Prevalent Theological Postures towards church and state relations - A Case Study of South Africa

Last Friday I participated in this event via Zoom:

CHURCH AND STATE What are our options? SIMON LEREFOLO 
Rosebank Doppio Zero, Fri 11 Oct 2024, 6:30am-7:30am

The relationship between church and state continues to be a subject of
debate in South Africa and across the globe. It’s not as simple as
trying to find an optimal point along a one-dimensional spectrum
between total separation and respecting no boundaries. Many factors
are at play.

What are the most popular models – and the most workable ones?

Simon Lerefolo studied Mechanical Engineering & Economics and has
worked as an engineer and a  consultant. He is the Senior Pastor at
Every Nation Church in Rosebank. His Master’s Thesis is on “An
Analysis of Prevalent Theological Postures towards church and state
relations - A Case Study of South Africa”.

---------------

I'm not going to try to summarise what Simon said, which was in turn a
summary of his masters dissertation. But here are some thoughts
prompted by the question.

"Apartheid" was a political slogan used by the National Party in South
Africa in the General election of 1948.

The National Party won the election and came to power in place of the
United Party, which had governed South Africa since before World War
2. 

The slogan "apartheid" was used to counter a policy of relaxing racial
segregation laws which had been proposed by the Fagan Commission,
which had been set up by the United Party. For more on that see here:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagan_Commission>

The National Party's policy was to increase racial segregation, and so
used "apartheid" (separateness) as an election slogan.

In 1948 most of the voters were white, and only a few black and
coloured South Africans were allowed to vote, and over the next 20
years the National Party systematically removed the few black and
coloured voters.

After coming to power in 1948 the National Party appointed the Sauer
Commission, whose recommendations were diametrically opposed to those
of the Fagan Commission, and, in effect, turned "apartheid" from a
slogan into a policy.

This policy was generally supported by the three Afrikaans Dutch
Reformed Churches, but other Christian groups criticised it, mainly
from a humanitarian rather than from a theological point of view. If
the policy was strictly applied, they said, it would increase the
suffering of black people. 

The Dutch Reformed Churches, to varying degrees, tried to support
apartheid theologically. The Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk (NHK), which
was the most politically conservative though the most theologically
liberal of the three, already had in its constitution a clause that
said there should be no equality (between black and white) in church
or state.

The National Party increased its majority in the 1953 general
election, and added a new slogan -- baasskap (bossship). The white man
must be the boss. 

One of the first public *theological* criticisms of apartheid came
from an Anglican priest, Trevor Huddleston, who ministered to an urban
parish in Sophiatown, a largely black community which was being
subjected to ethnic cleansing in the implementation of apartheid. In
his book "Naught for your Comfort" Huddleston maintained that
apartheid was not only cruel and unjust, but also heretical.

A National Party spin doctor, Alexander Steward, wrote a reply, "You
are Wrong, Father Huddleston", in which he used purely secular
arguments to try to show that apartheid was not cruel or unjust, but
was well-intentioned and perfectly just, but he made no attempt to
engage with Huddleston's theological criticisms at all. 

The National Party again increased its majority in general elections
in 1958, 1961 and 1966. Apartheid, which had started as a slogan in
the 1940s, and became a policy in the 1950s, by the 1960s had become
an ideology, part of a wider ideology of Christian Nationalism. 

For the ideology to prevail, the youth must be indoctrinated with it,
and this was done by means of Christian National Education, which
became the guiding principle of primary and secondary schools
controlled by the National Party government. Education was a
provincial affair, and the National Party controlled three of the four
provinces, but not Natal. 

The only way to escape Christian National Education (CNE) was to live
in Natal or attened a private school, most of which were run by
various Christian denominations. 

In the mid-1950s the National Party passed the Bantu Education Act,
which effectively nationalised (and Nationalised) all the church
schools for blacks), and took control of black schools out of the hads
of the provincial governments and put them under a new central
government Department of Bantu Education. And new church schools for
whites, started after 1952, no longer received government subsidies,
so had to depend on fees -- so children could only escape Christian
National Education if their parents were rich and white. 

In 1968 Christians of many different denominations examined the
ideology of apartheid, and produced a theological statement that
condemned it as not merely heretical, but as a false gospel. This
theological rejection of apartheid was summarised in "A Message to the
People of South Africa" which was widely distributed by the
newly-formed South African Council of Churches, the Christian
Institute, and other denominational and interdenominational bodies. 

The point that all this is leading to is that apartheid, in its
various forms -- growing from a slogan, to a policy, and then an
ideology, became a focus for Christian critique. As years went by the
critique was elaborated and extended.

Some Christians supported and defended the apartheid state, but the
majority rejected it, and in the 1990s apartheid, as an ideology,
collapsed. Though some still believe it, it is no longer backed by
state power. Many of its effects are still felt, but the engine which
drove it has lost its power.

Now this may have been covered in Simon Lerefolo's dissertation, but
most of it was not mentioned in his talk, so I've tried to describe it
here. I've described some aspects of it more fully in a series of blog
posts here:

<https://khanya.wordpress.com/about/>

The thing about that is that apartheid was the official dominant
ideology, which hardened over the years, and it made it fairly easy to
focus on and think about theologically. 

But in the last 30 years political issues have been much more
diffused,and it is harder to focus on any of them, and "the church" --
divided into more than 10000 distinct denominations -- can't make up
its collective mind about them because it doesn't have such a thing,
and most evaluations of political policies by Christians have been
done on secular criteria -- the salt has lost its savour. The dominant
ideology, not only in South Africa, but in much of the world, is
Neoliberalism, which is plugged, inter alia, by the South African
Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR), which, back in the day, used to
publish fairly informative reports critical of apartheid and its
implementation.

Neoliberalism was promoted in the 1980s, most notably by Ronald Reagan
in the USA and Margaret Thatcher in the UK, and in 1986-1988 the
National Party began to implement it in South Africa, as its faith in
apartheid was beginning to waver. The implementation was half-hearted
and partial. One aspect of it was the transformation of parastatals
into "State-Owned Enterprises" (SOEs) - South African Railways became
Transnet. The Electricity Supply Commission (Escom) became Eskom.

And the "church" uttered not a word. Neoliberalism was far more
diffused, and difficult to focus on. 

Building societies became commercial banks. Medical Aid became health
insurance, mutual insurance societies became profit-making companies,
and "the church" was "bought" like all the other members who sold
their birthright for a bowl of neoliberal pottage.

Some of these things happened as a result of government commissions,
like the Sauer Commission and the Fagan Commission, though in a
democratic society the ideological assumptions can be questioned. But
"the church", which had instituted a Study Project on Christianity in
Apartheid Society", which produced numerous reports, was far too
disorganised to instituate a Study Project on Christianity in a
Neoliberal Society. That might have developed a more focused critique.

Some speak of chimeras like "Cultural Marxism", and they can't say
much coherent about it because they are so embedded in cultural
neoliberalism. And the rest just look away and hope the problems will
disappear. 





























-- 
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web:  http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk