Black South Africa in 1987

The following excerpt is from the pen of Nicholas Wolterstorff, June 1987, The Reformed Journal.

In my opinion, Wolterstorff would get my vote for the #1 Christian scholar in the nation; he is a reformed philosopher theologian.  This quotation was stimulated by a meeting of reformed theologians in South Africa in 1987:

"The speeches of the South Africans were extraordinarily moving.  Thus, it was not abstract theology that they did.  They spoke of their wounds and of the wounds of their people, wounds to their bodies and wounds to their spirits: shootings, detentions, beatings, torture, starving, expulsions, demeaning indignities.  The speeches were also insightful.  I was reinforced in my view that Christian theology is best done in situations of crisis and suffering."

"Then, late on an afternoon, something of a totally different order happened, unplanned.  I had marveled at the confident, joyous faith of these people.  Now suddenly a crisis of faith was laid before us--the raw, bleeding flesh of a faith torn by uncertainty.  The question was not whether to continue believing in Jesus Christ.  These South Africans would not cease to believe.  The question was not whether Christ's cause of justice and freedom and peace would be victorious.  They never doubted that it would.  The question was whether Jesus would carry a gun in South Africa, to answer the millions of guns carried by Satan."

"I do not remember exactly how the issue of violence came up.  But, suddenly, there it was before us. Speaker after speaker said they had been taught by all their Christian leaders not to resort to violence.  For some of those teachers, non-violence was a matter of Christian principle.  For others, it was a matter of strategy.  What could a few revolutionary guns do in the face of millions of government guns?  And look how violence had corrupted the soul of the Afrikaner.  Who wanted to become like that?"

"This is what they had been taught.  This is what they had always believed.  But now the faith by which they had lived was being torn apart.  For they could no longer stand the sight of the suffering of their people.  In that suffering they saw nothing redemptive, only pointless pain.  A young black woman, now studying in North America, told how each night her dreams were nightmares of relocations and shootings and prisons.  She concluded by saying, in ever so soft a voice, that when she returned to South Africa, it would be to carry a gun.  Then she broke out in loud, uncontrollable sobs.  Some of the men also began weeping, more quietly, more controlled.  One walked over to put his arm around her, to console her, I thought.  But then I saw that he was weeping too."