The Theological Symphony of Belhar

A Situational Framing and Close Theological Reading of the Confession of Belhar

The Confession of Belhar was borne out of the apartheid struggle in South Africa. The contents of the Confession clearly engage this historical reality while situating the theological claims within the Reformed tradition; this is a massively important task. By its very nature the Confessional church derives its authority to declare confessions from the historical lineage of confessions, and so the Belhar Confession takes up the task of doing defining the Gospel for believers in the South African context. In this paper I want to perform a close reading of the Confession of Belhar, examining the theological contents of the document in detail. I will go line by line through the text in order to show the arguments, authorities and allusions of the document and their theological significance. Every line, in some sense, is a theological movement of sorts; they culminate in what I see as a resounding theological symphony of sorts. Before discussing the document itself, though, I want to take time to discuss the nature of confessions as I understand them so as to frame our thinking on Belhar within that context.

Confession remains one of the primary advantages of the protestant tradition, especially within the Reformed church. Confessional inception lies in the spirit of the Reformation itself – calling upon the courage of Martin Luther and other reformers to radically challenge the present state of things by an appeal to the truth of Scripture. The advantage for Protestants comes by way of being able to dip into this heritage when the moment arises; When crisis abounds, one need not sit idly back and accept it. No, members of Confessing Churches are able to witness the Gospel in their present age boldly and with resounding voice.

It's important to distinguish that confessions, at least from an internal perspective, do not necessarily mean to define the community to outsiders (although it may do that); rather, confessions mean to define the Gospel that the community holds to in relation to the powers that be of the earthly realm around them. This distinction is important because one could look sociologically at something like the Confession of Belhar or the Barmen Declaration and come to see the groups as defining themselves, and while that may be a valid sociological reading of these situations, it’s not exactly the intention of the group to do such things (albeit sometimes it is hard to parse out the differences in these two viewpoints). The intention is usually to clarify who the community is internally, not define themselves in relation to some external thing.

Take for example the development of Karl Barth’s definition of confession from the 1925 World Alliance of Churches, that became popular thereafter:

“A Reformed creed is the statement, spontaneously and publicly formulated by a Christian community within a geographically limited area, which, until further action, defines its character to outsiders; and which, until further action, gives guidance for its own doctrine and life; it is a formulation of the insight currently given to the whole Christian Church by the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, witnessed to by the Holy Scriptures alone.”

Firstly we have to point out that this definition, while saying it “defines” the character of the church to outsiders, is not deriving its authority from its distinctiveness; the definition defines a Reformed creed as a theological guide, primarily for the internal use of the Church. The creeds and confessions are not given for the world to evaluate the church through, but for the church to define and organize themselves within. It’s a gift from the church to the church, an internal document that just so happens to be public. This is crucial to understand when looking at the Belhar Confession.

Now, the context is key here. Barth gave the above definition after being pressured to write a unified creed for the Reformed Church; You can see then where he locates the issue with the problem in this definition. Barth focuses on how the Reformed tradition allows itself to be “distinctive” in its confessional power to undergird what he sees as the immensely local nature of the Reformed tradition (“formulated by a Christian community within a geographically limited area, which… defines its characters to outsiders”). To Barth in 1925, the confessional nature is being misunderstood by members, so his definition errs on the distinctiveness of the Reformed tradition. Compare this definition to the one he offers later on, though, in Church Dogmatics I/2:

“A Church confession is a formulation and proclamation of the insight which the church has been given in certain directions into the revelation attested by Scripture, reached on the basis of common deliberation and decision” (Barth 20.2).

Here Barth shifts the focus away from the temporal relationship of the former. His first definition focuses on locality, distinctiveness, and relationship to the outsider; the second settles on the Church explicitly in and of itself. Neither one is right or wrong, but it may perhaps be worth dwelling on that Barth finally settled on a more abstracted definition of a confession because it helps us frame the two documents to follow within a relationship from God to the church, with temporal ramifications instead of some sort of reaction by the Church to the rest of the world.

This is also not to say that confessions are not reactive; of course they are to some extent. But they are reactive because of the internal epiphany of the church on a spiritual insight that is being misunderstood or outright bastardized, not because the congregation has some sort of political bent that can thus be spiritualized within the church. Confessions arise because a new crisis threatens the eternal truth of the Gospel, not because some new revelation about the Christian faith has been brought to light. Confessions operate within the church as course corrections, not reimaginations of the Gospel, or fundamental alterations to the Christian tradition. New contexts change, therefore new confessions will always spring up; However those confessions aim to synthesize the heart of the original Gospel with the confessing church in order to properly evaluate the modern context. The precise locus of that authority is crucial – confessions appeal to the tradition of the Church and Scripture, not some new revelation. This point is touched on in the documents themselves.

I apologize if this discussion on the nature of Confessions is cumbersome, but I see it as absolutely crucial to understanding what the Church is doing when they put forward a confession. Confessions are not offhand responses to the modern world; but instead intend to recover the Soul of the Gospel and bringing it to light in the midst of a new context. That is what must be emphasized in looking at the documents we will examine here.

With this background in place, we will now look at the Belhar Confession on its own terms to analyze the theological content of the document. In doing so we will answer the following questions: What aspect of Christianity was the Church attempting to recover here? What was it defining itself in opposition to (implicitly or otherwise)? In order to do so we will look at each section of the document to see the theological work being done. But before doing that I would like us to understand, at least at the most rudimentary level, the historical context that Belhar inhabits.

South Africa has a complicated racial history with the colonial aims of Europe (the Dutch and English, specifically) putting the indigenous peoples on the bottom of emerging social structures. On top of this, other people groups, such as Indians, Arabs, and Indonesians were brought to the region and thus created a racial crucible through time. By 1948 tensions were high, and the National Party was elected (in large part because certain people were not allowed to participate in the political system due to their race); this party began implementing laws that racially segregated life in South Africa. Towns were divided by race, and interracial marriage was outlawed.

The Reformed church, meanwhile, remained complicit through the entire process; in fact they developed various racist theologies to support the political changes. The Tower of Babel, found in Genesis 11, became a crucial pro-Apartheid passage for the church during this time. The argument goes as follows: creation requires separation – such as how God separates the Heavens and the Earth in Genesis 1. The Tower of Babel then is championed as one of the premiere passages for such ideologies because it involved the active separation of people from one another – this separation of peoples was read as a blessing by these theologians, which thus gave them the theological basis to say that such separations are still good today. Much like American slavery, the argument involves massive stretches in the theological schema, but possesses at least some semblance of logic to the process.

Combined with passages that put “the invisible church” as a foremost theological idea, these theologians were able to negotiate the space between the political disenfranchisement of other racial identities alongside the “unity” of the church. With Scripture they were able to justify not physically seeing their non-white Christian brothers and sisters while still maintaining unity in a cosmic sense (at least in their minds). This extended to separating out church congregations by race – spiritual apartheid.

This is the world that the Belhar Confession inhabits and engages. Not only does injustice run rampant, but many of its leading figures are prominent leaders within the white Reformed church in South Africa. It is no wonder, then, that the black delegates from South Africa refused to take communion with their white counterparts at a meeting in Ottawa, and a formal status confessionus was officially declared.

So then, the Belhar Confession is the formal response of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church to the modern realities of South African apartheid. The document was later adopted by other churches, such as the Presbyterian Church, as formal statements for their own polities; the enduring truth of the Belhar Confession finds itself quite appropriate in other contexts too, it would seem.

We have now discussed the nature of Confessions in order to frame how we understand the Belhar Confession specifically. We have likewise touched on (albeit very briefly) the historical context of the movement, both politically as well as the developing theologies that arose from the period and place. Now we will turn our attention to the document itself by doing a close reading in order to analyze its theological content. We will work through the document section by section, revealing the subtle movements of argumentation that culminate in a theological crescendo of resounding unity and power by Belhar’s completion.

The first section of the Confession declares belief in the Trinity, which “protects and cares for the church from the beginning of the world… to the end” (Belhar section 1). Foregrounding the entire document with this declaration does a couple things. Firstly, it defines the document as explicitly Christian – there is no doubt that this declaration is borne of the church. Secondly, it intentionally situates the church within the care of God. God cares about the church, and the church cares about God, which is why this document (a product of the church) has a special significance. The fact that God “protects” the church is an interesting theological move, as it hints at some sort of threat to the church being immanent. One would only need protection if there were some sort of predator or threat – in this case, racism is the contextually implied threat to the truth of the Gospel. It’s brilliant, really; Instead of this document attacking certain theologies outright, it positions itself as defending the original and unadulterated Gospel from detractors. The newfangled threats are just that – new. Here the Reformed church positions itself on the side of defender of the Gospel against threats.

The enduring nature of God’s love also plays a key rhetorical role here. This truth is eternal, for one, and God will protect it as well. God’s care and protection have implications: the church will not be abandoned even through hard times. Thus, the church can be certain that, because God is on the side of the truth that the church themselves hold to, God will see the witness of truth through to the end. So then, the first section sets up the church as in a struggle against some threat, and affirms that this struggle falls under the care and protection of God.

Section two builds on the brief first section by situating the issue of Christian unity at the forefront. The section begins with affirming the belief in “one holy, universal Christian church, the communion of saints called from the entire human family” (Belhar section 2). This movement in the confession connects the image of a singular church with the entirety of the human race. The theological implications are quite obvious here: the church belongs to all people, not just some; every member of humanity is beckoned into this universal family equally. The holiness of the church and its universality are likewise put one after the other here, connecting those two theological commitments of the church together inextricably.

The following paragraph in section two functions almost as a series of exegetical claims that must follow one another. The paragraph begins with mentioning the reality of Christ’s reconciliation as revealing our duty to manifest reconciliation within the church. In Christ, God is reconciled to humankind; this much is fundamental to Christian theology. If this is so, then the church must also display this reconciliation by being reconciled to one another. Belhar calls this pursuit of unity both a “gift and an obligation” for the body of believers to undertake. That language is fascinating, as it positions unity as not only a demand which appeals to justice (at least in the context of South African apartheid) but a gift that believers have the blessing of taking part in. Unity is not just something to be pursued because Christians are supposed to; far from it in fact. Rather, like all of the law, the proper pursuit of unity actually brings about life within the believer. The law of God calls the believer into eternal life, and that life includes the joys of worshipping with the entirety of humanity, not just some sect of it. When understood in this way, the confession allows the virtue of unity to speak for itself as something to be pursued and cherished; It is a “binding force” for the church to find strength in!

Because it is a binding force, unity has the power to pull believers together; however it must be “pursued and sought” as well, as the church will falter from this reality at times (Belhar 2). Unity, then, becomes a virtue to always be striving toward, even in seasons where it may seem not to be an issue. In those seasons the seeds of complacently are sown, thus plunging the body into bitter obstinacy without even knowing it exists in such a state. If unity matters, it matters entirely and at all times – thus we must always work toward a better understanding of it.

The following stanza is perhaps some of the richest theological language in the entire document. “Unity must become visible”, the document proclaims boldly, dragging the potentially disembodied notion of unity for believers into the material world. Unity exists outside of the material world, to be certain, but the claim here is that the effects of unity should be visible within the church if they are there at all. There exists an almost explicit connection to James 2:18 here, which says “Show me your faith apart from works, and I by my works will show you faith” (NRSVUE). Displaying unity, then, is an opportunity to live into a richer practice of the faith. The confession then reminds the church that the world does not believe the church has conquered the sin of separation and hatred, which is why we subsequently lose the power of our witness when we practice disunity. So long as there is enmity within the church, we slide back into our former ways of being, into sins that “Christ has already conquered” (Belhar 2). The powerful wording of this section situates disunity as something that should have been abandoned long ago, something that existed in a pre-Christian reality of the world. It is, in fact, a threat to the church, as the next sentence says, and must be resisted.

Why does Belhar see disunity as a “threat”? Well, perhaps if we take the South African context into mind here, we can illuminate the theology better. The claim here is that if the church does not stand against South African apartheid, it does not stand for unity in any meaningful sense. In fact the institution then means nothing – the very word “church” becomes a façade. “Church” as we know it does not mean anything in this case because it is no different from the hatred and injustice of the world – completely inseparable from the pain and suffering of the non-Christian earth. In being just like the world, eschatological visions of future perfection are blown to pieces, and we succumb to what Reformed theologian Jürgen Moltmann describes as “the worst of all utopias, the utopia of the status quo” (Theology of Hope, 23). In this grim vision, hope has died by the hand of indecisiveness.

So then, if unity means anything, it means defiant resistance to apartheid within the church. The definitional function of the word as a unified group thus becomes completely obstructed if this reality is not achieved, and unity becomes a phantom of a word. That unity “must be manifested and be active in a variety of ways”, according to the next stanza of Belhar, in order for the church to really believe it (Belhar 2).

What follows in this portion of the text is a string of examples of how unity is practiced, all stressing the oneness that unity requires in the church. It’s a powerful section because it situates the Christian life quite tangibly within the paradigm of unity – calling to mind the substantive practices and beliefs of the church, and how their legitimacy demands and requires a federate body of believers. I see this this section containing reference to three areas of Christian life, all of which the document claims unity is necessary for: the liturgical, the theological, and the practical. The liturgical aspect is pretty straightforward and obvious in the confession; mentioning baptism and the Lord’s Supper here are vivid pictures of how the church being of same accord is fundamental to their spiritual value. The theological realities of the church are scattered before and after the liturgical, affirming claims about a common teleological purpose (“one calling… one soul… one mind”) and age-old Christian doctrine (one God and Father… one Spirit) (Belhar 2). Finally the confession moves toward the practical ways that unity is shown (still using Biblical language) within Christian community: “admonishing and comforting one another… suffer with one another… together serve God in this world… together fight against everything that may threaten or hinder this unity” (Belhar 2).

This unity must be achieved in freedom, the following paragraph says, and must include a plethora of diversities by its very nature. Now remember, once again returning to the South African context, the theologies that arose from that period glorified “separation” as something to be cherished. The distinctiveness of people groups and languages constituted the very notion of creation, thus diversity was seen as an inherent good insofar as Christians kept to their own group, so to speak. Belhar turns that logic on its head, saying that diversity is only diversity within a unified context; the church must be unified by “true faith in Jesus Christ” as conditions for membership, not some modern theory of social cohesion adorned in theological language. This point dovetails into the final bit of section two, which lays out some doctrinal rejections.

The first of those rejections is clear separation which “hinders or breaks the visible and active unity of the church, or even leads to the establishment of a separate church formation” (Belhar 2). This phrasing sums up much of section two’s main thrust of demanding visible unity in the body of believers. The second rejection decries churches that separate from one another in the name of diversity but at the expense of reconciliation. The third rejection calls the unwillingness to pursue these aims for reconciliation and unity a sin. The fourth and final rejection demands that “descent of any other human factor” can be considered for membership in the church. All building on one another, these four rejections compound into a cohesive theory of lived unity within a multiracial and multicultural church setting.

Section 3 begins with the implication that God is not only good, but has “entrusted the church” with carrying through God’s goodness. Utilizing Biblical language, such as Jesus’ parables and teachings at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, the confession places responsibility squarely in the church’s hands. This passage once again calls upon the highest form of authority for the Reformed church – the Bible – as being in accordance with their mission in writing for racial reconciliation in South Africa. In doing so, the document’s opponents must now contend not only with the claims of the document themselves, but in a way even Jesus Christ’s own teaching; thus this paragraph adds another hermeneutical element to the theological content of Belhar.

Another interesting phrase in that very same paragraph is “the church is witness both by word and by deed to the new heaven and the new earth which righteousness dwells” (Belhar section 3). That portion of the text builds upon the Biblical language, but makes it eschatological. Not only, then, is this an issue of social ethics, but expands the scope of the problem to a question about the very nature of God’s new heaven and new earth. This vision is carried forth through the following paragraph, which ends with how the new reality of Christ affords us “new possibilities of life and society in the world” (Belhar 3). It is a gift, then, to be able to actually imagine and bring to power the truth of the Gospel in this manner; Not only would it be good to do, but in fact it is possible as well!

Returning to the beginning of the second paragraph in this section, we see a salvific element to the theological argument brought up, invoking language of victory over sin and death. This language calls to mind Christ’s death and resurrection as being the baseline force that allows Christians to inhabit a new reality; why then, Belhar asks, do we not seize that reality? This move positions hope in Christ alongside hope for reconciliation while implying that opponents of this theological move have succumbed to a form of hopelessness; nihilism dressed up in fancy theological language. Belhar rejects such theological facades.

The next paragraph calls on yet another different theological strand, the evangelical and missional focus, to reject racial segregation. “The credibility of this message is seriously affected and its beneficial work obstructed when it is proclaimed in a land which professes to be Christian, but… promotes and perpetuates alienation, hatred, and enmity” (Belhar 3). This phrase implores detractors to consider the souls lost by confusing the definition of Christianity to nonbelievers. The strength of a unified Christian witness is put at the forefront here, acknowledging the church’s shared missional mindset and laying out how that is harmed by racial separation. This argument is carried through to the following paragraph as well, which actively questions the motives for one’s adhering to warped theologies. “Prejudice, fear, selfishness” are given as three reasons for not taking up reconciliation, but the fourth and final reason is most compelling to me: “unbelief” (Belhar 3). Regarding unbelief as a potential root cause is very strong language here; for the first time in the document, Belhar outright questions the opposition’s commitment to the Gospel itself. While the argument before this has been about potential misunderstandings in the living out the Gospel, this phrase powerfully investigates the potentiality that this is an issue of people not actually believing the Gospel is as powerful as it is, or even that they believe a false Gospel. It’s a rather authoritative stance to take, as it situates belief itself as a potential root issue in making progress.

In the rejection at the end of section 3 we see the confession drive the missional point home by saying how Christ’s power is not fully actualized with segregationist theologies. It’s worth also pointing out here that this Gospel distortion is not only hurting the oppressed, but is also distorting the Gospel to oppressors. It’s both keeping people out of the church, as well as allowing those within the church to call themselves Christians when they actually may believe a false Gospel, a heresy.

The fourth section takes on a decisively liberationist bent to it. The first paragraph sounds almost as if it is a liberation theologian such as Gustavo Gutierrez, who joins in other Latin American liberation theologians in dignifying the poor with a “preferential option for the poor” (Gutierrez and Groody 2). As Vasilios Dimitriadis says of Gutierrez, “He simply reminded us of the God-breathed texts of Christian scriptures that include the teachings and the greatness of the Word of God who, by the Incarnation, broke the chains of oppression and injustice and walked as a Liberator” (432). Belhar seeks the very same thing, which is why we see a similar bent with language about how God brings about justice specifically for the destitute in the confession. It also positions action as crucial to theological understanding – “pure undefiled religion” requires the active pursuit of justice” (Belhar section 4). As a result, the second paragraph tells us, the church too must be liberators in a spiritual sense, taking the mantle of justice up in the name of God.

We see more Biblical allusions in this section too, such as references to Amos 5:24. However it would be a mistake to connect the phrasing of justice rolling down like water only to Amos; no in fact Martin Luther King Jr. used the phrase famously in his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech as well, perhaps the most famous of his speeches on racial reconciliation (NPR). Not only, then, is the Confession of Belhar positioning itself in line with Scripture, but aligns itself also with the global historical racial reconciliation movements around the world. Invoking Amos is reference not only to the Bible, but those great Christian mantle-bearers such as MLK that fought the very same battle and used the very same words. It’s a theological lineage, if you will, of racial reconciliation, liberation, and justice. Belhar calls upon those movements before it as a source of interdependent authority on the Bible, so that while the less-liberationist-inclined readers may accept it on its Biblical grounds, it still can maintain the authoritative power of liberation theology in the Civil Rights era of the United States.

Finally we come to the last section, Section 5, which recognizes the realities of such a bold confession and the consequences of such actions. This ties together with the aforementioned liberationist arguments and even calls to mind passages like 1 Peter which calls upon the notion of righteous suffering constantly, such as in 1:6-7, which compares suffering for Jesus’ sake to being gold forged in fire (NRSVUE). This section then becomes a sort of way of affirming every word that comes before it, understanding the suffering that may come as a result. However, the confession ends with the assertion that Jesus is Lord, framing the entire argument (and potential pain to follow) as worth it in light of the eternal truth of Christ. This final word thus ties together the symphony under the guise of the Lord, and concludes the euphonic theology contained in the Belhar Confession.

Allan Boesak tells us of the poor and defenseless: “Their cries are not the plaintive cries of helpless resignation and desolate hopelessness. These are cries of pain in protest to their suffering. These cries are constituted by their pain and their resistance to injustice. These are cries of struggle” (Boesek III). Utilizing John Calvin, Boesak perfectly locates the nature of these cries, and the Confession of Belhar in turn works to engage that truth by standing in opposition to injustice. Belhar is not important because it responded to apartheid, but rather because it remembered the Gospel. As I discussed in the opening section on Confession and showed throughout the close reading, Belhar is not a document about the world itself, but about how God desires the church to interact with the world. The Confession of Belhar, then, is not to be considered any sort of masterpiece of rhetorical argumentation, nor should it be considered the authoritative Word of God; rather it exists in the same place the church does: powerful, resounding, imperfect, and striving. In that imperfection it strives toward perfection in representing the eternal God of the Bible quite well, which is why the confession holds such a powerful status in the catalog of world confessions. When discussing Christian responses to racism, or even just attempting to define Christian unity in the modern world, the Confession of Belhar can be seen as a source text for prudent discussion on a topic which has injured the church for centuries.

Works Cited

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. Edited by Geoffrey William Bromiley et al., vol. 1/2, T & T Clark, 2010.

Boesak, Allan. There Is a Reason Why: The Cry for Justice as the Cry for Life.

Dimitriadis, Vasilios. “Gustavo Gutiérrez: Liberation Theology for a World of Social Justice and Just Peace.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies, vol. 54, no. 3, 2019, pp. 431–441., https://doi.org/10.1353/ecu.2019.0033. Accessed 18 Oct. 2022.

King, Martin Luther. “Read Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' Speech in Its Entirety.” NPR, NPR, 14 Jan. 2022, https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety.

Moltmann, Jürgen. Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology. Fortress Press, 1993.

NRSVUE, Holy Bible. ZONDERVAN, 2022.

Plaatjies-Van Huffel, Mary-Anne, and Leepo Modise, editors. “Confession of Belhar.” Belhar Confession: The Embracing Confession of Faith for Church and Society, 1st ed., African Sun Media, 2017, pp. 489–94. JSTOR,http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1nzg0xm.43. Accessed 18 Oct. 2022.