Church scrutinises stance

Press, 22 October 1986, Page 11

Church scrutinises stance

NZPA-Reuter Cape Town South Africa’s influential whites-only Dutch Reformed Church will push on with a crucial debate on apartheid today over its strictly segregated structure. The Nederduitse Gereformeede Kerk is under heavy pressure from reformed churches abroad and from mixed-race worshippers in a rebellious “daughter” church. Some 400 delegates at its four-yearly synod, faced with a report that turns its back on the idea that apartheid was ordained by God, spent hours debating how far to go in opening its own doors to other races. The Church, whose worshippers include most of the Republic’s Cabinet Ministers, came closer to accepting in principle that people not classified as white could join its congregations.

Its synod turned down a liberal proposal which would have allowed congregations to pursue unity at local level with its “daughter” churches for people classified as black, and Coloured. How the “open door” principle would work in practice remains to be thrashed out. The Coloured Sendingkerk (Mission Church), backed by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, wants its “father” Church to repent as a heresy its long-stand-ing support of apartheid, and merge with daughter churches. A Sendingkerk observer, Rudolf Herholdt, said: “You cannot doctor apartheid, it has to be broken down.” Another white pastor who serves in the Sendingkerk, the Rev. Jan Mostert, said the father church was moving, but the gap between it ?nd his

church remained “huge.” “Many people will try to portray the N.G.K. vision after today as negative and bad. I think a lot of positive things have happened today,” Mr Mostert said. “For a long time I have been defending the Church, as I will in future. But it’s become nearly a hopeless cause. For me as a white man, it will become more difficult.” This week’s debate is vital also for the N.G.K’s relations with the world council, which suspended the white Church from membership in 1982. The N.G.K.’s new reformist moderator, Professor Johan Heyns, told reporters: “I believe we are moving in a direction which will be acceptable to the W.A.R.C.” The synod had accepted that racism was “a serious sin which no person or church may defend or practise” — but it avoided

equating apartheid with racism. The furthest it is likely to go towards the recantation the world council wants is if it accepts a minority report, held over for debate, which is endorsed by Professor Heyns but likely to meet tough opposition from hardline conservative delegates. This urges a confession that giving religious endorsement to apartheid was "a mistake which, although inadvertent, contributed especially in its practical application to much pain, suffering and bitterness.” The Church has traditionally reflected the views of the National Party which has governed South Africa since 1948. The synod has so far toed a middle line in Nationalist political terms, rejecting both liberal and hardline amendments.