Belhar Confession/South Africa

Additional Pages:

• The Belhar Confession
• Why Does the Church Need the Belhar Confession? (by Rev. Mark Lomax).

• South Africa Trip 2009
• South Africa and the Founding of Church of All Nations (by Jin S. Kim, 2004).

LESSONS FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Introduction: Breaking Communion

(See here for original post, “An Unholy Pilgrimage: Contending With Tradition in South Africa”)

In 1857, at the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), the seeds of church and societal apartheid (meaning “separateness” in Afrikaans) South Africa were planted.  At issue was the administration of Holy Communion—did the white settlers have to partake of the Lord’s Supper together with the black indigenous people, many of whom were their slaves?  Though the Synod wavered in their response, the door to racial segregation was clearly opened:

“The Synod considers it desirable and scriptural that our members from the Heathen (i.e., non-whites) be received and absorbed into our existing congregations wherever possible; but where this measure, as a result of the weakness of some, impedes the furtherance of the cause of Christ among the Heathen, the congregation from the Heathen, already founded or still to be founded, shall enjoy its Christian privileges in a separate building or institution.”

In 1881 the Dutch Reformed Mission Church for “Coloured” people (DRMC) was established.  Soon after the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (DRCA) was established for black people, and the Reformed Church in Africa (RCA) for Indian people.  Racial segregation was institutionalized as apartheid was made an official church policy.  In 1948, the theology of apartheid that had developed in the DRC provided the springboard for the rise of the National Party, which institutionalized it at a national level.  The result was a racial caste system that benefited the small percentage of whites in the country, while oppressing, impoverishing, and discriminating against those classified as Coloured, Indian and Black.

From October 5-21, twelve staff from Church of All Nations traveled to South Africa to study, engage and wrestle with this history—particularly the church’s role within it.  We also sought to learn from those engaged in the struggle against apartheid, along with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process of the mid-90s that helped South Africa confront the truth about herself, and therefore move to a more honest and hopeful future.  A number of reflections from team members will be posted here in the days and weeks to come.  What follows is my own reflection on the reason this trip was so important for myself and these other leaders, along with a summary of some of our experiences.

An Unholy Pilgrimage

In Matthew 4:1-11, we read that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights where he fasted and confronted his demons, so to speak.  In later Church history, this “desert experience” captivated would-be disciples seeking to flee the ravages of Empire and Christendom by journeying to the desert to reclaim an authentic Christian witness.  The Life of Antony by Athanasius in the 4th century records one of many examples.  In this tradition, the journey of discipleship necessitates entering into primal fears and desires, contending with the self, the devil and with God at the site of one’s deepest wounds.

In many ways, pastoral training and leadership development at Church of All Nations aims to do just this—transform the character of individuals by leading us into our pain and woundedness, fears and anxieties, until reaching what we call “the bedrock of our humanity.”  That is, the primal depths of our creatureliness that unites us across all that divides.  Only at this point can we enter into a deep trust in God and other people, liberating us to proclaim the Gospel fearlessly and embody the Gospel at the very depths of our being.  It is in this way that we seek to become missionaries—not as those who go over “there” to do and teach good things, but as those who are bearers of the Good News of Jesus Christ out of our very lives.  The mission of God (missio Dei) advances as we shape Christian community naturally out of who we are, and who we are becoming, drawing others into the same honest and redemptive journey.

Of course, there are layers upon layers of sediment that accrue through the years, all of which must eventually be uncovered and exposed until one is naked again as in birth, thereby setting the stage for a rebirth.  This occurs through the discipline of confession, where we seek to speak the deepest truths about ourselves and the common humanity we share with all people.  This means dealing with personal woundedness by exposing shame and guilt in order to experience the healing embrace of a loving and trusting community.  It also necessitates entering into the wounds of our society, such as the “original sin” of racism in the United States, which was used to justify stolen land from Native Americans and stolen labor from African-Americans.

But for the uncovering to be complete, we have to dare enter into the wounds of our tradition—of Christianity and, even more specifically, the Calvinist Reformed tradition of which we are a part.  The stories and mythologies embedded within our traditions give shape to who we are.  We see this in Jesus’ time in the desert.  The temptations he encounters in the wilderness reference three of the central symbols in his Jewish tradition—the Exodus, the Temple, and kingship.  Jesus’ engagement with his personal fears and desires, along with the power he possesses, is intertwined with the strengths and weaknesses of the tradition he inhabits.  We see him contending with these deep wounds in the wilderness account, letting go of the securities and promises of power they seem to offer.  Once so dispossessed, however, he becomes a faithful steward, mediator, and embodiment of the Jewish tradition.

This is why South Africa is so significant for Reformed Christians who live in the United States—its history, along with the history of the United States, is the site of our deepest trauma, shame and guilt.  Put simply, these are the two governments in the modern period where racism was most heavily institutionalized, and the link that they share is their Calvinist heritage—Dutch Reformed (South Africa) and Puritan Reformed (United States).  As many of us know from personal experience, however, the deep dysfunctions that we carry are hard to recognize until we see them in another person or culture, which judges us indirectly, opening up a new and more truthful perspective about ourselves.  How do we diagnose and take responsibility for the ills of the American church and society when we have lived within them our whole lives?  But when viewed through the lens of the struggle in South Africa, they start to become painfully and uncomfortably clear.

In this sense, our journey to South Africa was a religious pilgrimage.  We were seeking to learn, experience and touch something about our tradition that would transform us.  Unlike other pilgrimages, however, we were not going to a “holy” site—that is, a place with some uncanny ability to mediate the presence of God, or the site of our faith’s founding, or the location of our tradition’s proudest moments.  This was not like Mecca to Muslims, or Jerusalem to some Christians and Jews, or Geneva to Reformed Christians, or even Scotland to American Presbyterian Christians.  Instead, this was an unholy pilgrimage, where we journeyed to the place of our deepest failure and complicity.  In South Africa, the Gospel became so contaminated so as to be unrecognizable, so compromised and co-opted so as to be found guilty of a Judas-like betrayal.  We went to that site where there was no longer any illusion of innocence, because only in this way could we be confronted with our own betrayals and lack of innocence.

A Country of Unsettling Contradictions

We spent time in the coastal towns of Durban and Cape Town during our time in South Africa, venturing up the mountains and swimming in the ocean water.  We also drove through the countryside from Johannesburg to Pietermaritzburg, and experienced the vibrancy that each city has to offer.  Our reaction was always the same: “What an incredible place to live!”  In fact, at various times throughout the trip each of us took turns brainstorming ways to come back and stay longer—whether to study, do an internship, or even to live and work.

But the richness and beauty of South Africa are merely the flip side of the country’s historical struggles—an underside rooted in the colonialist desire for increased land and resources, even if on the backs of the native inhabitants.  While staying with Risley and Renisha’s family, we heard first-hand accounts of the Indian experience in South Africa.  Lured there as indentured servants in the 19th century through false promises by the British, they were subjected to harsh working conditions with little in return.  Some were imprisoned for trying to resist or escape the harsh conditions.  Eventually they were located near the bottom of the racial caste system in apartheid, and forced into separate townships through the Group Areas Act of 1950.

We also toured Constitution Hill, the Apartheid Museum, the Hector Pieterson Museum, Regina Mundi Catholic Church, and Robben Island, where we engaged the brutal history of apartheid in detail—the dehumanizing prisons; the divide and conquer strategy employed against non-whites; the violent police force employed (even against innocent children); the intricate detail of apartheid’s architecture designed by Hendrik Verwoerd; the role that education played in its maintenance through the Bantu Education Act of 1953, along with the imposition of the Afrikaans language in the mid-70s; and the psychological toll apartheid exerted upon its subjects, from white/non-white signs to the Pass Laws that Mohandas Gandhi, Robert Subukwe and others protested, including those fired upon at the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960.

Finally, the after effects of apartheid were visible in the townships we visited, and also in the poverty that surrounded us everywhere we traveled.  Today 42% of South Africa is homeless and 55% of its people go to bed hungry at night—a socio-economic devastation that disproportionately plagues the black community.  Apartheid officially came to an end in 1994 and South Africa, with the help of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, made a relatively peaceful transition to democratic rule.  The entire global community regarded it a miracle that South Africa did not erupt in a bloody revolution at this time.  But today, even with the black African National Congress (ANC) as the governing party, the white population continues to possess the majority of the land and resources in a country that is only 9% white and 80% black.  In 1998 a series of employment laws were passed to address some of these issues, including a strong affirmative action for blacks, but many whites have refused to train and pass on their job skills to those who are not white.

It was clear, then, that the legacy of apartheid continues in South Africa and deep fears and suspicions remain amongst the racial groups toward one another.  The white population now feels victimized because they are no longer in political power and face the prospect of unemployment in a nation with limited jobs and a strong affirmative action.  The majority black population continues to bear the brunt of the poverty.  So even with the ANC now in power, many blacks are upset because land and resources remain in white hands.  The Indians, who are 2% of the population, and the Coloureds, who are 9% of the population, feel marginalized once again—they weren’t white enough during apartheid, and so joined with the blacks in resistance, now they aren’t black enough during the ANC era, and don’t enjoy the same benefits of affirmative action.  Finally, everyone with resources feels fearful and victimized by the high crime rate, which is rooted disproportionately in the black community, given their size and poverty rate—thereby confirming and increasing stereotypes already present.

Clearly South Africa is a country of deep, unsettling contradictions: a country with a stunning landscape and a land loaded with natural resources, yet with a history littered with violence, division and oppression; a country home to indigenous peoples with rich and instructive cultural histories, but where those people are now overwhelmed by poverty, crime and a seemingly never-ending AIDS epidemic; and perhaps most tragically, a country with a strong Christian influence, but one where that very influence has been the source of its deepest pain.

Colonialism, Calvinism and Apartheid

The uncomfortable reality that we faced continually in South Africa is the role that Christianity and, even more specifically, the Reformed tradition played in the emergence of an apartheid theology.  It was precisely this theological foundation that gave apartheid its enduring power, functioning as an “ideology of the sacred” that lent divine credibility to institutionalized racism.  If those in our group simply understood ourselves first and foremost as individuals, then this would not have been that problematic.  We could have distanced ourselves from this history, believing that we are somehow different.  But we are constituted by the traditions of which we are a part; they shape and inform who we are in very deep and enduring ways.  There is always an interdependence in our relationship with tradition—our traditions are a part of us and we are a part of our traditions, without either being reduced to the other.  To interrogate our traditions, then, is also to interrogate our very selves.

The broader context that gave rise to the conflicts in what is now South Africa is European Colonialism.  In 1492 the Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus accidentally “discovered” the Americas while looking for India.  Often forgotten, however, is that it was the reconquista of Spain from the Muslims that helped to finance and propel these endeavors.  The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 had been a huge blow to Christendom.  The Ottoman expansion into Europe was a constant fear and the major trade routes between Europe and Asia were now blocked.  With the Reconquista, Columbus could now sail on behalf of the Queen of Spain in search of a new route to India where he hoped to find gold and spices to shore up wealth and resources in the face of Islam.  The discovery of the Americas led to new possibilities, however, and European Christian nations suddenly saw the possibility of security by acquiring new lands and resources around the globe.  The success of these endeavors would confirm the rightness of Christianity vis-à-vis the error of Islam.

With this history in mind, we have to recognize that it was Christian supremacy that gave rise to white supremacy.  The more success Christian nations had in colonizing the globe, the more they were confirmed in the rightness of their millennial beliefs, sensing a divine mandate behind their conquests as they sought to “rule with Christ.”  And when this Christian supremacy was carried forth by Dutch Reformed Christians amongst the native black population of South Africa, a dangerous misuse of John Calvin’s theology emerged—one that helped give rise not just to racial classification and ordering, but also to racial hierarchy with soteriological implications.  Suddenly when it came to race, in other words, salvation itself was at stake.

John Calvin was a sixteenth century French theologian and pastor with well-known emphases on the sovereignty of God and predestination.  These are liberating in a period of deep insecurity—nothing is left to chance, but all is under the guidance and control of an omnipotent God.  When ripped away from its context, however, they became dangerous, as social scientist Roger Bastide has explored in an article titled, “Color, Racism and Christianity.”  If God is sovereign, exerting universal control over all of creation, then why do some people not receive the Good News when offered?  For Calvin, “the knowledge of God was deeply rooted in the minds of men.”  This means that people are without excuse.  If people are presented the Gospel and repeatedly reject it, then this is clearly a sign of negative predestination.  What else could explain it?

In South Africa and North America, in particular, the black rejection of the Christian message by white missionaries, pastors and slaveholders was linked with the doctrine of election.  Because they were anxious about the status of their own salvation, they began to look for signs of assurance.  Recognizing the wealth and land they had acquired, and the advances they continued to make in technology in contrast to the poverty, enslavement and recalcitrance of the black population provided the clarity they were looking for.  Suddenly skin color was invested with soteriological significance.  Whiteness came to signify salvation, wholeness, and purity, while blackness became a marker of damnation, poverty and contamination.  Of course, in between these poles were degrees of approximating whiteness and, therefore, salvation.

It is here that we begin to understand the origins of the concerns of the white Dutch Reformed Christians in the mid-19th century when they requested to partake of communion separate from blacks, which eventually led to segregated worship.  In the Institutes Calvin warned about the temptations that would threaten the elect if they chose to live the country life, where they would be in contact with “savages.”  Elsewhere he adds, “God esteems more highly the small company of his own than all the rest of the world.”  This provided the justification needed for the development of a “frontier complex”—the sense that God has chosen a small community to protect the faith against its “pagan” detractors.  When Calvin’s use of “pagan” or “savages” gets transferred to skin color, it becomes clear that whites believed the very Gospel was at stake in achieving “separateness” (apartheid) during worship.

This is to say that skin color and eventually apartheid were invested with theological significance, which is precisely what has lent them their enduring power.  Christian supremacy emerged out of a deep insecurity and inferiority complex before the rapidly expanding Ottoman Empire, and white supremacy carried this forth in a new context before a predominantly black South African population.  The “frontier complex” provided the ideological justification necessary for the whites, who were 9% of the population, to control virtually all of the land, labor and resources—and by whatever means necessary.  Even where the theological roots of apartheid were forgotten, the existential force of this classification remained.  Responsibility for it, therefore, rests squarely on the shoulders of the Christian church.

Confession as a Public Witness

One of the questions our team wrestled with as we engaged in conversations, visited museums, and learned about the brutality of apartheid was: how and why did the white people—especially white Christians—let this oppression continue?  Did the average white Afrikaner know what was happening to his or her neighbors?  If so, was there care or concern for their plight?  These questions were especially pertinent to me as a white male from the United States, where I participate in and benefit from a similar history.  But we discovered that since white South Africans are no longer in a position of power, and are instead experiencing the judgment of history, it is rare to find an Afrikaner today who would say they were aware and supportive of what was happening.  Everybody is against apartheid now, and everybody says they were either unaware of it or against it in the past as well.  Even the Voortrekker Museum includes a display detailing the evils of apartheid, while lifting up the non-white heroes who helped overcome it.

But the question remains: how did white South Africans enjoy the benefits of apartheid without considering and responding to its cost for others?  There were, of course, different reasons they did not respond.  Many really were sheltered from its effects and did not know what was happening.  But even here they still had the option of simply looking over the fence, or getting into their vehicle and driving into one of the townships.  To not know also meant they did not want to know.  Others clearly did know what was happening, but either benefited from it too much to respond, had so bought into racist logic that they did not care what was happening to those who were not white, or simply did not have the courage to speak up and resist.

Though the reasons differed, however, there is one thread that seems to hold all of these various reasons together—the fundamental belief in white innocence.  Some did not put in the effort to know because such knowledge would have been too painful, shattering their sense of ultimate goodness and rightness.  Those who knew what was happening did not have the motivation to respond because their overall sense of innocence had not been compromised.  Here the theological underpinning of racism held firm—whiteness equals purity, goodness and salvation, leaving little room for a deeper self-knowledge that judges and condemns (other than some abstract notion of total depravity).  What does it mean to be a Christian apart from a fundamental sense of innocence, goodness and purity?

Even as there was a deafening silence amongst the white Afrikaner community, with the exception of notable figures like Beyers Naude, there were other great leaders—activists, politicians, and pastors—that emerged to expose the country’s idolatries, prophetically calling her to her better self.  People such as Mohandas Gandhi, Robert Subukwe, Steve Biko, Helen Suzman, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu come to mind.  These are people who not only accurately diagnosed the situation at hand, but in their own ways risked their reputation, their career, even their lives to bring about a more just and humane South Africa for others.  Whereas the Afrikaners sought to uphold some form of illusory innocence, these figures understood what the German theologian and pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, had come to understand in his own struggle with Nazi Germany: “everyone who acts responsibly becomes guilty.”  In this sense, perhaps it was the average white Afrikaner’s sense that he or she had something to protect, preserve or justify that was the true barrier to addressing apartheid.

While in South Africa, we had the privilege of interacting with a number of people who belong in these ranks for their courageous stand in solidarity with the victims of apartheid.  Allan Boesak, who in the 1980s founded and led the anti-apartheid coalition, United Democratic Front (UDF), shared with us his experiences in the church and politics of South Africa.  Dirkie Smit also met with us, a white Dutch theologian at Stellenbosch University who did risk acting responsibly during apartheid by helping draft the Belhar Confession, which explicitly called the church to unity, reconciliation and justice in the 1980s.  John W. de Gruchy, a leading Bonhoeffer scholar who has applied his thought in creative ways to the struggle for reconciliation in both the South African and global contexts, discussed the Reformed tradition with us.  Rev. Spiwo Xapile hosted us at his church, J.L. Zwane Presbyterian Church and Center, in the Guguleto Township, where they have a remarkable ministry with those suffering from AIDS thanks in large part to his twenty-year pastorate.  We also spent time with leaders at the Diakonia Council of Churches and the Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa, discussing their work in the area of healing and reconciliation.

What was remarkable about each of these engagements was hearing how it was their deep Christian convictions that propelled them toward the work they are doing and the risks they have taken.  Furthermore, most of them wrote, led and ministered out of Calvinist roots.  Whereas for some the Christian faith and the Reformed tradition had been used as a tool for oppression and subjugation, for these leaders the tradition served as a stimulus for costly resistance and service.  Even where Christianity had been most heavily co-opted, there was certain “excess” that could not be completely controlled and reined in.  And the point of distinction seemed to be around Christology—were they worshiping the high and exalted, set-apart, and holy Christ of later Christian tradition, or were they following the Christ of the Gospels who got his hands dirty and entered into the groaning of creation?

The Reformed tradition, with its emphasis on resurrection and Lordship, is easily used to emphasize the former, which can lead to a diluted Christology in favor of an abstract, docetic transcendence.  This gives rise to triumphalism—the sense that one possesses the pure, rarefied truth.  But Calvin’s life itself seems to betray the very way his theology has been used in this respect, taking on the authorities and siding with the large refugee population in Geneva.  For this reason, de Gruchy argued that the doctrine of election was not about demarcating who is “in” and “out” based on some standards of purity, but about the exact opposite—God’s preferential option for the poor, as we see in Mary’s song (Luke 1:46-55), for example.  If this is the case, then all of the myths that give rise to Christian supremacy and white supremacy are fundamentally misguided.  The Gospel is not about an ascent into the heavens, but about a descent into the deep, primal cry of creation, as the Kenosis hymn of Philippians 2:1-11 spells out.  It is not about separating ourselves from that which we consider unclean, but about risking contamination and even becoming guilty for the sake of others.

One of the great gifts of the Reformed tradition is its emphasis on public theology.  But this must be a theology rooted in weakness rather than in strength—that is, a theology that dares to confess the truth about the self and the community before God and others.  Confession here is the church’s public witness.  This was the role of the Belhar Confession that was adopted by the Dutch Reformed Mission Church in 1986.  Confession, as Boesak reminded us, stands with God where God is standing—with those who are oppressed.  This is a vulnerable position, where the only resource one has is trust in the God of resurrection, who pulls life out of death.  To confess, in other words, is to recognize that the cross always precedes and remains connected to the resurrection.  This is where reading Bonhoeffer in dialogue with Calvin is helpful, as de Gruchy has done.  It is this recognition that liberates us to risk for others, rather than retreat into our own safe, self-enclosed community that merely confirms us in who we are.  With the latter you end up with apartheid and white supremacy, while with the former you are opened to suffering with and serving alongside all of God’s children.

Conclusion: Risking Love for a Restored Communion

Engaging the history of South Africa as Christians from the United States is to look in a mirror and see our own distorted reflection.  While we share the same Reformed Christian roots that gave rise to apartheid theology, we also have to recognize the ways that South Africa learned from the United State’s own history of stolen land, slavery and Jim Crow Laws.  The difference is that whereas South Africa has begun the process of addressing the wounds of the past through the public testimony and confession of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the United States still struggles to have a public discourse on the reality of white supremacy.

South Africa has an advantage in this respect with their philosophy of ubuntu, which says that, “I am because we are;” or, “my humanity is inextricably bound up in your humanity.”  The question in the United States is whether Christians can rise above the country’s radical individualism to take responsibility for other people and systemic issues, mobilized and supported by trusting communities.  Can white Christians like myself in the United States learn to set aside the myth of white innocence and submit to a church community where we are not in power or control, and are forced to confront our own guilt?  Will we learn to confess our history boldly, speaking the truth about ourselves, our cultures, and our traditions in love?  Will we be open to learning from the history and experience of Christians in other countries, understanding missions as a mutually supportive dialogue rooted in relationship, rather than as a one-way paternalistic endeavor?

It is clear that racial division began in the church, and we therefore have to take responsibility for it and address it in the church as a place of healing and reconciliation.  For this reason we must journey into the sites of our deepest wounds, because it is only in these unholy pilgrimages—personal, societal and at the level of tradition—that we become trustworthy stewards, rather than threats to perpetuate the status quo or co-opt the tradition for our own gain.  South Africa provided this site for us, helping us interrogate our own complicity in fear, racism and division, while also providing examples of what it looks like to truly risk loving others out of a deep trust in the God of new life.  To truly love boldly, our posture as leaders cannot be one of innocence and triumphalism, but must be one of penitence that takes responsibility for our tradition through personal and corporate confession.  In doing so, we recognize that we participate in a shared network of mutuality and responsibility together before God, helping us rise above despair, cynicism, fear and self-concern and enabling us to share communion with all people.  Our hope is that through such beloved communities we will begin to repair in society what the church originally broke.