Challenges for Reformed Churches in Africa: A Contemporary Narrative

Abstract

Arguing that Reformed churches are faced with very characteristic challenges and opportunities in Africa today, the article illustrates this claim with a narrative rooted in recent South African experiences. It tells the story of the birth of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa in the struggle against apartheid in society and church and of some of the ways in which this story continued on African soil. It uses four strategic moments in this story, linked to the name of four places in Africa – Belhar, Braamfontein, Kitwe and Elmina – to reflect on four characteristics of Reformed ecclesiology that are again experienced as challenges and opportunities for Reformed churches in Africa, today. These moments deal respectively with the challenge to be a confessing church, to embody the confession, to face injustice and destruction, and to faithfully practise these convictions in the social form and everyday life of the church.