Over the last day or two news has come out of the General Synod of the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa that a disagreement over the interpretation and intent of the 1986 Belhar Declaration will lead the Rev. Allan Boesak to resign from his church leadership positions, including the position of Moderator of Cape Synod.
I have seen each news story in multiple places and each is brief so I will reproduce them in their entirety.
Here is the first one, this copy from The Times:
his positions in the Uniting Reformed Church, the SABC reported.
Boesak announced this in Hammanskraal outside Pretoria,
after the church’s General Synod discussed the question of
homosexuality.
The broadcaster said Boesak used the Belhar Declaration –
an anti-apartheid statement adopted by the then Dutch Reformed Mission
Church in 1986,to defend his view that it was wrong to discriminate
against homosexuals.
One of the delegates then accused him of abusing the declaration.
In response, Boesak reportedly told the synod that in the
light of the “serious” accusation, he would resign from all his
positions in the church.
He is currently the Moderator of the Cape Synod of the Uniting Reformed.
The second news story adds a few more details. This copy from highveld.com:
Anti-apartheid
activist Allan Boesak says he could not continue serving as an official
in the United Reformed Church in good conscience.
Last week, Boesak resigned from all leadership positions he held in the church.
The
URC’s leadership recently rejected the findings of a report he compiled
on homosexuality and why gay people should be accepted as members and
preachers in the church.
Boesak says he was shocked by the views of the church’s leaders on gay people.
He says he had no choice but to quit.
From these two reports it sounds like the Rev. Boesak has extended the theological call of Belhar from just the apartheid conditions of the time of adoption to the present day exclusion of homosexuals from full participation in the church. While the accusation of “abusing the [Belhar] declaration” does not specify the manner in which they thought it was abused, it is interesting to wonder if it was (1) extending it to situations beyond the original which are not logically equivalent, (2) extending it to current times and circumstances when the declaration was intended to speak only for that one circumstance, or (3) something else I’m not considering.
One of the ironies of this development is that the General Synod at which this occurred also decided on a “process of church unity.”
As you may be aware, the 218th General Assembly began the process of considering the Belhar Declaration for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Book of Confessions. Either one of my above interpretations of the current South African situation has possible negative implications for the discussion in the PC(USA).
If the Belhar Declaration is now going to be used to argue for full inclusion in the church, is this the right time to open that discussion in light of the continuing reverberations from the most recent GA regarding these issues. Are we, or will we be, ready for this discussion? It would seem that the progressives in the PC(USA) would welcome a confessional document that could be used to argue for full inclusion.
Or, if the Belhar Declaration is to speak to a specific circumstance at a particular time, are we, as westerners, in a position to be able to understand that time and circumstance in a way that the declaration would make a meaningful addition to our collection of confessional documents.
How the study committee addresses these two possible interpretations will go a long way in helping the church decide if this is a meaningful document for the PC(USA). Stay tuned…
UPDATE: Overnight a more detailed article was published on news24.com that has interviewed, or gotten additional statements, from the Rev. Boesak. In the article the disagreement over Belhar is blamed on the conservative theology of most members of the church where they do not view the anti-discrimination call of Belhar as applying to the exclusion of homosexuals from full inclusion in the church. The article says that in presenting the homosexuality report Mr. Boesak said “…he confronted the Synod with an issue that they were neither
emotionally nor theologically ready to discuss.”