SLAVE RELIGION, BLACK POWER, AND BLACK THEOLOGY

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CHAPTER 3 THE INFLUENCE OF BLACK THEOLOGY ON ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC FRONT

 INTRODUCTION

Chapter 3 discusses the way in which black consciousness and black theology influenced Boesak and Chikane to become proponents of the United Democratic Front. This influence stemmed from the black power and black theology of the United States of America and the liberation theology of Latin America.
Firstly, the chapter researcher provides a brief history of black theology as it was articulated by the University Christian Movement (UCM) and its influence on both Boesak and Chikane. The advocacy of black theology has played a major role to develop Steve Biko’s sense making known as black consciousness (BC). Secondly, the chapter illustrates the way black theology and black consciousness became natural supporters in the attempt to deconstruct the psychological and religious constructions of both apartheid and the missionaries in both church and society in South Africa. Maurice Ngakane, Frank Chikane and Cyril Ramaphosa emerged in this time as a rare breed of Pentecostals who opposed a tradition that had resulted in a religious vacuum of political inactivity.

THE ENVIRONMENT THAT SHAPED THE THINKING OF BOESAK AND CHIKANE

In the 1970s there was a wind of change in the South Africa environment that shaped the thinking of many students, artists and theologians of the time. Although this environment shaped Boesak and Chikane’s theological thinking they were not exceptions. This section highlights events of the time to illustrate  how these events bred the black ideologies such as black theology and black consciousness in South Africa.

 The development of black theology in South Africa

In the USA black power had preceded black theology. However, in South Africa the reverse applied with the establishment of black theology preceding black consciousness. This black theology developed from a project of the University Christian Movement led by Basil Moore and later by Sabelo Stanley Ntwasa.
Motlhabi (2012:224) reveals that conversations took place between South African theologians and the African-American pioneers of black theology, such as James Cone, regarding their new way of practising theology. Motlhabi (2012:224) contends that:
Less familiar in the BTSA’s first phase is the communication that went on at the beginning between the officials of the UCM and like theologians in the United States, especially James Cone. As it was promulgated by the UCM, the early BTSA followed development in the USA closely at the time, and especially the publication of Cone’s two books, Black Theology and Black Power and A Black Theology of Liberation. As a result of these two books, the UCM engaged in ongoing communication with American black theologians and tried to learn as much as possible from them regarding this new method of theology and its vision of human liberation seen from a theological perspective.
The insights gained from black theology in the USA influenced the pioneers of black theology in South Africa to convene a UCM congress in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape in 1967. The delegates of this congress ranged from almost 90 clergy persons to university students. Basil Moore, a white Methodist minister of the Word and Sacrament, became the first executive president. Winnie Kware, who was a member of the executive during Basil Moore’s era, succeeded Basil Moore as the first black president of the Black People’s Convention (BPC). This movement was influential in its five years of existence in most universities and theological seminaries. The second congress of BPC was held in Stutterheim and included 68 per cent black delegates.
The BPC has a significant impact on the thinking and behaviour of students in respect of the apartheid system. As Goddard (2015:122) indicates, race and theological problems had been incorporated into the agenda of the Student Christian Movement (SCM) and the predominantly white Student Christian Association (SCA), ultimately leaving black Christians without either a voice or a role in the decision-making processes. The UCM then bridged the chasm and adopted a political stance that the SCA and SCM evaded and created a platform for black theologians and black students.
According to Motlhabi (2012:224), it was under the auspices of the UCM that initiatives of an exploratory nature were undertaken with black theologians and clergy in South Africa seeking to understand and to relate their experiences under apartheid to their faith in Christ. The UCM encouraged reflection on the black experience. Steve Biko, the father of BC, also made a contribution to this regard. Black Consciousness found a natural religious ally in black theology. It
was during this time that Manas Buthelezi (1973:55–56) identified the role of the church in the context of black theology in South Africa as follows:
It is now time for the black man to evangelise and humanise the white man. The realisation of this will not depend on the white man’s approval, but solely on the black man’s love for the white man … For this to be a reality it is imperative for the black man to reflect upon the Gospel out of his experience as a black man. The black man needs to be liberated from the white man’s rejection, so that the white man’s rejection may cease to be a decisive factor in the process of the black man’s blackness as a gift of God, instead of the biological scourge which the white man’s institution have made it to be. The future of evangelism is tied to the quest for a theology that grows out of the black man’s experience…from this theological vantage point…the black man will contribute his own understanding of Christian love and its implications for evangelism.
The focus emphasised above gave birth to different thinking and movements, including the South African Students Organisation (SASO) in 1968. When SASO was established it included a black theology desk, which had, as its aim, the conscientising of black clergy in order to strengthen the UCM, which was already conscientising the clergy through the Black Theology Project (BTP). The BTP, the Black Community Programmes (BCP) and the SASO initiative on black theology were all running concurrently and feeding each other. SASO with its BC understood itself as conscientising black ministers and not the other way around. Biko (1978:54) indicated that there had been something wrong with the missionaries and the God they had presented to the Africans. BC, as a psychological tool, was well placed, in collaboration with black theology, to deconstruct the constructed concept of God that the missionaries has propagated. The black clergy were also well positioned to facilitate the process of deconstructing this concept. However, in order to do this, they had to familiarise themselves with the basic tenets of black theology.
When highlighting the deconstruction of this concept of God and Christianity to the African, Biko (1978:59) contended that black theology was a situational interpretation of Christianity in Africa in general and South Africa in particular. It sought to relate the prevailing black humanity to God within the given context of black humanity’s suffering and human attempts to escape from this suffering. Black theology shifted the emphasis of a human being’s moral obligations from avoiding wronging false authorities by not losing their reference book, not stealing food when hungry and not cheating the police when they are caught eradicating all causes of suffering as arising from the deaths of children from starvation, outbreaks of epidemics, poverty and thuggery and vandalism in townships. In other words, it shifts the emphasis from petty sins to major sins in society, thereby ceasing to teach people to suffer peacefully.
It is commonly known that Africans are religious beings and being understood as notoriously religious had been regarded as being in a religious coma. Karl Marx referred to religion as the opium of the masses. Karl Marx concurred with Ludwig Feuerbach when he maintained that religion is a projection of a person’s wishes in the sense that a human being creates God in his/her own mind. Human beings attribute all the good characteristics to God but, in reality, these good characteristics reflect human wishes. In order to liberate human beings from alienation human beings should abolish religion as it creates illusions (Keshomshahara, 2008:170). Biko was aware of this notion from a philosophical perspective but maintained that, as Africans are naturally religious beings, it is imperative that religion is used in a proper way to liberate the black people in South Africa. This was not an indictment against religion but against the conforming stupor from which the black religious community had to be awakened with the black clergy as the key to this initiative.
Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) is a philosopher who significantly influenced the theology of Jürgen Moltman. Bloch was a philosopher who, on one hand, supported Marxism but, on the other hand, criticised Marxism as being incomplete since it did not recognise the role of religious hope in social transformation. Jürgen Moltman observed that, for atheists such as the Marxists, Ernst Bloch is recognised as religious although religious people such as Jews and Christians regard Bloch as an atheist (Keshomshahara, 2008:173). This was how the South African government, which saw itself as a Christian government, viewed Biko although Biko, as a religious person, recommended that religion should be the vehicle to liberation and social transformation. Biko (1978) urged ministers of the word and the Sacraments not to practise their ministry in a vacuum but, instead, to practise it in a socio-political context. Just as the missionaries had practised their ministry in the context of their own cultural and colonial backgrounds, it was imperative that the black clergy should reinterpret scripture and practise their ministry in the context of their own situation. The challenge facing BTSA as Africans was, therefore, not to relinquish the “white” God but to reinterpret God and the scriptures in the context of the black experience.

CHAPTER 1  INTRODUCTION AND ORIENTATION
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
1.3 THE MAIN RESEARCH QUESTION
1.4 AIMS OF THE RESEARCH STUDY
1.5 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1.6 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
1.7 STRUCTURE OF THE RESEARCH
1.8 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 2  SLAVE RELIGION, BLACK POWER, AND BLACK THEOLOGY
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 THE PARADIGM FROM SLAVE RELIGION TO BLACK THEOLOGY IN THE*
2.3 LATIN AMERICAN ECONOMIC AND PEDAGOGIC INFLUENCES RELATED TO LIBERATION THEOLOGY
2.4 BLACK POWER AND BLACK THEOLOGY IN THE USA AND ITS IMPACT IN SOUTH AFRICAN THEOLOGY
2.5 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 3  THE INFLUENCE OF BLACK THEOLOGY ON ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC FRONT
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 THE ENVIRONMENT THAT SHAPED THE THINKING OF BOESAK AND CHIKANE
3.3 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 4  PRESENTATION OF THE ROLE PLAYED BY BOESAK AND CHIKANE IN THE DRAFTING OF ALTERNATIVE THEOLOGIES
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF AFRIKANER RELIGION AND THE RESISTANCE AGAINST THE AFRIKANER RELIGION
4.3 THE IMPACT OF THE OTTAWA 1982 GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE WORLD ALLIANCE OF REFORMED CHURCHES (WARC)
4.4 THE ORIGIN OF THE BELHAR CONFESSION AND THE ROLE OF BOESAK … 71
4.5 THE ORIGIN OF THE KAIROS DOCUMENT AND THE ROLE OF CHIKANE
4.6 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 5  THE SILENCE OF THE BLACK PROPHETIC VOICE IN SOUTH AFRICA
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 EARLY VOICES OF PROPHECY IN SOUTH AFRICA
5.3 THE DIFFERENCE IN THE PROPHECY IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT PROPHETIC MINISTRY
5.4 OBSERVATIONS AND ANALYSIS OF THE TENSIONS OF THE ETHOS AND PATHOS OF PROPHECY
5.5 CHIKANE’S POST POWER REACTION TO THE SOUTH AFRICAN SITUATION
5.6 BOESAK’S POST POWER REACTION TO THE SOUTH AFRICAN SITUATION
5.7 SUMMARY
CHAPTER 6  SUMMARY, FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONTRIBUTION
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS 2 TO 5
6.3 FINDINGS
6.4 RECOMMENDATIONS
6.5 CONTRIBUTION
6.6 CONCLUSION
Bibliography
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