Church Eyes New Mandela Government with Caution

In his inaugural speech May 10, President Nelson Mandela made five references to religion and the freedom of worship for all faiths, marking a clear end to what church leaders say was long-standing preferential treatment of Christians under the now-defunct system of apartheid.

Mandela, a black liberator and political prisoner for 27 years, said the struggle for democracy had never been a matter pursued by one religious community.

“In honoring those who fought to see this day arrive, we honor the best sons and daughters of all our people,” Mandela said. “We can count amongst them Africans, coloreds, whites, Indians, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews—all of them united by a common vision of a better life for the people of this country.”

Christians are speculating about the future for churches under a government dominated by Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) party. As with virtually all institutions, churches face challenges and opportunities amid the current transitions. And many church leaders are calling on Christians to redouble their efforts to help shape the “new” South Africa.

A NEW POLITICAL CLIMATE

Political changes may bring the biggest challenges for the church. For example, several Communist officials are prominent within the ANC.

“The churches all the time will be cautious and wary of a government that has very strong Communist connections,” says presiding Methodist Bishop Stanley Mogoba, a leading anti-apartheid activist. “But the Communists in the ANC, in my view, are very pragmatic people, and they know communism has not succeeded in the world.”

Communists in South Africa are being “closely watched,” Mogoba asserts, adding that anti-Christian policies would never work in the country, where more than 70 percent of the citizens are Christians.

Still, there has been discussion about the possibility of a future government department of religious affairs to monitor church activities. However, ANC spokeswoman Sankie Nkondo denies any such moves. “I don’t think the state should tamper with church activities, and neither should the church tamper with political activity.”

Some conservative Christians are also concerned about the future of the educational system under the ANC-led government. They point to a recent document about religion curriculum development, which states: “Parents cannot be expected to provide the sort of professional guidance that is required. The state should therefore take responsibility for general public dimensions such as education in religion.”

Pastor Kjell Olsen of Christians for Truth says, “[Government educators] want to teach children to appreciate other religions, but appreciation immediately brings equalization among religions. That is of great concern to us, because education is where the future philosophy of South Africa is going to be grounded.”

SHAPING THE FUTURE

Yet, despite some political uncertainties, both government and religious leaders acknowledge that the church has a big role to play in helping to shape the new South Africa (CT, March 7, 1994, p. 50). And indeed, many Christian leaders already have been active in that effort.

Mainline church leaders such as Mogoba and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu have worked alongside the South African Council of Churches (SACC) in an antiracism struggle that dates back decades.

More recent participants include Ray McCauley, the Pentecostal pastor of a sprawling 17,500-member multiracial megachurch near Johannesburg. He has been both praised and criticized for dealing with the SACC and the broader interfaith movement, including his participation on the ecumenical Religious Panel for Electoral Justice. The now-dissolved commission was an election-monitoring panel set up to help provide nonpartisan monitoring of last month’s voting from a religious perspective.

Hugh Wetmore of the Evangelical Fellowship of South Africa and other evangelical leaders focused on voter education prior to the elections, while pastor Kenneth Meshoe, leader of the African Christian Democratic Party, has pledged to promote biblical principles during forthcoming deliberations on a new constitution. Meshoe’s party won two seats in the national Parliament and 0.5 percent of the vote.

Yet, perhaps no one was more key during the recent electoral season than Michael Cassidy, international team leader of the evangelical group African Enterprise (AE). Through Cassidy’s suggestion and active lobbying, Kenyan professor Washington Okumu was appointed African adviser to the pre-election panel set up to mediate the increasingly violent political differences between the government, the ANC, and the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), which threatened to boycott the election.

Cassidy convinced Okumu, who is also a Christian, to stay in South Africa even after the mediation effort spearheaded by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger collapsed. Okumu’s dogged efforts led to a draft proposal for Inkatha participation in the elections, which he presented to IFP leader Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi at the AE Jesus Peace Rally in Durban on April 17.

“The document began to find some new favor when it was looked at in the context of the prayers of God’s people [at the rally],” recalls Cassidy. “It was very remarkable.”

The same day, Okumu flew to Cape Town and presented the proposal to Mandela, while Buthelezi flew to Ulundi and presented it to the IFP central committee, which ratified the measure. After further negotiating, the political breakthrough was announced on April 19, just a week before the elections.

“We felt God’s hand was in it the whole way,” says Cassidy. “This is an example of what the church can do.”

Cassidy and other Christian leaders are urging churches to create new projects for more relationship building between political and racial groups. They say the road ahead for South African churches will depend to a great degree on the success of efforts to reconcile persons of different races.

“That is the greatest challenge facing the church today,” says Mogoba, adding that die-hard racial tradition is the country’s “greatest handicap.”

By Richard Nyberg in Mmambatho, South Africa, News Network International.

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