1.1 What is the purpose of this account of the Dutch Reformed Church's 'Journey with apartheid"?
1.1.1 This is a time of stock-taking in South Africa. Various organisations and individuals, in their different ways, are looking back over the past few decades, looking at what happened in South Africa during this time, asking about the "why?" and "for what?", and trying to take the best from the past and build the future upon it - or, put more negatively, to learn from the mistakes which were made so that they are not repeated.
1.1.2 Because it is the period known as the apartheid era that is under scrutiny, and because the church - specifically the Dutch Reformed Church (Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk) - was involved in a particular way, it is necessary for that church too to look back and account for the tortuous course of the "journey" during the turbulent years behind us. The General Synodal Commission (GSC) of the Dutch Reformed Church therefore resolved "to appoint a person with expert knowledge to record the story of the Dutch Reformed Church with regard to relations between peoples and races in South Africa as it unfolded after the establishment of the General Synod in 1962. Once approved by the General Synodal Commission or its Executive, the document may be made available to any interested party" (ASK-notule [GSC minutes], 21 and 22 May 1997, 6.16.1).
This chronicle is therefore at the disposal of anyone who is interested in it: members, certainly, but also others who want to know how the Dutch Reformed Church thought about things during the apartheid years and what its part was in the course of events.
1.1.3 The journey with apartheid will not be described in minute detail: we are not going to pause at every stone or bush on the way. The direction in which our thinking developed and the most important stages of the journey will be indicated and looked at more closely.
1.2 Why is the story being told as it unfolded between the years 1960 and 1994? After all, the story of apartheid began a great deal earlier ...
1.2.1 This account concerns the Dutch Reformed Church in its widest context that of the General Synod. The unification of the Dutch Reformed Church in a General Synod took place in 1962.
However, the coming together of the provincial synods in a General Synod was preceeded - and nearly brought to grief - by the Cottesloe conference of churches in 1960. It is therefore necessary to begin with this conference, and with what led up to and issued from it, in order to understand how the story progressed thereafter. The necessary perspective is provided by references to certain events in the earlier decades of this century.
The record of our journey concludes in 1994 - not just because that year saw the formal, constitutional end of apartheid, but also because the General Synod which took place in 1994 became known as "the Synod of Reconciliation".
1.2.2 This account of the journey with apartheid gives us the opportunity to look back on 34 years of our history which culminated in the greatest transformation imaginable. It is, in many respects, a dramatic tale. Behind the words, sometimes formulated in the all too clinical language of ecclesiastical resolutions, lie many human emotions and motivations: the desire to know what God wants His church to do, and the urge for survival in this country; the responsibility to provide for hearth and home, for kith and kin, and the knowledge that you should love your neighbour as yourself and that survival without justice is worthless.
1.2.3 This document is thus a contribution aimed at casting light, from the perspective of the General Synodal Commission (GSC) of the Dutch Reformed Church, on the history of the three decades between 1960 and 1994. It examines the thinking on apartheid at the time, within the Dutch Reformed Church and outside it, as reflected in resolutions of the General Synod and other ecclesiastical assemblies and in other documents. The GSC believes that this will serve the pursuit of understanding, empathy and historical insight, and that this document might well make a modest contribution towards promoting reconciliation, as the church sees it, in our country.
1.3 Is this narrative a testimony or a confession?
1.3.1 Both. We hereby testify that throughout the years, including the 34 years which this document examines, the Lord has used the Dutch Reformed Church in the furtherance of His purposes - and we thank and praise Him for that.
However, we did not always understand His Word correctly for the times in which we lived, and often we did not do what He asked of us. We confess that to Him. Where we offended against our neighbours, we also sincerely confess our sins to them. This we do in the grateful knowledge that if we confess our sins, Jesus Christ, who is faithful and just, will forgive us our sins.
1.4 What is the status of this document?
1.4.1 The GSC of the Dutch Reformed Church, which directed that this document be produced, has the task, in terms of its rules, of dealing provisionally with matters of an urgent nature and accounting for its actions to the next General Synod (Reglement [Rules] of the GSC, 3.2). Owing to the circumstances in South Africa, the telling of this story now, in 1997, has become a matter of urgency. This document has therefore been made available by those in the Dutch Reformed Church who have to deal with such matters while the General Synod is not in session, and they will account for it to the General Synod of 1998.
