April 8

Helen Joseph, Jürgen Moltmann, and International Romani Day

Author

David Barnhart
April 08, 2025

Graffiti in Berlin. June, 2022. Own photo.

Today is International Romani Day, raising awareness of the Romani (or Roma) people and their historic treatment in Europe. The slur “Gypsy” was a misapplication of “Egyptian,” and because their communities often migrated around Europe, the persecution their diaspora has faced is a reflection of the human condition of global migration. Human beings have always been migrants. 

Today is the birthday, in 1905, of Helen Joseph, a women’s rights and anti-apartheid activist. She was targeted by mob violence and arrested, tried, and acquitted of high treason for her community organizing efforts. 

It is also the birthday of theologian Jürgen Moltmann, in 1926. Moltmann wrote about a theology of the Holy Spirit, the Church, and human social change. 

Reflection: 

Nelson Mandela said of Helen Joseph: 

She recounted to me once that Lillian Ngoyi had challenged her to organise amongst the white people and not only work with black women and their problems. She took up this challenge and intensified her involvement in the Congress of Democrats. To her apartheid was evil and her boundless energy went into fighting it.

Jürgen Moltmann wrote: 

That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present.

Prayer: God of hope, inspire us with the restlessness conviction that hope brings. Help us to make good trouble. Amen.