/ 4 October 2008

Boesak to resign from church positions

Anti apartheid activist Allan Boesak is expected to resign from all his positions in the Uniting Reformed Church, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Saturday.

Boesak announced this in Hammanskraal outside Pretoria, after the church’s General Synod had discussed the question of homosexuality.

The broadcaster said Boesak used the Belhar Declaration — an anti-apartheid statement adopted by the then Dutch Reformed Mission Church in 1986, to defend his view that it was wrong to discriminate against homosexuals.

One of the delegates then accused him of abusing the declaration.

In response, Boesak reportedly told the synod that in the light of the ”serious” accusation, he would resign from all his positions in the church.

He is currently the moderator of the Cape Synod of the Uniting Reformed. – Sapa