20-November-1996
96471 South African Church Fails
to Bridge Racial Divide
by Noel Bruyns
EAST LONDON, SOUTH AFRICA--As South African society continues to try to
shake off the shackles of its apartheid past, denominations which have been
segregated along racial lines are also struggling to rid themselves of
racist connotations.
However, a recent attempt by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the
Cape area to merge its separate white, colored (mixed race) and black
conferences has failed because of insufficient support within the white
conference.
Conferences are administrative entities responsible for local
congregations. The Cape area of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
incorporates Western Cape, Northern Cape and Eastern Cape provinces. The
racial splits occurred in the 1920s.
The three conferences met last month to discuss merging, but the white
conference failed to get the 75 percent vote required by its constitution
to disband, according to Pastor Garth Bainbridge, president of the white
Cape conference.
"Unfortunately, we attained only 70 percent. The colored Good Hope
Conference voted 94 percent in favor of the merger, while the black
Southern Conference voted 97 percent," he told ENI from Stellenbosch,
outside Cape Town.
"We want to remove all racial connotations. Unfortunately, we did not
get the required vote," Bainbridge said.
The main reason for the failure to reach a sufficient majority in the
white church was the issue of the financial viability of a new united
structure.
Although there has been a set salary scale for pastors, pastors of the
economically depressed black congregations were paid less than the
recommended salary, and members of the white conference apparently feared
that they would be called upon to finance an increase in black pastors'
salaries.
The conference "does not have the budget" to secure equalization in
salaries in the event of a merger, Bainbridge explained.
The secretary of the colored Good Hope conference, pastor Allan
Christmas, told ENI from Cape Town that church members were "crying out"
for unity, and his administration would pursue plans to merge with the
black Southern Conference in the meantime, until they could be joined by
the white conference.
Asked why some in the white conference had prevented the merger,
Christmas said, "It is a mixture of some still holding on to the old,
racially divided South Africa, a fear by some whites of being swamped by a
black majority and wanting to retain administrative control. For the white
church, the main obstacle is equalization of remuneration packages,
although our black brothers say equalization can be phased in gradually."
He agreed with Bainbridge, however, that there was a "most healthy
racial mix" at the congregational level. A number of congregations at the
local level are racially mixed, despite the segregated conferences.
According to Adventist News Network, any individual is free to worship and
hold membership in any congregation regardless of race.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church has 48 congregations within the white
conference, 70 within the colored conference and 220 within the black
conference. Membership in the three conferences is 3,750, 5,550 and 10,000,
respectively.
The Natal and Free State churches (with Durban and Bloemfontein the
respective centers) have already merged, but the Transvaal region (centered
in Johannesburg) still has separate conferences.
------------
For more information contact Presbyterian News Service
phone 502-569-5504 fax 502-569-8073
E-mail PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org Web page: http://www.pcusa.org
--