Ever since devout Dutch Reformed migrants established a settlement in the Cape of Good Hope in the mid-seventeenth century, the Christian religion has played a profound role in shaping the social, political, economic, and cultural life of South Africa. Because nearly three-fourths of its people profess Christianity, some foreign observers have wondered how such a country could have developed and institutionalized apartheid—a brutal system of racial segregation. More particularly, how could the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), the dominant religious institution in South Africa, have helped to establish and legitimate such a system? Why were Christian churches not more effective in dismantling racial segregation once it became clear that apartheid policies were fostering profound injustices? Why did some churches challenge the apartheid regime, while others failed to do so?
Richard Elphick and Rodney Davenport’s Christianity in South Africa: A Political, Social, and Cultural History—a collection of 25 specialized essays—provides an invaluable overview. Although some of the essays examine the political role of churches, most are concerned with the institutional expression of Christianity in South Africa, focusing on such issues as the nature and role of missionary enterprise among indigenous people, the nature and organization of different church denominations, the impact of Christianity on distinct subcultural groups, and the role of Christianity in the creative arts. Collectively, these essays provide “a macro-narrative” of South African Christianity that not only illuminates the rise and evolution of Christianity in South Africa but also helps to explain the extraordinary impact of Christian beliefs and practices on the country’s cultural, social, and political life.
Elphick makes clear that, although Christianity could have contributed to the development of a coherent, unified society, its integrative role has been “slight”—in great part because its message has been interpreted and applied from numerous theological and institutional perspectives. Despite Christianity’s universal claims, believers have interpreted Christianity in widely different ways, especially when confronting major social and political issues. As a result, Christians have frequently found themselves “on both sides of the political barricades, denouncing each other’s political behavior as heretical, idolatrous, or treasonous.”
Although racial segregation emerged from the outset of South African colonization, the most comprehensive social engineering was instituted by Afrikaners after their political party (National Party) gained control of the government in 1948. In his illuminating essay on the role of Afrikaner churches and apartheid, Johann Kinghorn, a professor of religion at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, argues that the apartheid regime is best described as a consequence of “Afrikanerdom’s slow and agonizing adaptation to modernity.” Afrikaners were predict ably resistant to modernization, he suggests, because they remained until the l940s a rural, nationalist, and conservative people, deeply suspicious of European liberalism, secularism, and globalism. Not until Afrikaners were forced to migrate to the cities to find work during the 1920s and 1930s did they begin to shed their cultural isolationism and confront modernity.
Historically, Afrikaners have been devout Christians, staunchly committed to the Reformed faith. The Afrikaner Reformed churches1 have traditionally emphasized the maintenance of religious orthodoxy and fostered social and cultural norms that were consistent with their religious beliefs. Given the close affinity between the culture and religious life of Afrikaners, it is not surprising that dominant cultural norms profoundly influenced Afrikaner churches. These churches, in turn, nurtured and sustained many of the underlying values of society, playing a far more influential role in the social and cultural life of Afrikaner people than is normally the case in modern society. Indeed, Kinghorn suggests that the reluctance of Afrikaners to adapt to modernity helped to sustain social and political structures that were considered unacceptable by the international community.
The core presupposition of the Afrikaners’ worldview was a theistic cosmology consisting of hierarchical structures (e.g., the family, church, state) rooted in God’s authority. Hence Afrikaner churches stressed the role of the family and the necessity for strong authority patterns in social and political life. But the churches did far more than simply reinforce existing Afrikaner beliefs and practices: they helped to justify an all-encompassing social and political ideology that celebrated nationalism and racial segregation. This ideology, which came to be known as apartheid (i.e., separate development of nations), was mediated and legitimized by Afrikaner churches through the neo-Calvinist thought of Dutch political leader and theologian Abraham Kuyper. Using a Kuyperian perspective, which assumed that all authority was rooted in God but was exercised independently through distinct institutions, Afrikaners developed theological justifications for desired social and political structures.
Since neo-Calvinism viewed the shift towards popular sovereignty and personal autonomy as a threat to Christian orthodoxy, Afrikaners cultivated values and developed institutions that protected society from the corrosive effects of individualism, libertarianism, and egalitarianism. In particular, they viewed Afrikaner nationalism as a means of confronting modernity’s challenge. For Afrikaners, the nation was not simply an instrument for meeting human needs and wants, but was, rather, a means by which people could fulfill their social and political aspirations as well. Nico J. Diederichs, an Afrikaner philosopher and former state president, once observed that nations were not to be seen only as human creations but “as ordinations and institutions of God Himself” where “service to my nation is thus part of my serving God.”
English-speaking churches (e.g., Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian) were better able to critique apartheid than were Afrikaner churches in part because they were not as closely associated with the dominant culture. Still, although many English-speaking churches criticized racial discrimination and passed resolutions against specific governmental policies and state practices, they were relatively ineffective in modeling racial nondiscrimination. As University of Cape Town professor John de Gruchy notes, these churches fundamentally failed to practice what they preached.
In confronting political and social injustice, the most divisive issue among English-speaking churches was not the passage of official declarations on apartheid but rather the political role of churches themselves. Some churches, especially those emphasizing spirituality and pietism, tended to avoid politics altogether. Others periodically issued political pronouncements, while still others took sides in the liberation struggle. But even if churches were reluctant to become politically active, social and political developments forced them, from time to time, to confront the growing legacy of apartheid.
In the early 1950s, for example, the government proposed the Bantu Education Bill, a legislative proposal imposing state regulation on all schools receiving government funding. Since missionary groups provided the bulk of education to blacks, this initiative was regarded by many church leaders as a major threat to the independence of such schools. Although many churches, including the DRC, vigorously op posed this legislative plan, the Bantu Education Act became law in 1953, forcing schools to either accept state regulation or to close be cause of insufficient revenues. Faced with this unpalatable choice, most missionary schools opted for state control—a development that, according to University of Notre Dame scholar Peter Walshe, was “arguably the most significant factor in the secularization of South Africa.”
Another important issue that forced churches to confront apartheid was the Sharpeville massacre of 1960. Sharpeville, a mass demonstration that resulted in 69 deaths, is significant because it illuminated the deep racial divide between the Afrikaner government and the black majority. For the churches, the massacre raised the possibility that existing policies were not what they were alleged to be. As a result, the World Council of Churches hosted a consultation in the Johannesburg suburb of Cottesloe to explore how the churches should respond to the in creasing racial crisis in South Africa. The consultation resulted in a declaration that, while not fully rejecting the notion of “separate development,” called into question many of the apartheid tenets. Still, the Afrikaner government found the initiative sufficiently threatening that Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd himself put pressure on the DRC to disavow the Cottesloe initiative. Soon thereafter, the DRC withdrew from further ecumenical initiatives.
Although white churches found it difficult to oppose the state politically, a number of black and coloured churches challenged the apartheid regime. Some of these groups were influenced by progressive theological and intellectual movements, such as the black consciousness movement or contextual theology, while others were rooted in traditional political and theological reflection. A noteworthy example of the latter involved the adoption in 1982 of a confession by the synod of the Dutch Reformed Missionary Church (the coloured Reformed church). The so-called Belhar Confession declared that apartheid was a heresy and claimed that a status confessionis (or gospel litmus test) existed in the church because “the secular gospel of apartheid fundamentally threatens the reconciliation in Christ as well as the unity of the church of Jesus Christ.”
A more radical church response to apartheid was the 1985 Kairos Document, authored by a group of theologians and religious leaders influenced by contextual theology—a theological approach that encouraged “prophetic” political convictions and actions. The document, which suggested that the moment of truth (“kairos”) had arrived for the church, called on believers to take sides and confront the structural evils of apartheid. “The most loving thing we can do for both the op pressed and for our enemies who are oppressors,” claimed the Kairos statement, “is to eliminate oppression, remove the tyrants from power and establish a just government for the common good of all the people.”
While some black and coloured churches were on the forefront of the anti-apartheid movement, many refrained from active politics altogether. For example, the so-called African Initiated Churches (AICs)2 the largest group of black churches, with more than 9 million members, were more concerned with the cultivation of inner spirituality than with social and political injustice. And some black churches—such as the Zion Christian Church, with more than two million members—emphasized the biblical teaching of obedience to the state, thereby reinforcing the authority of existing governmental institutions.
Although many factors contributed to the collapse of the apartheid regime in 1990 and the establishment of a democratic Government of National Unity (GNU) in 1994, there can be little doubt that some religious groups played a pivotal role in the shift to a non-racial, participatory system. In Challenging the State, Tristan Anne Borer provides an illuminating ac count of how two religious organizations—the South African Council of Churches (SACC) and the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC)—opposed the Afrikaner regime during the l980s. According to Borer, the SACC, an ecumenical umbrella organization of Protestant denominations, was much more active politically and more radical in its opposition to the state than the SACBC, an association of Roman Catholic bishops from Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, and South Africa. The SACC was able to act independently of its member churches, whereas the bishops’ conference was an official organ of the Roman Catholic Church, directly responsible to the Vatican. Moreover, since the Council could pass declarations and develop policies without the consent of its member churches, it could operate at the forefront of political debate. As a result, the SACC became an important organization in the anti-apartheid campaign, especially after President P. W. Botha declared a state of emergency in l985 and the Minister of Law and Order banned seventeen anti-apartheid organizations in 1988. And because of growing international support for the South African liberation movement, foreign support for the SACC increased dramatically in the l980s. In deed, by 1988, when the government banned the United Democratic Front (UDF), the major political organization opposing the state, more than 95 percent of SACC’s revenues were from foreign sources.
Borer argues that the growing political role of the SACC and the SACBC during the l980s can be attributed not only to expanding political repression but also to the impact of new religious ideas and perspectives spawned by progressive theological reflection. Borer claims that the SACC’s opposition to the state was influenced greatly by contextual theology, which stressed the role of context (“praxis”) in biblical interpretation. Reflecting on the important role of the environment in shaping analysis and action, Archbishop Desmond Tutu observed in 1993 that “the political dimension of our faith varies according to the requirements of each different context.”
Although foreign ideas, especially Latin American liberation theology, influenced South African theological reflection, contextual theology was fundamentally rooted in indigenous sources, especially the structures and realities of the apartheid regime. According to Borer, contextual theology was characterized by several features, including: 1) an emphasis on the biblical themes of liberation and the teachings of the prophets; 2) a concern for the poor and the oppressed, with a call for a “preferential option for the poor;” 3) an emphasis on social analysis, with interpretation of injustices from a structural perspective; and 4) an emphasis on “doing theology” by calling on believers to take sides in political conflicts.
Since Borer seeks to provide a dispassionate account of the anti-apartheid politics of the religious elite, she does not critique contextual theology or assess the religious basis of the initiatives and actions of the SACC or of the SACBC. Still, it is useful to ponder the adequacy and validity of contextual theology’s claims. Is its emphasis on social and political liberation and political methodology warranted? Do the concerns with political and social liberation necessarily undermine concerns with individual liberation from sin? Is contextual theology so concerned with social and political justice that it neglects evangelism and personal salvation? Finally, does contextual theology help to prevent the church from being captured by the dominant culture, as was the case for most Afrikaner churches during the apartheid era?
In a recently published book,3 political scientist Tracy Kuperus argues that the interrelationship between the DRC and the state went through a number of distinct phases during the 1934-l994 period. In the era immediately preceding the rise to power of Afrikaners in 1948, Kuperus argues, DRC-state relations were characterized as “coexisting conflict,” where groups dominating the state and the church maintained both conflictual and cooperative ties. After the National Party took control of the government, however, relations between the DRC and the state shifted to “mutual engagement,” involving a higher level of official interaction and increased collaboration. According to Kuperus, this type of church-state engagement existed from 1948 to l961 and from l979 to l994. The third type of state-civil society interaction occurred from l962 to l978, when the DRC and the government cooperated extensively in pursuing many shared goals, including the institutionalization of apartheid. Because of the high level of collusion between the DRC and the state, Kuperus calls this period the era of “collaboration.” Indeed, because of the high level of church-state collusion, the DRC was dubbed “the National Party at prayer.” In contrast, during the l980s, as Afrikaners became increasingly disenchanted with the social engineering of apartheid, the DRC began to distance itself from the state and eventually to question its biblical support of the regime.
In the aftermath of the transition to democracy, South Africa’s churches face a different set of challenges. Al though Afrikaner churches will continue to have significant influence in South African society, their political role will be minimal compared to earlier eras. Moreover, whereas the DRC functioned with significant constraints during the apartheid era, in the new democratic dispensation, it has much greater freedom of action. The new political environment also presents significant challenges to churches that were in the forefront of the anti-apartheid movement. In the l980s, for ex ample, the SACC was defined by its opposition to the state and its support for apartheid victims. Establishing a new focus—one that emphasizes re construction and domestic social justice—has not been easy. Indeed, with the establishment of a democratic regime, foreign support for the SACC declined dramatically as pro-democratic assistance was channeled through newly legalized political organizations.
If the anti-apartheid religious organizations and churches can maintain their independence from the state, avoiding the church-state collusion that characterized the DRC-National Party ties during the apartheid era, then they will be able to foster social and political reforms based on biblical and moral norms. In an address in 1993, Frank Chikane, the former head of the SACC, called on churches to do exactly this. He said: “we will remain as the conscience of the new society critically supporting the envisaged new order when it does justice, and prophetically condemning it should it fail to pursue the justice of God.” If Christian churches can meet this challenge, they will contribute significantly to the ongoing transformation of society and the institutionalization of greater public justice in South Africa.
Mark R. Amstutz is professor of political science at Wheaton College.
1. Reformed churches include three majors denominational groups: the Dutch Reformed Church (Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk, or NGK), the largest white denomination in South Africa with well over l.7 million members; the Hervormde Kerk, a Reformed church of about 300,000 members that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in response to the “great trek” into the Orange Free State and Transvaal; and the Gereformeerde Kerk (GK), or “Dopper” church, which is committed to orthodox Calvinism, including the prohibition against hymn-singing. Although the GK is considered the most conservative church theologically, it has been the most progressive church socially and politically.
2. The AICs, which are characterized by their indigenous roots, involve three theological groups: the Ethiopian churches, which emphasize deliverance from oppression; the Zionist churches, which emphasize inner spirituality and the founding of new communities; and the Pentecostal churches, which emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit and the expression of the “gifts of the spirit.” What these groups have in common is their political autonomy from Western churches. In the words of Hennie Pretorius and Lizo Jafta, the AICs are churches that have “cut the umbilical cord with the churches of Western origin.”
3. Tracy Kuperus, State, Civil Society, and Apartheid in South Africa: An Examination of Dutch Reformed Church-State Relations (London: Macmillan, 1999).
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