South Africa: "With Desmond Tutu, there have been radical changes" in the Churches

A fresco by Brian Rolfe representing Desmond Tutu, on December 26, 2021, after the death of the archbishop.

© Gianluigi Guercia / AFP

Text by: Alexandra Brangeon Follow

3 min

Desmond Tutu put his faith at the service of the fight against apartheid.

First black bishop of the Anglican Church in Johannesburg, first black archbishop of Cape Town.

He made the church evolve through his commitment to human rights, says Reverend Frank Chikane of the Evangelical Church.

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RFI: What was the position of the South African churches on apartheid

Frank Chikane:

Remember that initially all the churches in South Africa supported apartheid.

Because at the time the Dutch Reformed Church and the white Afrikaner government had developed a theology to justify this segregation.

My own church, for example, supported this regime and I was suspended for nine years for taking a stand against segregation.

Back then, what made things change

With the arrival of Desmond Tutu, there were radical changes, not only within the Anglican Church to which he belonged, but also in other churches.

When he became the dean of the Anglican Church in Johannesburg, it was very difficult for white parishioners, but they were in the minority and they learned to accept that their leader was black.

Then he became the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, an even more important post.

Among other churches, some leaders were uncomfortable with his positions.

Desmond Tutu went to the poor neighborhoods, where the apartheid police were shooting people.

He was in the street with the people.

But the crisis has become so serious in South Africa that these churches have had to evolve, change.

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So it was Desmond Tutu who gave the impetus for this change?

These changes within churches had started long before: after the Sharpeville massacre in the early 1960s. This massacre sparked real debate within Christian churches. It was at this point that the Dutch Reformed Church - which was an Afrikaner church - withdrew from the World Council of Churches, an international organization that had condemned the violence of apartheid.

This massacre forced the leaders of all South African churches to examine their position vis-à-vis the regime.

And changes took place in all of them churches, the Methodist had black pastors, the Anglican Church too, the Lutherans.

It was a general movement.

You know, the churches have played a very important role.

They took care of the prisoners, their families, people who had been displaced by the regime.

Desmond Tutu was just one of those who pushed for change within the Church.

But he was more visible than the others.

And why that ?

Because of his courage, his daring to oppose the system. While others condemned, speaking or writing, he acted. The first time he truly opposed the apartheid system - not just in word, but in deed - he went to a poor neighborhood, where the government was expelling the population. black to make room for white. He physically interposed himself between the bulldozers and the people in front of their house, saying: “

”. It was in the 1970s. It was at the time the strongest, most symbolic gesture against the Apartheid regime. For him, justice is for all. Everyone is equal before God. It has nothing to do with the color of the skin.

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