'Let me say to Mr Botha: apartheid is doomed! It has been condemned in the Councils of God, rejected by every nation on the planet and is no longer believed in by the people who gave it birth. Apartheid is the god that has failed … let not one more sacred life be offered on its blood-stained altar…'

This is what Bishop Peter Storey preached in 1986. Challenging apartheid wherever he could, he led the Methodist Church of Southern Africa into what many white congregants saw as uncomfortable 'political' territory.  

Join him in his inspiring journey from sailor-turned-minister to the South African Council of Churches leadership in its darkest hour, from tending to Robert Sobukwe and Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, through the forced removals of District Six and to the storm surrounding Stompie Seipei's murder. I Beg to Differ spans a humble parish minister’s sorrows and joys, his founding of Life Line SA, the bombing of Khotso House, a close shave with death with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In his own words, Storey shares his convictions that inspired him to speak out and minister fearlessly amid the teargas, violence and intimidation of the apartheid regime.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Storey is a former bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Duke University in North Carolina. Once chaplain to Nelson Mandela and others on Robben Island, he spent most of his 40-year ministry in inner cities, including District Six and central Johannesburg. He led the South African Council of Churches with Bishop Desmond Tutu when it was a fierce opponent of the apartheid state, chaired the National Peace Accord body intervening in pre-election violence in the Witwatersrand and served as a member of the panel that selected the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Storey founded Life Line SA and Gun Free SA and has preached and lectured in more than 160 cities around the world. He lives in retirement in Simon’s Town and sails on False Bay. He and his late wife Elizabeth had four sons and seven grandchildren. 

I Beg to Differ: Ministry amid the teargas is published by NB Publishers