This Day in History: October 13, 1998
Additional Date: October 13, 1998
On 13 October 1998, the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) rejoined the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) after the general synod renounced apartheid. This came after negotiations with the WARC persuaded the church to renounce apartheid in its theological teachings. The DRC was suspended from the WARC at the 21st General Council meeting of the WARC in Ottawa in 1982. Calls to expel the DRC came as early as in the 1960s when the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Joost de Blank called for expulsion at the Cottesloe Conference in Johannesburg. The conference was called by eight Afrikaans and English speaking churches under the World Council of Churches to discuss racial segregation in South Africa after the Sharpeville massacre.
The DRC withdrew from the World Council of Churches when Beyers Naude advised the church to accept a final statement from the Cottesloe Declaration. The declaration rejected race as criteria for church admission and biblical justification for the prohibition of mixed marriages. In 1982 the WARC declared apartheid as a status confessionis,a belief that its theological justification was a heresy. In 1986 the DRC admitted that it erred by using the bible as a foundation of racial segregation.
In 1990, the church also declared its personal guilt and responsibility for the political, social, economic and structural injustices in South Africa. Despite admitting its role in racial segregation, the DRC continued to be racially segregated with White churches and White congregations still controlling huge amounts of land and wealth in contrast with churches of their Non-White congregations.
As a consequence, the WARC held back admitting the DRC ack into the alliance. A meeting was held in 1997 by the DRC and the WARC which resulted in a statement by the DRC in 1998 where the church denounced apartheid as wrong and sinful in its fundamental nature, effects and operations. As a consequence the WARC lifted the suspension of the DRC and readmitted the church in 1998.