The Barmen Declaration in South Africa - Communitas



The reception of the Barmen Declaration in South Africa

This essay discusses the reception of the 1934 Barmen Declaration (here-after referred to as Barmen) of the Confessing Church in Germany, in South Africa. Barmen informed the theological protest against the apartheid system in South Africa. Barmen informed the theological resistance against apartheid of the ecumenical movement in South Africa, and specifically also the resistance of Black Theology to apartheid (1). The clearest expression of the theological impact of Barmen is perhaps its role in the formulation and adoption of the Confession of Belhar 1986 (here-after referred to as Belhar) by the former Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) in South Africa. Barmen did not only influence the contents of Belhar, but the process leading up to the adoption of Barmen also paved the way for the declaration of a status confessionis by the DRMC, which initiated the formulation of Belhar (2). The challenge to continue confessing and embodying Barmen and Belhar might perhaps find concrete expression in the collaboration of so-called northern and southern Christians regarding the processus confessionis on economic injustice within the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and other international ecumenical bodies (3).

1. Barmen and the resistance of South African churches to apartheid

There are those who raise concerns about the significance of Barmen in Germany and other contemporary contexts. South African theologians, John de Gruchy and Charles Villa-Vicencio, tabulate some of these concerns.

One concern is that Barmen is too verticalistic in its focus. The description of Jesus Christ as the One Word of God against all others sound for some like authoritarian theology from above. Barmen has a latent ambiguity. It fails to take the second step and to relate its radical faith in the one transcendent God to the social realities of the time. It does not adequately honour the link between divine transcendence and social holiness and justice.[1] Barmen’s emphasis of the Lordship of Jesus Christ is viewed by some as language of proselytism and not of reconciliation. It inhibits dialogue with other religions. Moreover, this emphasis opposes the efforts of African theologians to relate Christian faith to their cultural context. This category of the Lordship of Christ is viewed by many feminist theologians as a symbol of male dominance. Barmen is also criticized because it does not address the plight of the persecuted Jews in Nazi Germany. It is viewed as a document that is European and western in style, an elitist document concerned about the privileged position of the church but not the vulnerable position of Jews and other threatened groups.[2] Various shortcomings regarding the contents of Barmen are highlighted. German theologian, W Krötke, criticizes the Christological concentration of Barmen, which prevents the document from reflecting a Trinitarian and ecclesiological focus like that of the Confession of Belhar 1986.[3] Krötke also mentions that Barmen does not use a wide range of Scripture as Belhar does. Krötke made these comments in a lecture at a conference in Stellenbosch in 2004 to celebrate the 70th birthday of Barmen, and to discuss its relationship with Belhar. The theme of the conference was Confessing and embodying Barmen and Belhar today. [4] Villa-Vicencio refers to the fact that the Old Testament is not mentioned once in Barmen.[5]

Despite these difficulties Barmen does have a lot to offer and it indeed did play an important role in the theological struggle of churches against apartheid. De Gruchy offers a helpful discussion of the impact of Barmen on the church struggle against apartheid. The first explicit impact of Barmen on the church struggle in South Africa occurred already at the Cottesloe Consultation in Johannesburg in December 1960. This consultation was organized to formulate a theological response to the Sharpeville massacre in March 1960 in which sixty nine people were killed by the security services of the apartheid regime. People were burning the passes that black South African were forced to carry with them if they entered so-called white South Africa outside the so-called Bantustans that were fabricated by the apartheid regime. Various prominent ministers of the white Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) participated in the formulation of the Cottesloe Declaration.

Although the declaration was politically not very progressive it would have challenged the Dutch Reformed Church to be critical to the apartheid government of Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd. Under pressure of Verwoerd the DRC rejected the Cottesloe Declaration. Dr Beyers Naudé, who was then moderator of the biggest synod of the DRC, mourned the fact that his church did not accept the Cottesloe Statement. He became aware of the parallels between the situation that Christians in Germany face during the Third Reich and the growth of the apartheid ideology in South Africa of the 1960’s. Naudé resigned from his church and helped to establish the Christian Institute. He envisaged that the Christian Institute would become the spearhead of a confessing movement that could eventually lead to a confessing church. Naudé who studied in Germany during the 1950’s was well familiarized with and strongly influenced by the Church struggle (Kirchenkampf) in Germany, and with the establishment of the Confessing Church and the adoption of the Barmen Declaration.[6]

In the late 1960’s the Barmen Declaration impacted on the formulation of The Message to the People of South Africa.[7] This document was prepared in 1968 by the Christian Institute and the South African Council of Churches. Those who were involved in the drafting of The Message and the more than 200 pastors of various denominations who adopted this document, viewed it as the South African version of the Barmen Declaration. Despite some differences there are many similarities between The Message and Barmen. The disappointment about The Message was the fact that the political implications of its confession of the Lordship of Christ was not accepted and practiced by those who adopted it. Another weakness was the omission of black people in drafting The Message.[8] What is clear, however, is the fact that Barmen, and two of its major role players Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, influenced the development of The Message.

Barmen and the Kirchenkampf started to function as liberating symbols, symbols of confession and resistance, for the emerging Black Theological discourse in South Africa. This implied that the proclamation of the Lordship of Christ opposed any attempt to morally justify racial segregation in church and society. Acknowledgement of the Lordship of Christ prompted churches to stand where God stands, namely alongside those who are wronged and whose dignity are violated. The Word of God is related to the black experience of racism and exploitation. Barmen specifically influenced the thinking of Black Reformed theologians in ABRECSA (Alliance of Black Reformed Christians in South Africa). Barmen’s influence on Black Reformed theologians is witnessed to in the ABRECSA Charter.[9] This Charter witnesses to the supreme authority of the Word of God, the Lordship of Christ, the responsibility of Christians for the world, the authority of the State for the just and legitimate government of the world, and the visible unity of the church.[10] Though this theological declaration is more concrete, contextual and explicitly political than Barmen, and though it focuses not only on the freedom of the church as Barmen did, but more explicitly on socio-political matters, the influence of Barmen on it is nevertheless quite clear.

De Gruchy is of opinion that Barmen’s impact on South African churches can especially be attributed to Bonhoeffer’s courageous and concrete exposition of the meaning of Barmen for the church in the Third Reich. Bonhoeffer contributed tremendously to the reception of Barmen in South Africa.[11]

South African theologian, Allan Boesak, described the influence of Bonhoeffer on the liberation struggle in this remarkable way:

From Bonhoeffer I learned that it is not so much the freedom of religion that matters and that should be fought for, but what really counts is the freedom of the Word of God, that freedom to speak and to act as the Gospel compels us to do. I learned from him that we must not recoil from doing what has to be done and what should be done for others. I learned from him that we should not excuse ourselves by saying nothing can be done without doing our analysis first. And, at the same time, learning from him that what we are called to do is precisely proper and right analysis so that we will not be dreaming and romanticize about the realities of this world, all the ethical relevance of success, or failure. From him we learn that we should know not to deny our broken past, but to accept it and, in so doing, to respond to the demands of the present. We learn from him that we should take the risk of doing and that we should not wait until we have the certainties of complete analysis, which may never come. We must make the decision and we must take upon ourselves the consequences of that decision.[12]

It is, however, not only through the theology of Bonhoeffer that Barmen exercised influence in South Africa, but also through the work of Karl Barth, the main author of Barmen. Boesak is inspired by the theology of public justice that is reflected by the following words of Barth:

… in the relations and events in the life of people, God always takes his stand unconditionally and passionately on this side and on this side alone: against the lofty and on behalf of the lowly; against those who already enjoy right and privilege and on behalf of those who are denied and deprived of it.[13]

South African theologian, Russel Botman, is also influenced by the theology of the Barmen tradition. He builds on the proposal of Wolfgang Huber concerning a strong relationship between confession and politics. Huber draws form the Barmen Declaration and the Kairos Document to demonstrate how political challenges can be dealt with in a confessional manner. Botman also appreciates the Christocentrism of Barmen which can help various liberation theologies to develop stronger Christologies.[14]

More recently a younger Reformed Black theologian, Rothney Tshaka, wrote a doctoral dissertation in which he makes a strong plea for a confessional theology in the line of Barth, Barmen and Belhar, as the mode in which faithful public theology can be done in post-apartheid South Africa.[15]

2. Barmen and the origins, contents and reception of the Confession of Belhar 1986

Perhaps the most important and explicit impact of Barmen in South Africa was the role that it played in the adoption of the Confession of Belhar 1986. Like the Confessing Church in Germany the former Dutch Reformed Mission Church declared a status confessionis on the theological justification of apartheid.The theological legitimation of apartheid by white Reformed churches in South Africa was therefore described as a theological position that threatens the heart of the gospel of reconciliation in Jesus Christ. This act of declaring a status confessionis was preceded by the status confessionis on apartheid by the Lutheran World Federation in 1977 and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches earlier in 1982. Where a status confessionis, i.e. a state of confession, is declared, faith in the triune God needs to be confessed afresh. The Confession of Belhar was consequently drafted in 1982 and formally adopted in 1986.

Barmen, Barth and Bonhoeffer impacted significantly on the contents of Belhar as well. One of the authors of Belhar, Dirkie Smit, expresses this influence explicitly. In a paper read at the Barmen-Belhar conference in 2004 in South Africa Smit[16] identifies the confessional and theological agreements that exist between Barmen and Belhar. Both appeal to Scripture, depend on the Heidelberg Catechism, are documents of the church and not of individuals, are binding and authoritative and not optional, were born in a status confessionis, are responses to a crisis, and transcend the historical crisis and context of their origins. Barmen and Belhar share a common theological tradition, a common faith position, a common confessional viewpoint and claim. Both unmask the historical challenges that they respond to as symptoms of deeper, more fundamental theological problems and temptations.

Barmen did not only influence the history of origin of Belhar, and the contents of Belhar, but it also paved the way for the ongoing reception of Belhar. The reception of Belhar can to some extent be described as the reception of Barmen. At the 2004 Belhar-Barmen conference W Krotke[17] argues that Belhar stays in the spirit of Barmen, but that it also goes in many ways beyond Belhar, e.g. it develops a more Trinitarian theological approach than Barmen. To stay true to the spirit of Barmen, but to go beyond Barmen is to treat Barmen with respect and to receive it faithfully. This is what Belhar and its own reception is doing.

In the unification of Reformed Churches and in defining the public role of churches in contemporary South Africa Belhar fulfills a crucial role. Belhar serves as a guide for unity, reconciliation and justice, not only in churches, but also in broader South African society.

The unity of Belhar is unity in proximity, unity in nearness. Unity in proximity enables Christians to develop sympathy, empathy and interpathy. David Augsberger[18] provides a helpful definition of sympathy, empathy and interpathy. “Sympathy is a spontaneous affective reaction to another’s feelings experienced on the basis of perceived similarity between observer and observed. Empathy is an intentional affective response to another’s feelings experienced on the basis of perceived differences between the observer and observed. Interpathy is an intentional cognitive and affective envisioning of another’s thoughts and feelings from another culture, worldview and epistemology”.

The quest for structural unity and proximity is indeed important in order to achieve the threefold pathos of interpathy, empathy and sympathy. Structural unity, however, is not enough. Even within unified structures we need to create spaces where this threefold pathos is developed amongst people from a diversity of backgrounds and amongst people who were estranged from each other.

The reconciliation that is confessed in Belhar reflects the two dimensions of reconciliation in Paulinic thought. Reconciliation as hilasmos has to do with the expiation of wrongs and stumbling blocks to atonement (at-one-ment). Reconciliation as katalassoo refers to harmony in the relationship with the other. The reconciliation of Belhar has in mind the embrace that Miroslav Volf[19] refers to, the embrace of different races, tribes, nationalities, socio-economic groups, genders, sexual orientations, age groups, “normal” and disabled people. The reconciliation of Belhar pleads that stumbling blocks for peaceful living, for the embrace, be removed. Reconciliation therefore implies opposing injustices like racism, tribalism, xenophobia, classism, misogyny, homophobia, ageism and handicappism.

And to this list we can add ecocide. The work of reconciliation of the triune God, according to Michael Welker[20], includes the reconciliation with the environment. He specifically discusses the outpouring of the Spirit. The outpouring of the Spirit shows the universal breath and inexhaustibility of God, as well as his powerful concreteness and presence. This outpouring affects new community in various structural patterns of life that are apparently foreign to each other. In this new community nature (environment) and culture (humans) become open to each other. The Spirit lays hold of, transforms and unifies apparently incompatible domains of life that obey different laws.

Belhar’s thinking about reconciliation is informed by the teaching of the long Christian tradition about reconciliation. Reconciliation, therefore, is viewed as the work of redemption of the triune God which is done for us in Jesus Christ (cf. Anselm’s objective theory of atonement); reconciliation refers to the transformation that the love of the triune God brings about in our lives (cf. Abelard’s subjective theory of atonement); and reconciliation refers to the victory of Christ over the cosmic powers of evil and our consequent liberation from them (cf. Irenaeus’s theory of atonement). South African theologian, John de Gruchy[21], is of opinion that lastmentioned theory helps us to understand the social and cosmic dimensions of reconciliation.

Reconciliation has both vertical and horisontal dimensions. Belhar confirms, as suggested by the theories of atonement, that God reconciles us to Himself, but that He also reconciles us with each other. Donald Shriver discusses the horizontal (personal and even political) dimension of reconciliation. Reconciliation and forgiveness imply the honest and truthful facing of past evils, opposition to revenge, empathy for victims and perpetrators of evil, and the commitment of victims to resume life alongside evildoers.[22]

The justice that is confessed in Belhar might be described as compassionate justice. In line with the biblical use of these concepts both the sacrificial (justice as tsedakah and dike) and forensic (justice as mishpat and dike) dimensions of justice is being referred to.

Through the work of redemption of Jesus Christ God declares us just. People who are justified by the grace of God are participating in the quest for justice in the world. Justified people, people who are made right by the triune God, i.e. right humans seek human rights in our broken world. For Christopher Marshall[23] justification by faith is an expression of restorative justice.

The notion of sacrifice has a second dimension. It also indicates that justice cannot be reached in this world when the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the other is not present. A third aspect of the sacrificial dimension of justice is the fact that justice does not seek revenge, but it is merciful. It seeks the healing and restoration of both perpetrators and victims. In fact it seeks the healing of all broken relationships. Therefore this justice is called restorative justice. Marshall’s analysis of the use of justice in the New Testament enables him to refer to justice as restorative or covenantal justice. This covenantal justice goes beyond retribution and punishment and seeks, like reconciliation, the healing of relationships. Like reconciliation, restorative and covenantal justice seeks embrace. It seeks the renewal of the covenant of God and humans, of humans amongst each other and of humans and the rest of creation.[24]

3. Barmen and the processus confessionis on economic injustice

The history of origin of Barmen as well as the thrust of its contents still impacts on public theological discourse in South Africa and the rest of the continent. The notion of status confessionis influenced the discussions on economic injustice in a global context, initially in the Southern African Alliance of Reformed Churches and later in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and increasingly in other international ecumenical bodies like the World Council of Churches. With reference to the fact that the global market economy excludes Africa from the world economy the 1995 Kitwe Consultation on Reformed Faith and Economic Justice organized by the Southern African Alliance of Reformed Churches viewed economic justice as a confessional matter. In 1997 the Debrecen General Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches invited member churches and the ecumenical movement into a processus confessionis on economic injustice and the destruction of life on earth. This entails that the question of economic justice is not merely a question of social ethics, but that it has to do with our faith. It also challenges Christians to analyse and understand economic processes, their consequences for people’s lives and for creation. In 1997 the Harare General Assembly of The World Council of Churches embraced the processus confessionis which lead to close cooperation between WARC and WCC and other ecumenical and so-called parachurch bodies.[25]

The processus confessionis entails, amidst global economic injustice and ecological destruction, a committed process of progressive recognition, education, confession and concrete action within and among the member churches of the WARC and other ecumenical bodies. This process might not lead to a new written confession. But it indeed pleads for a communal ethics of discourse, through which member churches, congregations and individual believers on all continents respond imaginatively and responsibly to the life-threatening realities of current economic and ecological trends.

In 2005 the Accra Document was adopted by WARC in Ghana. The Accra Document takes the notion of processus confessionis a step further. Based on that document the Beyers Naude Centre for Public Theology at the University of Stellenbosch coordinates a joint research project of the Evangelisch Reformierte Kirche in Germany and the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa. This project, which is steered by Allan Boesak, focuses from a confessional theological stance on the impact of globalization on northern and southern countries. Churches in so-called northern and southern countries work together for the inclusion of Africa and other excluded continents and regions into the political, cultural and economic mainstream of the world community.[26]

Reformed churches in South Africa will serve the cause of justice well if they can join hands in this processus confessionis with brothers and sisters from Reformed and other traditions in various parts of the world and if they let their social ethical agenda be determined by the process. Nothing less than such a joint effort is required to adequately address the challenges at hand as clearly formulated in the WARC document: the increasing exclusion of developing countries and poor people from the formal economy; the aggravation of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, racial hatred and ethnic cleansing by socio-economic destruction; the perpetuation of civil wars and armed conflicts for the sake of profit making arms deals; the feminization of poverty, sexual abuse and the flourishing of the international world sex-market; international sanctions; alienation from land; the appropriation and marginalization of language, music, food and cultural treasures by the market and the mass media; the increasing non-accessibility of food, shelter and health care; increasing unemployment and discarding of non-technological skills by the market; the effects of floods, drought, fire and storms which are signs of the abuse of the earth; water and air pollution, depletion of resources and destruction of biodiversity and alienation of human beings from the rest of creation (2001:3-4).

The theology of Barmen impacts on this development of a processus confessionis. This processus confessionis is in the (Southern) African and broader context perhaps the most contemporary expression of the ongoing meaning and significance of Barmen.

4. Conclusion

Barmen is a gift of the Confessing Church in Germany to Christians in South Africa. This essay portrayed that we have received the gift with gratitude. Not only during the resistance against apartheid did we engage in a process of recognition, acknowledgement, acceptance, reception and embodiment of Barmen. We continue with this process as we seek to confess and embody Belhar, which came into being under the influence of Barmen. The implications of Barmen are broader than the boundaries of South Africa, since as African Christians we engage together with Christians of other continents in the continuous process of the reception of Barmen as a means to live faithfully in the midst of the challenges of globalization.

At the time of the writing of this essay two processes play off in South Africa. President Thabo Mbeki habd been asked by his party, the governing African National Congress, to resign as president. The change in presidents took place along constitutional lines and did not cause any disruption in public and political life in South Africa. This peaceful change says a lot about the strength of our democracy. Churches in South Africa will now have to relate to a new president and a new government. We also will have to look close at factors and the circumstance that lead to the forced resignation of Mbeki and in future, amongst others, foster a culture of open, frank, inclusive and courageous public dialogue and criticism, as well as appropriate collaboration with governments. In this reorientation process, and in the ongoing task of developing a faithful public theology and public witness, we are guided by the confessional truths of Barmen and Belhar.

At the same time as Reformed Christians we are disappointed and sad that, due to the negative stance of the mainly white Dutch Reformed Church to Belhar, the unification process between the Dutch Reformed Church and the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa, has been terminated on synodical levels. After a few years of high expectations about the formation of a unified church, we mourn this very sad development. Now more than ever we confess our own sinfulness, and we confess our faith in the God of Barmen and Belhar, to whom the church and the world belong. And we live with the hope that He will enable these two churches to live as faithfully as some Christians, far away from our shores, did 75 years ago.

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[1] C Villa-Vicencio, Augsburg, Barmen and Ottowa. The Protestant quest for a Political Theology, in Journal of Theology for Southern Africa June 1984, p.54.

[2] J De Gruchy Barmen, p.61 – 62.

[3] W Krötke, Barmen and Belhar in conversation – a German perspective, in Nederduitse Gereformeerde Tydskrif, March and June 2006, Part 47, nrs 1 and 2, p.277.

[4] W Krötke, Barmen, p.278.

[5] C Villa-Vicencio, Augsburg, p.54.

[6] De Gruchy, Barmen, p.65 – 66.

[7] See J De Gruchy and W de Villiers (eds.), The Message in perspective (Johannesburg: SACC, 1969).

[8] De Gruchy, Barmen, p.66 – 67.

[9] This Charter resonates clearly with Barmen’s six articles, i.e. Jesus Christ as the one Word of God that we hear, trust and obey; Jesus Christ as God’s assurance of forgiveness of our sin, and mighty claim upon our lives; the church as solely the property of Christ and the reflection of the church’s belonging to Christ in its order, visible form and structure; the ministry of the church belonging to Christ as a ministry of functional authority and mutual service; the public role and political responsibility of the church; the missionary task of the church as proclamation of the free grace of God to all people.

[10] De Gruchy, Barmen, p.67 – 68.

[11] De Gruchy, Barmen, p.69.

[12] See A Boesak What Dietrich Bonhoeffer has meant to me, in G Carter et al (eds) Bonhoeffer’s ethics. Old Europe and new frontiers (Kampen: Kok, 1991),p. 21 – 29.

[13] K Barth, quoted by A Boesak, Black and Reformed. Apartheid, liberation and the Calvinist tradition (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1984), p.92.

[14] HR Botman, Discipleship as transformation. Towards a theology of transformation. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Bellville: University of the Western Cape, 1994).

[15] R Tshaka, Confessional theology? A critical analysis of the theology of Karl Barth and its significance for the Belhar Confession (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stellenbosch: University of Stellenbosch, 2005). In another doctoral dissertation South African theologian, Nico Horn, argues that although Barmen primarily focuses on ecclesiology it does have strong political implications. He brings Barmen and Belhar in conversation to construct guidelines for contemporary church state relations in South Africa. See JN Horn, ‘n Vergelykende studie van die Barmenverklaring en die Konsepbelydenis van die N.G.Sendingkerk (A comparative study of the Barmen Declaration and the Draft Confession of the D.R.Mission Church). Unpublished dissertation, Bellville:University of the Western Cape, 1984). Also see JN Horn, From Barmen to Belhar and Kairos, in C Villa-Vicencio (ed) On reading Karl Barth in South Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988),p.105 – 119. South African theologian, Jaap Durand, argues that after the emphasis by Liberation Theology of the solidarity of God and therefore of the church with the poor and the oppressed, Reformed Christians in South Africa discovered afresh how Karl Barth emphasized this central Christian conviction already in the Barmen years. Christians who are strengthened by the preached Word of God, apply the same Word in their daily lives in special solidarity with those who suffer. See J Durand, Church and state in South Africa: Karl Barth vs Abraham Kuyper, in C Villa-Vicencio (ed) On reading Karl Barth in South Africa (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), p.134 – 135.

[16] D Smit, Barmen and Belhar in conversation – a South African perspective, in Nederduitse Gereformeerde Tydskrif, March and June 2006, Part 47, nrs 1 and 2, p.292.

[17] W Krotke, Barmen and Belhar in conversation – a German perspective, in Nederduitse Gereformeerde Tydskrif, March and June 2006, Part 47, nrs 1 and 2, p.277.

[18] See D Augsberger, Pastoral counseling across culture (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989), p.31.

[19] See M Volf, Exclusion, p.171

[20] M Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), p.145 – 147.

[21] See J de Gruchy, Reconciliation. Restoring justice (London: SCM Press, 2002), p.58.

[22] See D Shriver,An ethic for enemies. Forgiveness in politics (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 67. This book of Shriver gives a helpful church historical analysis of the public character of forgiveness, specifically on p. 45-62. A new book of Shriver on reconciliation in the public sphere has been published recently: D Shriver, Honest patriots: Loving a country enough to remember its misdeeds. (Oxford:Oxford University Press 2005).

[23] See C Marshall, Beyond retribution. A New Testament vision for justice, crime and punishment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p.59. In an article about the impact of Christian faith upon the fulfillment of socio-economic rights Smit acknowledges the significance of the Barmen theological tradition in the attempt to construct theories of justice. In terms of the Barmen theological tradition theology and churches can contribute in three ways to public justice discourses. The Old and New Testament records offers valuable orientation and perspective; the Christian tradition of interpretation offers instructive developments and case studies; contemporary ecumenical discussions may help to discern critical issues and insights. See D Smit, On social and economic justice in South Africa today: a theological perspective on theoretical paradigms, in A Van der Walt (ed) Theories of social and economic justice (Stellenbosch Sun Press, 2005), p.225 – 234.

[24] See C Marshall, Beyond retribution, p.35 – 95.

[25] The Bangkok Symposium in 1999, which was held in response to the financial crises of Asian countries bears witness to this cooperation. The participants which included the Christian Conference of Asia, The Church of Christ in Thailand, the Asian Cultural Forum on Development (ACFOD) and the Buddhist community of Thailand sent messages to churches, other faith communities, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and transnational corporations, urging action against economic injustice and destruction of the earth. On the basis of the Bangkok conference the WARC submitted a written intervention on economic, social and cultural rights to the 57th session of the United Nations Committee on Human Rights. Within Geneva WCC, WARC, the Lutheran World Federation, YWCA and YMCA, amongst others, have formed the Ecumenical Coalition for Alternatives to Globalization (ECAG) (2001:1-2).

[26] For an insightful discussion of the processus confessionis, see D Smit, ‘A time for confession? On the WARC project ‘Reformed Faith and economic justice’, in: Ned Geref Teologiese Tydskrif 44:3&4 (2003), p.478 – 499. More recently Kathryn Tanner pleads for an economics of grace in the context of global economic exclusion and ecological destruction. See her Economy of grace (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005).

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