Abstract
The missionary institutionalization of the Church of Christ, ipso facto, the formation of the Bantu Presbyterian Church in South Africa (BPC), is a tale of ambivalence and ‘original’ defects of faith in a visible form of a Church. A product of the Scottish missionary enterprise in South Africa, the BPC is a tale of unequal racist relations between white and black —a tale of ‘naming’ and ‘practical considerations’ at the whims and desires of those who transplanted the gospel in this land. While this paper presents the history of the BPC’s formation, its purpose is illustrative. By the time of its formation in 1923, two distinct approaches to the gospel were already in existence: a white, anaemic interpretation of the gospel and a black critical and refusing one. The paper therefore argues that ‘blackness’ is not to be found in colonizing and coercing missionary institutions such as in the formation of the BPC, but in the irruption of a faith that refused patronage, rejected racial inequality and signification by others.
Highlights
It is hard to contemplate the future of the church in South Africa, and probably of the entire globe without confronting the deficient structures and forms of faith that were transplanted by the missionaries in Africa and South Africa in particular
Van der Spuy portrays the picture of the formation of the PCSA in this manner: The historic 6th Federal Council met on the evening of the 17th September,1897, and was later to constitute itself as the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of South Africa ( 1971:32)
I must state at this juncture that the Bantu Presbyterian Church in South Africa (BPC) which was renamed the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (RPC) in 1976 united with the PCSA in 1999 to form the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (UPCSA) after seventy five years of its existence
Summary
It is hard to contemplate the future of the church in South Africa, and probably of the entire globe without confronting the deficient structures and forms of faith that were transplanted by the missionaries in Africa and South Africa in particular. The debate for the formation of the Bantu Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (BPCSA), BPC, took place in an ambivalent context This ambivalence stemmed, inter alia, out of the racial conflict that affected all mission work in South Africa and the Scottish missionary enterprise alike. I dare say the South African Council of Churches which is currently under sever strains since the leadership of Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a black led institution whose history might help us reflect on the meaning of what black faith is in contrast to the alienating forms of faith transplanted by the missionary enterprise in South Africa. I am led to conclude that this historical text of the formation of the BPC, a “Native Experiment,” offers one of the earliest examples of ambivalence in black faith, ipso facto, a faith distinguished by blacks in their struggle against the ubiquitous defects of white faith and dominance right through into the post 1994 South Africa
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