Almost 25 years after Dr Beyers Naudé fell out with the Dutch Reformed Church, his status as minister has been re-conferred on him – this time by the church's black offshoot.
Naudé was heading for the leadership position in the church but differed with the church hierarchy over the question of the morality of apartheid policies.
In 1963, he lost his status as a minister in the NGK when he became the first director of the Christian institute. In 1977 Naudé was banned for five years.
He has now been reinstated as a minister in the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk in Afrika. He disclosed this while delivering his keynote address to the newly-established Ecumentical Documentation Centre in Eastern and Southern Africa symposium last week.
He became a member of the Alexandra congregation but was not able to preach or participate in church activities in the township because he was banned.
After leaving his post as general secretary of the South African Council of Churches he had approached "my pastor in Alexandra, Rev Sam Buti, and I insisted and pleaded with him that I should be given the opportunity to apply.
He had done so "not because the status as a minister is of any basic importance to me as a Christian, but because of the significance of that action on the part of the Black Dutch Reformed Church in proving its independence of the pressure of the white NGK". – Elnews
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
