'Demon of racism' in NG Church

2008-10-02 10:32

Neels Jackson

Pretoria - Relations in the NG Church fell to their lowest point in decades on Wednesday, when the Uniting Reformed Church (URC) general synod imposed a moratorium on discussions about church unity with the NG Church.

The URC's feelings about the NG Church became clear when Dr Allan Boesak, former URC assessor said "the demon of racism has not finally left the NG Church".

The World Alliance of Reformed Churches will now be asked to mediate.

Things went wrong on Wednesday when NG Church moderator Professor Piet Strauss offended the synod during his greeting, by reprimanding URC moderator Professor Thias Kgatla for his "public attacks" on the NC Church.

Kgatla did not react, but Boesak said he had never heard of an opportunity to speak being misused like that. Others complained as well. It was decided that the NG Church would be asked to repudiate Strauss.

Strauss later claimed in a letter to the moderators that he only wanted to ask Kgatla not to attack the NG Church.

Church unity

Chances of unity in the church faded late last year, when NG congregations reacted overwhelmingly negatively to the notion of church unity, especially over Belhar.

Boesak told the synod they heard the reasons for the rejection of Belhar was that NG Church members saw it as a political document that reminded them of apartheid. Issues like land reform, affirmative action and white people's loss of power also influenced them negatively about unity.

Boesak said there was no theological motivation against church unity. As far as he was concerned, the problem was that the NG Church was unable to meet evangelical demands in view of the political views of its members.

This meant only one thing: That "the demon of racism" had not yet fully left the NG Church, he said.

- Beeld