Despite once heading up the military wing of the Communist-dominated African National Congress, Nelson Mandela isn’t merely being honored as a former leader. Many in the western media rather are drawing comparisons between the late South African politician and Jesus Christ, as reported by PewSitter.com.
An unaccredited editorial appearing in an advanced release of the Dec. 7, 2013 edition of The Baltimore Sun states:
Few political leaders who have walked the earth inspire comparisons to Jesus Christ and the love he held for mankind.
Nelson Mandela, the South African leader who died Thursday night at the age of 95, would be the exception.
Peter Oborne, the chief political commentator of one of Britain’s oldest publications, The Telegraph (of London), offered an almost word-for-word deification of the fallen leader:
There are very few human beings who can be compared to Jesus Christ.
Nelson Mandela is one.
Not to be outdone, another London-based newspaper, The Guardian, dug up and published an undated quote from a relatively obscure South African identified as Jabulil Mlaka, whose claim to fame is that he’s “a student from Tembisa township near Johannesburg” who once predicted that when Mandela eventually does pass away:
It’ll be like the death of Jesus.
A lot of people will be impacted in a bad way.
Adam Roberts of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette objectively headlined his op-ed “Nelson Mandela was no saint, but his flaws made him all the greater” yet still trotted out a dated quote illustrating Mandela’s “Christ-like aspects”:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Madiba’s [Mandela’s] close friend and fellow leader of the anti-apartheid campaign, once told me how he felt an immense ‘generosity of spirit’ from Mandela.
The archbishop naturally saw Christian elements in Madiba’s readiness to forgive his white racist abusers and his compassion for the weak. ‘You can even think of Jesus … there are Christ-like aspects of him.’
