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Belhar: A Reconciliation Place for the Sake of the World

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Don Meeks and Jeff Krehbiel are curating “Can We Talk?”, a modest attempt at an uncommonly gracious conversation among colleagues who differ on matters of conscience. Can we bridge the theological differences that divide us? Can we even talk about them? Can we affirm the best in each other’s theological tradition while honestly confessing the weaknesses of our own? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Quinn Fox

belhar-ga

Allan Boesak addressing the 222nd PC(USA) General Assembly

I had the blessing to have been in the room of all the G.A. committees that had anything to do with the Confession of Belhar’s journey into our Constitution (all four times committees voted as well as the final recommendation for inclusion in the Book of Confessions). Between 2008 and 2016, my role changed. I began as committee resource coordinator (2008 & 2010); I was asked by National Capital Presbytery to serve as overture advocate (2012) for a reconsideration of the narrowly defeated overture. In 2014, I moderated the Committee on Theological Issues that (again) recommended adding Belhar. Last June in Portland, as an observer, I witnessed the final GA committee vote to recommend the inclusion of this remarkable confession in our constitution. Remarkable primarily for the context out of which Belhar proclaimed the central gospel message of reconciliation.

To change our Book of Confessions requires the majority vote of three General Assemblies, the recommendation of a special committee appointed by a G.A. moderator, and a super-majority of presbyteries. It’s the most difficult constitutional change to make, because the Book of Confessions is our foundation.

The basement, or foundation, is sometimes forgotten about or taken for granted when there is lots of activity going on upstairs. In recent years we’ve been remodeling our PCUSA “house.”

Remodeling work is chaotic; it can be all-consuming. During those “remodeling” years most Presbyterians didn’t think much about the basement (we were squabbling about where there should and shouldn’t be walls in our Book of Order). A few went down to see what they could find to make a case for what they wanted to see happen upstairs, but that was the extent.

One is unwise to change a foundation hastily. It takes time and significant consensus, especially in the Presbyterian house.

After eight years of process, our denominational basement has an addition—a fortification and amplification of our core Reformed theology, articulated to engage issues we face in our 21st century context. After decades of divisive debates about the upstairs remodel, we have also voted to change our foundation. Now there’s a basement room dedicated to reconciliation and justice. Of course, we have a 50-year-old justice and reconciliation room that calls prophetically for the abolition of racial discrimination—a voice of reconciliation in the public square. Perhaps more circumspectly, no doubt less ambitiously, our “Belhar room” calls for reconciliation within the church … at a time when our culture is deeply divided (and lacking in justice). And not only our culture. Hundreds of congregations are seeking to depart. Our ecclesial strife is inseparable from the larger cultural divides.

Belhar attests: the gospel is fundamentally about reconciliation. Our world, our nation, our local communities desperately need reconciliation and justice. Christians know something about this… the reconciliation God has given us in Jesus Christ (as individuals, as God’s people and as God’s covenant community). This message of reconciliation is desperately needed in a world of over 65 million refugees and displaced persons, in a country polarized by vitriolic political campaigns. Belhar tells us that the church’s message is reconciliation; Belhar also tells us that we need to hear the message ourselves! Will we?

We have rich reconciliation resources—not only in Belhar but in our larger Book of Confessions. I invite you down to the basement for a look around. It’s a very cool place once you leave all the hustle and bustle going on upstairs. It’s my favorite room in our Presbyterian house.


quinn_foxQuinn Fox, associate pastor for Discipleship at National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., attended Fuller and Princeton Theological Seminaries before earning his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in the history of Christian thought. Prior to this, he served as Associate for Theology and Director of the Company of New Pastors in the Office of Theology & Worship. 

2016 National Gathering Allan Boesak Keynote

Allan Boesak presented our Monday evening keynote at the 2016 National Gathering. You can find a PDF transcript of his keynote here in addition to the recording.

Allan Aubrey Boesak was born in Kakamas, Northern Cape, South Africa in 1946, studied at the University of the Western Cape and received his PhD in Theology from the Protestant Theological University in Kampen, the Netherlands in 1976. 1976 also marks the Soweto Uprisings and Allan Boesak’s entry into public life in South Africa. Dr Boesak served the church and the ecumenical movement in various senior capacities since 1978, including as President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the first person from the global South and youngest ever to be elected into that position. Under his leadership this world body adopted the “apartheid is a heresy” declaration and suspended the two Dutch Reformed Churches from membership for their theological and moral support for and justification of the apartheid system. In 1983 Allan Boesak called for the formation of the United Democratic Front, which became the largest organised, non-racial, nonviolent anti-apartheid movement in the history of the country. Allan Boesak became its most visible leader and spokesperson until its closure by the ANC in 1991. Dr. Boesak is a preacher and teacher, and remains deeply and passionately involved in global struggles for human rights, social, economic and ecological justice, gender and sexual justice across the world. His most recent publication, Kairos, Crisis, and Global Apartheid, the Challenge for Prophetic Resistance, was published by Palgrave McMillan, 2015. Dr. Boesak is the first holder of the Desmond Tutu Chair for Peace, Global Justice and Reconciliation Studies, and founding director of the Desmond Tutu Centre for Reconciliation and Global Justice at Christian Theological Seminary and Butler University in Indianapolis.