ADAPTACIÓN ORGANIZACIONAL A LA PCU

The church was very prophetic even before apartheid. It is, however, ironical that, during apartheid, the black churches were silent and individual prophets were vocal, not on behalf of the church, but on behalf of God. No one can dispute the fact that the voice of the church was very audible, for better or worse, before the advent of apartheid in 1948. The Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) had played a major role in endorsing a Christianity that was nurtured by race and cultural insinuations from the first time the Dutch first landed in South Africa in 1652. Krotoa (or “Eva”), Jan van Riebeeck’s Khoisan housekeeper, was the first to suffer from the religious and racial prejudice of the Dutch. When her white, officer

husband died on an expedition she was banished to an island because she had sunk into drunkenness and prostitution. According to Elphick (2012:1), this was all recorded as the act of a “dog returning to her vomit”. Although Krotoa had been the first convert in Dutch settlers’ Christianising efforts, she would never be what she was not predestined to become, at least according to early DRC Calvinism. The apartheid era was born out of this civil religious aberration when its architects sought to sanctify the birth of a “new people”, as DF Malan termed in 1938, resulting from the Boer victory against the Zulu, one hundred years earlier (Moodie 1975).

Almost immediately after the introduction of apartheid in 1948, dissident voices were raised within the Reformed family of churches. As early as 1955 Professor BB Keet, a DRC theologian in the Cape, warned: “Our colour prejudice is probably the greatest factor in producing non-white agitators and revolutionaries” (Elphick 2012).

Professor Keet spoke against a biblical basis for apartheid. There were others in the Reformed tradition, such as Albert Geyser and Beyers Naude, who, in the 1960s, were victimised and ostracised by their colleagues because of their stance against apartheid. They later played an important role in the formation of the Christian Institute, a body of Afrikaner theologians in the Reformed tradition who opposed apartheid (Walshe 1983:7).

While there was some element of racial equality in the Cape under English jurisdiction, there were also early voices in the church that opposed any legal frameworks that suggested white or colonial supremacy. As early as 1844 the

Rev Elijah Makiwane edited an African Newspaper, Isigidimi Sama Xhosa, as a mouthpiece for African dissatisfactions and a mobilisation tool among literate black people. In addition, the Rev Walter Rubusana edited an African newspaper,

Izwi Labantu, which had significant impact on the African communities of his day

(Walshe 1987:3).

More than any other factor, at least according to Walshe (1983) and Elphick (2012), it was missionary education that contributed to the political consciousness of early African leaders in South Africa. Several of them were educated overseas, for example, the Rev. J Dube (USA), while others such as Rev. HR Ngcayiya were well travelled and had been exposed to what was happening abroad regarding human rights and the relationship of the British with its colonial empire (Walshe 1987:1–25). The emergence of the Ethiopian Movement in the 1800s represented dissatisfaction with the mission churches that demonstrated the heavy imprint of colonialism.

Even more significant was the contribution made to the formation of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC) by individuals such as John Langalibalele “Mafukuzela” Dube. The Rev. Dube, a resident minister of the American Zulu Mission at Inanda, was elected in absentia as the first president of the SANNC, which was formed in 1912. The SANNC later became known as the African National Congress (ANC) (Elphick 2012:124).

As discussed in previous chapters, in December 1974, a meeting of the Black Renaissance Convention was called in Hammanskraal, near Pretoria. Again, the participation of clergy was prominent with the presence of Maurice Ngakane,

Allan Boesak and Smangaliso Mkhatswa (December 13–16, 1974). As indicated in earlier chapters, the 1970s saw a rise of black theologians inspired primarily by James Cone’s Black Theology. Mokgethi Motlhabi provides a timeline of the beginnings of black theology in South Africa and details the numerous individuals who represented the voice of the church in different ways in the black consciousness environment in the volatile days of apartheid (Motlhabi 2012:223). This may have been a response to a sentiment expressed by Steve Biko before his death on 12 September 1977:

Here then we have a case for Black Theology. While not wishing to discuss Black Theology at length, let it suffice to say that it seeks to relate God and Christ once more to the black man and his daily problems. It was to describe Christ as a fighting God, not a passive God who allows a lie to rest unchallenged (Biko 1978:94).

In the 1970s a bolder breed of churchmen and women emerged who chose to speak directly to government officials rather than using public platforms to air their dissatisfactions. In 1979, Allan Boesak (1984:94) wrote a letter to the then Minister of Justice, Mr. A Schlebusch stating that:

…It is my conviction that, for a Christian, obedience to the state or any authority is always linked to the obedience to God. That is to say obedience to human institutions is always relative. The human institutions can never have the same authority as God.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu also wrote to the Minister of Law and Order, Louis le Grange:

Mr Minister, you are not God. You are merely a man. And one day your name will only be a faint scribble on the pages of history while the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord of the church, lives forever (Boesak 1987:107).

As mentioned earlier, the United Democratic Front was launched in Mitchell’s Plain, Cape Town in 1983. Frank Chikane and Allan Boesak were at the forefront of this move to establish a united voice against apartheid. Archbishop Tutu, Allan Boesak, Frank Chikane and others were frequently seen in the front lines of protest marches in the townships as the apartheid security forces murdered and maimed civilians in many parts of the country. In many cases the South African Council of Churches (SACC) became a vibrant platform where churchmen and women could unite against apartheid. Indeed, two of the SACC’s General Secretaries, Tutu and Chikane, were probably the Council’s most vocal voices before the demise of apartheid in 1994.

The international call for economic sanctions against apartheid South Africa reached its zenith in the early 1990s. It is difficult to see how this campaign would have made an impact without the voices of Tutu, Chikane and Boesak on international platforms. While they did not escape the wrath of apartheid, for reasons that are not entirely clear the apartheid government was careful not to interfere with them adversely, as it was keen not to further tarnish its already tainted image in the international community.

De Gruchy (1979) and others have elaborated on the difficult, and often two- faced, role of the English-speaking churches in South Africa during apartheid. In some sense, while they did criticise apartheid they also enjoyed its protection. In other words, they spoke out vehemently against apartheid but also enjoyed its benefits.

Pentecostals, across the board, were silent on the issue of apartheid. Until 1996 the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) had openly supported apartheid and even implemented systems of racial discrimination against its majority black membership. Others, such as Bhengu from the Assemblies of God, made a conscious decision not to openly criticise apartheid but, rather, to work within the denominational structures to undo its evils (Motshetshane 2015:227).

Perhaps the first exception was Maurice Ngakane, a former teacher at an Assemblies of God Bible School in Rustenburg, who became a member of the SACC. Ngakane was among the trailblazers in the black consciousness movement and inspired younger men, such as Frank Chikane and Cyril Ramaphosa, in their anxious struggles through a Pentecostalism that did not speak to the socio-political issues of the day. Thus, until 1994, the voice of the church was heard in almost every sphere of social life in South Africa. However, this study was concerned about the silence that followed 1994 and, hence, the question: Why has the church suddenly become quiet?

It was therefore important to briefly explore the role of prophetic ministry in order to understand how Boesak and Chikane seemed to move from differing roles in respect of the prophetic in their ministry in South Africa.