Special Hearings — Faith Community Hearings — 1997-11-17

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very, very much. I am very deeply grateful. Are your   colleagues wanting to make any contribution to this or will they participate   in the question and answer session?

BISHOP RETIEF: I think they are participating in the questions that you put   to us.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. Bongani Finca?
REV.

BONGANI FINCA: Thank you your Grace. The submission by the Church of England   is the main submission submitted to the commission in July. It is very brief   and very scant. I see that the submission that you have been reading from just   now is really supposed to be the main submission on which we should have formulated   our questions. Unfortunately, we are not going to be able to raise any questions   which are contained in that submission at this stage, because we have to study   it and then prepare our questions. Perhaps, your Grace, we could come back to   the Church of England with questions on that main submission once it is submitted   to us. For now I'm going to be raising questions which are based on this submission   which is a two page document.
You mention in your submission that gruesome attack on your members in worship   at St. James and the Chairperson has already referred to that and conveyed our   sympathy. That attack shocked the whole country. But I want to ask what impact   did that have for your own church, for your own denomination in terms of opening   up your hearts and minds to other gruesome attacks which have taken place in   the country. Not very far from here there is a church here in Mdanstane, which   was equally attacked by the Ciskei Police. People were shambokked and teargassed.   Did this event make your members relate to these kind of events which have been   happening to other people who are Christians, in this country.

BISHOP RETIEF: The answer to that is most definitely so. It was obviously an   horrendous event and an event that traumatised not only our church but actually   quite an interesting experience for us in the aftermath for us to be able to   see how events like this traumatise people. For instance, not only were our   church members traumatised, but their relatives living around the country who   knew that they attended the church were all traumatised. The neighbours living   in the area were traumatised. The children who were in our service that night   - we have scores and scores of children coming on Sunday nights as well as Sunday   morning - who happened to be in a different part of the building for their own   program were deeply traumatised, but all of their school friends were also traumatised   because they knew that those friends of theirs come to our church. So it was   a vast network of hurt and pain that was created by that event and we had to   try to deal with all of that. Without a doubt one of the first reflections that   came home to us after we were able to dust ourselves off, if I can put it that   way, is that this is how large numbers of our fellow South Africans were living.   It was with this kind of terror and fear and we took great pains to state publicly   at the time that we realised that that massacre was not the only massacre that   had taken place in South Africa and that we were not the only victims of violence   and it gave us a fresh appreciation of the absolute terror with which many,   many people lived, especially in the townships where unprotected people lived.   Many of them who did not have the infrastructure to be able to cope with it   as we had, or the support systems that we had. It did have a profound impact   on us in that regard.
REV.

BONGANI FINCA: Thank you very much Bishop. Again in your submission you refer   to the spiritual roots from which your denomination come and how these have   influenced your style of worship, your concern for unbelievers and your attitude   to justice for all racial groups. Social justice for all racial groups. I want   just to question you on the last aspect your attitude to social justice. How   do you spell out your denomination's attitude to social justice? Especially   at the time which we are examining, the time of apartheid?

BISHOP RETIEF: Let me try to explain that by referring again to my comment   that we came out of a strongly pietistic background and as you will all well   know when you are governed by a strong form of pietism, there's nothing wrong   with all kinds of pietism, but a strong from of pietism does lead to a sort   of separatism. So we were part of that group of people that had separated church   and society. Now having said that, I want to also say that it's not that we   had no concern for society or the needs of the people around and about us. We   were evolving in our thinking and were not helped by the fact that we did not,   at that stage in our church's history, have thinkers in our ranks who could   help us and assist us. Our theological training was limited and we had a largely   lay leadership in those days because of the historical aspect of our church's   beginnings and many of those lay leaders, many of them, came from overseas and   they had their own view of things and we were younger and not able always to   understand what they doing or saying or thinking. It's only as we grew and developed   and matured ourselves, that things began to change. But as we did begin to evolve   and change, what we would like the commission to know is that our conviction   is that all social justice stems out of a prior commitment to Jesus Christ as   Lord and Saviour. It is the fruit of being a Christian, it's not the root of   being a Christian and it is at that point that we were so stumbled, so confused   and bewildered by the arguments of liberation theology at the time, because   it seemed to us that the message of liberation theology had changed the very   root of the gospel. We may have misunderstood it, but that is how it appeared   to us at the time and formed part of our confusion.
REV.

BONGANI FINCA: Thank you very much. Again in your submission you refer to your   position on the bible as the only authority and the final standard of faith   and life, which is a very radical statement. What did this affirmation mean   for you as a denomination in terms of your relationship with the state which   was passing legislation which seemed to be so contrary to the basic tenants   of the gospel? And also what did this mean to you for your own lives as a denomination?   We have just listened to the Anglican church's moving confession of how with   the good theology that they had, they continued to not apply that in terms of   the payment of stipends to their ministers in a manner that said there is no   ...[inaudible]. Did this acceptance of the bible as the only authority affect   what perhaps we could call your mundane life, your day to day life as a denomination?