Christian witness at a time of African renaissance - Looking Ahead to the WCC's Eighth Assembly: African Perspectives

Ecumenical Review, The, Oct, 1997 by John W. De Gruchy

Christian witness within the public arena occurs within the tension between reality and hope. Speaking theologically, reality reflects the fallenness of humanity, something easy to demonstrate; hope, on the contrary, is reasonable but beyond proof. It is a conviction that there is meaning and purpose in life and history. It is premised on faith in the God of creation and redemption. Hope therefore discerns potential signs of renewal in the life of people, cultures and nations; it is open to the possibility of conversion and change; and it is committed to preparing the way for the coming of God's reign. If politics is the art of the actual, Christian hope seeks its transformation. Thus Christian witness has a crucial responsibility for keeping hope alive if it is to be genuinely biblical in orientation. Living and working in hope is at the heart of Christian faith and mission. It provides us with the will to participate in the transformation of society.

Christian hope is not based on illusion or wishful thinking. We must be careful to distinguish it from false hopes of utopia which lose touch with concrete reality and actually prevent us from achieving the necessary goals of conversion and social transformation. Karl Mannheim's important distinction between "abstract utopianism" and "concrete utopianism" is apposite.(4) Christian eschatology is of the latter variety. It envisions a future which embodies the reign of God revealed in Jesus Christ, and therefore in the present it seeks to express that vision in ways which are consonant with God's promise. This provides the basis for our critique of present reality and points the way forward for Christian mission.

Post-modernist critics of the "grand narrative" may well balk at such a notion. Their critique has to be taken into account. We must avoid the danger of closed systems, ecclesiastical triumphalism and ideological pretension. Christian eschatology is not a variant of philosophical idealism. But no one who takes biblical faith seriously can avoid seeing reality from an eschatological perspective and seeking its transformation. Indeed, such a "concrete utopian" vision is the only way to break free of the circularity of a closed worldview, express judgment on it and pursue the goal of a more just and humane world.

One critical implication of such "concrete utopianism" is the need for Christians to engage in careful social, cultural and political analysis in order to contribute to the public debate. In the struggle against apartheid, such analysis was significant but relatively straightforward. Despite the attempts by some to justify the unjustifiable, apartheid was clearly wrong, sinful and, theologically-speaking, a heresy. The rhetoric of struggle did not require careful and rigorous social analysis in order to be effective. But such rhetoric is no longer sufficient and carries with it the danger of "abstract utopianism". Those who have engaged in such rhetoric in the post-apartheid parliament in South Africa have found themselves sidelined by the complexities of government and social reconstruction.(5) In the same way, those churches and Christian leaders who have maintained the prophetic witness of the past within the present context have begun to discover that prophetic utterance without knowledge of reality is inadequate and often counterproductive. If the church is to engage in public life and contribute to its just reconstruction, then it must not only remain prophetic but also become far more informed about the issues. Prophetic statements without a good understanding of the issues make the church look stupid.