Christian Institute of Southern Africa
South African ecumenical anti-apartheid organisation
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The Christian Institute of Southern Africa (CI) was a non-racial and interdenominational Christian organisation founded in Johannesburg on 15 August 1963. It brought together individual Christians from different churches and racial groups to promote Christian unity, reconciliation and opposition to apartheid.[1]: 58, 70
| Abbreviation | CI |
|---|---|
| Formation | 15 August 1963 |
| Founded at | Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Dissolved | 19 October 1977 |
| Type | Ecumenical anti-apartheid organisation |
First chairman | Albert Geyser |
First national director | Beyers Naudé |
Publication | Pro Veritate |
The Institute developed from the theological opposition to apartheid that followed the 1960 Cottesloe Consultation. New Testament scholar Albert Geyser became its first chairman, while Dutch Reformed minister Beyers Naudé became its first national director.[2] The Institute published the journal Pro Veritate, supported theological education in African initiated churches, helped produce the Study Project on Christianity in Apartheid Society (SPRO-CAS), and provided organisational and financial support for black-led community programmes. The South African government declared the CI an unlawful organisation on 19 October 1977, together with seventeen Black Consciousness and community organisations.[1]: 7
Origins and establishment
The Christian Institute emerged from growing opposition among South African clergy and theologians to the churches' support for apartheid. After the Sharpeville massacre in March 1960, the World Council of Churches convened the Cottesloe Consultation in Johannesburg. The consultation rejected racial discrimination within the church, questioned legal prohibitions on interracial marriage, and affirmed the political and property rights of black South Africans. The principal Afrikaans Reformed churches subsequently rejected its resolutions and withdrew from the World Council of Churches.
A group of Afrikaans theologians and clergy dissatisfied with the churches' response formed the Ekumeniese Studiekring (Ecumenical Study Circle). Eleven members published Vertraagde Aksie (Delayed Action) in 1960, one of the earliest collective theological protests by Afrikaans church figures against apartheid. Contributors included Geyser, Adrianus van Selms, Barend Bartholomeus Keet, Ben Marais and other ministers from the three principal Afrikaans Reformed denominations.[2]
Naudé established Pro Veritate as an independent ecumenical journal in April 1962. Discussions during late 1962 and 1963 led to the establishment of a permanent organisation through which individual Christians could continue the theological and social witness begun at Cottesloe. The Christian Institute was formally founded in Johannesburg on 15 August 1963.[1]: 69–70 Its initial membership numbered approximately 280 people and included clergy, theologians and lay Christians from different racial and denominational backgrounds.[3]
Geyser, who had played a leading role in conceiving and organising the Institute, was elected its first chairman. Naudé was invited to become its first national director. He asked to retain his status as a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church while serving the Institute, but the church rejected his application. Naudé nevertheless accepted the appointment, delivered his final sermon to his congregation at Aasvoëlkop, and relinquished his ministerial position.[1]: 57–58
Other Christians associated with the Institute's establishment included Ben Marais, Daniel Charl Stephanus Oosthuizen and John de Gruchy. Its constitution was prepared by Johannesburg advocates Colin Kinghorn and Johann Kriegler, who later became a justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.[4]
Organisation and leadership
Unlike the South African Council of Churches, whose members were denominations, the Christian Institute was an association of individual Christians. It did not claim to replace the churches, but sought to provide a forum in which Christians could act across the racial and denominational boundaries maintained by most South African churches.
The Institute was governed by a twenty-member board of management elected at an annual public meeting. Paid staff did not hold voting positions on the board.[1]: 90–91 This structure was intended to distinguish the Institute's public governance from the secrecy associated with organisations such as the Afrikaner Broederbond.
The Institute articulated four principal purposes:
- to give visible expression to the unity of Christians across racial and denominational divisions;
- to relate the Christian gospel to social, political and economic life;
- to promote reconciliation among divided Christians, churches and racial communities; and
- to make the knowledge and services of its members available to the churches.[1]: 58
Naudé directed the Institute's national work and became its most prominent public representative. Geyser initially provided leadership as chairman and continued to influence its theological direction. Other senior figures included the Reverend Brian Brown, the Institute's administrative director; the Reverend Theo Kotze, director of its Cape Town office; Roelf Meyer and later Cedric Mayson, who edited Pro Veritate; and Peter Randall, who directed SPRO-CAS.[1]: 7, 78, 92 The Institute established offices and local groups in several parts of South Africa.
Activities
Interracial Christian fellowship
Local CI groups organised Bible studies, discussions, lectures and meetings involving Christians from different churches and racial communities. These gatherings challenged apartheid restrictions both symbolically and practically by creating forms of Christian fellowship that crossed the boundaries imposed by the state and by segregated churches.[1]: 90–91
The Institute's theological position was that racial separation within the Christian church was incompatible with the unity of believers in Christ. It therefore rejected the concept of separate churches for separate racial or ethnic groups and criticised the theological arguments used by the Afrikaans Reformed churches to defend apartheid.
Publishing and public theology
Pro Veritate, founded before the Institute, was adopted as its principal journal and public voice. It published theological commentary, reports on apartheid legislation, church statements, political analysis and contributions from South African and international Christian writers. The journal provided a platform for views that were frequently excluded from official denominational publications.
The Institute also issued books, pamphlets and statements on detention, torture, forced removals, racial inequality, political repression and the churches' public responsibilities. In 1968 it assisted informally with the preparation of the South African Council of Churches' statement A Message to the People of South Africa, which declared apartheid incompatible with the Christian gospel.[1]: 91
African Independent Churches
One of the Institute's significant early programmes involved cooperation with African initiated churches, which were often marginalised by the historically white-controlled mainline denominations. Leaders of independent African churches approached the Institute for assistance with cooperation and theological education.
The CI helped develop the African Independent Churches Association and supported ministerial education, refresher courses and correspondence programmes. It also assisted efforts to establish a theological college for ministers from independent churches.[1]: 14, 91 The Institute initially appointed representatives to assist the association but later withdrew from its governing structures so that the African churches could manage their own affairs.
In 1969 the African Independent Churches Association worked with the Institute to develop its own Bible school and theological programmes. Correspondence courses administered through the CI continued until the Institute was banned in 1977.[5]
SPRO-CAS
In 1969 the Christian Institute and the South African Council of Churches established the Study Project on Christianity in Apartheid Society, commonly known as SPRO-CAS. The project responded to criticism that Christian opponents of apartheid had condemned the existing system without proposing a practicable alternative. Peter Randall was appointed its director, and approximately 150 scholars, clergy, lawyers, economists and social researchers participated.[1]: 91–92
SPRO-CAS examined the structural effects of apartheid and produced reports on politics, law, economics, education, poverty, race relations and the churches. Publications included Anatomy of Apartheid, South Africa's Minorities, Directions of Change in South African Politics, Some Implications of Inequality, Towards Social Change, Law, Justice and Society, Power, Privilege and Poverty and South Africa's Political Alternatives.[6]
The first phase, subsequently called SPRO-CAS I, concentrated on research and policy alternatives. SPRO-CAS II, announced in 1972, placed greater emphasis on practical action and on the implications of Black Consciousness for white Christians and church organisations.
Black Consciousness and community programmes
The Institute's relationship with Black Consciousness developed gradually. Some CI figures initially interpreted opposition to apartheid through white liberal and Western ecumenical frameworks. During 1971, however, the Institute and SPRO-CAS increasingly accepted that black South Africans should determine the objectives and leadership of their own liberation and community-development initiatives.[7]
SPRO-CAS II separated much of its activity into work directed at changing white attitudes and autonomous black-led community programmes. The latter developed into the Black Community Programmes (BCP), operated by Black Consciousness activists including Bennie Khoapa and Steve Biko.[8]
The BCP supported community health services, literacy and education projects, leadership training, publications, youth programmes and local economic initiatives. Although the CI helped obtain and administer funding, the programmes were deliberately placed under black leadership rather than controlled by the Institute's white staff. The relationship represented an important transition in the CI's work from interracial dialogue and white theological dissent towards support for black-led organisation and community development.
Opposition from the churches
The Institute faced sustained opposition from the Afrikaans Reformed churches. Critics objected to its non-racial membership, cooperation with Roman Catholics, rejection of separate racial churches and willingness to comment publicly on political and economic questions.
In 1964 the Dutch Reformed newspaper Die Kerkbode criticised the inclusion of a Roman Catholic on the Institute's board. In 1966 the Dutch Reformed Church's General Synod formally condemned the CI and called upon its ministers and members to withdraw. Naudé and other CI members were subjected to various forms of church discipline, although some congregations continued to permit members of the Institute to serve in leadership positions.[1]: 15, 78–80
The Institute maintained that it did not seek to replace the institutional churches. It described itself as a servant of the churches, while arguing that Christians had a duty to challenge church policies that contradicted the gospel.
State investigation and repression
As the Institute's opposition to apartheid became more explicit, it was subjected to surveillance, police raids, passport withdrawals and government investigations. In 1972 the government established the Schlebusch Commission, formally the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Organisations, to investigate the CI, the South African Institute of Race Relations, the National Union of South African Students and the University Christian Movement.
Naudé and other CI staff refused to testify before the commission because its hearings were secret, witnesses were not informed of the allegations against them, and they had no ordinary rights of legal representation or cross-examination. The initial decision was taken by Naudé, Oshadi Phakathi, Theo Kotze, Brian Brown and Roelf Meyer and was subsequently followed by other staff and associates.[1]: 10 Several were prosecuted for refusing to testify. Naudé was convicted and briefly imprisoned after declining to pay his fine.
The commission's report accused the Institute of undermining the state and suggested that its activities could contribute to revolutionary violence, although the CI consistently rejected violent methods and advocated reconciliation and peaceful political change.[1]: 11, 151–153 On 30 May 1975 the government declared it an “affected organisation” under the Affected Organizations Act, preventing it from receiving funds from outside South Africa. This measure threatened the Institute's publications, staff and community programmes, much of which depended on international church and private donations.
Banning
On 19 October 1977 the government declared the Christian Institute unlawful under security legislation. It was banned alongside seventeen black organisations, including the Black People's Convention, the Black Community Programmes and the South African Students' Organisation.[1]: 7
Naudé, Theo Kotze, Brian Brown, Peter Randall and Cedric Mayson were served with individual banning orders, while other staff and associates were detained, restricted or forced into exile. The publication of Pro Veritate ceased, and the Institute's offices and programmes were closed or transferred where possible to other organisations.
The government justified the ban on national-security grounds. The CI and its supporters regarded it as an attempt to silence Christian criticism of apartheid and disrupt the growing cooperation between ecumenical church organisations and Black Consciousness activists.
Legacy
The Christian Institute played an important role in the development of organised Christian opposition to apartheid. It provided a continuation of the ecumenical witness expressed at Cottesloe, created a platform for dissenting Afrikaans theologians, challenged racial segregation within the churches, and linked theological criticism to research and community action.
Its history also reflected changes within anti-apartheid Christianity. The Institute began largely under the leadership of white clergy and theologians, but its encounter with Black Consciousness led it increasingly to recognise black leadership and support autonomous black organisations. Scholars have identified this as a significant transition from white paternalism towards solidarity with black-led liberation and community initiatives.[7][8]
SPRO-CAS contributed a substantial body of research on the structural consequences of apartheid, while the Institute's work with African Independent Churches supported ecumenical cooperation and indigenous theological education. Former CI staff and associates later participated in churches, universities, human-rights organisations, journalism and anti-apartheid networks inside South Africa and in exile.
The Institute's surviving papers are held in several archival collections, including the Christian Institute of Southern Africa and Christian Institute Fund collection at the University of Edinburgh's Centre for the Study of World Christianity.[3]