This past Sunday, I attended Southern Cross church, which is a new CESA congregation in Constantia in Cape Town. It was the six month anniversary of their establishment, and for the occasion, the speaker was bishop Frank Retief. He was involved with St James in Kenilworth when, in 1993, it suffered a terrorist attack which killed a number of people and maimed many more. And so he spoke to us about the question of suffering, although it was not a regular sermon. Rather, he spoke to us about the attack, describing the immediate aftermath in vivid detail, and then proceeded to explain how they as a congregation worked through the experience, trying to make sense of that horrid ordeal. Read more …