South African Church move

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33513, 19 April 1974, Page 13

South African Church move

(By EDMOND MARCO, of A.F.P. (through N.Z.P.A.)

JOHANNESBURG

A break between the South African Dutch Reformed Churc.li, the ruling Church in Afrikaner Calvinist circles, and its mother Church in the Netherlands, is now inevitable.

This was indicated by the Moderator of the Church (Dr J. Gericke) when he returned from Lunteren, in the Netherlands, where the Synod of the Reformed Churches had decided by 49 votes to 22 to give financial aid to African liberation movements. The South African Dutch Reformed Church earlier dis-, sociated itself from a type of assistance to liberation movements in Africa recommended by the World Council of Churches and which, in its opinion, could mean aid to "terrorism” in Southern Africa.

After the vote at Lunteren lin favour of such aid, "The price for the South African Church to maintain at alii costs its links with the Netherlands has become too high, although these links had always been important,” Dr Gericke said. The Moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church Synod of the Wester Cape, who represented South Africa at the Lunteren Synod, added that the Synod’s decision should not be seen as "the attitude of millions of Church members i in the Netherlands”. He pointed out that, im j contrast to the Synod’s I (move, an "action pro-South I jAfrica” had been established iin the Netherlands, and i claimed that some people in ; the Netherlands told him (that they were "finished i with their Church” after the I latter’s decision to "support .terrorism”. D; Gericke said that the links between the South (African Dutch Reformed ; Church and the Reformed (Churches in the Netherlands ;would be severed, "unless ' members of the Dutch Com- ; mission who piloted the Synod’s decision through, in I the Netherlands, came to I South Africa to discuss the 'matter with the General Executive of the Dutch Reformed Church”. He said that the Moderator’s decision to recom;mend to the General Synod; ’that the ties be broken with :the Netherlands had created ' some consternation in Lunteiren. “This is not unwelcome at 1 all to us because it shows (that the Dutch Reformed , Church is serious about the ■ matter and is not prepared! any more to pander to their' I whims,” Dr Gericke said.