Afrikaners: Remember the story of your tribe

Recently a group of black theological students of the URCSA studying at UP visited the Hector Peterson memorial in Soweto together with some fellow theological students from the DRC and some visiting students from the USA. Some time after the visit, the students said (in a discussion) that the Hector Peterson memorial “is not a place to visit with white people” since “it only makes you angry”. What had made them angry was that the white students said at the memorial: “We were not even born when this happened”, without any acknowledgement of their connectedness with their parents and grandparents who had been  born at the time and without owning up to the fact that they had benefited from their “whiteness”, even though they were never in the position to support or perpetrate apartheid. The unwillingness or inability to acknowledge white privilege flowing from the apartheid system is a serious obstacle to reconciliation in South Africa, and it will have to be addressed in a reconciling mission praxis.

From a paper entitled “RECONCILING ENCOUNTERS IN LUKE-ACTS” delivered by Prof Klippies Kritzenger at a conference in Stellenbosch, May 2009.

More than once I talked about the Afrikaner tribe in a series of posts on Afrikaner identity written after Amahoro 2009. I’ve been thinking about a number of Afrikaans songs for years now, and the song which probably best formulate the thoughts of many young white South Africans is that of  “Nie langer” (“not any more”) by Klopjag, that shouts out that we won’t be saying sorry any more. It’s been bothering me ever since I first heard it.

The reason can partly be found in the paragraph above: it’s not acknowledging the fact that we benefited from being white, since we are connected to our parents and grandparents. But my discomfort has been growing ever deeper, and it’s more than simply the fact that we benefited from the past. What bothers me is the fact that we actually disconnect ourselves from our own history with this song, with these words. The URCSA students maybe have a much more natural understanding of belonging to a group, to a culture, to a tribe.

My thoughts on this found special meaning in an experience at Amahoro, really a conversion experience, where my Afrikaner identity suddenly found meaning for Africa, where I believe I became an African theologian in my own eyes. Not by forgetting the past. Not by disconnecting from it in the way that the story above tells. But exactly by connecting, by remembering, by saying sorry (not out of emotions of guilt, because I honestly can’t say I experience these emotions, but in a process of reconciliation), by admitting that my tribe was wrong.

My call to Christian Afrikaners is to join your tribe. Not in opposition to the South Africa of which you are part. Not on Loftus at a Curry Cup final. But by embracing your connectedness to the past. By visiting the Hector Peterson memorial and not distancing yourself from what it says, but by connecting, working through the pain and the hurt (and my non-Afrikaner and non-white readers must hear this, embracing the connectness is a really hurtful process!), so that we can find the reconciliation on the other side. Also, to find, as a white man, liberation within Africa:

After telling our story, the story of our people, proud at times, standing guilty at times, one of my new Kenyan friends said these words: “You need to come to Kenya and come tell your story! Our people need to hear that someone can admit that they were wrong.” Those must have been some of the most liberating words I’ve ever heard!

Quoted from How one Afrikaner became an African theologian

(and on a side-note, I was part of the group that visited the Hector Peterson museum from the story above)

one Afrikaner’s Amahoro calling

Chris asked me today what Amahoro meant to me. My answer probably surprised the room: Amahoro called me back to the white Afrikaner people. Amahoro called me back to the Dutch Reformed Church, the white one. Linking with everyone from Africa was a great experience, and I look forward to joining the family next year in Nairobi, but for me the calling of Amahoro was not primarily to the worst suffering in Africa, but to a small tribe of people who are known for the efficiency with which we could oppress.

I probably need to explain.

This probably started when I seriously began digging into the missiology of David Bosch, and seeking for an approach to the emerging field of public theology which would take the work of Bosch into account. Up to now this haven’t really happened in the public theology conversation. Part of my discussion of Bosch was understanding his ecclesiology, specifically the way he used the alternative community concept of the Anabaptists, combined it with his own Reformed theology.

Bosch talked about the church as God’s experimental garden. The church is not only the community that is sent out to change the world, but also the place where we show the world what God’s dream would look like. For Bosch in the Apartheid years this would have meant showing an Apartheid government that black and white can live together, that the world isn’t going to come to an end when black and white share a meal.

What exactly all this mean to me I don’t know. But I do know that I pray for my people, and yes, I call the Afrikaners my people. I pray, and hear the voice of God calling this, that these people can in the years to come journey out of our heritage, and become part of Africa, of this continent with it’s struggles, with it’s African theologians and our beautiful way of talking about God amidst suffering. It’s like the way Bosch understood the reign of God, it’s here, but it’s still coming. The Afrikaner is part of Africa, but we are also still becoming part of Africa.

In different ways we responded to Amahoro. For me it wasn’t walking away from this church that still refuse to embrace Belhar, but embracing this church. Not embracing it as it is, but this deep feeling that I cannot go without them. I need to see these people transition. I cannot run and call them from afar, tell them how wonderful it is here on the other side, where we are wholly part of Africa. I need to walk with them. The world need us to make this journey, to show that yes, whatever you might remember about this group of people, through God even we can make this journey.

Nic said it at one stage at Amahoro. We pitch our tents out far, and then come back to the church and journey with them. Amahoro stretch the road to when my tent is pitched even further, but it also sent me back, I’ve seen something of the road, now I must go on the journey with others.

This is most probably not the last time I’ll blog on this. I just know that these words it not what’s going on in my head, but I need to start to try and formulate this truckload of thoughts that’s still racing.

I am an Afrikaner, I will remember Apartheid

I had a long conversation with Brian McLaren the morning before we visited the Apartheid museum, and something we said to each other helped in working through my emotions that day. Every religion has the responsibility to remember the worst moments in their tradition, those times which we never want to talk about, we need to tell our children about those times!

Christians need to remember the time when thousands of “pagan’s” were crucified and killed after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire. We need to remember the crusades, the inkwizitions. Afrikaners need to remember Apartheid. We owe it to the world to remember Apartheid! It is our responsibility to tell the story of how a people group could become the oppressor, and use their religious language to justify this. We need to remember, so that it will never happen again.

Remembering make us sensitive to repititions of similar events. Afrikaner people need to remember, and in remembering help other oppressors to notice when they are doing similar things, notice when they are using similar religious language to justify the evils within them.

It’s not only the Afrikaners that need to remember. Post-Bushian evangelical Republicans (or maybe all Christians) in America will need to remember how Christians could support a president that spread violence and hatred. Muslims (sorry, I am not able to pin-point it into a smaller group) of later generations will need to remember how their faith was used to justify a war.

We remember, not to experience guilt, we remember so that it will not be repeated.

I had a long conversation with Brian McLaren the morning before we visited the Apartheid museum, and something we said to each other helped in working through my emotions that day. Every religion has the responsibility to remember the worst moments in their tradition, those times which we never want to talk about, we need to tell our children about those times!

Christians need to remember the time when thousands of “pagan’s” were crucified and killed after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire. We need to remember the crusades, the inquisitions. Afrikaners need to remember Apartheid. We owe it to the world to remember Apartheid! It is our responsibility to tell the story of how a people group could become the oppressor, and use their religious language to justify this. We need to remember, so that it will never happen again.

Remembering make us sensitive to repetitions of similar events. Afrikaner people need to remember, and in remembering help other oppressors to notice when they are doing similar things, notice when they are using similar religious language to justify the evils within them.

It’s not only the Afrikaners that need to remember. Post-Bushian evangelical Republicans (or maybe all Christians) in America will need to remember how Christians could support a president that spread violence and hatred. Muslims (sorry, I am not able to pin-point it into a smaller group) of later generations will need to remember how their faith was used to justify a war against the West. And the list could go on.

We remember, not to experience guilt, we remember so that it will not be repeated. I am an Afrikaner, and I will remember Apartheid.

Christendom is dead… long live Christendom

For decades now the cry that Christendom is coming to an end has been sounding. I built part of my dissertation last year on this argument, blogged about it, read about it, thougth about it. I consider the beginning and end of Christendom probably the two most important events in the history of church. But the more the prophets call out that Christendom is over, Christendom is dead, the harder the cry is sounding: “long live Christendom”. And in South Africa, at least, maybe Christendom is not so dead.

When the ruling party use the church as part of it’s campaign, claim that they will rule till the second coming, consider themselves to be sanctioned by God, then maybe Christendom is not dead. When Angus Buchan gets 150000 men together and predicts (and calls for) the return of the opening prayer to parliment, then maybe Christendom is not so dead (at least not among Afrikaners who is his main supporters). When schools continue to get reverends and pastors to “open” the public schools with prayer and preaching, then maybe Christendom is not so dead. When we hear the cries of national revival and repentance: “South Africa must turn to God”, welcomed by many, then maybe Christendom is not so much dead. When I walk around the University of Pretoria campus earlier today, and overhear the numerous fundamentalist conversations running as I pass people, then maybe Christendom is not so much dead.

OK, so maybe the truth is that we have a big divide in South African culture. A very strong Christendom culture, and a total secular culture developing side by side at the same time. But the “long live Christendom” cry is just loud enough that post-Christendom theology cannot simply be a socialogical phenomenon, where changes in society naturally causes re-theologizing. Rather, post-Christendom theology in South Africa might need to be exactly the voice that critiques Christendom, and calls the church to move beyond this cry of “long live Christendom”, into the narrow road of following a carpenter from Nazareth, where the war terminology used by Christians no longer count, where we never win the war on culture, which always end in becoming the stewerd of culture, but create pockets of Christ following communities within this world.

Post-Christendom theology in South Africa need not in survivalist mode, where we frantically try to help the church survive because it’s time has passed. Rather, post-Christendom theologogizing is a prophetic voice, calling for an end to the call “long live Christendom”, not because the church is closing shop, but because the health of the church is at stake, our obediance to the cause of the preacher from Nazareth is at stake when his words is used to empower the Christian empire.

David Bosch and the South African emergence (part 2)

I started blogging a response to Mark Sayers’ important post of last week yesterday. I’m attempting to answer what the South African conversation would look like from the network (look at Brother Maynard’s post to see how I’m using this concept) where I find myself, while using David Bosch as the theologian that I believe is more and more influencing my own thought, and maybe that this network as well.

What about the neo-missiologists? Well, I haven’t seen the house-church movement really taking off in the South African emerging scene. Maybe it’s just me, but House Churches in South Africa seem to be connected with a very conservative theology, and links strongly to the charismatic movement. This might be because of the dominance of mainline churches, and that house churches was a convenient way for the charismatics of couple of decades ago to break away. But OK, I’m no expert on this, so please correct me.

There might however be another way in which the neo-missiologists is surfacing in South Africa: The Partnership for Missional Churches. Alan Hirsch is an important guy for those in this network, and I have a feeling growing in importance. These guys have a great respect for the work of David Bosch. Nelus Niemandt in his book Nuwe Drome vir Nuwe Werklikhede (Chapter 1 – only available in Afrikaans) seem to make a very strong connection between them and the Emerging Church. If Matt Stone is correct that the neo-missiologists have the same thinking on Lausanne than the blenders, then looking at how people think on this document might help us in understanding them. I’ve written on David Bosch’s thoughts on Lausanne here.

Reggie Nel recently wrote quite a harsh critique of the partnership, because of it’s close ties with the denominational and white Dutch Reformed Church, and the way that it’s managed hierarchical, with money that needs to be paid to become part etc. Maybe someone want to write some more on the relationship between our own partnership, the neo-missiologist and David Bosch. At this stage I can’t really see our interpretation of Bosch, or the emerging conversation in South Africa as it plays out on blogs and the internet, going the neo-missiologist direction.

I’ll ignore the Digital Pentacostals and the Blenders. Sayers’ himself consider the first not to be part of what he call the emerging missional conversation (which, might I add, is difficult to know what he mean with this in light of an earlier post he wrote). Our own conversation has not developed far enough to allow a significant number to go back to their former evangelical roots. Neither Kimball nor Mcmanus seem to have much of an influence in South Africa. Furthermore, I’ve already written about the understanding of Bosch on Laussane, and the Blenders have made it clear what they think about this.

OK, so I’m not really sure what to make of the neo-missiologists. And I’d like to see where this fits in with our Dutch Reformed Partnership for Missional Churches. But somehow I have a feeling that working with the theology and missiology of Bosch, will be taking us in a different direction.

David Bosch and the South African emergence (part 1)

Mark Sayers (Australia) has brought some conversation to the table by classfying many different “neo-”movements within the emerging stream. Andrew Jones (UK) consider himself something of a neo-missiologist or a blender and Jonny Baker (UK) simply considered it to be a normal and not problematic if you look at it from a network while Brother Maynard (Canada) can’t seem to place himself. In the South African conversation Steve Hays has already mentioned that Sayers definitions doesn’t really fit our own scene, and that reality might be a bit complex. All over there seems to be a general feeling that people might not really fit exactly into these categories.

I’m not going to say much about the “death of emerging” conversation last year, which in the end concerned mainly the American conversation. I had some links to what I consider to be  important posts here, and Andrew Jones had some here and here. Within Sayers’ division, the two sides to the coin within the American conversation at that stage might have been neo-liberal (a very bad label indeed) and blenders.

Steve Hays asked a bit about the South African conversation. Where are we? Here’s some thoughts from me, a 20-something Dutch Reformed pastor and student of theology. Linked with this conversation for about 2 and a half years, and part of the network that probably got together through emergingafrica.

For I believe a growing group of us, the work of David Bosch is becoming key to the emerging conversation in South Africa. He’s had an important influence on thinkers such as Alan Hirsch and Brian Mclaren, he is South African, he wrote brilliantly, and on the questions that we are currently asking. So in attempting to answer the question I’ll refer to my own and other’s interpretation of Bosch, and show where I believe Bosch is guiding us at the moment.

David Bosch was trained in Europe, in New Testament under Oscar Cullman. Ons of his greatest contributions to the church (in my humble opinion) was that he provided the tools for conversation between the evangelicals and ecumenicals wintin the 70’s and 80’s church scene. He provided very strong critique of anyone who emphasized either evangelism or social justice as having priority over the other.

For me one of the most important keys to understanding where Bosch found himself comfortable is the 1982 article in the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, titled: How my mind has changed: Mission and the Alternative Community. In the article Bosch find himself comfortable in combining the ecclesiology of the Anabaptists and the Reformed tradition in their understanding of the relationship between the church and the world. “The more identifiably seperate and unique the church is as a community of believers (Anabaptism) the greater significance it has for the world (Calvinism)“. This would allign most closely with Sayers’ neo-anabaptism. His neo-calvinism is however something totally different, Bosch didn’t think that an emphasis on mission would be contrary to Calvinism, he rather understood Calvinism to be inherently missional, although drawing to direct a line between church and world (the Charismatic and American Evangelical influence on neo-Calvinism might be responsible for proponents of this network to not see this traditional Calvinist ecclesiology as being missional).

Steve Hays has pointed to the fact that many in the South African conversation seem to be reacting against Calvinism. Tom Smith has maybe pointed to some of the discomfort South Africans experience with Calvinism, in that we see Calvinism as undervaluing orthopraxis. Bosch didn’t undervalue Orthopraxis however (see the posts appearing from our recent discussion on chapter 2 of Transforming Mission for this). In a country where the Afrikaans community (which make up the majority of the white population) has historically been 99% Reformed, we’d have to see how our relationship to this historical faith plays out in the emerging conversation.

OK, this post is becoming long. Let’s summarize by simply saying that neo-anabaptism rather than neo-calvinism seem to be the stronger emphasis from where I’m coming from, and in how I read Bosch up to now. More tomorrow.

on being reformed

Was attending Cori’s birthday picnic today when I got asked what being “reformed” means… and suddenly, I was stuck… I could give them the four sola’s, tell the reformation story, point to important role players, but still, does that explain what being reformed is?

If Reformed is connecting with Luther or Calvin, why ain’t the Roman Catholic’s reformed after the counter-reformation and Vatican II?

If it’s saying sola (only) Christ, then is reformed really distinct from anything else?

If it’s saying sola scriptura (the Bible), what makes it distinct?

And then the only grace and only faith part, which Christians from any tradition could agree with, depending on the interpretation.

Well, after some thinking I said that I think primacy of the “word preached” makes reformed folks distinct. Remember, many before them have talked about every sola, but it was the reformers who translated the Bible, who gave the Bible to every hand, and who moved the pulpit to the centre of the church building.

Holding on to the importance of the continued preaching and interpretation of the Bible makes me reformed. With this I’m not talking about the idea that only the pastor has the answer (why then did the reformers give Bible to every person), but that in interpreting the Bible (whoever is doing the interpreting) we find faith in God.

This imply’s that the Bible is not a mystical book, there isn’t some hidden power on the Bible (reading the Bible in Greek is not going to have any magical effect on you if you don’t understand Greek, the mystical experience can then also be found in other texts and words not understood).

What suddenly interested me when thinking about this, is that this also implies that the Bible should be interpreted, that sometimes the meaning is not obvious, and that the message of the Bible was written for a different time (else we could have skipped the preaching and stuck to reading scripture). So is fundamentalism reformed? I doubt it, since fundamentalism deny the interpretation of scripture, since the meaning of scripture is supposed to be obvious, not bound in a certain time, and accesible without any knowledge of past times.

Well, anyhow. This week begin reformed is gonna be a constant thought, so it might be a good week to kick of with a post like this. What do you think? What does being reformed mean?