Jacob Zuma, who once said his party would govern South Africa until Jesus returns, bowed to pressure within the African National Congress (ANC), resigning the presidency Wednesday as the ANC prepared to side with opposition parties to support his impeachment. Books have been written about Zuma’s corruption, and members of an opposition party stormed out of the National Assembly on Thursday over fears the ANC won’t hold Zuma accountable. That was before the body voted to install Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa as the next president. Ramaphosa, often referred to as the man in the middle and long sidelined, was credited with driving negotiations between South Africa’s white-led government and the ANC to end apartheid.

CHINA: “You’re putting wolves before your flock, and they are going to make a massacre,” retired Cardinal Joseph Zen warned the Vatican following its decision to recognize bishops in China named by the Communist Party regime. Chinese Catholics mostly have refused to recognize the authority of a government-sanctioned church, as authorities have persecuted those who put church authority above the state.

VENEZUELA: In one of the largest oil-producing nations in the world, parents are giving up their children because they can no longer afford to take care of them.

MIGRATION: The Washington Post takedown of Ken Isaacs, an international aid expert and vice president at Samaritan’s Purse, is misleading and unfair—my perspective.

STATS: A recent academic paper on 500 years of Protestant Christianity has striking statistics. In 1900, 1.7 percent of Protestants lived in Africa, and today 40.8 percent reside on the continent. Conversely, 63.1 percent lived in Europe in 1900, and today 16.3 percent of Protestants live there. Averaging across 550 years, Protestants in North America represent less than 14 percent of global Protestantism.

WEEKEND READ (AND LISTEN): Eighty years ago this week, British theologian John Stott became a Christian, and it made a difference to untold others, including me. “Everybody had to do something about Jesus,” he discovered.

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