Word: boesak
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...nearly 2 a.m. when officials emerged from a closed-door meeting in a church near Cape Town, South Africa, last week and presented the good news to a waiting Allan Boesak: he had been cleared of adultery charges and fully reinstated as a minister of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church. The ecclesiastical council's judgment had been anxiously awaited both in South Africa, where Boesak is the most articulate foe of apartheid among the country's "colored" (mixed-race) population, and internationally. He is president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, with a constituency of 50 million Protestants...
Should "the meaning of this relationship" turn out to include adultery, Boesak's career and influence would almost certainly be shattered, not only because of the affair but because he denied it. Last week, after a lengthy conference, a special three-member Mission Church panel decided to refer his case to the full Ring (regional circuit) of the church for decision. This week executives of the South African Council of Churches will hold their own emergency meeting on the situation. Any Mission Church decision to suspend or defrock the clergyman would have a wide, wounding ripple effect. Boesak would have...
...closed doors and dissenting voices were sometimes ignored in an effort to create an impression of unity. Even so, the question of developing a consistent political role for the church could not be avoided. The most forceful call for change came from South African Colored Dutch Reformed Minister Allan Boesak. After condemning repressive regimes with no respect for human rights, he singled out his homeland, where oppression is "carried out by Christians in the name of Christ...