145 - Resistance and Hope: South African Essays in Honour of Beyers Naude

Resistance and Hope:
South African Essays in Honour of Beyers Naude
By Charles Villa-Vicencio and John W. Degruchy, eds.
Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1985. 209 pp. $11.95.

This book of essays is written by South Africans, black and white, to celebrate the seventieth birthday of Beyers Naude, General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches and longtime foe of apartheid. The book explores, from the perspective of those living within South Africa with a commitment to the struggle for justice and a personal knowledge of Naudé, the theological issues, broadly defined, underlying the development of apartheid and opposition to it. Two essays focus on Naudé, one on his life and struggle against apartheid, and the other a history of the Christian Institute he led until its banning in 1977. The other essays address three areas: (1) the interplay of Afrikaner culture and Reformed theology, (2) theology from several perspectives in South African context, (3) ecumenical perspectives and action in South Africa. Also included is a bibliography of Beyers Naudé's writings until 1977; from 1978-84, Naudé, as a banned person, could not publish or be quoted in South Africa.

There is nothing new or startling in this volume, but its virtue is that it represents historical and theological analyses by those living in the midst of one of the major social crises of our era. There are important insights for the rest of us in the global community to be learned from those doing theology in the fight for liberation from apartheid. One insight from these essays is that the contextualization of theology from which no theology can escape, even when it assumes to be objective, is profoundly ambiguous. It can be a contextual theology that leads toward liberation and justice. Allan Boesak's essay in this volume is an example. Or a contextual theology can lead, as the Afrikaner theology did, to the injustices of apartheid.

Beyers Naude, is the exemplar for those who seek contextual theology that leads to truth and justice. This book of essays is a fitting, if not profound, tribute to his life of resistance and hope.

Belle Miller McMaster
Division of Corporate and Social Mission
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Atlanta, Ga.