The black church as the womb of black liberation theology?: Why the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) is not a genuine black church?

Abstract

This article sets forth a controversial thesis which suggests that the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa, although considered a black church, is in fact not a black church in the sense in which a radical black church is traditionally understood. A black church, it is argued, is perceived to be one that is a self-determined church which supports initiatives of ameliorating the depressive situations in which black people find themselves. References are made to black theology as a critical theology which was never accepted in the black church due to the dependency syndrome which was brought about by the white benevolence of the Dutch Reformed Church. This, it is argued, had become innate in the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa which still considers itself as a so-called daughter church of the white Dutch Reformed Church.