Cottesloe

The Cottesloe Consultation produced a statement of far-reaching symbolic value. The delegates from the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk (NHK) rejected the Consultation Statement out of hand, while the majority of the NGK delegates supported it—at least initially.

The statement was regarded as self-evident by most Christians around the world, yet in South Africa it created an unprecedented storm. It rejected the biblical and theological justification of apartheid. "This rejection aside, the statement was not exactly radical, even by the standards of the time. It was, however, seen by the Prime Minister, Hendrik Verwoerd, ever the logician, as warranting his intervention," Naudé recalls. "Verwoerd sensed danger and called the NGK delegates to order. Insisting that they had allowed themselves to be influenced by the liberal views of the WCC, he told them that they had a duty to the Afrikaner people and the state to maintain white supremacy. Verwoerd was an intimidating and ruthless man. His status was enough to get virtually every one of the delegates effectively to withdraw their support for the statement." He required them to recant, and recant they did—except for Beyers Naudé. He stood alone. "It was the beginning of loneliness and isolation, something that I would experience again and again in the years ahead." The night before the Transvaal synod made its final decision on the Cottesloe Statement, Naudé wrestled with his conscience:

I had to decide. Would I submit to the political pressures which I was experiencing or would I stand by my convictions—which were by this time rooted in years of theological struggle? I discovered that night just how firm and holy those convictions were. I simply had to make a stand. I put my position to the synod with all the respect I still had for the highest assembly of my

Church. In obedience to God and my conscience I told the synod that I could not see my way clear to giving way on a single one of the resolutions that came out of Cottesloe. I was convinced that they were in accordance with the truth of the gospel.

Was he surprised that he alone ultimately defended the carefully considered Cottesloe resolutions which his fellow NGK delegates had earlier found to be firmly grounded in the Scriptures? "I was not only surprised, but deeply shocked," he replies. "I knew some would not be able to withstand the pressure, but the capitulation of others who had played such an important and creative role, both in organising the Cottesloe Consultation and in the actual writing of the statement, came as a hammer blow. Some spoke of their surrender as a strategy on the basis of which to work 'from within' the Church to bring about change. Some 'phoned me to apologise for their lack of courage. Others simply held their silence. Some to this day will tell you they did not capitulate. But they became silent. That, as far as I am concerned, is capitulation." The NGK, like the NHK, withdrew from the WCC and set up a commission to investigate the teaching of the Bible on questions of race. The outcome was the well-known study entitled Ras, Volk en Nasie en Volkereverhoudinge in die Lig van die Skrif (Human Relations in the Light of Scripture ) which contributed directly to the decision of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches to declare apartheid a heresy in 1982. Naudé points out that several documents have come from the white Church since 1982 and in them one can discern a change of attitude. "They have theologically adjusted their position—but carefully and cautiously so as not to offend too many within their ranks who continue for one reason or another to imagine that God shows special favour towards the Afrikaner. The truth of the matter is that the ghost of Cottesloe continues to haunt the NGK. At its General Synod in 1994 it will have to decide whether to unite with the black and coloured Churches to form the Uniting Reformed Church. This will be the opportunity to put the ghost of Cottesloe to rest for once and for all." For Naudé, the Cottesloe event of more than thirty years ago, is "an event where the NGK allowed the voice of blood, passion and nationalism to override the voice of God. With this the NGK has not yet fully got to grips".