Lausanne World Pulse – To Be Black, Evangelical, and “Left” in the Struggle against Apartheid

By Moss Ntlha
April 2010

Faith in South Africa is predominantly Christian faith, commanding a demographic majority of close to eighty percent of the population. Other religions are vastly outnumbered, thanks to centuries of Christian missions in South Africa. In this is both the advantage and disadvantage of the Christian presence in South Africa.

The advantage is that as a nation we can celebrate a broad cultural consensus that is indebted to the Christian faith. For example, if at some stage a politician were to get carried away and seek, in the name of the secular, post-Apartheid state, to banish Good Friday or Christmas, the nation’s strong trade union movement would more than likely march on the capital demanding “hands off Christmas!” In this way, we have a cultural addiction to the “perks” that come with a Christian empire.

The disadvantage is that the nation’s dominant religion cannot escape bearing the lion’s share of the blame in the scandalous Apartheid past—for Apartheid was spiritually nurtured and theologically rationalised in the Church.

It is useful to nuance discussions about Christianity in South Africa somewhat in order to be more true to the facts.

Fact #1: The theological justification of Apartheid was more pronounced in the white Afrikaans-speaking churches, while acquiescence with Apartheid was more a white English-speaking affair.

Fact #2: African Indigenous churches emerged mainly as a result of a black insistence upon separating the essence of the Christian message from its cultural and socio-political co-option by the state. This inevitably became a sword that divided Christian brothers/sisters from Christian brothers/sisters on the basis of how they lined up in respect to the sin of Apartheid. Instead of becoming a uniting influence, Christianity became a divisive factor.

Fact #3: Evangelicalism was not spared the raging divisions of life under Apartheid. The evangelical movement in South Africa owes its recent historical roots to Europe and North America, from whence it was transplanted onto the African soil. The transplant was not without serious challenges for a Euro-American mission movement forged in the context of the individualism of the West, looking to be at home in an African context in which community and relationships are strong.