Pat Sidley
ONE of the last vestiges of apartheid within the church has come to an end. The Apostolic Faith Mission which has always had separate churches for the different races of its adherents has decided to unite.
The process began some time ago and was expected to drag on for longer than it has. But it seems the country’s non-racial election spurred the church into hastier action and the decision was taken this month.
A prime mover in the church is the president of its black churches, the Rev Frank Chikane, who is also the outgoing general secretary of the South African Council of Churches.
The black AFM churches, which were also racially separated, moved into one group last year, voting Chikane in as its head.
During the darker days of apartheid, Chikane was defrocked by his own church for being too politically involved. And his status as a pastor was only relatively recently restored.According to Chikane this week, the white section of the church now has to see the new plans for the non-racial united AFM through its own Workers Council (the AFM’s synod). This will take place at the latest in April and then both sections of the church have two years to bring about the actual integration.This, said Chikane, was likely to happen earlier.This now leaves the white Dutch Reformed Church out on a limb. It refused to join the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern AFrica — which was formed out of the unity between the coloured and AFrican churches in the Dutch reformed familiy of churches. The DRC which houses a vociferous and vigorous minority of conservatives, has its four- yearly synod coming up next month at which the question of unity will arise again.