A denomination dealing with questions of diversity, theology, and culture in a country with ongoing divisions of race, economics, and social norms. Today’s Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)? No, Reformed churches in the South Africa of the 1980s.
The time and situation out of which the Belhar Confession was born were evoked during the annual Sprunt Lectures at Union Theological Seminary/ PSCE in Richmond, Va., January 23-25. Speakers included two of the originators of the confession: H. Russel Botman, professor of missiology and vice rector of the theology faculty of Stellenbosch University in Matieland, South Africa; and Dirk J. Smit, professor of systematic theology on the theology faculty at Stellenbosch University. Both Botman and Smit relate to the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa. They lectured on the theme, “Not Our Own: Being Christian in Difficult Times.”
The Belhar Confession is being distributed and discussed in PC(USA) circles as possibly informational and inspirational as the church struggles with current issues and efforts such as the Task Force on Peace, Unity, and Purity of the Church as a way to address them.
Both Smit and Botman said the Confession was written quickly and without much pre-planning as their Synod struggled with a World Alliance of Reformed Churches report coming from the recently-held Ottawa conference in 1982. They realized “we had been debating church unity for thirty, forty years; it was no longer a moment for theological debate. The truth of the gospel was at stake,” said Smit. Synod representatives including Botman and Smit prepared the draft Belhar Confession in a day or so; it was sent to the churches for four years of scrutiny and discussion before being finally adopted in 1986. The two reformed groups that adopted the Confession have merged into what is now known as the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa.
Signing the confession was a “costly decision” for some, according to Botman, who served time in prison. Many in the synod received their salaries from the white Dutch Reformed Church and at the same time were signing a document calling apartheid a heresy. It was the equivalent of saying to those “who pay you at the end of the month, ‘I have no other place; this is what the Bible tells me,'” he said.
Everyone stood against apartheid, but differed in how to continue their efforts, according to Smit. Some strongly urged church unity, others reconciliation. Many said in effect: Don’t talk to the white church about unity, they don’t want to hear it. Talk about reconciliation, which means acceptance and forgiveness. Smit added: “Belhar helped bring these groups together. Are reconciliation people willing to speak justice language? Are justice people willing to speak of reconciliation?”
The political climate of South Africa was the context for both the confession, and the work of the churches in general. The confession was attacked as a Communist document. It was a predominately black statement at a time when that whole segment had no way to speak to the powerful. “The church was called ‘the voice of the voiceless.’ Funerals were the only places where there could be public speeches. Ministers played a very important role,” Smit recalled.
They had no expectation in the mid-1980s that the prevailing regime would end. “When we wrote the Confession, I never actually believed I would see the end of apartheid in my lifetime,” said Smit. “It was too totalitarian, too powerful. When it happened, it was a major surprise, a miracle, wonderful.”
For both the church and the country, the years since have fallen into five-year segments dealing with common themes: 1) struggle for freedom; 2) struggle for unity; 3) struggle for reconciliation; 4) struggle for justice. The churches have not completely achieved any of the four, but have moved forward while continuing to work, said Smit.
Now South African churches are trying to be faithful to their faith and principles in a changing context. Once seen in the vanguard of a righteous movement, now they are seen as lagging behind, Botman said. The critical question for the church now is what is their new role. In this situation, ecumenism must grow, he added.
As South Africa emerged from apartheid, the overall process adopted and adapted church concepts and even its leaders. “Some think the reconciliation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the same as Christian reconciliation, that amnesty is the same as forgiveness,” said Smit.
Now the churches and believers of all races are dealing with self-identity and relational efforts. For older, white Christians, the past is painful and best forgotten. “They want a new start, to go ahead without history, without Belhar,” said Smit. Yet, the Afrikaans-speaking people are transforming themselves, he adds.
Black Christians are more focused on poverty, unemployment, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. They have felt renewed hope in the years after apartheid while still working through “a certain sense of dehumanization” from the past, according to Botman. Now the country must fulfill its promises. South Africa’s economy is growing and many are pinning their hopes on it. “As theologians, we think a place is turned around by its people, not so much by its money, but money plays an important part in motivating people,” he said. Great gaps in opportunity–economic, educational, and cultural–must be addressed for all citizens. “The one thing we have secured is that our children will have something to start on.”
The Belhar Confession has been a motivator for change and the future among the South African Reformed churches. It has been discussed, but not yet officially adopted by the Dutch Reformed Church, but has been studied and affirmed as in line with the Bible and with the Reformed faith. Some see it as one of the common-ground sites where future unification talks among the various Reformed churches could gather.
Already, the confession has triggered discussions in other parts of the world, in other Reformed contexts. “What we hope will come out of this conversation is that unity, reconciliation, and justice are one,” says Botman. “You can’t try to deal with the question of justice in a certain fashion and leave the others unattended. Unity creates the context where you … talk and listen to other voices and begin to think differently. What do we want to do as a church?”
