Pat Sidley
THE new unity within the black churches of the Dutch Reformed family is being beset with bitter claims by black congregants for the land their churches have stood on for decades.
The issue of land in the church rose after the Dutch Reformed Mission church (coloured) and Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (black) united earlier this year, forming the Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa.
It should have been simple to transfer the land titles of each church into the name of the new church. However, title to much of the land is owned by the white church, complicating the process — and raising other issues.
Much church property in this country was originally owned by missionaries; the Dutch Reformed Church was no exception. Apartheid laws, combined with African concepts of land use and ownership, ensured that the title to much of the land used by the black churches was almost never registered in the names of black owners.
In some areas, land occupied by a church, its school and the community it served was declared a “black spot” and the people moved off. In time, the church sold some of the land. The process of retrieving that land, and other sites still used by churches, has become a quest by black members of the Dutch Reformed family for restitution. If the church wants to talk about reconciliation and unity, say Uniting officials, this is the way to show it.
The white church, so far, is deflecting the issue with a complicated ownership system and denials that the church at central synodical level should become involved.
The struggle in the DRC family is symbolic of the greater land battle in South Africa and symptomatic of a unique church problem. Millions of hectares of land are owned by churches which often don’t know what they own, don’t want to account for it and certainly do not wish it to be the centre of a dispute. But they are now being called to account.
Transfer duty further complicates the issue: it is costly, and the Uniting church would like the government to waive it, on the basis that much of the land should have been in black hands anyway.
Johannesburg advocate Christie Kilowan, who has been part of the youth structures of the (former) Dutch Reformed Mission Church, has suggested to the new church that it needs to set up a commission to look thoroughly into the matter of land and transfer duties.
The issue, however, is not even on the agenda at next month’s general synod of the white DRC — nor is it likely to be taken up by the moderature, unless its hand is forced.