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

UNKNOWN: I would like to first take this opportunity, Mr Chairman, to thank   this commission for inviting us the Evangelical Alliance to make a submission.   We feel it is correct the Evangelical community alongside other South Africans   of faith and those of no faith should give an account of their faith and conduct   in the last few decades. 
As representative of the Evangelical movement, we stand before the commission   and a nation in search of truth and reconciliation. With heads bowed in shame   for the way in which our movement failed God and South Africans by not standing   sufficiently with the poor and oppressed in the years of apartheid. This went   against the biblical witness which we are committed to uphold. We are mindful   of the fact that many South Africans might well be tempted to reject God on   account of the way we represented him, instead of preaching good news to the   poor, we found it easier to conform to the ways of the wealthy and powerful.   Instead of rejecting racism, we not only institutionalised it in our own churches,   but we proclaimed the gospel as though the sin of racism and violation of human   rights did not matter to the God we serve. 
To often some among us embraced too readily and uncritically the patronage   of an unjust government simply because that government presented itself as Christian.   This severely compromised the gospel we are called to proclaim. We therefore   take this opportunity to express our hope that South Africans will forgive the   churches. We have made it that much harder for them to find their God. Having   said that, it needs to be said Mr Chairman that the Evangelical community as   with other church groupings, had within its ranks at least two traditions. There   was a tradition that was prophetic or progressive, as well as a tradition that   was conservative. The former sought in word and deed to bring together Evangelism   and social concern, personal salvation and social transformation. Indeed, this   tradition has helped to produce a lot of good leadership in our society. This   tradition might we add, was not part of the hierarchy of the church for the   most part, but pastors and lay persons who were largely marginalised by the   hierarchy and largely black. Their leadership was neither recognised nor embraced   by the dominantly white leadership of the Evangelical movement.
On the other hand the conservative tradition within our movement tended to   see faith largely in other worldly terms with regard to society, this tradition   found it easy to move from theological conservatism to political conservatism.   The tragic result of this is that the defence of human rights was seen to be   outside the scope and mission of the church. In fact, Mr Chairman we probably   need to say more than merely that the tragic result of this was that human rights   were not part of the mission of the church, because indeed, a number of our   Evangelical christians began to be part of a broader programme, particularly   in the eighties that the government instituted in terms of its programme to   win the hearts and minds of South Africans. You will remember that in the mid-eighties,   there was a time when the government of the day made a statement that churches,   in particular at that stage, I think the Dutch Reformed Church with a lot of   pressure from the World Church, was asked to no longer be involved in politics,   but to busy itself with spiritual methods. What the government at that stage   began to do more aggressively than it did in the past was to then recruit a   number of Evangelical groupings to become part of its counter-revolutionary   strategy and the phenomenon of right-wing religion began to multiply increasingly   in those years.
And so, Mr Chairman it would probably be good if the TRC were to subpoena if   it was possible, some of the foot soldiers within our movement who could testify   about how it was that such things happened. Needless to say that these tensions   between the two traditions marks the history of Evangelicals in this country.   Those who stood for justice and human rights were often defrocked and victimised   by their own churches. 
In making this submission the Evangelical Alliance of South Africa wishes to   state that we are a new body in the history of the church in South Africa. Having   being launched in 1995, there's an alliance of 31 denominations with membership   of over 2 million people. This launch brought together previously existing Evangelical   groupings. There was - ever since 1967, an Evangelic Fellowship of South Africa   which has existed up till the formation of the Evangelical Alliance.
And there was another organisation representing mainly Black Evangelical's,   called Consandi Evangelicals that was launched in '85 and all these groups came   together in 1995, bringing on board a number of other ones of Evangelical Churches   that were for the most part not part of those two. So it is a culmination then   of a history of a search for Evangelical unity that started in the 60's.
At it's inauguration, the Evangelical Alliance of South Africa adopted a constitution   that states in it's preamble, that the Alliance recognises the ugly history   of apartheid in South Africa and the complicity of Evangelicals by commission   and omission in that history. This history was marked by racism and oppression.   Having learnt from this, our Alliance is committed to building a community marked   by dignity and justice. 
The founding of the Alliance takes place in the context of transition to a   new non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa. This transition is seen   a visitation of the mercies of God and provides an opportunity for a new ...[indistinct]   in Church and in society.
The submission of the Alliance therefore takes account of Evangelical practice   in the past and anticipates a future in which Evangelical Churches hope to fulfil   a prophetic role in which they make their contribution in the national search   for reconciliation, justice and human dignity.
It is also important to know that the Evangelicals were unanimous is espousing   one or other position in respect to the policies of the past. And I'd like to   mention a few points in relation to that and reflect on gross human rights violations   of the past. I think it is true to say that the Evangelical theology is by it's   very nature, such that a lot of the violations of the past are possible. With   few exceptions, the Evangelical community has historically maintained a conservative   theology. This is in marked contrast to the history of Evangelicalism world   wide. 
This conservative theology tended to hold that firstly, faith and spirituality   are private concerns and little to do directly with social, political and cultural   concerns. The implication of this is that believers abdicated their social and   political responsibilities, adopting a stance of neutrality. In the context   of apartheid conflict of the last few decades, such neutrality would naturally   translate into uncritical support for the status quo.
Similarly because there was little worked out social or political theology,   believers who participated in the struggle against apartheid would have tended   to so without adequate theological rationale for what they were doing. And going   with what was pragmatic, effective and was done elsewhere, that would be normally   the way in which Evangelicals conducted themselves. Secondly, Evangelicals held   that God Almighty was in control and that in his good time he establishes authorities   and replaces them. 
So that explains therefor Mr Chairman, the way in which Evangelicals justified   doing very little because everything was left to the intervention of God. In   fact it probably is not fair to say "We did nothing, but there was lot's   of prayers to bring about change".
The biblical text of Romans XIII, is largely interpreted to mean that the apartheid   Government was to be supported and defended. This was particularly strengthened   by the anti-communist mood of the times. The liberation movement was aligned   to socialism and communism and to that extent - and to the extent that Evangelical   movement is strongly influenced from the worst. The anti-communist posture of   the worst also became the abiding wisdom and pre-disposition of Evangelicals.
Thirdly, those who became involved against the struggle against apartheid -   the theology of liberation has exemplified in the biblical narrative of their   exodus, became the guiding paradigm. God took the side of the poor and this   raised the struggle of the poor to a moral high ground, making even the aberrations   within that struggle hard to critique. And I think in that sense, those of us   who participated probably could have done more to avoid some of the atrocities   that took place within that struggle.
Secondly, the Evangelical contribution by commission and omission to the conflict   of the past. By it's failure to develop a theologian practice that took adequate   stock of social reality and relying only on private morality to guide people   through complexities of socio-political ideologies and conflicts, the Evangelical   community made believers easy prey to the forces of conflict. In fact, believers   became socially and politically and culturally incapacitated to act decisively,   authentically and in integrity either way.
Looking at the question of how we failed to live up to the faith and how we   in that way, contributed to human rights violations. I think Evangelicals attempted   to justify the system of apartheid and rationalise their support for it. This   led to an embrace of a racist ideology in the ...[indistinct], in the theology   and in the structures of the church. And more concretely there's a sense in   which Evangelicals served in the military and police defence of apartheid -   and I just want to make one example that will explain this. 
In the 80's, there was a time when the government identified the young people   particularly as being at the forefront of the struggle and there was a time   when the government recruited young people by the thousands from a lot of the   Black townships, to camps that were all expenses paid by government, inviting   Evangelical Pastors and Evangelists to proclaim the gospel to these young people   as a way - in a sense, of neutralising them from their political commitments.
A typical testimony would come out of a young person - for example, I remember   a story of a young COSAS person who came away from such camps having discovered   faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, with eyes shining and saying "I used to   be a member of COSAS, I used to be involved in the struggle and now I've received   Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour and I'm no longer involved".
So in that sense, there was a way in which Evangelicalism became an antidote   that neutralised the people who were committed to a struggle for their own freedom.