Christian Persecution in South Africa

As I scanned the news headlines last Monday morning, I had quite a bittersweet experience. At first I came across the excellent news that in the land from which some of my ancestors fled religious persecution, in the very cradle of Jacobinism, traditionalists are finally making a significant impact on culture – for the first time in centuries, really.¹ But as I was still pleasantly surprised at one of many signs of this French awakening, my excitement was dampened radically when I read a related news story that hit a lot closer to home.

In Bloemfontein, South Africa, a small Bible school called the Creare Training Centre made the headlines for apparently claiming to cure homosexuality.² Reportedly, the school claimed that it could rehabilitate homosexuals, and the founder of the school compared its stance on homosexuality to a drug rehabilitation program. Both the media and gay-rights activists responded with outrage. Dawie Nel of the gay-rights organization OUT³ and popular local Bloemfontein minister Brand Doubell, also a homosexual, claimed that the school’s stance was unconstitutional and that it could be taken to court.⁴ From an opponent’s perspective, this could just be made out to be irrational outrage, but this claim became significant when the well-known and respected constitutional expert Professor Pierre De Vos claimed that the school could be persecuted for breaching the terms of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act of 2006. De Vos noted that “people are still oblivious to the fact that the law outlawed private discrimination.” Isaac Mangena from the Human Rights Commission also responded, arguing that the school’s exclusion of homosexual people who are unwilling to change their sexual orientation is unconstitutional.⁵ In an online poll conducted by the Cape-based Afrikaans newspaper, Die Burger, a whopping 50% of the 3,500 respondents claimed that the private Bible school doesn’t and shouldn’t have the constitutional right to discriminate against homosexuals by accepting only those who are willing to rehabilitate.⁶ This high figure appears even worse when one considers the contextual fact that Creare students were exceptionally active on media sites over the past week, and they were probably encouraged to participate in polls like this.

Creare responded to the media frenzy with its own argument:

Just as the human rights of people allow them to position themselves as homosexual (either through religion or the belief that they were born that way), SO, ALSO, can people exercise their human rights to choose if they want to change their sexual orientation or not. . . . The facilitation of such a person’s human rights must take place in an environment that supports such a process of change. The freedom of religion protected by the constitution of this country thus gives us the right to exercise a specific Christian world perspective regarding this point of view, taking into account the respect God gives to every person.⁷

Creare’s response to all of this madness is very discouraging. The weakness of their modern evangelical theology, with its acceptance of the fundamental premises of “human rights,” clearly shows. Firstly, saying that people have a human right to change their sexual orientation has no relevance to the accusation that their institution is discriminating against homosexuals. They attempt to counter the accusation by saying that their school accommodates those homosexuals who want to change their orientation, which is fair, but the issue that the accusation raises is that they discriminate against people who are merely exercising a constitutional right, in this case, to willingly live out their perverse, God-hating desires. If the constitution of South Africa does indeed prohibit such discrimination in the private sector, they are undoubtedly guilty of breaking the law – it’s as simple as that. Their appeal to the constitutional right to freedom of religion is clearly not regarded as legitimate, either by the Human Rights Commission or by one of the top law experts in the country. Finally, they add to this claim the phrase: “taking into account the respect God gives to every person.” I must admit, it is a little unclear to me what exactly they are trying to convey with this theologically illiterate phrase. When taking the context into consideration, it can be understood to mean either that it is God’s will that homosexuals should be treated with respect in society, or that He Himself respects their lifestyle. Both these ideas are contradictory to Scripture (Lev. 20:13; I Cor. 6:9).

As much sympathy as I have with Creare, the weak response they have offered is only one example of a whole host of abominations practiced and tolerated among its membership. Apart from obviously encouraging miscegenation,⁸ one of the leaders of the Bible school is also known for his hatred of white people. He is involved with a major academic institution, and in a recent instance (of which I have firsthand knowledge) he helped to victimize three white female students by ensuring that they received a final warning for campus residence-expulsion – all because they stood up against a Marxist student who publicly made derogative statements about white people.

As I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to this type of gutless behavior from so-called “evangelical born-again Christians,” it is the reaction against the institution’s policy from the clearly more liberal general public that really discouraged me, although it really wasn’t as big of a surprise in light of the antagonism Riekert Botha received last year around the same time. But this once again emphasized the fact that the Afrikaners have long lost their identity as a recognizable Christian people.

What is possibly even more worrisome than the decline of true religion among my people are the signs of open and legal Christian persecution that accompanied this saga. The claim of the Human Rights Commission and professor De Vos has been disputed from individuals within the Christian community, but the fact that these kinds of threats can openly be made in the national media is gravely disturbing. They are intimidating the church not to obey King Christ by practicing church discipline – an explicit command in Matthew 18:15-17 and one of its three true marks according to the Belgic Confession (article 29) – lest they be in danger of violating the law of the land. The tragic reality is that, just as has recently been proven to be the case in Great Britain, Christians in South Africa can be openly threatened with persecution if their responsibilities in obeying God’s Word are at odds with “homosexual rights.”

And yet, through all of this blatant, aggressive antagonism against anything that even smells of Biblical Christianity, in a country that was almost the only bastion of this very faith during the second half of the previous century, the only conclusion which the majority of self-proclaimed “Christians” at your local neighborhood braai are guaranteed to agree upon is that the Constitution and legislation of South Africa under the National Party was the greatest disgrace this country has ever seen. God help us.

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