Reading the Bible in the old South Africa

Richard Burridge, who wrote a remarkable work on the genre of the gospels, has a new book called Imitating Jesus - An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics. While I have yet to discover what he means by 'inclusive' - a word that normally makes me reach for my gun, because it is a such a loaded term - I have been impressed by his determination to recover the role of the Bible, and of the Biblical Jesus, in ethics. He relates the problem to the apartheid era in South Africa, when genuine Christians prayerfully earnestly and intelligently reading their Bibles decided that it supported racism. Does this mean that the Bible ought to be rejected, because it is open to such uses? By no means: though merely appealing to the Bible does not guarantee good reading of it.

Interestingly, he quotes CESA Bishop Frank Retief's submission, made in 1997, to a hearing of 'Faith Communities'.

...when the government made legislation that accorded with our moral or biblical understanding, we supported them. However, on the great issue of justice for all, we were often insensitive. We had not made the connection between gospel and society...We were witnesses to how the Bible and its message can be misused to support an evil ideology. National government used the Bible to support its policies, to give the impression that they were a Christian government. But then so did some liberation theologians who finally supported violence as a means of continuing the struggle...Where we have been negligent, careless and insensitive to biblical injunctions and mandates as we have been, may the Lord graciously forgive us....The fact that the Bible was used in the past to condone injustice does not mean its true message may be ignored today...It is our belief that this day and hour calls for men and women of conviction and integrity to apply the message of the Bible more accurately and faithfully to our emerging society... p. 397-8

I have met Bishop Frank and heard him speak, and I find this an impressive and moving statement. But, Burridge asks, what gives him and others (and the rest of us) confidence that we aren't making similar mistakes now?

Burridge gives an analysis of how the South African churches got into this mess - and notes on the one hand a lack of self-criticism and on the other a theology which overlooked the central place of Jesus for all Christian ethics. Could a church that was actually prioritising Jesus - the Jesus of the gospels, but also the Jesus of Paul and the other authors of the NT - have allowed itself to lapse so badly? Make no mistake, there was some sophisticated theological and exegetical work done in the theological faculties of South Africa in the apartheid era... but, says Burridge, the voice of Jesus was strangely silent even so.

So, argues Burridge, if churches want to avoid falling into the group-think which has resulted in such terrible misusing the Bible, they need to practice self-reflection and self-criticism as a matter of course. And also, they ought to pay attention to Jesus.

[Note: to any South African readers - I am only here reporting from Burridge. I cannot know and do not pretend to know what it was to live in those times and to be a Christian in those times. Nor do I know what it is to live as a Christian with this as a legacy - though Australian Christians have made their own mistakes of course.]