GOSPEL DEFENCE LEAGUE
P O Box 587, Sea Point 8060, RSA; Tel 021-510-6854; e-mail: dscarborough@mweb.co.za
March/April 2005
Dear Friends,
In January 2005 the State President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, granted a special pardon to Dr Allan Boesak who, from 1999 to 2001, had served 2 years and 2 months (of a total of six years) in prison for fraud and theft of more than R400.000 of Scandinavian donor funds. Dr Boesak was delighted and said: "The president felt it was in the public interest because I still have a contribution to make to the country... From the moment the president signed the pardon, I didn't have a criminal record... Look, there will always still be people who will call me a criminal and a thief. But I no longer have a criminal record." 1) - In pre-1994 South Africa, Dr Boesak, a liberation theologian, and former minister of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church, had been a leader in the revolutionary struggle and had vigorously opposed the Government of the day. Applauded by the world, he was elected president of the 70-million strong World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 1982, which promptly suspended the White Dutch Reformed Church from membership. He also promoted the 'Patriotic Front' and the 'Mass Democratic Movement,' and was made Western Cape leader of the African National Congress when the ANC came to power in 1994. He was designated ambassador to the United Nations, when his Scandinavian donors, notably DanChurchAid, charged him with misuse of funds, and he was tried and convicted.
Now the State President has restored him to innocence, and Allan Boesak is returning to the Church. He "was welcomed back into the fold at a cocktail party hosted by Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane at his house in Bishopscourt in Cape Town. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu hugged and kissed the man he once asked the police to investigate for misappropriating money..." 2) All was forgiven and forgotten, and in due course "the former head of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, Dr Allan Boesak, was symbolically re-ordained as a minister of the church before a large crowd of well-wishers at the Uniting Reformed Church - a branch of South Africa's Dutch Reformed Church - at Piketberg in the Western Cape on Sunday." 3)
Dr Boesak had hardly been re-ordained when, on 3.2.2005, his new congregation organised a Day of Prayer for Rain under the heading: "Western Cape Province United in the Face of Fire, Floods, and Drought: a Call to Prayer and Change." It was a high profile multi-faith event led by the Anglo-Catholic Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Reverend Njongonkulu Ndungane. The opening meditation was taken by Bishop Andrew Hefkie (Christian) and Tahirth Matthee (Baha'i). The Cape Premier, Ebrahim Rasool (Muslim), spoke on "Fire, Floods, and Drought in the Province: a Contextual Reflection." Sheikh Achmat Sedick (Muslim) and Guru Krishna (Hindu) offered up intercessory prayer. Professor Russell Botman, Director of the Beyers Naudé Centre at Stellenbosch University, spoke on "Fire, Floods, and Drought: A Religious Reflection." Jennifer Woodhall (Buddhist) shared the closing meditation with Rev D Mtsolo of the African Independent Churches. A local farmer, however, declined to pray when he was told not to use the name of Christ, and a hymn was sung without the verse "We believe God is our Saviour; Christ enough to heal our land."
Dr Allan Boesak and the Belhar Confession
Dr Boesak feels called to promote unity between the Dutch Reformed sister Churches. He has set up a 'Reformed Confessing Movement' (Gereformeerde Belydende Beweging - GBB) together with Dr André Bartlett and Ds Temba Nyatyowa and seeks to unite the Churches on the basis of the 'Belhar Confession.' This Confession dates back to 1982, the year he became president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. It was accepted by the (Coloured) Dutch Reformed Mission Church in 1986, the year of the 'Kairos Document', and later by the Uniting Reformed Church. After much debate the (White) Dutch Reformed Synod at Hartenbos ruled in 2004 that each congregation could make its own decision. But the 'Confession' continues to divide the Church because the Uniting Reformed Church insists that it be the sole basis of unity - saying, in fact: No Belhar - no unity. This puts the DRC churches under tremendous pressure. As for them the Belhar Declaration can not be put on a par with the great Reformation Confessions, i.e. the Belgic Confession (Nederlandse Geloofsbelydenis), the Canons of Dort, and the Heidelberg Catechism.
What then is this Belhar Confession? - It is a statement of faith which begins with: "We believe in the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Who through His Word gathers His Church, and protects and provides for it from the beginning of the world to the end." It goes on to confess Jesus Christ, the oneness of the Church, and the necessity of visible union, saying: "Therefore we reject any doctrine that absolutises either natural diversity or sinful separation in such a way as to encumber or break the visible and real unity of the church or lead to separate formations within the church." The Belhar Declaration declares that to refuse visible union "is sin." It is sin even to suggest that "descent and other human social factors also determine church membership." God has overcome "implacability and hatred, bitterness and enmity," and His message is invalidated where "forced separation of people on the grounds of race, alienation, hatred and enmity is promoted and perpetuated.... Any doctrine... which through prejudice, fear, selfishness, and unbelief denies the reconciling power of the Gospel, is an ideology and a heresy. Therefore we reject any teaching which, in the name of the Gospel or the will of God, sanctions the forced separation of people on the basis of race and colour." The Belhar Declaration goes on to say that God has revealed Himself "in a special way as the God of the suffering, the poor and the marginalised (verontregte)" and that the Church "must stand... against injustice and for the unjustly treated... [It] must witness against the powerful and privileged who through selfishness dispose of and disadvantage others. Therefore we reject any ideology which legitimises forms of injustice and any doctrine which is not prepared to withstand such an ideology on the basis of the Gospel... We believe that the Church is called to confess and do all this in obedience to Jesus Christ, her only Head, even though the powers that be and the statutes of men be against it, and it might incur punishment and suffering."
This Declaration was authored in 1982 at the height of the "Liberation Struggle". It is a product of the revolution and designed for spiritual conquest. In 2005, however, it is very much out of date. Have we not just celebrated Ten Years of Democracy? We live in the new South Africa, the Rainbow Nation, where all racial discrimination is outlawed, except affirmative action. Why force the Dutch Reformed Church into making a confession of guilt now? In 1990, at the Rustenburg Conference, Prof Willie Jonker of Stellenbosch University confessed his own and the DRC's guilt, but he did it without right or mandate. His confession became a sensation and was applauded all over the world! Could it be that Dr Boesak plans to change Jonker's unofficial confession into an official one? Is that why he was pardoned? And could this hoped for prostration be in the 'national interest'? If the Afrikaners can be made to condemn themselves, if they can be made to reject their history, culture and religion, then their enemies will gladly destroy them, and their friends will be unable to defend them. 4) The irony is, that Dr Boesak who works so hard to get the DRC to declare its guilt, has never yet acknowledged or repented of his own sins.
The real target - Reformed Evangelical Christianity.
Though trained and ordained in the Reformed tradition, Dr Boesak has claimed that "the Reformed tradition is seen as being responsible for political oppression, economic exploitation, unbridled capitalism, social discrimination, and a total disregard for human dignity." 5) "Christian theology," he said, "has been cast into a white Western mold, reflecting the beliefs of the rich and the powerful as prescribed by their position of wealth, comfort and power... White Christians have tried to spiritualise the dynamic power of the gospel, almost totally succeeding in making it the opiate of the people." 6) - Has he recanted such views? In 1980 he claimed "that the thesis that the Gospel is the good news for the poor has as its antithesis that the Gospel is the bad news for the rich," 7) in fact suggesting that the poor go to heaven and the rich to hell. His eschatology, too, is coloured by anti-White, anti-Reformed, thinking. In Frankfurt, Germany, at the Kirchentag of 1987, he preached about the New Jerusalem, saying: "This vision is not about a next world into which the Church must flee... The New Jerusalem is not a future world somewhere else. No, the New Jerusalem comes from heaven into this reality... this City does not need to wait for eternity. This new Jerusalem will arise from the ashes of all that which today is called 'Pretoria'." 7) His vision has come true, at least in part. Pretoria has been renamed and thus ceased to exist on the map.
The Dutch Reformed Church is in a difficult position. If they reject the Belhar Confession, they will be declared guilty of a racist refusal of unity. If they accept the Belhar Confession, they will be guilty of betraying their heritage and their faith. Liberation Theology has impacted them with full force twenty years after it impacted the English Churches. And a new generation of theologians has forgotten (or never known) the violence of the eighties, the communist threat, or the meaning behind the Belhar Declaration. Marxism has become acceptable thinking in church and society.
As we are looking forward to Easter, we need to ponder anew what sin and guilt and salvation are all about. They are not to be taken lightly or manipulated for worldly gain. Sin and guilt are a matter of life and death. God saves repentant sinners with His own precious blood. Jesus Christ suffered unprecedented agonies and died for us bearing our sins. Therefore, Peter says: "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls." (1 Peter 2:21-25) In South Africa we need churches which boldly proclaim this message, which reach out to the lost and disciple the nation, which forsake all church politics and religious power play, and wich live in the power and victory of our Lord's resurrection.
May God bless you richly,
D. Scarborough.
Footnotes:
1. Mbeki to justify Boesak pardon, 16.1.2005, Internet. 2. Weekend Argus, January 29, 2005, Boesak welcomed back after pardon. 3. Boesak back in the fold, 31.1.2005, Internet. 4. An example of this is the acknowledgement of the 6 Million holocaust guilt by the German establishment. The Brockhaus Encyclopaedia of 1955 (based on Jewish sources) records that only 564.000 Jews were living in Germany between 1928 and 1931. A world Jewish census after the war showed that there were 5.8 Million more Jews than the holocaust should have allowed for. Nevertheless, the German people are condemned in perpetuity. 5. The Position of ABRECSA, Ottawa 1982 6. Gospel Defence League Letter, March 1985 7. Peter Beyerhaus, Aufbruch der Armen, 1981, page 173. On the World Mission Conference of the World Council of Churches in Melbourne, 1980. 8. Closing sermon, Frankfurt Kirchentag June 21, 1987, GDL letter August 1987.
COMMUNISM - A CHRISTIAN EVALUATION - Part 2
"The world has never before known a godlessness as... malevolent as that preached by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions." (A. Solzhenitsyn, 1983)
>From Communism: a Christian Evaluation, by Dr Francis Nigel Lee
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Communism on Man -
"[Man] - the herd of apes which grasp sticks." Lenin 1)
"From the first animals were developed... the numerous classes, orders, families, genera, and species of animals; and finally mammals, the form in which the nervous system attains its fullest development; and among these again finally that mammal in which nature attains consciousness of itself - man." Engels 2)
"Man makes nature serve his ends... This is the final, essential distinction between man and the other animals." Engels 3)
Christianity on Man -
"And God said, 'Let us make man in our inage, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:26-27)
"The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis2:7)
"What is man that thou art mindful of him?... For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet." (Psalm 8:4-6)
Communism on Nationality -
"International culture... now already being systematically created by the proletariat of all countries, does not absorb 'national culture' (no matter of what national group) as a whole, but accepts from each national culture exclusively those of its elements that are consistently democratic and socialist." Lenin 4)
"Even the natural differences within the species, like racial differences... must be done away with historically." Marx 5)
"Socialism... is promoting and greatly accelerating the drawing together and fusion of the nations." Lenin 6)
Christianity on Nationality -
"God that made the world and all things therein... hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the boundaries of their habitation." (Acts 17:26)
"When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to... the children of Israel." (Deuteronomy 32:8)
"The nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it (the new Jerusalem): and the kings of the earth bring the glory... of the nations into it." (Revelation 21:24-26)
Communism on Class -
"Whoever conceives of the transition to Socialism without the suppression of the bourgeoisie is not a Socialist... It is essential to suppress the bourgeoisie as a class." Lenin 7)
"All past history, with the exception of its beginnings, is the history of class struggle... These antagonistic classes of society are always the results of the modes of production and exchange, in a word, of the economic conditions of their times." Marx 8)
"Social class will vanish, for class cannot exist in a communist society, for indeed, the whole organisation of society will preclude the existence of different classes." Engels 9)
Christianity on Class -
"My brethren, show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man with gold rings and in fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and you pay attention to the one... while you say to the poor man, 'Stand there,' or, 'Sit at my feet,' have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?" (James 2:1-4)
"Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God... There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord... Now are they many members, yet but one body." (1 Corinthians 12:4-27; 7:17-24)
"There is neither Greek nor Jew... Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all." (Colossians 3:11)
Communism on Revolution -
"The Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things... They labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries." Marx & Engels 10)
"The changing of men on a mass scale is necessary, a changing which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary... because the ruling class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of the ages and become fitted to found society anew." Marx & Engels 11)
"A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, and cannon - authoritarian means, if such there be at all." Engels 12)
Christianity on Revolution -
"There were giants (fallen ones) in the earth... The same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. God saw that the wickeness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually... And God said, 'The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth.'" (Genesis 6:4-13)
"When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed." (John 6:15)
"Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2)
"I exhort that prayers... be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness." (1 Timothy 2:1-2)
Communism on Peace -
"Every 'peace program' is a deception of the people and a piece of hypocrisy unless its principal object is to explain to the masses the need for a revolution, and to support, aid, and develop the revolutionary struggle of the masses that is starting everythere (ferment among the masses, protests, fraternisation in the trenches, strikes, demonstrations...)." Lenin 13)
"You must understand... that we live in an epoch when one system is giving way to another... A process is taking place in which the people want to live under a new system of society; and it is necessary that one agree and reconcile himself with this fact." Khrushchev 14)
"The growing superiority of the socialist forces over the forces of imperialism, the forces of peace over those of war, will make it actually possible to banish world war from the life of society even before the complete victory of socialism on earth." 1961 New Party Program of the USSR. 15)
Christianity on Peace -
"Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given... and his name shall be called... the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end." (Isaiah 9:6-7)
"Behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation: lowly, and riding upon an ass... and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be... to the ends of the earth." (Zech. 9:9-10)
"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)
Footnotes: 1. Lenin: The State and Revolution, in Wetter, Philosophie und Naturwissenschaft in der Sowjetunion, p. 97. 2. Engels: Dialectis of Nature, in Marx & Engels: On Religion, pp. 166-7. 3. Engels: The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, in Marx & Engels: Selected Works, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1951, II, p. 82. 4. Lenin: Theses on the National Question, in Lenin: Collected Works, XIX, pp. 246-7. 5. Marx: in Marx & Engels: Selected Works, V, p. 403; cf Bloom: The World of Nations: A Study of the National Implications in the Work of Karl Marx, Columbia University Press, New York, 1941, pp. 14-15. 6. Lenin: The Discussion of Self-Determination Summed Up, in Lenin: Collected Works, XXII, pp. 324-6. 7. Lenin: Report on the Party Program to the VII Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik), 1919, in Lenin: Selectd Works, VII, p. 355, in US State Dept.: Soviet World Outlook, p. 13. 8. Marx: Der historische Materialismus, II, p. 185; cf Minier, p. 522. 9. Engels: Principles of Communism, Qn. 20, in Ryazanoff, pp. 334-6. 10. Engels: Principles of Communism, in Marx & Engels: Werke, V, p.374. 11. Marx & Engels: The German Ideology, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1965, p. 86 (of Feuerbach); cf North: Marx's Religion of Revolution, Craig Press, Nutley, N.J. 1968, p. 33; cf. Lee: Communism versus Creation, Craig Press, Nutley, N.J. 1969. 12. Engels: On Authority, in Marx & Engels: Selected Works, I, p. 639; cf Tucker: The Marxist Revolutionary Idea, Norton, New York 1969, p. 69. 13. Lenin: 1916 Central Committee Proposals Submitted to a Socialist Conference, in Lenin: Selected Works, V, p. 237, cf. U.S. State Dept: Soviet World Outlook, p. 179. 14. Khrushchev: 1958 Conversation with Adlai Stevenson, in Scholtz, p. 530. 15. 1961 New Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in Kuusinen, p. 464, cf. Khrushchev: The Road to Communism, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow 1961, p. 505.