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

BISHOP RETIEF: Well, I'm going to try to answer that and then maybe some of   my colleges might want to comment on that as well. The bible affects our day   to day lives quite obviously and it did even in those days. However, let me   just say that our style of operating our church, our denomination, is not the   same as say the church of the province of any other Anglican diocese anywhere   in the world.. We had no central resources, we had nothing. All of our churches   are self-supporting. We had no buildings, most of our churches today are new   churches that have been built. Our congregations have been carved largely out   of the rocks of the ground, if I can put it that way. If the congregations do   not pay the stipend, the ministers to not get paid. That is how we work. We   do not have a central payment system, so there was no need for us to enter into   the sort of debates that the church of the province had as far as stipends were   concerned. Except that most of our black churches were in poor rural areas,   where there was no hope of them ever paying for themselves. So they were heavily   subsidised by the white churches. So white churches usually paid for their own   expenses and for one or two black churches, or paid into a central fund to help   the black churches as far as we could. It was always a struggle for money as   it is even today. It was mentioned earlier on today, and it always will be.   But that was our commitment then and that is our commitment now. And so we continue   to try to help at the same time and to try to uplift the various congregations.   That's how we operated as a denomination in regard to each other. As far as   the laws of the state were concerned, I refer to my comments in our submission   where I tell you that we needed the second touch from the Lord Jesus Christ.   We had blind spots, we were wrong. We have no excuses except to say that we   believed the lies, the subterfuge, that we were blind and looking back now we   can't believe that we were so blind, but I suppose that all people who are converted   feel like that after they have been converted. And so we are grateful to our   Lord, Jesus Christ, for touching our eyes a second time. I do not know if some   of the others would like to comment.

BISHOP MARTIN MORRISON: Perhaps just to add to that, Chairperson. I think although   we are firmly committed to the bible as the word of God as our source of truth   for all of life, there have been times, certainly in our past and I'm sure even   in our present when we don't read it properly or obey it as we ought. And I   think as was stated in the submission, one of our real faults and sins is that   in the areas of society and culture, we were somewhat short-sighted to say the   least. And in that way we did not bring credit to the gospel or to the word   of God and for that we clearly do repent.

CHAIRPERSON: I am not sure that I shouldn't exercise my power gently [LAUGHTER]   but the look on your face is so - I mean it melts my heart. I will allow you   a very small question, yes.

<UNKNOWN>: Thank you, Sir. I just want to hear from this church whether   there has been a change of heart. You did make a very serious statement in your   presentation from what we don't have, that you believed in dialogue which was   your modus operandi, not confrontation. If you look back to what has been happening   in South Africa where there were no opportunities of dialogue, what other alternative   would you have suggested when you look back? That is number one, number two   [interevention]

CHAIRPERSON: No, no, no. You said one.

BISHOP RETIEF: The question is if there was no opportunity for dialogue, what   would we do. Obviously you are referring sir to the oppressed masses who had   no opportunity for dialogue and you're asking me what would I have done. My   honest answer to you is I do not know. We are fairly late thinkers. We are late   starters. You've got to view us as being a little bit dyslexic. We are trying   to find our feet and it is not our intention in any way to pass judgement on   the actions of others. We do not know what we would have done ourselves. Our   main concern at the time was in some way to express our concern without betraying   what we believe. That was an enormous struggle for us and it is that struggle   we are trying to convey to you today.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, Joyce.

UNKNOWN: You mentioned the trauma and the shock that engulfed the St.   James congregation after that massacre and yet I have been intrigued, in fact   pleasantly surprised by some of the positive pronouncements that were made by   some of the victims of that massacre. How can that church, in fact your whole   church, use that horrible traumatic experience, use it positively to bring about   the healing that we are now talking about in this hearing?

BISHOP RETIEF: Our response to that event in our church was a spontaneous response   with nothing orchestrated or planned and it came out of a church that I believe   is committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Notwithstanding our weaknesses   and our failures as we've tried to explain them today. We do, at the end of   the day, love Christ and because of our commitment to the bible we felt that   we could integrate what had happened to us into our world view and into our   view of God. And so we were able to deal with it and what we believe is true   now is that in some way we can in fact identify with other victims of violence.   We do have something to say to people who have suffered violence and live in   bitterness. We do have an alternative way forward to offer people who have suffered   great loss and great sadness and tragedy because of the system in which they   live and where they see no way forward. There is a way out and we have experienced   that for ourselves. It is rooted in our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and we   can share that were we are given permission to do so and where people are open   to it. We believe that we can offer a hand of fellowship in suffering which   is genuine and true and without forcing any of our views on anybody, we believe   that as Christians we can point to another way.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much. I think we have in the submissions that we   have had, all of us been touched by the movement of God's holy spirit and we   give thanks that God has seen fit to not give up on us. That God has been willing   to use all kinds of instruments to touch us and through us who have been touched   perhaps to touch others. We want to say thank you very much to those of who   have come this morning to testify here, all four of the groups that have come   and we believe that the people of this country may in fact have heard, or will   hear and will see, and that there will be this movement towards our becoming   more and more those who are responsive to the movement of God's holy spirit   and compassion and love. Now I hope you will agree with me. The time factor   is just a little awkward, but if we agree that we will eat lunch say for 30   minutes, and be back at 2 'o clock. Bishop Dandle, I hope your speech will be   able to keep until then and we will sort of keep trying to adjust. We may -   don't want anyone to feel that they have prepared themselves for a 45 minute   session and suddenly they have less than this, but there may just be those of   you who sympathise with the Chairperson and are willing to sacrifice in the   spirit of this hearing to say well, we will give you ten minutes of our time   Mr. Chairperson, so that we get very close to the Finnish[SIDE 2, TAPE   3][inaudible] about a hundred is it? If there is anything over ...[inaudible]