WARC visit prompts heavy debate in formerly pro-apartheid South African church

by REC News Exchange

JOHANNESBURG — In early March, an eight-person team from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) visited South Africa. One of its goals was to meet with representatives of the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa (NHKA).

The current president of WARC is the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, former General Assembly stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The NHKA is a former member of WARC that was suspended during the WARC General Council of Ottawa, 1982, for its support of the apartheid system in South Africa. After suspension, the NHKA resigned its membership.

Following reform within the church and the end of the apartheid era, the NHKA decided in 2004 to reapply for WARC membership, by a large majority of its General Assembly.

The WARC, however, asked the NHKA to meet the three basic conditions it had set in Ottawa. The WARC felt two of those conditions had been met, namely that the worship service and Lord’s Supper were open to people of all races, and that there be joint diaconal work with their sister church, which was a black church in the apartheid era.

The third demand — that the church unequivocally reject apartheid as sin and its theological justification as heresy — was not met. Some in the NHKA felt that they had, in principle, taken such a decision in their General Assembly of 2001, but that previous WARC visitors did not consider that statement sufficient.

In 2007, a proposal was put to the NHKA General Assembly that, if adopted, would have satisfied the WARC. It was drafted jointly by the WARC and the NHKA leadership of the time, and was almost identical to a statement adopted by the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) in 1998, a step that paved the way for the DRC to reenter the WARC.

The NHKA assembly, however, would not accept the document, and instructed its newly elected leadership to reopen the discussion with the WARC about the requirements for readmission. A narrow, two-vote majority approved that course.

The meeting between the NHKA and the WARC March 6 was inconclusive. The NHKA team believed they did not have a mandate to approve a statement rejecting apartheid, but only to discuss their ecumenical stance and make proposals to the following General Assembly, scheduled for 2010.

According to a report from the NHKA, the best the two groups could do was a mutual recognition that there could be no agreement at this time. The NHKA presented a position document to WARC, but WARC found it wanting. The WARC team, according to WARC General Secretary Setri Nyomi said the team “appreciated the efforts that have been made so far and the real division of opinions and sentiments in the church on this issue, but had to come to the conclusion that the proposed formulation did not go far enough.”

A few days later a group of five theologians from the NHKA published a declaration titled “Apartheid in Church and Politics.” The statement declared that a moment of truth had arrived for its signatories. “We cannot but respond,” they wrote. “Along with many others we are sad about what has happened in the Netherdutch Reformed Church and are ashamed before God.”

The five theologians, after noting the recent events, declared that they, “as ministers of the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa declare unequivocally that apartheid is sinful in its essence and in its consequences, and that an attempt at any theological justification whatsoever is misguided.”

They argued that the gospel is a message of compassion, that believers are required to have compassion for others and that apartheid was inherently dehumanizing. They offered a prayer of confession and concluded their document with an invitation for others to sign.

Among the signatories was the former moderator of the NHKA, Johan Buitendag, as well as Ernst van Eck and Yolanda Dreyer, all members of the theology faculty at the University of Pretoria.

After another week of debate in the church and public press, the NHKA moderator, Theuns Dreyer, issued a statement calling the declaration “Apartheid in Church and Politics” premature and unnecessary. He emphasized that the leadership did not have the mandate to make a similar statement, which could be made only by a General Assembly.

He noted they were coping with different viewpoints in the church, one of which is represented by the declaration, and another that felt that the church should not make judgments about politics. People had opinions about apartheid, but also about the current government system, which had elements of reverse discrimination.

Dreyer concluded his remarks with the prayer that God’s Spirit would lead the next General Assembly to make the right decision in these circumstances.