Challenging the State: Churches as Political Actors in South Africa

Abstract

In May 1987, the South African Council of Churches (SACC), under the auspices of the World Council of Churches, held a meeting in Lusaka, Zambia. meeting's theme was The Churches' Search for Justice and Peace in Southern Africa. At tending were representatives of the African National Congress (ANC) as well as members of other exiled organizations. It was at this conference that the SACC issued the above statement, declaring the illegitimacy of the South African state. This con ference was followed by another one in September 1989, at which the SACC, the Southern African Catholic Bishop's Con ference (SACBC), and the Institute for Contextual Theology (ICT), in cooperation with the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches convened a conference in Harare, Zimbabwe, dedicated specifically to the issue of the le gitimacy of the South African government. Again, the SACC concluded that the South African government did not satisfy the conditions of legitimacy (as defined by the conference partici pants) and was, therefore, an illegitimate government. This essay attempts to discover how the South African Coun cil of Churches came to the decision to declare the South Afri can regime illegitimate, and why it chose to do so at the