Belhar Confession

The Belhar Confession is a Christian statement of belief originally written in Afrikaans and adopted by the synod of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church in South Africa in 1986.

Although the confession was useful as a tool to unify the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) and the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (DRCA), it has also been a source of strife because a third church, the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) refuses to adopt it as an official confession of faith.

The Belhar Confession was authored in 1986 by Prof Dirkie Smit of the DRMC, and was adopted in the same year by the DRMC as an official confession of faith. When the DRMC and the DRCA united in 1994 to form the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA), the newly formed denomination reaffirmed the Belhar Confession as one of their official confessions of faith.

The confession was named after a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, where a general synod of the DRMC was held in 1982.

The Belhar Confession was provisionally adopted for two years by the 2007 General Synod of the Reformed Church in America as a fourth standard in addition to the Three Forms of Unity.

Summary of contents

Brief summary

Essentially, the Belhar Confession is a collection of statements about racial segregation and political unity among Christians, mixed in with ambiguously rewritten excerpts from existing Christian confessions of faith. The confession is glossed with supporting references from the Bible.

Comprehensive summary

The Belhar Confession claims the following:

1. That the Body of Christ ref|bodyofchrist necessarily consists of members from all cultures around the world.

2. That fellowship, ref|fellowship and specifically fellowship by individuals who are reconciled with each other, is evidence of reconciliation between God and humankind.

3. That unity ref|unity is both a gift from God and a command by God.

4. That segregation necessarily leads to enmity and hatred.

5. That individual, racial and social segregation is sin.

6. That since segregation is sinful, segregation should not be permitted within the Body of Christ.

7. That love for one another, and practicing and promoting fellowship should be evidence of such unity.

8. That being of service to one another could directly result in individual salvation. ref|salvation

9. That all Christians have the same belief, have the same purpose in life, rally to the same cause and share the same hope.

10. That groups of Christians should not independently of each other attempt to learn about Christ and attempt to become more mature in their beliefs.

11. That groups of Christians should not offer emotional, physical, social and financial support only to members of their own group.

12. That all Christians should suffer the same consequences of any type of injustice.

13. That all Christians should pray ref|pray for the same things.

14. That all Christians should use the same methods to combat disruption of the unity within the Body of Christ.

15. That unity can only be accomplished if the members of the unity are free to choose unity and not forced to accept unity or disunity.

16. That the only reason why the diversity of spiritual gifts ref|spiritualgifts, opportunities, social backgrounds, opinions (sic), languages and cultural elements may provide opportunities for giving aid to other Christians or becoming more mature in our beliefs, is because Christ effected reconciliation between God and humankind.

17. That faith in Jesus Christ is the only requirement for membership to the Body of Christ and should also be the only requirement for membership to any organisation, institution, club or society of Christians.

18. That the practice of applying recognition of specific differences between individuals to all humankind regardless of relevance or scientific reality has or will have an adverse effect on unity within the church.

19. That Christians who hold the similar beliefs should never be segregated, whether by force or voluntarily, regardless of whether such segregation is the result of enmity and hatred between Christians or the result of attempts to acknowledge, maintain or promote the unique linguistic, cultural or social characteristics of those Christians.

20. That forced or voluntary segregation should never be maintained for the sake of ensuring peaceful relations between individuals who have enmity or hatred towards others.

21. That it is sinful to hold the opinion that unity in the Body of Christ should not necessarily be treasured.

22. That neither ancestry nor any cultural or social factors may be used to determine or surmise whether any person might qualify for membership to the Body of Christ.

23. That the Body of Christ must actively promote itself, its religion and its deity.

24. That the effectiveness of the Good News ref|goodnews was diluted by the actions of the South African government which claimed to be inherently Christian and yet promoted estrangement, hatred and enmity through enforced racial segregation.

25. That any doctrine attempting to justify forced segregation using the Gospel, ref|gospel is heresy.

26. That ideology is bad (sic).

27. That claims that racial segregation is the will of God or the promotion of racial segregation on behalf of God interferes with the usefulness of the reconciliation between God and humankind.

28. That God claims to be the bringer of justice and peace among humankind.

29. That God is on the side of those who suffer physically, those who are poor and those who have had injustice done to them.

30. That God commands all Christians to be similarly on the side of those who suffer physically, those who are poor and those who have had injustice done to them.

31-38. That God ensures justice to people who have been oppressed. That God provides food for those who are hungry. That God frees prisoners. That God restores the sight of blind people. That God consoles sad people. That God protects aliens. That God provides aid to orphans and widows. That God makes life difficult for people who are godless.

39. That visits to orphans and widows who are suffering oppression is the purest form of our religion.

40. That God wants Christians to do good deeds and to determine what justice is.

41. That all Christians should offer verbal support to the cause of people who suffer physically and economically.

42. That all Christians should actively oppose any forms of injustice, and that such active opposition to injustice will result in lasting and recurring justice.

43. That since the body of all Christians is owned by God, all Christians should do as God would, i.e. oppose injustice and be on the side of those to whom injustice is done.

44. That since all Christians adhere to the teachings of Jesus Christ, they should witness to ref|witnessto all people who on the one hand have political power, have franchise and enjoy a luxurious lifestyle but on the other hand are greedy, and seek to benefit themselves because of greed, and because of greed determine the fate of others and deprive them.

45. That any ideology which legitimises acts which denies justice, is heresy, and that any school of thought in which proponents are unwilling to use arguments from the Gospel to reject and oppose such an ideology, is also heresy.

46. That all Christians are expected to believe all the above-mentioned things and do all the above-mentioned things, and that since Jesus Christ has the final say in cases of dispute within the body of all Christians, those who fail to do so, are being disobedient to Jesus Christ; and that all Christians should believe and do these things even if the government is opposed to it or if laws exist which prohibit it, regardless of whether punishment or physical suffering may be the result of such non-compliance or disobedience.

47. That anything written in the Belhar Confession is subject to ruling by Jesus Christ.

48. That our God is one, and that God is a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit, and that God should be commended and glorified for ever.

Footnotes

Unity: "in the Belhar Confession, the term "unity" most probably refers to administrative union and common human leadership"

Glossary

The following special terms with specific meanings commonly used by Christians, were used in the above section:

# Body of Christ: "the universal body of Christians, also referred to as The Church, using capital initials"
# Fellowship: "the act of meeting together for the purpose of admitting to each other that we are Christians"
# Salvation: "the state of being initiated into the Body of Christ through a spiritual experience and having assurance of eternal bliss as opposed to eternal damnation"
# Pray: "the act of communicating requests and thanks to God"
# Spiritual gifts: "any talent used in service of other Christians"
# Good News: "the information that reconciliation has been effected between God and humankind through the sacrificial death by proxy of Jesus Christ and that Christians will therefore no longer be held accountable to God for their actions"
# Gospel: (1) "a synonym for the Good News", or (2) "the combined message of the first four books of the New Testament of the Bible, which deal mainly with the life of Christ"
# Witness to: (1) "the act of telling a non-Christian about the Good News", or (2) "the act of telling any person about a personal experience in which God assumedly played a part"

Controversy

Church union

Until recently, the URCSA's requirements for union with the NGK included official acceptance of the Belhar Confession. One compromise proposed by the NGK was that existing members of the denomination could choose whether they would accept the confession as an official statement of faith, and that new members would have no choice in the matter. However, the URCSA's position was that all members of the NGK should be required to swear that the Belhar Confession is true, or face expulsion from the denomination. Recently, the URCSA relented its position, and now only logistic issues stand in the way of a union between the URCSA and the NGK.

The NGK's position

The NGK's opinion of the Belhar Confession varied over the years. Initially, the NGK rejected the confession as being a political document or as a statement of so-called Liberation Theology. Some time later the NGK acknowledged that the document's contents were true, with the proviso that references in the Belhar Confession to "the poor" not be regarded as as an implicit reference to non-whites. In recent years the NGK accepted the contents of the confession without provisos.

External links

* [http://www.vgksa.org.za/who.asp?id=106&sinid=1 Belhar Confession (English translation) from URCSA]
* [http://www.rca.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=304&srcid=2552 One English translation of the Belhar Confession]
* [http://www.vgksa.org.za/ Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa]
* [http://www.ngkerk.org.za/ Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa]