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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
In a much publicised address to the 1979 National Conference of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), Dr Allan Boesak, a theologian of the black Dutch Reformed Mission Church, challenged the Church in South Africa to engage in acts of civil disobedience against apartheid laws:
The church must initiate and support meaningful pressure on the system as a non-violent way of bringing about change. The church must initiate and support programs of civil disobedience on a massive scale, and challenge especially white Christians on this issue. It no longer suffices to make statements condemning unjust laws as if nothing has happened. The time has come for the black church to tell the Government and its people: We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. So we will teach our people what it means to obey God rather than man in South Africa.
page 245 note 1 ‘The Black Church and the Struggle in South Africa’, The Ecumenical Review, vol. 32, no. 1, January 1980, p. 23.Google Scholar
page 246 note 2 cf. de Gruchy, John W., The Church Struggle in South Africa (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids; S.P.C.K., London; David Philip, Cape Town, 1979) pp. 138ff.Google Scholar
page 246 note 3 At the time of writing, two young white South Africans, Richard Steel and Peter Moll, were in military prison for refusing to serve in the army on specifically Christian grounds. The Reverend David Russell was found guilty of breaking his banning order in order to attend a Church synod. In 1979 several Churches reiterated that they would not obey certain racial laws.
page 246 note 4 cf. Eberhard Bethge, ‘A Confessing Church in South Africa?’ and de Gruchy, John W., ‘Bonhoeffer in South Africa’, in Bethge, E., Bonhoeffer: Exile and Martyr (Collins, London; Seabury, N.Y., 1975).Google Scholar
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page 247 note 6 Huddleston, Trevor, Naught for your Comfort (Fontana, London, 1957) p. 50.Google Scholar
page 247 note 7 cf. Irving Hexham's critique of this tendency in Totalitarian Calvinism: the Reformed (Dopper) Community in South Africa 1902–1919 (Ph.D thesis, University of Bristol, 1975), chapter 2.Google Scholar
page 247 note 8 cf. Welsh, David, The Roots of Segregation (Oxford, 1971).Google Scholar
page 248 note 9 cf. Adam, Heribert and Giliomee, Hermann, The Rise and Crisis of Afrikaner Power (David Philip, Cape Town 1979), p. 92.Google Scholar
page 248 note 10 cf. Naudé, C. Beyers, ‘Waaroor het dit eindik vir Calvin Gegaan?’ Pro Veritate, vol. viii/i, May, 1969Google Scholar; Bieler, André, The Social Humanism of Calvin (John Knox, Richmond, 1961)Google Scholar; Graham, W. Fred, The Constructive Revolutionary: John Calvin and his Socio-Economic Impact (John Knox, Richmond, 1971Google Scholar) Bax, D. S.A Different Gospel: A Critique of the Theology behind Apartheid (Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa, Johannesburg, 1979).Google Scholar
page 248 note 11 The letter is published in the International Review of Missions, vol. LXIX, no. 273, January 1980, pp. 71ff.
page 249 note 12 cf. Hexham, op. ciL; Moodie, T. Dunbar, The Rise of Afrikanerdom: Power Apartheid and the Afrikaner Civil Religion (California, University of California Press, 1975).Google Scholar
page 249 note 13 Published by Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1931.
page 249 note 14 op. cit. esp. chapter 4.
page 249 note 15 Kuyper, op. cit., chapter 1.
page 249 note 16 ibid.
page 250 note 17 ibid., p. 27.
page 250 note 18 cf. Loubser, Jan J. ‘Calvinism, Equality, and Inclusion: the Case of Afrikaner Calvinism’, in The Protestant Ethic and Modernization, ed. Eisenstadt, S. N. (Basic Books, N.Y., 1968), p. 380.Google Scholar
page 250 note 19 On the historical connexion between ‘sphere-sovereignty’ and Calvin, see Spykman, Gordon ‘Sphere-Sovereignty in Calvin and the Calvinist Tradition’ in Exploring the Heritage of John Calvin, ed. Holwerda, David E. (Baker, Grand Rapids, 1976.Google Scholar
page 251 note 20 op. cit., p. 79.
page 251 note 21 Quoted by Gordon Spykman, op. cit., p. 183.
page 251 note 22 Church Dogmatics, ii/I, p. 173.Google Scholar
page 251 note 23 ‘A Theological Basis for the World Alliance?’, in No Rusty Swords (Collins, London, 1965), p. 165.Google Scholar
page 252 note 24 cf. Ruth Zerner, ‘Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Views on the State and History’, mimeographed paper for the American Academy of Religion conference, 1974.
page 252 note 25 Smedes, Lewis B., ‘Mediating Structures’, in The Reformed Journal, vol. 28, no. 12, December 1978, pp. 4f.Google Scholar
page 253 note 26 op. cit., p. 94.
page 253 note 27 ibid., p. 102.
page 253 note 28 ibid., p. 104.
page 253 note 29 cf. Human Relations and the South African Scene in the Light of Scripture (DRC Publishers, Pretoria, 1976), chapter 3.Google Scholar
page 254 note 30 Theological Ethics, vol. 2 (Fortress, Philadelphia, 1969), p. 598.Google Scholar
page 254 note 31 Ethics (Macmillan, N.Y., 1962), p. 294Google Scholar (our reference to Kuyper).
page 254 note 32 op. cit., p. 108 (our emphasis).
page 255 note 33 ibid.
page 255 note 34 ibid., p. 81.
page 255 note 35 ibid., p. 99.
page 255 note 36 The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Westminster, Philadelphia, 1960) IV/X/5, vol. 2, P. 1184.Google Scholar
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page 256 note 38 In Comparative Studies in Society and History, June 1972, p. 320.
page 256 note 39 Koers in die Krisis (Stellenbosch, 1935–1941) eds. Stoker, H. G., F. J. M. Potgieter, & J. D. Vorster.Google Scholar
page 256 note 40 cf. Moodie, op. cit.; de Klerk, W. A., The Puritans in Africa (Collins, London, 1975)Google Scholar; the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, No. 19, June 1977.
page 257 note 41 Roots of Western Culture (Wedge, Toronto, 1979), p. 53.Google Scholar
page 257 note 42 cf. Hexham, op cit., p. II, p. 17. See also Moltmann's comment that there are similar tendencies in Bonhoeffer. Two Studies in the Theology of Bonhoeffer, (Scribners, N.Y., 1967), p. 41.Google Scholar
page 257 note 43 op. cit., p. 66.
page 258 note 44 ibid., p. 157.
page 259 note 45 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Oxford, 1971), p. 364Google Scholar. Rawls is here following H. A. Bedau, cf. footnote 19 in Rawls.
page 259 note 46 du Toit, André, ‘Civil Obedience and Disobedience’, Pro Veritate, vol. 12 no. 3, July 1973.Google Scholar
page 260 note 47 cf. Dr. Boesak's letter referred to above in n. II.
page 261 note 48 op. cit., p. 386. On the difficulties of civil disobedience in a pluralistic society see Oosthuizen, D. C. S.The Ethics of Illegal Action (Ravan, Johannesburg, 1973), p. 16Google Scholar: ‘the firmer the traditions and the more homogenous the society to which we belong, the easier it will be for us to decide whether, when and how to act illegally, and on what sorts of occasions.’
page 261 note 49 Letter to the Minister of Justice, IRM, p. 72.
page 261 note 50 van der Vyver ‘The Right of Revolt’, in Contours of the Kingdom, May/June 1979, p. 8.
page 261 note 51 Quoted by Gordon Spykman, op. cit., p. 203.
page 261 note 52 cf. Calvin, , The Institutes of the Christian Religion IV/20/30–32Google Scholar; Theodore Beza De jure magisterium (E.T. Concerning the Rights of Rulers, H.A.U.M., Cape Town, 1956); du Plessis Mornay, Vindiciae contra Tyrannos (E.T. A Defence of Liberty, Londo'n, 1689); The Scottish Confession of 1560, articles 14 and 24. See also Lasserre, JeanWar and the Gospel (Herald Press, Scottdale, 1962), pp. 122fGoogle Scholar, and Moltmann, J., ‘The Ethic of Calvinism’ in The Experiment Hope (SCM, London, 1975).Google Scholar