Center for Reformation and Contemporary History Studies

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The center for reformatory and contemporary history studies ( afrikaans : Sentrum vir Reformatoriese en Kontemporêre Studies , English : Center for Reformist and Contemporary Studies ), abbreviated to SERKOS or CERCOS, is a South African non-profit organization closely related to the NGK and based in Pretoria . It was founded by circles of the African People's Front, founded in 1989 , a right-wing Boer organization in the environment of the African resistance movement . According to his own account, it emerged from the former Anti-Communist Action Commission (ANTIKOM) of the three Reformed churches of the Afrikaans .

Activities and connections

The Witwatersrand University lists the organization together with right-wing extremist organizations in South Africa. The main aim of the Center for Reformation and Contemporary History Studies is to disseminate opposing positions to so-called liberation theology in southern Africa ; What is meant is the suppression of concepts of contextual theology rooted in anti-ecumenical positions . The center is intended to prevent the infiltration of other political-religious concepts into the Boer-influenced Reformed Protestant churches in countries in southern Africa such as Namibia , Zimbabwe and South Africa . For this purpose, a lively literature developed, which appears in several languages ​​if necessary. A recurring position deals with the view that the ANC and the South African Council of Churches are communist organizations. According to its own account, the center carries out "research on communism , humanism and other secular philosophies that threaten biblical Christianity and the Reformation heritage"

Connections developed to the publisher proTEST - Information Service for Committed Christians in Southern Africa in Krugersdorp (Kenmare district), whose representative the German-born theologian Paul-Gerhard Kauffenstein said in the foreword of a SERKOS brochure published in 1990 that through the SERKOS's journalistic work, education about the worldwide "Socialist revolution" and about "dangerous effects of liberation theology and the activities of the South African [SACC] and the world church council that supports it " in South Africa. Kauffenstein was also the leading actor in the working group of Confessing Christians in Southern Africa, the Cross in the South , which spoke out against anti-apartheid positions of the South African Church Council and had an office in Bergisch Gladbach around 1990 in the form of a registered association.

Center periodicals

  • October '46 , a quarterly magazine
  • SERKOS KOMPAS

literature

  • Catholic Institute for International Relations: Right-Wing Christian Groups . In: Review of African Political Economy, Fundamentalism in Africa: Religion and Politics. Vol. 52, November 1991, pp. 88-93 ( download link )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Historical Papers, University of the Witwatersrand , Independent Board of Inquiry: Right-Wing Directory Independent Board of Inquiry (IBI) Records 1989–1996, Collection A G2543, Johannesburg 2012, PDF document, p. 38, on www. historicalpapers.wits.ac.za (English)
  2. ↑ a b c d Chris L. Jordaan: The African National Congress [ANC] and the churches in South Africa , Pretoria 1990, self- description on the back cover, ISSN  1015-3152
  3. ↑ Jordaan: The African National Congress , 1990, p. 9
  4. ↑ P. van der Kooi: The ANC. Teenoor die reformeerde (christelike) geloof en lewensbeskouing , brochure of SERKOS, Studiestuk No. 1, Herfs 1989, published online in: Die Kerkpad, Vol. 3, No. 4, July 1999, on www.home.mweb.co.za (Afrikaans)
  5. ^ Namibiana book depot: German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia ELKIN (DELK) . on www.namibiana.de
  6. ↑ Jordaan: The African National Congress , 1990, pp. 5, 32
  7. ^ Catalog of the German National Library: Bibliographical reference

Remarks

  1. ↑ This reference to contextual theology is a response to Allan Boesak's essay Liberation Theology in South Africa , published in: African Theology En Route: papers from the Pan African Conference of Third World Theologians , December 17-23, 1977, Accra, Ghana, edited by Kofi Appiah-Kubi and Sergio Torres. In it Boesack makes the postulate: "Black liberation theology is a situational theology" (German for example: "Black liberation theology is a situation-related theology"). Quoted and explained in: Gisela Albrecht, Hartwig Liebich (Red.): Confession and Resistance. Churches of South Africa in conflict with the state. Documents for the investigation of the South African Church Council by the Eloff Commission , Missionshilfe Verlag, Hamburg 1983, p. 244, in the chapter: Oral explanations by Dr. Allan Boesack before the investigative commission , pp. 240–250
  2. ↑ Exact adoption of the quote, also in the atypical typography with square brackets. With SACC the South African Council of Churches is meant.
  3. ↑ The designation of this working group as the Confessing Church is not to be equated with the same term (although it alludes to it), which is found in the resolution on South Africa with regard to the status confessionis during the conference of the Lutheran World Federation in Dar es Salaam in 1977 . Explained in: Gisela Albrecht, Hartwig Liebich (Red.): Confession and Resistance. Churches of South Africa in conflict with the state. Documents on the investigation of the South African Church Council by the Eloff Commission , Missionshilfe Verlag, Hamburg 1983, p. 244 as well as in the chapter: Wolfram Kistner (1983): An answer to the description of the work of the Department for Justice and Reconciliation of the South African Church Council (SACC) in the report of the South African police , pp. 251–284