The Rationalization of Racism

Christians have two urgent reasons to care about what is happening in South Africa. Intensifying violence is, of course, one of those reasons. Since late 1984, more than 500 blacks have died. At funerals, black anger erupts against other blacks, and the carnage swells.

But significant as the moral concern about violence is, there is a second, equally compelling reason for Christians to speak out about South Africa. Apartheid—the dominant social reality of that nation—is justified on faulty theological grounds.

Apartheid And Religion

In South Africa, the shade of a person’s skin determines where he may live, work, worship, and send his children to school. South Africans born black are not considered citizens of the country, but only of their artificially designated, tribal “homeland.” They do not vote or hold national public office, and they must carry a pass to travel within their own nation.

American opposition to apartheid runs deep, perhaps partly because of our own unhappy—and not-too-distant—oppression of native Americans and blacks in this country. As we condemn South African policies, we must at the same time acknowledge with humility our own inclination to read the Bible selectively, suiting our preconceived ideas. Considering our own history, Americans can approach South Africa with a unique understanding of the results of the sin of racial pride.

That said, apartheid remains unique in today’s world. It is officially sanctioned by the government and upheld by specific laws designed to keep the races separate. And it arises out of a world view shaped most explicitly by South Africa’s Dutch Reformed Church. Through the church, apartheid was brought into being as national policy in 1948. Many close observers of South Africa believe it is the church alone that holds the key to lasting change.

The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa grew out of Dutch Calvinism, and it includes three branches for whites as well as three separate denominations for nonwhites (black, “colored,” and “Indian”). The largest and most influential of the white churches is known by its Afrikaans initials, NGK.

Afrikaner nationalists, founders of the NGK, interpreted Calvin’s doctrine of election to apply to nations as well as individuals. They identified their personal faith closely with national political goals, such as freedom from British rule and opening the country’s interior for the furtherance of the gospel and civilization. Thus, though the primary manifestations of apartheid are racial, we must understand the Afrikaner ideology as an all-encompassing—and religious—world view.

Theological Roots

Racial prejudice was not a cornerstone of NGK doctrine in its early years, but it evolved in response to demands from white churchgoers. In 1828, several white members of a Dutch Reformed congregation refused to share the Lord’s Table with the “colored” husband of a Malay slave. They argued, from 1 Corinthians 8:13, that if the presence of a dark-skinned person at the Communion table offended some whites, the “colored” one should stay away.

Church policy at the time stated just the opposite: that Communion for all without distinction was “an unshakable principle based on the infallible Word of God.” But the actual practice of many congregations reinforced a sense of white superiority. The controversy over integrated Communion persisted, and whites began to press further demands for congregations separated by race.

At a synod meeting in 1857, a compromise was attempted. The NGK said “heathen members” ought to be incorporated into congregational life when possible. However, in cases where, “as a result of the weakness of some,” this would hinder the work of the ministry, separate congregations should be established. In theory, the church held fast to its correct understanding of Scripture that differences of race and color do not matter in God’s sight. But in practice it caved in to intense white prejudice and, for the first time, officially sanctioned separation.

Biblical support for apartheid is relatively recent and uses Scripture to derive general principles that are seen to justify apartheid. A frequently cited chapter is Genesis 11, the account of the Tower of Babel. It is interpreted to mean that God wills mankind to maintain strict separation between people of various national origins and languages. Similarly, the NGK interprets the tongues of Pentecost as another affirmation that God desires ethnic homogeneity.

Evangelical orthodoxy offers a radically different interpretation of these passages: Pride in human accomplishment, broken at Babel, is replaced at Pentecost by reconciliation with God and with men of all sorts through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Spiritual unity among believers in Christ overrides any and all temporal differences. An unwarranted fixation with skin-deep variations among humankind is heresy.

Promoting Change

The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa has developed apartheid and supported it, to the extent that racial separation has become an end in itself, not merely a means to keep order. But other Christians, including Catholics, Anglicans, and Methodists, as well as some outspoken Reformed scholars, have stood in steadfast opposition to it. They recognize that the compromised, politicized gospel being preached in their country undermines church credibility and alienates nonbelievers throughout all of Africa.

In 1966, a monthly publication of the Christian Institute, headed by the Reverend Beyers Naudé, contained this critique: “The NGK is embroiled in a titanic struggle for the retention of its identity as Church of Christ. Its essential being is at stake: it is being tempted to substitute another master for its own Lord.”

In response, the NGK has retreated deeper into its protective shell. Finding a way to break through the resentment and isolation that has built up over years of “circling the wagons” is a monumental challenge and a focus of intense policy debate in the United States.

Today, about 350 U.S. companies have plants in South Africa, employing about 1 percent of the nation’s work force. Proponents of divestment say the American corporate presence lends tacit approval to apartheid and inhibits criticism from our government. But being present gives Americans practical leverage they should not abandon lightly.

Tangible benefits for South Africa’s labor force have accrued from fair employment guidelines enforced by about half the U.S. companies active there. Known as the Sullivan Principles, they were developed eight years ago by a black Baptist pastor from Philadelphia, the Reverend Leon Sullivan. He serves on the board of directors of General Motors and devised the principles for that company’s use in South Africa.

The Sullivan Principles offer black South Africans a measure of human dignity they have never known. To us they seem elementary, calling for integrated work places, equal pay, improved training opportunities for blacks, and a commitment to increase the numbers of blacks and other ethnics in positions of management. Recently, they were strengthened to include an official denunciation of the policy of apartheid.

Splinters And Logs

The Sullivan Principles are based on a biblically sound view of human nature and equality. They are palatable to the South African government because they place responsibility for ensuring equality on those who claim to value it—the Americans. It is an object lesson in removing the splinter from our own eye before going after the log wedged in the eye of South Africa.

As equality in the work place begins to build trust and esteem between black and white employees, larger principles of civil rights may be communicated effectively to South Africa’s leaders. If blacks are capable on the job, able to supervise others, make decisions, and compete effectively in the marketplace, the continued denial of political and citizenship rights would no longer seem to make sense.

There was a time when the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa adhered, officially, to a gospel of reconciliation and unity in Christ rather than artificial divisions arising out of fear. And Afrikaners on the whole want desperately to gain approval and acceptance among Western nations. Abandoned avenues for dialogue must again be established, and Christians outside the NGK must take the initiative. We must pursue contact with the NGK doggedly, regardless of whether or not they listen, because they are our brothers in Christ. Christian opponents of apartheid deserve our support and encouragement, particularly when they speak out with the eloquence of Willie Esterhuyse, a Dutch Reformed academician: “The Afrikaner who understands his Christian calling correctly will, on the one hand, strive for better relationships between the different racial groups. On the other hand, he will also strive toward political patterns, economic standards, and social systems which answer as closely as possible the demands of Christian charity.”

Time is short for South Africa, and Afrikaner appeals for patience ring hollow in light of their years of recalcitrance. Sullivan has called for a deadline for the abolition of statutory apartheid within 24 months. This need not mean a sudden shift that would disenfranchise—and perhaps endanger—whites, but rather the beginning of substantial reform that will, in turn, change attitudes.

How can it become any clearer that apartheid never has, and never will, work? That it misconstrues the fundamentals of God’s creation and flouts his true desire for human relationships? Desmond Tutu, the Anglican bishop of Johannesburg, has written that “apartheid … denies the central act of reconciliation which the New Testament declares was achieved by God in his son Jesus Christ.” That realization may begin to dawn on South Africa’s NGK—or may be forced upon it.

BETH SPRING

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