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Rustenburg - ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa has called on Christians to
stand up against rape and corruption.
Ramaphosa said Christians needed to "become the moral conscience of our country" and act as agents to raise the moral consciousness of the nation.
He was speaking in Rustenburg at the Pentecostal Holiness Church's centennial celebrations.
Ramaphosa told nearly 500 congregants that South Africa was a "Lord-fearing nation, a God-fearing country".
"We also need to be the moral conscience of our country when it comes to respect for women and acting against rapists. We as Christians need to become the moral conscience of our country," he said.
Ramaphosa, who started and ended his speech with a "hallelujah", said: "This country cares for the Lord. It recognises the importance of the Lord and the hegemony of the Lord."
After saying "hallelujah" at the start of his speech, Ramaphosa broke into a popular Christian song, which has some of the following lyrics: If you believe and I believe / And we together pray / The Holy Spirit must come down / And Africa will be saved.
Said Ramaphosa: "This country requires leadership. It requires its consciousness to be raised.
"There is no better agent than Christians and the church to raise the morals, the moral consciousness of our nation,” he said.
"It falls on us, as Christians. We must say this is a sin. This is a crime. Rape is a sin and it is a crime. We are the ones as Christians who must stand up and say, corruption, we will never accept it, because it is a sin. It is a crime.”
