Me, Tutu and My Big Question

If you had the chance to ask Desmond Tutu one question, what would it be?

My chance came in the summer of 1983, when I went to a church camp in Cove, Oregon, where he was the guest of honor. I had no idea who he was.

“Tutu?” I asked. “Like what a ballerina wears?” Yes, I was told by my soon-to-be wife, whose friend wrangled the invitation for us. He’s a big deal to the Episcopalians, she said, and also a big deal in South Africa’s struggle against apartheid.

Cove is in the northeast part of Oregon, home to the camp run by the Episcopal Diocese of Eastern Oregon and little else. The closest city is LaGrande. Wheat country; the landscape rimmed by rolling brown hills that looked soft as pillows. And, as I was to learn from Desmond himself, a lot like parts of South Africa.

The first things I noticed about Tutu was his size (very small) and his skin color (very dark), both of which made him stand out in the mostly white crowd. The only other non-white people were a few members of Tutu’s family; I think a daughter or two and a son-in-law, a taciturn young man who didn’t mingle with the rest of us.

My presence became one of the focal points of Desmond’s visit when, unbeknownst to me, the camp organizers had scheduled a press conference. A panic ensued when it became clear that no press would be attending.

I had been a reporter for two different newspapers in Oregon, and I was entering the University of Oregon graduate journalism program that fall. Once word of my background got out to the camp organizers, they saw it as a bit of divine intervention and asked if I would please interview Desmond Tutu to spare him, and them, any embarrassment.

So I did. In these pre-Internet days I couldn’t do any snap research on the man. But I’d heard him speak at the camp and gleaned enough to get a pretty good sense of who he was – a big freakin’ deal.

I learned that South Africa was a predominantly Christian country, with the white minority mostly belonging to the Dutch Reformed Church. And the Dutch Reformed Church of that time, grounded in their interpretation of scripture, firmly supported apartheid.

Tutu, I also knew, practiced a form of liberation theology, wherein the message of Jesus provides a moral framework for the liberation of all people from oppression, be that in El Salvador, Nicaragua, or South Africa.

The interview was open to anyone who wanted to come, and there was quite a crowd gathered beneath a broad shade tree in the afternoon heat. We all sat on the ground, except Tutu, who was in a chair, with me positioned right next to him. He spoke unlike anyone I’d ever heard. In the course of one sentence his tone could range from a stentorian “voice of God” to a high giddy squeal. But there was nothing random in how he spoke; it all flowed in a purposeful way, his lilting South African accent providing the melody.

Because Tutu saw me as member of the press, I think he was somewhat guarded in what he said. Apartheid was still in full force in South Africa, and Tutu mentioned trouble getting his passport cleared so he could make the trip to Cove. Anything that came out of his mouth, even in tiny Cove, Oregon, could be used against him back home.

All of this happened 38 years ago, and I can’t remember any of the questions I asked him except the one I had been thinking about how to articulate during the entire interview; the one that has stayed with me all these years later. It went something like this:

“I understand that South Africa has one of the highest numbers of Christians per capita in the world. The white minority uses their interpretation of the Bible to justify apartheid. You and other religious leaders use it to justify the abolition of apartheid. How can you be sure what really is the will of God?”

He gave me a sideways glance, and I tried desperately to interpret his look. I felt a little sick to my stomach, worried I had just insulted one of the great civil rights leaders the world has ever known. I felt like a pharisee trying to trick Jesus, yet I wasn’t trying to trick him. I truly wanted to know.

“That is a very good question,” he said, buying time. Then, lowering his voice to a near whisper, said, “All I can tell you is that, in my heart, I know we are right.”

The tape of the interview is long gone, and attempts I made to publish it went nowhere.

But 38 years later, as Desmond leaves this life for the next, I hold a deep reverence for that sacred moment. He revealed a humility to admit that even he didn’t know the will of God. And yet, he didn’t let that alter the conviction that same God placed in his heart. The conviction that, not long after we talked, helped transform an entire country, if not the world.

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