Jacob Zuma Quotes
God expects the ANC to rule this country because we are the only organisation which was blessed by pastors when it was formed. It is even blessed in Heaven. That is why we will rule until Jesus comes back. We should not allow anyone to govern our city [Cape Town] when we are ruling the country.
Zuma, Jacob. Address at an ANC Rally in Khayelitsha. IOL, 4 May 2008.
Justinian, like many civil political leaders before and after him, took great pains to minimize the civil authority of the church. Separation of church and state is not a modern notion, though it was harder to accomplish in antiquity. Rulers would want to coopt the religion to help legitimize their rule, but tried to keep the church as weak as they could unless another religion was challenging for supremecy.
The Pope separates the church from the civil law to a degree that is a rarity amongst religions. Even Catholic Pope John Paul II who prohibited priests from holding political office always saw Papal and clerical influence on civil law making and interpretation as a fundamentally important role.
It is you who have called us unto this office; but being thus called we have our authority from God;
Then the Deputy Governor, Winthrop had been attacked as being too authoritarian. The conceptual struggle with democracy, divine right, and religion had begun in America long before the American Revolution. There is an interesting parallel with the current debate over Islamic attacks on democracy by an Islamic party being elected, but then responsible to God and not only the people who elected them.
This is a very important quotation as it focused on one critical difference between historical Islam and all the other major religions and fundamentally on the separation between church and state. In Islam there was a Caliph who was both the political ruler and the religious ruler. In comparison at the time, the Christians had a Holy Roman Emperor who was theoretically the overlord of all the Christian Kings but in reality he really could not exercise total or even much authority over all the other kings. At the same time, there was the Pope who was the religious leader of all the Christians. Since the distinction between Church and state was constantly in flux, the Christian Pope and Holy Roman Emperor were often at odds. The third Abrahamic religion, Judaism, had neither a secular leader or a religious one and no hierarchy other than local. Khaldun observed the theoretical advantage of Theocracy as a model, however he did not analyze the disadvantages among which were the assassination of many Caliphs and the laces. Even the Muslim Arabic states abandoned the idea of a Caliph in modern times until Iran adopted a Theocracy with a single Leader all powerful. However, all the other Arab nations wanted no part of a singular leader for all Muslim nations or even a single civil and religious leader within any other country. Al Qaeda however claimed to be fighting for a return to a Caliphate not only for the current Islamic Nations but for all nations which must be subservient to Islam.
Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is a South African politician who served as the fourth democratically elected President of South Africa from the 2009 general election until his resignation on 14 February 2018. Zuma is also referred to by his initials JZ (pronounced jay-zee) and his clan name Msholozi.
