http://tinyurl.com/4ecz5r
In September it will be 40 years since the "Message to the people of South
Africa" was published.
It was a comprehensive rejection of the apartheid policy of the South
African
government of the time on theological grounds.
While Christian groups had criticised apartheid previously, most of the
earlier criticisms had not explicitly rejected the principles of
apartheid,
but merely criticised the way it was applied.
The "Message to the people of South Africa" was a new departure, saying
that
apartheid was not merely bad in practice, but was wrong in principle. It
was
not merely heretical, but it was a false gospel.
It was intended to be a turning point in Christian responses to apartheid.
Unfortunately, from the point of view of publicity, it was upstaged by the
government's banning of the MCC cricket tour because the England side
included
Basil d'Oliveira, a South African-born coloured.
For this and other reasons, the response to the Message was disappointing.
One result was the formation of "Obedience to God" groups, and in some
quarters there was a hope, and even an expectation, that this might lead
to
the formation of a Confessing Church in South Africa.
In the event, the "Confessing Church" never happened.
One of the abiding questions is, why not?
One answer may be that many people were simply too chicken.
Many of those responsible for drafting and publicising the Message were
clergy, and they perhaps feared for their position, their stipends and
their pensions if they went out on a limb.
One of those most committed to "Obedience to God" was Bill Burnett, then
General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches.
I believe that the failure of the "Obedience to God" movement led to Bill
Burnett's disillusionment with the ecumenical scene. Soon after that he
was
elected as Anglican bishop of Grahamstown, and he began to plug the
charismatic renewal movement within the Anglican Church in South Africa.
He said afterwards that "The one who does God's work is God", and I got
the impression that he attributed the failure of movements like "Obedience
to
God" to the impossibility of human beings obeying God without the power of
the
Holy Spirit.
The challenge of a "Confessing Church", of course, is that one has to
"think
sect" (in the sociological sense of the term "sect"). It means abandoning
the
pretence at respectability and being marginalised, It meant that the
church
would have to go underground, as many opposition political movements had
done
earlier.
To my knowledge Bill Burnett made one more attempt, when the was
Archbishop of
Cape Town, and presided at the Anglican provincial synod in 1979. There
was a
motion to the effect that the church should stop applying for permits for
things like multiracial functions. Bill Burnett said that as Archbishop he
saw
his role as guardian of the institutional church, and it was a role he
disliked. He asked if synod was asking him to drop that role, because one
consequence of not applying for permits might be that the institutional
church
would crumble, and he asked if synod was asking him to do this. There was
an
embarrassed silence, and synod said nothing.
Obedience to God was too difficult, and "thinking sect" was something that
the
clergy, black as well as white, were not prepared to do. People could talk
of
a "confessing church", but were not prepared to take the
consequences.
There's a fuller version of this on my blog at:
http://tinyurl.com/4ecz5r
with links to resources.
Comments, anyone?
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop
uk
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