Jack and Thembi Kent were unable to attend the Anglican Church during the early years of their relationship because Jack worked most Sundays. The couple were also afraid to
153 de Gruchy, J. The Church Struggle in South Africa. David Philip, Cape Town. 1982. p 193.
take their light-skinned children into the city centre, where the church was situated. The couple were also very careful regarding to whom they disclosed their relationship. A few members of the Anglican Church were friends of the family and regularly visited the family home to pray. Jack and Thembi instilled strong Christian values in their children from a very early age. The family attended night services at the Full Gospel Church of God (Pentecostal) in Sobantu, situated in a township designated for Africans under the Group Areas Act. The couple decided that this was their safest option because if they were ever stopped by the police, Jack would explain that he was merely transporting people to church.
The Kent family had strong ties with the church in Sobantu, since the minister, Rev.
Wilfred Dlamini, was a friend of the Mgadi (Thembi‟s maiden name) family. Rev.
Dlamini visited the family regularly at their home for prayer and counselling. In May 1984, Rev. Dlamini went to the couple‟s home with a very serious appeal. He informed the couple, that living together before marriage was an incorrect way of life for a Christian, and offered to perform a wedding ceremony in their home, if they desired to be married. Jack and Thembi assured the minister of their desire to be married but could not understand how it would be possible, since they were legally forbidden to do so.
Rev. Dlamini stated that the only instance, in which he would not perform a marriage ceremony for a couple, was if polygamy was involved. Since he knew the couple well, he could vouch for their moral fibre, and was willing to perform a marriage ceremony for them. He also stated that apartheid laws did not displace what was contained in the Bible.
Since he believed that the couple was not in violation of the teachings of the Bible, there was no reason why they should remain unmarried.
On the 1st of June 1984, one year before the repeal of both the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act, Rev. Dlamini performed a wedding ceremony for Jack and Thembi at their home in Edendale. The marriage was officiated in 1985, after the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act was repealed. After the official marriage
ceremony, Jack was re-classified as Black under the Population registration Act, and was able to live freely in Edendale.
The family then began to attend the Anglican Church in central town on Sunday morning, without fear of prosecution but continued to visit the Full Gospel Church of God in Sobantu on week nights. According to Jack, “the Anglican Church and the Pentecostal Church had been pillars of strength to me and my family during the dark days of apartheid”. He maintained that both churches were very sympathetic to the family‟s plight and that both expressed their objection to the racial laws of the country. Both churches also assured Jack that should the family be in any danger from the authorities, that they would do everything in their power to assist them. Jack Kent asserted that it was the support and assurance which he received from these two churches, which enabled his family to stay together throughout the turbulent era of apartheid.154
The couple‟s son, David, has a very different perspective of Christianity. According to David, the Christian services which he attended when he was a child always raised questions in his young mind. The ministers would preach that people should endure whatever suffering was inflicted upon them and be happy about it because suffering prepared people for the after-life. From the age of seven until he was thirteen, this view appealed to him. He recalled that his earliest memory as a child was that he had to be hidden and that if people outside his family saw him, he would be in great danger:
Can you imagine what that kind of thing does to a child? I was like two and three years old when I was confined to the backyard blocked of from everything in the world by these high brick walls. I was not allowed to go anywhere with either one of my parents. At that time, my personality was being formed. Who I was, was being defined in my mind. So obviously I felt as if I was not good enough, like they were ashamed of me or something. You feel like something is wrong with you, like you don‟t fit in anywhere, and that affects your image of yourself. So when the preacher says that there is a place where I would be accepted for who I
154 Jack Kent, interview conducted by Linda Naicker on 7 March 2011 in Pietermaritzburg.
am, of course I want to go there. They preached about heaven, they said the streets were paved with gold and all people would be able to sit at the feet of Jesus without being afraid or in want of anything. As a little child who had to hide away just because of the colour of your skin, of course this message appealed to me.155
According to David, the defining moment came when he was thirteen years old:
I was sitting in church and the preacher kept on saying that people must glory in their afflictions. I thought to myself, what kind of a God is this that allows people to suffer and then expects them to be happy about it? It just does not make sense.
That was when I began asking my Dad questions about religion, about apartheid, about Christianity, and that sort of thing. I began to read books about apartheid, that the whole thing was a Christian concept, and I said to myself, no way! This whole Christianity thing is just a tool that the powerful use to oppress other people. I told my parents that I did not want to go to church anymore because I did not think that Christianity was a good thing. They were outraged! My father said that as long as I lived under his roof, I was required to go to church, so I went. My parents soon realized that forcing me to go only caused me to become more rebellious, and boy did I rebel. I went to church with them every Sunday, but I made it clear that I was not happy about it. Eventually, they just gave up trying to push me and said I should do whatever makes me happy.
Not wanting to distress his parents, David eventually went back to church but when he turned twenty, he abandoned Christianity altogether and began practicing Wiccanism.156