• The rise of black consciousness
• The rise of black theology

The rise of black consciousness

Following the defeat of the Afrikaners in the Anglo-Boer War, Afrikaner resistance to British imperialism could no longer assume a mode of direct confrontation. Such confrontation had, at least for the time being, been disastrous, and resistance now had to develop a new strategy. Between 1910 and 1948 many Afrikaner cultural, student, sport, community, business and political associations and organizations were formed, and the Afrikaans language was established. The result of this development was a strong, new political force that had confidence in itself and the ability to assert itself in South African public life. Whether this apparent shift from a strategy of confrontation to one of community organization and solidarity was a calculated one is immaterial. It resulted in a new base for political power, a base that has demonstrated well its strength and ability to rule.

A similar pattern can now be seen in the growth of black political power and community organization. The growth of the ANC during the first half of this century culminated in a centralized organization that could inspire and lead a growing movement of protest and anti-apartheid demonstration. Although nonmilitary and nonviolent in approach and strategy, it was at its climax openly confrontational and direct-action oriented. Judging from the following this movement generated, support from many people was broad and growing. The ANC lacked, however, a developed structure of local and community organizations; it was primarily a national protest movement. When the government's response in the early 1960s was repression, bannings and prison, no secondary layer was able to maintain the momentum of the effort. Peoples' dreams and aspirations were shattered and a decade of withdrawal and disorganization followed.

To a certain extent the ANC protest movement of the 1950s followed a strategy first articulated by Gandhi in India, as did the American civil rights movement. In South Africa, however, the object of this protest, the government policies of apartheid, proved to be considerably more ruthless and resistant to influence.

The ANC, though banned and forced underground, has for many South Africans remained a strong image of an honorable and humane way to confront injustice. Even though a military wing was organized in the early 1960s, and even though an ANC military campaign continues to this day, the history and tradition of ANC nonviolence is an established fact and remains as a source of honor and inspiration for many in South Africa.

The 1960s and early 1970s remained a period of disillusionment for those whose hopes were so expanded in the 1950s. The "State of Emergency" declared by the South African government in the early 1960s resulted in many leaders either going to prison or into exile. Organizationally the movement had for all practical purposes collapsed.In the early 1970s, with a new generation of leaders originating from student and Christian youth organizations, a new wind, black consciousness, was blowing. A bright young medical student and leader of the University Christian Movement (UCM), Steve Biko, was beginning to articulate a new methodology for black resistance. Over and over he reiterated a new theme:

...to make the black man see himself, to pump life into his empty shell, to infuse him with dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be mis-used and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth ... This means that black people must build themselves into a position of nondependence upon white people. They must work toward a self-sufficient political, social and economic unit... Black man, you are on your own" (Woods: 34-35).

Although black consciousness did give rise to a Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), as well as other later organizations, its influence spread much wider than just these organizations. Its drive to reassert black dignity and to claim political power spread from black university campuses to secondary schools and even to primary schools. The pressure for change mounted rapidly, and by June 1976, the school children of Soweto, a black residential area just outside Johannesburg, were demonstrating against apartheid, especially the forced use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in their schools. Once again the state responded with violence, and the police opened fire. In the initial days of confrontation 152 school children died. Further protests erupted throughout the country and by the end of 1977 over 700 young black people had been killed. As with the ANC and the PAC in 1960, the BCM organizations were banned and their leaders were detained; Steve Biko was beaten to death in prison.

The banning of BCM organizations did not however defeat black consciousness as a strategy for resisting apartheid. Thousands of people had contributed to small cultural, community or economic projects or organizations that inspired greater confidence and pride. Many of these projects and programs reached into the most remote corners of black homelands or bantustans, inspiring many kinds of activity. A reinvigorated consciousness was set free, contributing significantly to the rapid growth of community organizations and unions upon which most resistance in the 1980s would be based.

Parallel to the rebirth of internal resistance in South Africa, significant external changes taking place in the Southern Africa region were giving additional encouragement to anti-apartheid efforts. In 1975 the Portuguese colonial governments in Mozambique and Angola were forced out of power. In 1979 the white government in Rhodesia had to surrender, giving rise to the nation of Zimbabwe. These regional shifts contributed to the hope that perhaps a new era was dawning for Southern Africa.

In the 1980s the most profound phenomenon has been the proliferation of black trade unions and community organizations. Although heated differences exist among these groups about political affiliation or resistance strategy, and although new alignments are forming and reforming each year, the effort has gone from strength to strength. It is built solidly on a base of black initiative and ownership. Two strong themes have remained with these efforts to the present: organization of black initiative and unity, and the development of a new base for resisting apartheid.

Those resisting apartheid today have directed themselves against the new "reforms" initiated by the government. Two large umbrella organizations, the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the National Forum (NF), have been set up to facilitate communication and action. Repeatedly the officers of these organizations have been intimidated or detained, and a few have been killed. Unlike those of an earlier generation, however, these organizations do not hold centralized power; power lies in hundreds of local community organizations and labor unions. These movements can no longer be stopped by lopping off the tops.

The "reforms" that the government has been implementing have not responded to popular demands for participation in the reform process. Any restructuring taking place is proceeding from the top down, with at best only a small circle of carefully selected black people being drawn into the decision making. Black leaders in the UDF, the NF or other more popularly supported black organizations are avoided. The government reformers have maintained a constant vigilance against all political initiatives not amenable to state manipulation and appear determined to force others to conform to their plans. This requires that they negotiate only from a "position of strength," which means ensuring that community organizations, trade unions and groups seeking a more fundamental change through grass roots struggle remain in or are reduced to a weak and ineffectual state (Cobbett, Glaser Hindson and Swelling, 1986: 163).

Many believe that the current crisis will move in the immediate future to an even more direct and obvious confrontation between the government's "reform" process, having behind it the weight of police and military might, and this broad base of community organizations and trade unions often represented via the UDF and the NF. One confermation of this appears to be the restrictions placed on the UDF and 16 other anti-apartheid organizations in February 1988, which makes it impossible for these organizations to function in any normal or open way. Military and police strategy in urban black residential areas is more and more pointed at the forced defeat of these groups. To an extent the military and police have remained behind the scenes, organizing and arming groups of black people to act as fronts and creating the image of increased "black-on-black" violence. Even this, however, is giving way as police and military forces expand their ranks and acquire more resources.The final demand that the "reforms" cannot satisfy is the demand for national democratic rights, for the effective sharing of power with the representatives of the majority of South Africans. To what degree the situation will deteriorate into open civil warfare before a new political power consensus is established is hard to predict. The contemporary base of resistance within the black community is more organized and resilient than ever before, and the government, having its political mandate from a white electorate only, seems unable to move outside the current "reform" process.

The rise of black theology

We have earlier referred to some of the tensions which have marked the history of the church in South Africa, that of racial differences (settler versus mission churches), and that of the need to take cultural expression into account. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the churches went about their tasks of making converts, running schools, and becoming established institutionally. The white Dutch Reformed churches supported the rise of Afrikaner nationalism and developed a theological rationale for racial separation that was to become the undergirding for the National Party's apartheid practices. The white leaders in the multi-racial churches were in general quiet as the new Nationalist government began the implementation of its policy after 1948. While the leaders of these churches may have considered themselves and their churches anti-apartheid, they did not for the most part support the black passive resistance campaigns of the 1950s or protest the bannings of the black political organizations. "The churches watched from the sidelines, offering verbal warnings of the dangers of injustice and disorder, while blacks struggled to purge society of its racism" (Walshe, 1983: 37).

The Sharpville shootings of 1960 and their aftermath moved these white-dominated church structures to respond, and perhaps can be seen as the beginnings of a rise in consciousness on the part of many church leaders. The Cottesloe Consultation of WCC member churches in 1960 called for an end to apartheid. Pressure from the government caused a rejection by the white Dutch Reformed Church of the consultation's conclusions, and the white church withdrew from the WCC, beginning its isolation from ecumenical organizations. In response, the Christian Institute was begun by individual church leaders and pastors as a forum in which to address the role of the church in bringing about a more just society. The reorganized South African Council of Churches (SACC) became more active in this regard by the end of the 1960s. Their National Consultation on Racism in 1968 resulted in the publication of a "Message to the People of South Africa," which repeated the call against the government's apartheid policy and stated that this policy was a denial of the gospel.

The "Message to the People of South Africa" was a strong denunciation of separation and a call to the churches to reject apartheid in their structures and church life. But, like the Christian Institute at this period, it was largely a call by white Christians, addressed to white churches. The document assumes and speaks to people tempted by apartheid and its economic benefits for them; it does not really speak from the viewpoint of the majority suffering under its policies. As Walshe points out, both the Consultation and the Study Project on Christianity in Apartheid Society (SPROCAS) -- undertaken shortly afterwards by the SACC and the Christian Institute as a follow-up to the Message -- remained white-oriented as well in the way they envisaged change happening, by appeals to the troubled consciences of whites and work through existing political structures (Walshe, 1983: 59). This was the era of "liberal" white political organizing, as English-speaking whites tried in a paternalistic way to ameliorate something of the effects of apartheid.

But new forces, which would have a profound effect on the churches as well as on larger South African society were gaining momentum. The early 1970s, which saw the rise of black consciousness as a political philosophy, were also a time of ferment within the churches. This ferment first made itself felt in student circles, with the formation in 1968 of the University Christian Movement (UCM). Increasingly black-dominated, and becoming "too radical" for many white students, the UCM became the forum for expression of what was called "black theology."

A close relationship exists between the growth of black consciousness as a political philosophy and the beginnings of black theology. Leaders in the Black Consciousness Movement such as Steve Biko and Nyameko Barney Pityana were also leaders or staff persons in the UCM. Black theology, with its emphasis on the black situation of oppression as the basis for understanding the Bible, Jesus and Christianity, was a part of the black consciousness emphasis on self-worth and self-reliance. Blacks did not need whites to teach them theology or to interpret the Bible for them; they could do it for themselves in a way that spoke to their own situation.

Black theology grew out of this kind of thinking, fed by the new liberation theologies being developed in Latin America and by black North Americans. It is a situational theology which looks at what Christians believe about God and Jesus from the perspective of black people in South Africa. Black theology sees Jesus as having been oppressed, poor, colonized -- and thus black. God's incarnation was a sign of God's identification with people in a similar situation, but also, in Jesus, a sign of God's liberating power. Black theology is empowering in that it encourages black South Africans to look critically at their own situation to see God as having come into that situation, and to find in their faith motivation and strength to begin to change it.

The South African government has understandably seen black theology, together with black consciousness, as a grave threat to its control, banning its writings and trying to silence many of its spokespersons. Many in government circles and also among white Christians have branded it as politics disguised as religion, or as black racism. It is important to note that unlike some North American black theologians, proponents of black theology in South Africa reject an exclusivism or nationalism such as that which they see clearly illustrated by the Afrikaner Christian-Nationalist ideology (de Gruchy, 1979: 167). Leaders such as Allan Boesak stress that blackness is not merely a "color," but rather a "condition," albeit one that few white South Africans would choose to take upon themselves. Black theology addresses the condition of oppression, which in South Africa happens to be the condition of blacks. As Basil Moore puts it (Moore: 1973: x), black theology asks, "What is the meaning of the gospel for those living not with their white bums in the butter, but with their black backs to the wall?"

The kind of thinking spawned by black theology, and in the wider society by black consciousness, has affected the churches in South Africa in far-reaching ways. In the decade following the shootings of Sharpville, there rose a growing awareness on the part of the white-controlled, multi-racial churches (the so-called "English-speaking churches" in contrast to the Afrikaans churches) that the churches needed to address the issue of race relations and apartheid. In effect, though, this was white South Africans talking to each other. "Progressive" whites in church and society stressed the notion of "contact" between the races as being the way to foster reconciliation, without too much awareness of the need for structural change. Moore assesses this attitude negatively:

It is true that this "reconciliation contact" did enable a few whites (very few) to move from their racialist heritage to an open desire for non-racialism. But it is equally true that many more became rather sickening paternalists and charitable "do-gooders." Whether there was any positive effect on blacks in this multi-racialism is debatable ... because it took place in the context of South African society, a society in which there is a vast gap in wealth and education between blacks and whites" (Moore, 1973: 3)

Also during this time, black Christians began to assume more leadership positions. What was radical in 1963 when the Methodist Church elected Seth Mokitimi as their first black president had become the norm by the end of the 1970s. By this time the leadership of the SACC member churches was to a great extent black, and the SACC itself had a black at the helm in the person of dynamic Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu. Led by articulate black spokesmen, these churches were more vocal in their official pronouncements against apartheid and oppressive government policy.

The fact that the churches had moved from a white-oriented understanding of South African society toward a much greater avenue of expression for the black point of view was significant. However, these churches still had some way to go, as Charles Villa-Vicencio suggests. He describes the SACC-member churches and the Catholic Church as being vocal in condemning apartheid, while supporting it in practice. While blacks are in leadership positions, they still must operate within a largely white power structure which depends on white funding. This has led, he suggests, to a kind of compromise in which "conservative whites 'tolerate' black leadership, and black leadership and black leaders are compelled to allow grass-roots whites to continue in their former ways," so that while the churches condemn apartheid their white members continue to practice it and enjoy its fruits (Villa-Vicencio, 1983: 68).

Blacks who work within these white structures are criticized by other blacks. Black consciousness, with its stress on the self-reliance and inner strength of the black community, is critical of blacks who are willing to take white money, who feel a need to maintain that financial link to a white source or who relate too easily to white structures. Their doing so is a negation of the ability of the black community to sustain itself. Those who fit too easily into white-controlled organizations are looked on with suspicion. This suspicion is heightened in South Africa by the government's practice of hiring informers, but it has its roots in the black consciousness call: "Black man, you are on your own," with the implication that this is as it should be.

The self-confidence which black consciousness has generated is a factor which shapes the way in which blacks and whites relate to one another in contemporary South African society and in the church. Put simply, black consciousness means the recognition that blacks will set the agenda for the shape of the church and for the way change will happen in society. Blacks do not need whites to do things "for" them. White involvement in working for justice must be on black terms. Allan Boesak describes the role of white Christians:

I speak of those white Christians... who, through their commitment, have taken upon themselves the condition of blackness in South Africa... They are part of the black church, not as lords and masters but as servants, not as "liberals" but as brothers and sisters, for they have learned not so much to do for blacks, but to identify with what blacks are doing to secure their liberation (Boesak, 1984: 22).

One result of this movement in church circles has been the strengthening of black church organizations, which usually have sprung up somewhat outside formal denominational structures. The Interdenominational African Ministers Association of South Africa (IDAMASA) had been in existence for years, but without much public involvement. More recently, an independent study center, the Institute for Contextual Theology, has been formed to serve as a think-tank and dissemination point for black theological thinking. At the SACC's 1980 Consultation on Racism, a caucus of black church leaders formed and challenged the churches to take concrete steps toward change, threatening if they saw no structural changes within a year to withdraw and form a "black confessing church." Although this did not in fact occur, an organization which might be called a confessing church movement did form during the next year within the Reformed family of churches.

The Association of Black Reformed Churches in South Africa (ABRECSA) was formed in 1981 and includes in its membership a number of black "mission" churches. Among them are the separate mission churches of the Dutch Reformed Church: the NG Sending Kerk (for "coloureds" or persons of mixed race), the NG Kerk in Africa (for Africans), and the small Reformed Church in Africa (for Indians). In fact, all of the South African Reformed and Presbyterian churches except the three white Dutch Reformed churches belong to ABRECSA.

We have referred here to the notion of a "confessing church." South African church leaders and theologians often appeal to the confessing church movement in Germany during the late 1930s as a model for the position of the churches in South Africa. At a time when most of the German churches acquiesced to Hitler's "take-over" of Christianity for the cause of German nationalism, the small group of pastors and theologians which stood against this were known as the confessing church. Such a precedent is perhaps especially significant for the member-churches of ABRECSA, as their own Reformed theological tradition has been used in South Africa to justify apartheid and the government's oppression. This line of thinking has led most of the churches of South Africa to call the theological justification of apartheid not only wrong or sinful but heretical.

The move to name apartheid as a heresy, pushed by ABRECSA, in 1982 became a topic of discussion at the meeting of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) held in Ottawa, Ont., Canada. The result of that discussion was a decision to suspend the membership of the white Dutch Reformed churches until such a time as they repented of the heresy of apartheid. The move provoked much angry reaction in South African government and conservative white circles, but it also triggered a great deal of soul-searching within the South African church. The other major multi-racial churches followed suit, but with much debate about what it means to declare apartheid a heresy. Was this just another in the long line of pronouncements by the churches? How did it affect the way South African Christians lived and especially the way in which they related to those whose churches were now being excluded?

The first reaction of the white Afrikaans churches was one of pulling back from this discussion. However, more recently they have shown the beginnings of some movement and some willingness to respond to this strong critique. The general synod of the largest of the three white Dutch Reformed churches which met in October 1986 withdrew the church's theological sanction for apartheid and agreed to allow people of other races to become members of the church. For a church that up to now has not allowed racially mixed worship services, this is a big step. Typically, however, the viewpoint of ABRECSA sees this move as not being enough. Rather than allowing individuals from other races to join a white-dominated structure (similar to the way in which the white government tries to include blacks without giving them power), the black churches want a merger of structures on an equal footing.

The "apartheid as heresy" discussion is also a difficult one for the black mission churches of the white Dutch Reformed Church in that they have remained financially dependent on the white church. In its synod, which met shortly before that of the white church, the Sendingkerk, the largest of these daughter churches, cancelled its agreement with the white church, thus cutting itself off from a major source of funding. This move, costly in monetary terms, was a basic and important step in the direction of the kind of non-dependency which black consciousness calls for. The move also grew directly out of the declaration of apartheid as a heresy.

The kind of pressure which black consciousness and black theology exert on church structures is evident in the interactions of ABRECSA and the white Dutch Reformed churches, but the traditionally more open multi-racial churches are not exempt from such pressure. A recent example is the Black Ecumenical Church Leaders Consultation (BECLC) which first met in late 1985. This group again reflected the black consciousness critique of white-dominated church structures, white control of finances, and black leadership which has compromised itself by its willingness to work within those structures. They also gave the SACC notice of the need to make their structures reflective of the fact that the majority of persons in member churches are black. If changes did not take place, the group threatened to withdraw and to consider setting up a Black Ecumenical Council of Churches (Sterfontein, 1986: 2,3).

To know how to evaluate such threats is difficult, as is knowing whether this group will in fact become organized and viable enough to be a strong factor in the life of the SACC and its member churches. Certainly, however, the threat reflects the mood of many within the churches, and the SACC takes the group seriously.

One of the most significant recent theological developments in South Africa has been the debate centering on the Kairos Document. The Kairos Document is a statement drawn up originally as a result of discussions by an ad hoc group of mainly black lay people and pastors, but it was subseque ntly signed by many more people throughout the churches. It is a call to action based on the sense that this is the kairos, the crucial time, in South African history.

To begin with, the Kairos Document analyzes and finds both "state theology" and "church theology" wanting. "State theology," the theological justification for apartheid and totalitarianism, is described in keeping with the heresy discussion, as more than just bad; it is evil or the anti-Christ. "Church theology," which has talked too glibly of nonviolence and reconciliation while not addressing itself to systemic violence and the need for structural change, is not evil as such. But it is unhelpful in that it tends to spiritualize concepts such as liberation and because it does not supply a grounding on which persons can act against injustice.

As an alternative to both of these, the Kairos Document sets forth a "prophetic theology" which calls Christians to action against injustice. The church must resist evil, which in the case of South Africa means no longer sitting as a third party between oppressor and oppressed, but rather taking sides against oppression. The document, while avoiding a call to take up arms, is certainly a call to the churches to support the black liberation struggle. It suggests that if the church is to remain at all relevant it will declare clearly where it stands.

The Kairos Document was an ad hoc venture that has spread rapidly through the churches, with discussion taking place on many levels, from theologians to youth groups. The aim of its signers, h owever, was that it become not just a discussion paper but a call to action. Whether it has moved the churches to more specific action against apartheid is hard to measure. The document is clearly a product of the kind of revitalized self-consciousness which was the aim of black consciousness and black theology, and its importance lies in its crystallization of such thinking. How the churches will respond and how South African Christians will act upon it will only be seen over time.

The rise of black consciousness in the churches has greatly affected the mainline churches, both structurally and in terms of their theological discussion. More difficult to gauge is its effect on the more conservative and evangelical church groups, such as the Baptists, Apostolic Faith Mission, and other, more charismatic and independent groups which stand outside these ecumenical structures. These churches remain largely white-dominated in structure, and their spiritual emphasis leads them to see the church as less involved in social issues. The fact that they are structurally less involved, however, does not mean that they are unaffected by the current ferment, as individual members of these churches also come face to face with what it means to be Christian in apartheid society.

Also generally outside of this discussion in any organized way are the groups that are often referred to collectively as African Independent or Indigenous Churches. The fastest growing group of Christians in numerical terms, these small congregations are in one sense examples of the kind of black self-expression that black consciousness calls for. Their styles of worship and use of traditional categories such as healing and prophecy make them an example for the church of Christianity expressed in an African cultural mode. However, these churches tend to focus fairly exclusively on the problems of individual adherents, rather fatalistically leaving aside the larger, structural problems of the society. This, and the fact that these groups tend to be made up largely of poor people with little formal schooling, has meant that they are less involved in the wider debate within the churches. They should not be forgotten, however, as a significant grass-roots movement within the church which may yet come to play a larger role.

The movements of black consciousness and black theology provide the basis for much of the current ferment in South Africa. We have here touched on some of the more obvious or public ways in which these movements have affected the churches. Because the discussion is current and ongoing, and because it takes place not in an ivory tower but in the midst of violent upheavals, protest and suffering, the outcome is not easy to predict. Which institutions will survive the current confusion, for example, and how will the shape of the church change over the next decade? What is clear, however, is where initiative for change now originates. In the words of an ABRECSA statement, made at its founding in 1981:

The initiative for change in South Africa has now passed into black hands. Although whites are still in the seat of power, politically and economically, they can no longer initiate any change of direction and expect blacks to acquiesce. Blacks are no longer prepared to be passive participants of white-initiated programs, even of the best-intended whites. With regard specifically to the churches... the same attitude has become increasingly manifest. Blacks in these churches are determined to work out their own programs for unity and the witness of the church in South Africa. (Message to the WARC from ABRECSA, Hammanskraal, Oct., 1981)