"Freedom is what we have - Christ has set us free! Stand then, as free people, and do not allow yourselves to become slaves again." (Galatians 5:1)

John Rees speaks about his priority to bring black leadership to the fore in the Churches through the Council being "overtaken" by the furore surrounding the Programme to Combat Racism.. "Only three days after I took office the first grants were made from the Programme to Combat Racism. It threw the Council of Churches into a massive turmoil. Everybody, press from around the world were phoning wanting to know what our stance was. I was pushed right into that."

He goes on to say, "There was a feeling in the Council that we should not be reactive to the PCR, though it became the agenda of the Government with which to whip the SACC. But we were to set our own priorities and they were based on a sound theological base, and that was made manifest in our involvement with SPROCAS, actually translating the theological stance into action."

The Programme to Combat Racism will go down in history as one of the most significant expressions of world Church faith in this century. It ranks alongside the movement for the emancipation of slaves and the missionary movement itself, both of which received strong critical reaction when first mooted in Church courts.

Although the idea of a funding programme for liberation movements had been supported at a WCC Consultation on Racism in May 1969 in London, the actual announcement of the PCR came as a bolt out of the blue for most, if not all, leading Churchmen in South Africa.

Indeed, the General Secretary of the World Council, Dr Eugene Blake, had paid a visit to South Africa in August of that same year but no mention of the PCR was made during that visit.

The Leaders of those Churches with membership in the WCC met on the 10th September and issued a first statement on the issue. "It was acknowledged that the motivation for this assistance accords with the Christian practice of helping those who suffer or are in any kind of need. However, this action can be regarded as identification by the WCC with organisations whose purpose is to change the social order in Southern Africa by the use of force."

It went on to say "We acknowledge that it is in response to an unjust racial situation ... nevertheless ... we disassociate ourselves from this action of the WCC and its implied support of violence."

The statement then pointed to the challenge of the PCR decision for the Churches in South Africa. "The task of the Christian Church has always been reconciliation through the preaching of the good news of Jesus Christ and the service of all men in His Name. It is the conviction of this meeting that this task, which includes working for truth and justice and therefore the overcoming of racism of any form is pertinent to the task of the Church in Southern Africa.

"It is acknowledged that the Churches in South Africa have largely failed in their task, and it is therefore obligatory upon the Churches to rigorously examine their own role and responsibility to determine how they can more effectively fulfil their task."

The Churches now began one after the other to make their own responses. The September/October period is when many Churches hold their Conferences, Synods, or Assemblies so the opportunity to respond came quickly.

First off the mark was the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa. A proposal to terminate membership of the WCC was defeated and a strongly worded statement was issued in which they made reference to a point that most Churches raised, "... though it (General Assembly) dissents from violence pursued by guerrilla organisations ... it must dissent at least as much from the violence inherent in the racial policies of the South African Government."

The Presbyterian Assembly had stronger words for the Prime Minister and the Government. It protested against the Prime Minister's threats against the Churches and his "attempt to coerce them by such threats not only to dissent ... but break entirely with the World Council of Churches for political reasons."

The Methodist and Congregational Churches followed. The Methodists pledged themselves to "seek true unity between the races in our Church and nation." The Congregational Assembly said that "the action of the WCC is a judgement on the Church's ineffectiveness in seeking justice, freedom and human dignity for all." And that "desperate people, even when they resort to terrorism, are the concern of the Christian Church."

All the other WCC member Churches faced the issue in similar manner. The overall consensus was to retain membership of the WCC, criticise the implicit support for violence in the financial aid to liberation movements, criticise the racism in South Africa, and call for a meeting with the WCC leadership about the PCR. A decision by some to withhold affiliation fees soon became academic when the authorities banned the sending of any money to the WCC.

The National Conference of the SACC in 1971 made reference to the various Church resolutions, especially that "the member Churches ... are committed to the eradication of racism and are increasingly seeking effective ways whereby this commitment may be carried out." To help provide "effective ways", the Council established a Programme on Justice and Reconciliation, soon to become a Division of the SACC in the place of "Church and Society", with the expressed mandate to co-ordinate the work of the Churches in eradicating racism in both Church and nation.

In June 1972 the Executive stated that "the word 'justice' has a much wider interpretation than just the legal term, but refers in a Biblical sense to 'the righteousness of God'." It also requested that all Churches "share ecumenically their experience in working for the concerns of Justice and Reconciliation within their structures." Prof Brian Johansen, a Presbyterian Minister on the staff of the University of South Africa (UNISA) was requested to be the Chairman of this new Division and later to become its first Director. An "urgent priority" was said to be the "ongoing development of educational materials for the Christian community in South Africa ..."

Meeting the WCC

In the meantime plans for a meeting between WCC representatives and member Church representatives went ahead. The South African Churches issued the invitation and the WCC Central Committee of January 18th 1971, responded with a lengthy document outlining the purpose of the PCR and welcomed "the invitation of South African Churches for consultation on joint strategy and action."

The Prime Minister gave his initial approval for such a meeting so the delegates were chosen and papers prepared. When the Prime Minister later announced restrictions that meant that the meeting could only be held at Jan Smuts Airport and the WCC delegates could travel no further, it was decided to "indefinitely postpone" the gathering.

By now there was much more known about the Programme. The WCC Central Committee made it clear that the PCR came out of a belief "that the Churches must always stand for the liberation of the oppressed and of victims of violent measures which deny basic human rights." And that it notes with appreciation "that the Executive Committee has received assurance from all organisations which appealed up to the present for grants from the special fund that they will not use the grants received for military purposes but for activities in harmony with the purposes of the WCC and its divisions."

But no matter how much was known and how much was explained the controversy continued and still continues. The important aspect for the South African Churches remained the manner in which it made them look carefully at themselves and work on programmes to eradicate any sign of racism within their own structures.

Throughout the next four or five years the issue of WCC membership would be raised by individuals or groups within many of the Churches and debated again in the courts of those Churches. The renewed debates always got back to the same result and the member Churches retained membership of the WCC.

And during these times the Council not only continued with its day to day work but also began to expand into various kinds of activity.

• Inter Church Aid, and the Divisions of Home and Family Life and Mission and Evangelism grew in size and scale of operation. Dependant's Conference which had been part of the Inter Church Aid programme became a Division in its own right as the need for help for the dependants of detained and imprisoned people increased. An Ecumenical Press Agency was started and a company formed, Devcraft (Pty) Ltd, to assist Inter Church Aid in marketing the goods created in home industry projects. A new Division of Ecumenical Youth Projects suggested and started a Bursary Fund which quickly grew into the much needed African Bursary Fund helping to answer in a small way the crying need throughout the years for Bursaries for both High School and University education.



• There were many Conferences. Most were held in co-operation with one or more other organisations or Churches. Marriage Guidance and Family Counselling, Communications Workshop, Social Change, Christian Education, The Generation Gap, Audio Visual Workshop, Capital Punishment, Theology in Africa Today, Broadcasting and Television, Church Music, and Education for Development, were the themes included in a long list of conferences arranged.



• There were many overseas visitors who spoke at special meetings, seminars or conferences. These included persons of the calibre of Dr Hans-Ruedi Weber of the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Switzerland, Professor J Verkuyl of the Free University in Amsterdam, American ecumenist Dr Robert McAfee Brown, Professor Eberhard Bethge a friend and biographer of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Rev Michael Bourdeaux of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism in Britain, and the internationally acclaimed Dr E.F. Schumacher of the "small is beautiful" fame.



• There was, in 1973, the acquisition of a property and establishment of it as "Diakonia House", a centre for Churches, ecumenical organisations and community service groups. The property was to be registered in the name of "Jorissen Street Properties" which was a group made up of SACC, Lutheran Church, and Christian Institute representatives. This slowly but surely entangled the Council in Group Areas problems. The Group Areas Act divided the country into zones which belonged to the different race groups. Braamfontein, Johannesburg was a white area and here was the property group of an organisation that had been declared black seeking to register property. The law allowed for application for exemption. The Executive of March 1974 agreed that the SACC "finds it impossible to fit into the categories defined by the Group Areas Act and therefore is making no application for any exemption from its conditions."
  
  That is where the matter rested until many years later when Diakonia House proved too small for the needs of its tenants and a move was made in 1980 to "Khotso House" (The House of Peace) in another part of Johannesburg. The "Khotso House" building was in De Villiers Street near to the railway station which made it convenient for many visitors, and near to the Anglican Cathedral which delighted the then secretary Bishop Tutu. Although that was also officially a white area there was no recurrence of the original problem. It was this Khotso House that was to be blown apart by a bomb in 1988.



• There was much protesting about the treatment meted out to Church workers. In August 1971 the Executive called for "one or more national public protest meetings on the question of bannings and house arrests without trial, with specific reference to the situation of Fr Cosmos Desmond." Fr Desmond had been vocal in bringing the plight of people forcibly removed from "black spots in white areas" to the attention of the public in South Africa and throughout the world in his work "The Discarded People."

Also at that same meeting, the Anglican Dean of Johannesburg the, Rev Gonville ffrench-Beytagh, requested and obtained support for a protest at the house arrest of Mrs Helen Joseph, stalwart through the years of the struggle against apartheid. Within months the same Executive was protesting the arrest, trial, verdict and eventual deportation of ffrench-Beytagh himself.

A member of the Community of the Resurrection, Dean ffrench-Beytagh served the Dependant's Conference with diligence through all its early years. It was this diligent service that led to his eventual deportation. The Executive of December 1971 asked that a pamphlet be produced "describing in detail the work of Dependant's Conference for dissemination among the Churches." Legal opinion was sought and obtained, and the General Secretary asked to publish information about the activities of Dependant's Conference both at home and overseas. The Conference never suffered from lack of funding following the ffrench-Beytagh incident and the subsequent Church and secular media publicity.

By the time of the March 1973 meeting of the Executive Committee, the situation concerning bannings and withdrawal of passports had reached proportions that compelled the meeting to issue a statement. This was followed by another general statement in October of that same year. It was a low key statement saying that the Executive viewed the actions (of the Government) "in a serious light", asking for a meeting with "the honourable the Prime Minister", and that the Executive "felt it necessary to discover at first hand the premises on which the Government was taking its actions."

During the very next Executive in December 1973 the meeting was interrupted with the news that "the Rev D. Manas Buthelezi had just been served with a 5 year banning order." This time the Executive was more forthright and said, "We strongly condemn this action." and, "it is our prophetic task to warn the State that this continued action on their part is creating in no uncertain terms a situation of hostility, deep resentment and, we believe, a flagrant incitement of the black people in South Africa."

The temperature of protest was obviously rising. At the same time there were numerous delegations to see Ministers of State to question, discuss and make recommendation. None seemed to have brought any consolation to the Church representatives.

Congress on Mission and Evangelism

There was even energy and time for a huge Congress on Mission and Evangelism. The usual image of the Council of Churches in the media was, and remains, that of a socio-politically active group. The criticism that the Council does not give any time to matters such as mission and evangelism is understandable from those who only know the SACC through the mass media.

The Council was, and is, basically concerned with mission. It is this basic concern that takes it into the whole area of socio-political activity to seek and to speak the word of God in that context.

Held in Durban in March 1973, the Congress was attended by 630 delegates and observers from 31 different denominations, 36 Christian service groups, and 13 different African and overseas countries.

The original idea came from Michael Cassidy of Africa Enterprise and John Rees, General Secretary of the SACC. An inter-Church committee was set up to organise the great event. Again, unfortunately, the DRC felt unable to be represented officially, but eleven members of that Church, including a major speaker, the Rev David Bosch, took part in their personal capacities.

The subjects covered a wide area such as Evangelism and the Media, Evangelism and Africa, and Evangelism and the Bible. There were many keynote speakers including Dr Hans-Ruedi Weber, Canon Michael Green, and Dr Billy Graham from overseas and Dr Beyers Naude of the Christian Institute, former SACC secretary Bishop Burnett, Dr John de Gruchy, Dr Manas Buthulezi, Dr Alex Boraine, and Bishop Alpheus Zulu from South Africa. Chief Gatsha Buthelezi of Kwa Zulu was one of those who attended.

There were workshops and discussion groups, sermons and presentations, displays and open time for meeting and getting together. It wrestled with the thorny issue of the South African society with, as John de Gruchy reported in KAIROS, conservative evangelicals speaking of "socio-political issues with a deep felt concern such as I have seldom heard." There was fellowship as the Congress provided an opportunity for white and black to meet on an equal basis and with a common adoption of the Christian faith.

There was challenge, especially for the white Christians present, when Dr Manas Buthelezi said that "the future of the Christian faith in this country will largely depend on how the Gospel proves itself relevant to the problems of the black man" and that "The whites in so far as they have incarnated their spiritual genius in the South African economic and political institutions have sabotaged and eroded the power of Christian love." Dr Buthelezi went on to speak of the new black theology in which the black theologian must "discover a theological framework within which he can understand the will and love of God in Jesus Christ outside the limitations of the white man's institutions."

This was radical new thinking for many at the Congress whose background was the white suburb and the local, usually conservative, Church. It provided for much tension, much discussion, and, in the end, for better understanding and richer fellowship.

John Rees says it was the most memorable event during his time as General Secretary for it "truly brought together all the Churches." At the Congress itself Mr Rees was part of a panel to evaluate the event. During this he said that there were signs of hope for the future "Where Churches are involved at the points of need in the South African Society in such a way that they ... experience suffering, ... demonstrate their unity in Christ, and work for justice and reconciliation." Two other signs of hope he mentioned were "Where the Church .... is thrown back upon the resources of God in humility and repentance" and "Where the Church is prepared to allow God's judgment to begin with itself in order that the country may be saved."

It is difficult in the years that followed to easily discern the Churches as such signs of hope. But, on the other hand, it is possible to see that the hope never died and the sparks were kept alive as the Churches wrestled with a theology that had God talking with a South African accent instead of European or American, and sought to speak and act out the implications without fear or favour.

At the 1974 National Conference, this led inevitably to the resolution on conscientious objection.