2009 - Vol 3
Reformation Against Perversion
In July 2009 the world remembers the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. This will be celebrated in South Africa by an International Calvin-Commemoration Conference at the University of Stellenbosch from 30.8.-2.9.2009. 1) - Calvin was the most important of the second generation of Reformers of the 16th century, and much of his work was built on that of Martin Luther. His teachings greatly affected Western Christendom. He systematised the Christian religion in his “Institutes”, founded an academy in Geneva and sent out ministers who, in France alone, established over 2000 Reformed congregations. He taught the separation of church and civil government - each standing independent of the other, yet recognising the other's divine authority. His ideals were religious toleration, representative government, constitutional monarchy, rights for citizens, and the Christian work ethic.
The spirit of Calvin
Calvin was a deeply devout man. His motto was: “Promptly and sincerely in the service of God.” His personal emblem was a heart aflame in the hands of God. Born in France and called to Geneva, he made the latter into a centre of faith and freedom where persecuted Christians from all over Europe found a safe haven. In all this his chief prayer was: “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)
South Africa, too, was shaped by Calvinism. Jan van Riebeeck, his wife and companions were Calvinist Christians. The Dutch East India Company was committed to Protestant principles. Other arrivals at the Cape, and especially the Huguenots, stood for faith and freedom. So in South Africa, from the beginning, the triune God was worshipped, the Church was held in honour, Christian laws were established, and the native populations evangelised. The Word of God was so firmly established that, nearly 250 years later, the historian d'Arbez could say: “Nowhere on earth has Calvin's work remained more alive than in South Africa, where the spirit of Calvin has not yet been weakened by twentieth century influences… If John Calvin were to rise today from his unknown grave on the shores of Lake Geneva to walk once again on the earth, then it would undoubtedly be only in faraway South Africa that he would find the fundamental principles of the doctrine for which he lived and worked still in a pure and uncorrupted form.” 2)
Puritan or liberal?
But in the last decades of the 20th century these things changed. During the revolutionary “liberation struggle” a spirit of contempt for the truths of God arose. “Liberation theologians” declared that God's law and Calvin's teachings were “oppressive”. The people, they said, should be “liberated” from them. Rejecting Christian missions, a new elite started to dismantle the Reformed heritage. They wrote a secular humanist constitution (1996) and removed God's sovereignty from the nation. They exchanged the Ten Commandments for a Declaration of Human Rights. With the National Gambling (1996) and the Film and Publications Acts (1996) they embraced chance and luck and pornography. They allowed abortion (1996) and abolished capital punishment (1997). The effects were far-reaching - like those described in Romans 1: “Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile… Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man…” As a nation, South Africa cast off much of her Christian heritage and encouraged the people to become their own god.
Women or prostitutes?
A spiritual downward slide, however, tends to accelerate. The Bible says: “Because of this, God gave them over to “shameful lusts,” to “indecent acts,” to “perversion,” to “greed and depravity.” (Romans 1:18-32) Since 2000, “homosexual marriage” was legalised, and the laws of nature were overturned. Today, in 2009, the Decriminalisation of Prostitution is planned. We are told that the “demands of the Constitution” and of “Ubuntu”, of the Fifa Games and of other “international obligations,” require a change of the law. This is to replace the old puritan “apartheid law”. To gauge public opinion the SA Law Reform Commission (SALRC) held public workshops throughout South Africa and presented four different models for regulating adult prostitution. The first option is total criminalisation (which is the current legal position). The second option is partial criminalisation (which forbids soliciting, brothel-keeping and living off the earnings while the prostitute herself is free from criminal sanction). The third option is non-criminalisation (which focusses on self-regulation of the 'industry' by pimps and prostitutes). The fourth option is regulation of adult prostitution (which makes prostitution legal but state-regulated).
At the Cape Town Workshop the SALRC presenters spoke of 'sex workers' and the 'sex industry' as if they were talking of regular employment, not the cruel exploitation of women. At times it sounded as if prostitution was seen as a human right, i.e. a woman's right to do with her body what she likes. Though most participants were Christians, religious arguments were not welcome. The nature and purpose of Woman in God's order was not mentioned.
In spite of the present prohibitions, prostitution is rife in South Africa. According to a report in Beeld (3.6.2009) there are 10.000 child prostitutes in Johannesburg alone, and SAPSA, a body investigating child abuse, claims that girls are sold by their families for between R2500 and R12.000. They are bought to earn for their “owners” between R1500 and R5000 per day. - The Catholic Archbishop Lawrence Henry of Cape Town has therefore called for action against such human trafficking. He said, an estimated 12,3 million people are trafficked globally every year. Children as young as ten are lured into the child sex industry, and child sex tourism is flourishing in some South African cities. “The Second Vatican Council,” he said, “pointed to 'slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, and disgraceful working conditions where people are treated as instruments of gain rather than free and responsible persons', as 'infamies' which poison human society, debase their perpetrators and constitute 'a supreme dishonour to the Creator.'” 3)
Exploitation
At the end of the SALRC Workshop we were asked to fill in a questionnaire, and the Gospel Defence League pleaded (in the required non-religious terms) that “prostitution should not be decriminalised.”“Women are the mothers of the nation,” we said. “They have a divine calling to bear and bring up good citizens. They should be protected by law against exploitation and degradation... South Africa's Constitution demands respect, human rights and dignity for them. In fact, we celebrate public holidays which include Women's Day, Family Day, Youth Day, Heritage Day and Human Rights Day… The liberalisation and legalisation of prostitution… will bring this nation low and gravely affect the new generation in whom so much hope has been placed for a better South Africa.”
When John Calvin ministered in Geneva, he encouraged the city council to outlaw immorality and establish Christian laws. Martin Luther, too, pleaded with the princes of Germany to rule by Christian principles. Both became builders of righteousness, and when righteousness flourished the people were blessed. 700 years earlier, Alfred the Great, the West Saxon King in England, also based his famous “Dooms” firmly on the law of God. They start with the words: “The Lord spake these words to Moses, and thus said: I am the Lord thy God. I led thee out of the land of the Egyptians, and of their bondage, (1) Love thou not other strange gods above me. (2) Utter thou not my name idly, for thou shalt not be guiltless towards me if thou utter my name idly. (3) Remember that thou hallow the rest-day. Work for yourselves six days, and on the seventh rest. For in six days Christ wrought the heaven and the earth, the seas, and all creatures that are in them, and rested on the seventh day; and therefore the Lord hallowed it.” Most of Alfred's 77 “dooms” are taken directly from the Book of Exodus.
When we compare the spirit of those times with our own, we cannot fail but notice that the god of our New World is Mammon. Anything goes as long as it makes money. But Mammon is a heartless master and a hater of God and man. Many of the new South African laws favour him. - Modern man tends to think that money is neutral, but it is not. God looks upon covetousness and greed as idolatry, (Col.3:5) and idolatry as prostitution. (Hosea) - Even though the SALRC representatives claim that “legislators cannot take religion into account,” they are dealing with a highly religious matter. Even though they say, “the state cannot legislate morality,” it is a fact that all law is legislated morality. Murder, theft, adultery, and other socially destructive sins are punished in every culture. In South Africa humanistic law is presently supplanting Christian law, and this causes tensions.
As a nation, we have come a long way since Calvin's principles were applied to matters of state and society. In general, our civil law was Christian moral law applied to social and civic life. This law made South Africa the foremost country in Africa. But it is being broken down, and South Africa's strength is declining.
John Calvin, the great French Reformer, showed the world how, by application of God's principles to every area of life, a peaceful, prosperous, and free civil life can be achieved, for “where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17) He made Geneva into a centre of learning, a haven of refuge, a place of righteousness. He said: “The main care and concern of our life should be to seek God. We should long for Him with all the affection of our hearts, and not find rest and peace anywhere except in Him alone.” - By this standard the West was won, and by this standard South Africa can be restored.
D. Scarborough
Gospel Defence League
PO Box 587, Sea Point, 8060
South Africa
TEL/FAX (021) 510-6854
dscarborough@mweb.co.za
Web:www.christianaction.org.za/GDL/
Footnotes:
1 Please contact Prof. Pieter Coertzen, University of Stellenbosch, Tel 021-808-3576 (w) or 021-887-2619 (h) or cell 076-180-9366, or e-mail PC@sun.ac.za
2 D'Arbez, Het Leven van Johannes Calvin.
3 Gaudium et Spes #27, Southern Cross, 13,5,09. Archbishop: Act on human trafficking.