LITERATURE REVIEW : ACTION AND REFLECTION
3.3. THE CHURCHS’ INVOLVEMENT IN THE LIFE WORLD OF FAMILIES LIVING WITH HIV IN THE (CHURCH) COMMUNITY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
3.3.2 History Of The English Speaking Churches In South Africa
training that will optimally address the HIV/AIDS pandemic for church leaders and lay counsellors.
3.3. THE CHURCHS’ INVOLVEMENT IN THE LIFE WORLD OF FAMILIES LIVING
Union, the Bantu Congregational Church and the churches of the London Missionary Society. In the new church only 10 % of the people were white. The Southern African churches, from the late 1960s mostly spread from Mozambique to Namibia and extended to Zimbabwe and Botswana. They also established links with international ecumenical organisations as the World Council of Churches (WCC) and their own international bodies, e.g. the World Methodist Conference. The churches presented all with distinct traditions of belief and governance, which gave each their own character, e.g. emphasis on Biblical authority, experience of personal conversion and issues of social behaviour. De Gruchy mentions that in the past, black political leaders, e.g.
Albert Luthuli, were often active members of mission churches and protested against the racial discrimination built into the constitution of the Union, hence the start of the African National Congress, affirming liberal Christian values such as individual rights and freedom (De Gruchy 1997). At the time the ANC was critical of the unwillingness of many of the churches to speak out for equality and justice. They encouraged unity amongst the churches.
At the conference of the Christian Council of South Africa in Rosettenville in 1949, all the participating churches passed resolutions against apartheid legislation, but they failed to implement these in their common life and practice (De Gruchy 1997). In the white churches, some ministers and priests were increasingly playing a political role, e.g. Trevor Huddleston in the Anglican Church. Another important event was the Bantu Education Bill in 1953. State financial assistance was withdrawn from the mission schools. The churches lost their influence in black education.
In 1960 the Anglican Church appointed their first black bishop, so did the Methodist church in 1964. The Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church, held in 1962, encouraged a stronger commitment to social justice and the Geneva Conference on church and society (1966) called on Christians to directly participate in the struggle for justice, when there is oppression and revolution. The rise of black theology, starting in the 1970‟s when black students started their own student organisations, meant that black people themselves directed their own struggle for freedom (Klaaren 1997).
De Gruchy mentioned that black consciousness and black theology impacted the English speaking churches as a whole, whose majority were now black people, which influenced church policy. The World Council of Churches (WCC) established their Programme to Combat Racism. Many church people had been arrested, banned or deported. In the townships many casualties resulted in funeral services, where the churches and community organisations cooperated. The church became involved in the struggle within the communities. During this period the Afrikaans Reformed churches, continued their support for apartheid, whilst the WCC called for intensification of international sanctions.
By the 1970‟s some evangelical leaders, e.g. Michael Cassidy, played an important political role in working for national reconciliation.
The evangelical community formed a cross section of the churches and held to the evangelical doctrines on faith, grace and Scripture. At the same time, the charismatic movement, spread widely in South Africa. This movement seemed a reaction against the social and political activism of the mainline churches and filled the need for contemporary worship and spiritual community. Independent charismatic churches were formed. Churches held different perceptions of social reality and the task of the church in society, e.g. structural renewal and spiritual renewal (De Gruchy 1997).
In 1985 the South African Council of Churches (SACC) called on the churches to pray for an end to unjust rule. The institute for contextual theology presented the Kairos Document, which gave theological direction for transformation of social and political structures and the establishment of a just and democratic order (The Gruchy 1997).The document widened the gulf between those supporting the struggle and others following the status quo. The United Congregational Church developed a pastoral plan for renewal and mission. After 1986 The Mass Democratic Movement was often led by church leaders, e.g. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and coordinated by the SACC. After 1990, church leaders have been in the forefront of efforts of mediation, either dealing with faction fighting in the townships, and later in the truth and reconciliation committee.
In 1990 the national Conference of Church Leaders at Rustenburg, brought together church leaders of wide diversity, e.g. the African Independent Churches. These leaders sought to reach consensus on issues pertaining the witness and role of the church in the new South Africa. In 1992, addressing the Ethiopian Free Church in South Africa, Nelson Mandela spoke the following words: “The church in our country has no option but to join other agents of change and transformation in the difficult task of acting as a midwife to the birth of our democracy and acting as one of the institutions that will nurture and entrench it in our society” (De Gruchy 1997:171-172).
At present, In South Africa, the African Independent Churches are the largest of all church groups. The Roman Catholic Church is the largest single denomination.
The pentecostal and charismatic-style churches have become an important social force (De Gruchy 1997). Many of these churches are influenced by American and Australian authors and leaders of large sized, mostly evangelical churches who put strategies in place to manage and grow these churches better. These strategies put emphasis on self-organisation, human participation and community life (Herholdt 1998).
Roxburgh mentioned that in a post modern society “we need to distinguish between the need for a contextualized church and a theological critique of the context that is grounded in a different narrative” (Roxburgh 1999:252). He characterised these churches as relating to post modern culture by continually reconstructing their identities as they are embedded in the intellectual and social narratives of their context. Their focus seems on the new and the next, hence descriptions of churches as: “Next Church, a Church for the 21st Century, the Purpose Driven Church, the Church for the Un- churched” (Roxburgh 1999:242).
The language that shapes the reality of these churches does not reflect on the meaning and truth of „the narratives of beginnings‟ and the tradition of the church. Anderson mentions a paradigm shift from “if you have the right teaching, you will experience God”, to “if you experience God, you will have the right teaching” (Anderson 1992:21). A pattern of experience is followed by proposition (Anderson 1992). Religious experiences
become normative, as basic propositional truth, which are then recorded. Anderson relates here to a paradigm shift from modern theology to post modern theology. In modern theology truth was seen as an absolute proposition beyond our narratives, which preceded and dictated our religious experiences, which then became a mere illustration of God‟s truth. In the post modern position, truth is to be found within the narratives and religious experiences become the truth. In this context, Foucault mentioned that our own experiences and choices are elevated to the highest status, because they now become our reference for truth. This creates the man who makes himself and puts faith in himself (Rabinov 1984). Pop (1964) points to the pre-modern view in theology, where the truth was not some eternal law behind the events, but the fact that in the Bible narratives themselves we meet with the same God who deals with us every day as we live our life stories (Pop 1964). Wright refers in this context to Jesus‟ teachings, where His stories were not mere illustrations of truth, but ways of breaking open the worldview of his hearers so that it could be remoulded into the worldview that He was commending (Wright 1992). In postmodern theology God and men are seen as co-creators of daily experience (Herholdt 1998).
This notion is important to the study because many church leaders and lay counsellors have been trained from a conservative hermeneutic perspective, where the truth is found in what the author meant to say and is therefore authoritative. Training church leaders and lay counsellors with family counselling skills will draw on their personal and familial resources, their own life experiences and choices and will allow for reflection and truth seeking. Their daily walk with God would then bring the working of the Other into their life experience.