South Africa Protestant Pastor Johan Botha speaks

The Slow March
of the Reformed Church

Afrikaners, the meeting point between Africa and Europe, and the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa. After the defeat of apartheid, the new challenge of secularization

edited by Rocco Ronza

The Afrikaners, descendants of the Dutch colonists who arrived in South Africa in the 17th century, are a link between Africa, to which they belong, and Europe, from which their fathers came. Today, they are seeking their place in the new South Africa with a black majority after apartheid. Their identity as a people has always been linked with the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), deeply rooted in the Calvinist tradition. Johan Botha is an Afrikaner, pastor of the missionary Church founded by the DRC amongst the “coloureds” (people of mixed Dutch, Xhosa and black descent living in the Cape area). It took a stance against apartheid in the toughest years of the struggle, when the “mother church” still supported the segregationist system.

Ten years ago, the first election open to all races marked the end of apartheid and the birth of the new South Africa. How has Christianity–which is so deeply rooted in the South African society–helped the process of reconciliation between racial groups? How is the ongoing secularization impacting on this?

The church community in South Africa played a fundamental role in the change we experienced in our society. Christian individuals and institutions of different denominations opposed apartheid from its promulgation in 1948. Through the years that followed, the voice of the South African churches opposing apartheid grew in unity, strength and legitimacy. The Biblical message of embodied unity, true reconciliation and compassionate justice indeed united Christians across racial and denominational boundaries to fundamentally contradict apartheid in principle and practice.
Currently the situation has become more complicated for us. The Christian community, once so united in its stance against apartheid, now often finds it difficult to be united in the face of the tremendous challenges which secularization, amongst other things, poses for us. In the old dispensation our society was closed, well guarded by state– and Church–controlled mechanisms against all kinds of influences, including many of the fruits of secularization. Today, however, our borders are open. We have to deal with all kinds of freedoms and influences from all over. The South African community all of a sudden became part of the big world. We were not well prepared to face the complicated very secularized world of today. Thus, as Christians we are struggling to find our feet. We are suddenly confronting not only one well-known foe, but different, not-so-well-known ones (e. g. poverty, unemployment, decline in moral standards, crime and HIV). What is hopeful, though, is that the Christian communities are actively seeking to stand together to face the new challenges which also secularization poses for us.

Even under the leadership of your father, David, your Church strongly opposed apartheid. Do you think the process of reconciliation within the DRC family since then can offer teachings or suggestions for forging a new relationship and partnership between Europe and Africa?

In 1982, when the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) criticized her mother, the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) for having provided apartheid with a theological basis, she fully realized and appreciated that God used the DRC to bring the Gospel of salvation to us in the DRMC (today the URCSA, Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa). Thus, as DRMC, we declared emphatically that while we had to be sharp and focused in our criticism, we wanted the DRC to hear clearly that we operated in the style and with the Biblical language of love.
The Accompanying Letter to the Confession of Belhar, formulated in 1982 (a solemn founding document promulgated at the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Missionary Church in Belhar, a town near Cape Town), ended up: “We pray that our brothers and sisters throughout the Dutch Reformed Church family, but also outside it, will want to make this new beginning with us, so that we can be free together, and together may walk the road of reconciliation and justice.” The good news is that we have started to walk the road together as the DRC family! The process is still often painful and slow. However, we have no choice but to walk, seek and work together as the one body of Jesus Christ. I believe the same applies to our relationship as brothers and sisters from Africa and Europe.

You are responsible for the industrial ministry of your Church. As a Calvinist, you share a long tradition of looking at work as an integral and crucial part of Christian life, as “calling and worship.” As an African, however, you are also aware of the possible abuses of a “work ethic” in enslaving human life to the secular religion of profit and money. In the light of your own tradition and personal experience, how should a Christian be looking at his or her daily work?

It is very human to succumb to the market forces of our day and to develop a selfish motive for working. Indeed, it is easy to become enslaved by the secular religion of profit and making money, to serve one’s own needs and interests and perhaps of those nearest to you. The dictum “We are not our own” (from the Heidelberg Catechism) is the cornerstone of the Reformed confession and of its spirituality about life and work. From this vantage point, the Reformed Sunday School Catechism curriculum indicates that we ought to live a life of thanksgiving, worshipping God and serving our neighbors.
For me, this means firstly that our work should fundamentally be aimed at the glory of God. Thus, we will understand clearly that our daily work from Monday onwards essentially continues our worship of God in the Christian community on Sunday. Perhaps we should ring the church bells again on Monday to remind ourselves and others that we do our daily work coram Deo, before the face of and ultimately accountable to the living God, as people of integrity, credible, reliable and trustworthy. This also applies to the organizations we work in.
Secondly, our work should essentially aim at serving the needs of our neighbors, because Christ calls me to be His witness in society, to be His worker in the factory and His manager in industry. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says in his Ethics, “It is never in thinking of myself, but it is always in thinking of the call of Christ that I shall be set free for genuine responsibility.” And the guiding principle in this case is to account for the need of our neighbors, indeed those who are furthest from ourselves–we may add: those who are poor, the least among us.

You visited the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples in Rimini, along with your father in 2000, and again in 2001. Did you find anything familiar in the CL experience?

The privilege I had to visit the Rimini Meeting twice was indeed a very enriching and rewarding experience. I was struck by the fact that whole families associated so strongly with the CL movement and its ethos to associate with the Gospel of Christ in our secular age. It was really remarkable for me to experience that we generally share so many ideals and have so much in common, though coming from different continents and even from different denominations. Perhaps this is not so remarkable. After all, we serve the one triune God, Lord of all, whose Spirit lives in us all and guides us daily. And, of course, in Fr Giussani’s willingness to cross over and to seriously study the Reformed faith in the USA early in his career, a foundation was laid for us to meet fruitfully. I experienced an intuitive link and a clear understanding of our mutual love for Jesus Christ. I also realized we share a joint testimony about His Lordship and we are convinced of His reconciling power in our divided and strife-torn world today. Indeed, this I found quite remarkable and hopeful!