UPDATE

Church groups step up efforts to assist blacks trapped in South Africa’s system of segregation.

Last month, three black antiapartheid activists escaped from political detention in South Africa and took refuge in the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg. The incident highlights the growing extent to which the U.S. is being drawn into South Africa’s conflict surrounding apartheid. American church groups are also becoming increasingly involved in the conflict, although disagreement exists among the groups over how to address the situation.

Economic Pressure

This week, for example, the National Council of Churches (NCC) is sponsoring a South Africa strategy meeting at its headquarters in New York. Willis Logan, director of the NCC’S Africa office, said the meeting is an effort to “bring the religious community together to think about ways we might respond to the ongoing crisis in South Africa and the persecution of the church there.” Logan said representatives of the evangelical community and of NCC’S constituency will participate in the meeting. According to Logan, top agenda items at the meeting will be strengthening support for tougher economic sanctions against South Africa and the rebuilding of Khotso House, the South African Council of Churches’ antiapartheid headquarters that was bombed in August.

The NCC, however, is not without its critics. The Washington-based Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD) has charged that the NCC and other mainline groups have channeled money to radical elements in South Africa, including the banned African National Congress, IRD director of economic studies Walter Kansteiner criticizes such activities. In his new book, South Africa: Revolution or Reconciliation, he instead advocates “support of the prodemocratic middle ground.”

To that end, the IRD recently launched “Building a New South Africa” (BANSA), a program that will attempt to empower South African blacks economically, as well as improve their health care and education. Kansteiner said BANSA is an effort to aid those groups that are often “squeezed” by the “far Left and the far Right” in South Africa.

The BANSA program will be administered through nine nonprofit groups within South Africa that IRD is encouraging American churches to support. Included in the nine are an urban foundation involved with housing for blacks, the multiracial Rosebank Bible College, and the National Initiative for Reconciliation led by Africa Enterprise’s Michael Cassidy.

World Vision is also seeking to support indigenous groups within South Africa. The director of government affairs, Tom Getman, said World Vision currently has 280 development projects there that “provide opportunities for self-sufficiency in micro-enterprise, agriculture, and health issues.” World Vision insists all of its projects be nonracial, push reconciliation, and seek to accomplish what the community wants rather than impose something from afar. And according to Getman, World Vision believes strongly that the church must be involved in the justice issue. “Given the fact that apartheid is such a heresy, … we are called biblically to stand against that evil,” he said.

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Church denominations are also becoming more vocal. At its general convention this summer, Episcopalians voted to boycott all oil companies operating in South Africa and narrowly defeated a measure calling on the U.S. to break diplomatic ties with South Africa. The United Methodist Church voted to boycott Shell Oil products because of that company’s alleged role in supporting apartheid.

Communism Or Apartheid?

Another group that is stepping up its efforts on behalf of South Africa this fall is Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA). ESA’S executive director, Ron Sider, said his group will attempt to raise awareness about the issue on evangelical college campuses around the nation. Next spring, ESA will sponsor a lecture tour on more than 20 Christian College Coalition campuses for Moss Ntlha, national coordinator of Concerned Evangelicals, a South African black organization working nonviolently for an end to apartheid (see accompanying interview).

In addition, ESA is urging college students to sign the Kabare Declaration, a document put forth by Concerned Evangelicals, which denounces apartheid and expresses solidarity with South African Christians opposing apartheid.

Sider said his group is also “continuing to do research on the Religious Right in connection with South Africa.” ESA has been critical of statements made by evangelists Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart, as well as representatives of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). “Basically, they go over there and say the choice is between communism and the present government, so they encourage people to be supportive of the present government,” Sider said. “The effect of that is to make black Christians think that American evangelicals don’t care about apartheid.”

NRB executive director Ben Armstrong denies those charges. “The NRB does not interfere in the politics of any country. We are apolitical,” he said. Armstrong said the NRB would encourage “any changes from apartheid to … more participation in their government for blacks.”

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Armstrong said NRB members have traveled to South Africa in exchange programs with the NRB of South Africa, but said there is no official connection with the South African religious broadcasters’ group and his own. He noted that last year his group honored Johan Heynes, moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church, for leading his denomination to denounce apartheid.

Pitching More Than A Tent

Peter Holmes, general director of Scripture Union in South Africa, remembers that just a decade ago he had trouble finding campsites where his organization could run its evangelistic youth camps. There were plenty of Christian campsites around, but virtually all were off limits to blacks, and thus were unacceptable to the organization. In addition, many bus companies refused to transport blacks and whites together.

Today, Holmes reports that almost all Christian camps no longer have qualms about mixing races. And bus companies followed suit partly because Scripture Union would not otherwise use them.

According to Holmes, political rhetoric is not helping to end the oppression of blacks in South Africa. He feels Christian youth programs such as Scripture Union model racial integration for the next generation of South Africans.

Active in 35 African countries, Scripture Union is the largest Christian youth organization on the continent. Last year in South Africa, it had a presence in 965 primary (elementary) and high schools, with its Bible study and discipleship programs reaching 31,000 youth. In addition, it coordinated a total of 267 camps (attended by 7,500 youths), many of them integrated.

“Our main goal is to reach kids with the gospel,” says Holmes. “But the Lord has called us especially to demonstrate oneness in him. And we’re consciously doing that wherever possible.” This is not an easy task, partly because over 97 percent of the schools in South Africa are segregated. The times during which both blacks and whites are free to attend camp are also limited, since their school years run through different months.

More than a third of Scripture Union’s 80-person staff (in ten regional offices) are black, including Frank Shayi, director of development. Shayi said that “over 90 percent of white South Africans have never been to a black township” and are thus “unaware of the plight of blacks within their country.” He believes bringing black and white youth together will help bridge this awareness gap.

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