The Belhar Confession and the Response of the Christian Reformed Church of North America.

Context and Origins of the Belhar Confession

The Belhar Confession is a Christian statement of faith written in opposition to the South African system of Apartheid. In 1982, The World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) declared apartheid a heresy and suspended the membership of the white Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (DRCSA). Later that same year, the WARC declares a status confessionis concerning apartheid.

In reality, systematic racial oppression had existed in South Africa for hundreds of years. Since the first white settlers arrived and began to initiate laws designed to secure “black acquiescence” to their own subjugation. However, in 1948 a series of laws were enacted in South Africa that racialized almost every aspect of life for all non-white citizens. Referred to as Apartheid, or “separate neighborhoods,” this legal system was further supported and buttressed by the theology of the white DRCSA.

The Belhar Confession was first drafted in 1982 by the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC); the DRMC formally adopted it in 1986. It is now one of the “standards of unity” of the new Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA). While the Christian Reformed Church of North America (CRCNA) agreed that Apartheid was a heresy, it was not a unanimous decision; in fact, the debate over whether Apartheid was a heresy was vociferously debated. While within the CRCNA, the heretical status of Apartheid has been officially settled, the status of the Belhar Confession is still contended by those who want confessional status.

Christian Reformed Church of North America’s Response to the Belhar Confession

Beginning in 2012, the Christian Reformed Church adopted “the Belhar Confession and its accompanying documents (the Accompanying Letter from the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa and the joint statement of the RCA and CRC) as an Ecumenical Faith Declaration,” recommending it “to the churches for study and for incorporation of its themes into their discipling and liturgical ministries”. Then in 2017, as a result of the struggle to discern the proper course of action, after much investigation and discussion, the CRCNA accepted the Belhar Confession as a Contemporary Testimony like “Our World Belongs to God.” Although, in contrast to “Our World Belongs to God,” synod voted to add this statement to its decision: “Adherence to the Belhar Confession shall not be included in the Covenant of Office-bearers.”

While this acceptance of the Belhar Confession as a Contemporary Testimony is a result of the CRCNA’s essential agreement with the three main pillars of the Belhar Confession: Unity, Reconciliation, and Justice. Relegation of the Belhar Confession to the status of Contemporary Testimony has met with its own opposition. Adoption as a Contemporary Testimony means, in basic terms, that members of the CRCNA who choose to disagree with the Belhar Confession are not in error and are free to reject the statement. This has been a source of conflict within the CRCNA, especially in the wake of the adoption of the Human Sexuality Report as a confessional issue.

For many members of the CRCNA, the Belhar Confession, although written within the specific context of South African Apartheid, remains relevant in the United States as it addresses the issues of racial reconciliation and the need to be a confessing church rather than a confessional church. The reason to adopt the Belhar Confession, people claim, is found in the way the Belhar Confession makes explicit the issues that the three forms of Unity—the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belic Confession, and the Canons of Dort—do not. Just as apartheid required a specific solution, the racial and social injustices found in the United States of America can use the Belhar Confession as a model for our own search for racial reconciliation and justice.

Many in the CRCNA claim that while Apartheid required the Belhar Confession because the system used religious justifications in its oppression of non-white people groups, it goes too far in relation to the type of racial oppression seen in the United States of America. Here, it is argued, the oppression was more secular and culturally focused. Yet, others especially those from the context in which Belhar was written disagree. These people argue that the scope of the Belhar Confession is far-reaching and remind people that a reformed view is a view of how the church should transform society. In fact, this idea of engagement was the impetus behind the programs of community engagement that marked the CRCNA during the first two decades of the 21st century.

Application of the Principles of the Belhar Confession

In spite of the CRCNA’s sometimes critical response to the Belhar Confession, being either outright opposition or a form of benign neglect about the central concerns of the Belhar Confession, in reality, the years following the debates about the Belhar Confession have become years of intensive community action towards racial reconciliation and social justice. History seems to be showing the CRCNA’s response has been an active response, more concerned with actually affecting the world over which Jesus is Lord of every square inch than in an academic expression of concern. The CRC has been the motivating force behind programs like the Calvin Prison Initiative (CPI) that seeks to actually change the lives of incarcerated men in the Michigan Department of Corrections. One of the ways this is done is by leveling the playing field and smoothing out the educational inequalities that often make people critical of CRC institutions such as Calvin University or Calivin Theological Seminary (CTS) as “all-white-Dutch-enclaves.” The other way that the CRCNA backed program has changed lives is by changing the very landscape of the state of Michigan’s carceral system.

When the CRCNA-backed CPI program began, it was the only educational program offering a fully funding BA degree within the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), it was begun because the people at CTS were committed to historic Christian Reformed ideals concerning education, specifically the Kuyperian ideal. This has led to the emergence of 14 other colleges and universities offering degree programs within the MDOC, serving over a thousand incarcerated men and women to date.

Another way the CRCNA has moved towards racial reconciliation is in the recognition of churches like Celebration Fellowship Church which is a church which serves two vibrant prison congregations. Celebration Fellowship Church does not send missionaries into the prison as a ministry, the church itself is within the prison, so if someone wanted to attend, they go into the prison to worship with the prisoners. As the CRCNA extends welcome to churches like Celebration Fellowship Church, they are extending God’s acceptance to a marginalized population, one which suffers from systemic sins such as mass incarceration, in a way that recognizes that God’s love and grace are always personal.

Additionally, emerging initiatives within the CRCNA such as the THRIVE agency and the Intercultural Ministry, serve to meet the actual needs of marginalized and oppressed populations in a way that remains church-focused and confessional. In many ways, the primary critique has been that the CRCNA, by not giving Belhar confessional status, cooperates in the system that bears remarkable similarities to Apartheid, yet that oversimplistic view ignores the actual, kingdom-shaped work the CRCNA participates in, quietly and gently, every day.

The Continuing Struggle for the Belhar Confession

An interesting view of how some members of the Reformed Churches in America view the Belhar Confession can be seen in their so-called 95 Theses, Reconquista. While this is not the CRCNA’s position statement, it shares many of the same concerns. Specifically, the concern that the church, in promoting a social justice minded agenda is not being faithful to the Gospel. The anger apparent within these new 95 Theses seems to arise, in part, from the Reformed Churches in America’s acceptance of the Belhar Confessor as a fourth Form of Unity. Proving just how divisive the issue of racial reconciliation can be within a church community.

Footnotes

Status confessionis is a Latin term meaning “that which is foundational for belief and behavior and must be affirmed by professing members of the church.”

Brian Lapping. Apartheid: A History. New York: George Braziller Inc., 1986. 86.

Henry Vander Goot, “Why Apartheid is Not a Heresy,” edited by John Bolt. Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy in the Reformed Community Today. Hamilton: Paideia Press. 1986, 89-119.

Acts of Synod 2012

The Belhar, as a contemporary testimony is understood as “a dynamic statement of faith that serves the CRCNA—its congregations and members—as an important statement that speaks to essential matters in a given time period. It is useful for study, faith formation, teaching, and worship. As such, it must periodically be reviewed if it is to speak contemporaneously and perhaps be revised if authorship belongs to the CRCNA or be provided newly revised accompanying explanatory material if authorship belongs elsewhere.” CRCNA website: A History of the Belhar Confession.

Acts of Synod 2017

Susan Damon. “From the Heart of God: A Study of the Belhar Confession.” CRCNA, 2013.

https://www.thebanner.org/news/2017/06/belhar-s-status-changes-to-contemporary-testimony

This is made pointedly clear in John Cooper’s article, Affirm the Belhar? Yes, but Not as a Doctrinal Standard.

Thias Kgatla. 2023. “Reading the Belhar Confession in a Wounded World”. Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 50 (1):15 pages.

Albert Hamstra, “The Belhar Confession: An Invitation.” The CRC Network, January 20, 2012 (Updated December 12, 2023)

Jacques Beukes & Mary-Anne Plaatjies van Huffel, “Towards a theology of development in the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) Embodying Article 4 of the Belhar Confession.” Missionalia 44:2  (224–240) http://dx.doi.org/

James D. Bratt. Dutch Calvinism in Modern America: A History of a Conservative Subculture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984,

Colin Watson. “Reflections of Synod 2024— Race, Racism and the Beloved Community.” Summary of Synod, Grand Rapids: CRCNA, 2024

Theses 35, 39, 54, 84, and 85.