APPENDIX ONE
THE COVENANT PRINCIPLE AND SOCIAL ARIANISM

The personal relations within the Trinity is "the exemplar of true human community, first in the church and also in society" (Moltmann 1982, 56; see e.g., Jn 17; Eph 5:21ff). The community of the ontological Trinity is a substantial unity of one nature eternally interacting together as three, diverse hupostases. These three, eternal, self-conscious, self-determining, self-existing Personalities, also completely share consciousness, determination, and existence at the same time. The Godhead thus is a social community of love and shared righteous values (see the Trinitarian Sovereignty Principle).

Therefore, the Trinity is the model for all just community as well as just and righteous community values. These social interactions within the Godhead are the basic foundation for all good and just values found within the diversities of human culture (see Wan 1982). There is thus no truth or righteous value abstracted from God-in-Community such as the realm of "eternal form" that Plato postulated. This implies that there is no "supra-cultural" spiritual truth abstracted from a real, interacting culture. All cultures must model their individual and social values on the Trinity’s culture.

Furthermore, according to orthodox theologians throughout the ages, this ontological, Triune Community eternally exists in distinct Personal "rôles" (1) as Father, the unbegotten Source (e.g., Jn 5:26); (2) as the Son, the begotten yet not made One, who is the eternal Mediator and Word-Revealer of the Father (Jn 1:1-4; Heb 1:1-2); and (3) as the Spirit who eternally proceeds from the Father and Son, and who is the effecting Agent of the Father and Son (e.g., Ps 33:6, 104:30). The Spirit is simultaneously the Spirit of God the Father, and the Spirit of Christ, the Son (see e.g., Rom 8:9-16).

Therefore, the Father has always been the Father and "played the rôle" of Father from all eternity. The eternal Son was always the Son of the Father. The same is true of the eternal Spirit. Their hypostatic distinction and their unique, different rôle within the Godhead is from all eternity. Yet each remains fully valuable as God is every way from eternity. Each Person’s work in Creation, Revelation, Redemption, and Consummation was, then, that Person’s "natural," that is essential and eternal, rôle. There was no time when the Godhead existed as a totally rôle-less, equalitarian community as is postulated, for example, by J. Moltmann and his disciples (Moltmann ????).

When the Godhead in community decided to create, permit the Fall, redeem, and consummate the Universe, they did so as unique, distinct Person’s working, deciding, and agreeing together in justice and love. The true model of community is therefore a covenantal unity of diverse persons with differentiated rôles. Because all creation was made to reveal the Trinity’s glory, the civil, family and ecclesiastical "communities," as created by God, should reflect God’s covenantal community model: true unity and real diversity in well-functioning, righteous agreement.

Introduction to Social Arianism

The heresy of Arianism has its foundational roots in a basic non-Biblical philosophical presupposition which is very much related to philosophical Holism (see Trinitarian Sovereignty Principle). The philosophical presuppositions of Social Arianism is a that can clearly be seen as the underlying concept in much of the debate about voting rights and the justice due to individuals in society. This is true in the debate about woman in Church Office, the critique of apartheid, the demand for the lowering of voting age, and the demand that every person has a right to an equal vote because he is "a person."

Philosophical Roots of Social Arianism

Presbyterian church historian, C . Gregg Singer, describes the philosophical origins of Arianism:

Furthermore, according to philosophically holistic Arianism, "justice" demands that no person should be unjustly, that is unequally (onregmatig) placed above any other. In sum, philosophical Arianism is a basic assumption concerning the relationship between authority and being. It assumes that if two persons are equal in being and value, they must be equal in form, function, authority and role. In other words, any person that does not have equal ruling authority or final teaching authority (i.e., in any way submissive), then that person is oppressed and his equal human dignity and value is affected. Further, it destroys the image of God because that image is one and undivided. Equal value and being demands equal role and authority.

If this assumption is widely accepted by a church and a culture, then the culture has become equalitarian and individualistic. In effect, it has accepted the basic anti-Christian postulate of the French Revolution (Jacobinism).

Presbyterian author, Mary Pride, a former radical feminist, writes in The Way home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality, writes the following:

Thomas Schreiner, an expert in the Pauline literature, agrees: "A difference in role or function does not imply that women are inferior to men" (Schreiner 1995, 135). This certainly holds true for children and for those of another ethnic group that immigrate into another land. Their essential created human dignity is not affected in the least if they are denied voting rights for several years, or for that matter until at least the third generation as was the biblical rule for the immigrant alien (see Dt 23:3-8).

This does not imply, of course, that the subjective experience of that dignity may not be affected. The feeling of oppression is a powerful motivator, opening people to listen to unbalanced and even heretical teachings. This feeling often occurs in gender, race, ethnic, age, and social class inter-relationships.

Screiner summarizes the theological issues at stake:

As discussed previously, that which is an outrage to God and which leads to despising of one’s fellow man, is whether or not the law of a land and the actions of the citizens are in conformity with the specific demands of neighbor love found in the ger laws of the Pentateuch and interpreted by Jesus in his various Sermons and Parables (see Mt 7:12, 22:37-40; Lk 10:25ff). Human dignity is given to man in the fact of the Creation, not in the changing circumstances of treatment by other people in every day life. For example, those suffering in Marxist China for Jesus Christ have great and powerful dignity even though they are denied voting rights and treated with spite.

Arian equalitarianism is contrary to the revealed Creation order. The fact of differentiation of role between male and female, employer and employee, owner and worker, servant and master are fundamental creation design-norms. John Vertefeuille, writing in Sexual Chaos: The Personal and Social Consequences of the Sexual Revolution, states that sexual role differentiation is important to the proper functioning of society and is not oppressive.

He comes later to his point:

These same principles apply to children, to servants, and to an ethnic alien in a land. Oppression is not defined by differentiation and non-equality in every function, as seen in the last section.

Now in the debate over woman in church office and whether ethnic aliens should have a vote in the church (and civil government), often the high esteem that Jesus and the Apostles had for women and aliens is raised. Those who raise this point state that high esteem is incompatible with these classes being excluded from ruling and voting roles in the Church (and for that matter the civil government). However, the Scripture clearly states that aliens and woman (and servants for that matter) are to be held in high esteem (see 1Pe 3:7; Ex 22:21, 23:9), yet also give them different subordinate roles in family, society and church (1Ti 2:9ff). In the case of women, this role is based, not upon cultural or community standards, but upon the Creation and even Redemption, New Creation realities (1Ti 2:13-15; 1Co 11:3ff; Eph 5:22ff) (Weeks 1988, 126-127). Therefore, at least the woman’s role is not culturally bound.

Now if a woman, alien, child, or servant is denied a ruling, a voting and/or a teaching role, are they inferior in esteem and worth. If we answer affirmative then we must carry the logic to its extreme. Noel Weeks, does just this:

Later, Weeks applies these principles to women in church office, but they can just as well be applied to the case of children, servants, and the ethnic alien. All these relationships are specifically defined in the Law of God and in the New Testament which is in ethical continuity with that of the Old (see 1Co 14:34; Eph 6:1).

This, of course, brings the argument back full circle. Instead of submitting unreservedly to Scripture alone and totally (tota and sola Scriptura), those who argue as such, are reading into Scripture the philosophical presupposition of Arianism.

The two principles of equality of essence and submissive function are not contradictory nor are they incompatible. To make this assertion is to abandon the Reformation doctrine of the infallibility of the Scripture as taught throughout history from the pages of Scripture itself (see Sola Scriptura Principle).

Does Church and Society Presuppose Social Arianism?

Social Arianism and the Woman’s Issue

Does C&S accept this serious theological and philosophical error? The answer seems to be affirmative. Obviously, the NGK’s 1990 General Synod has approved women in all church offices though this is scarcely mention in C&S except in principle. By Synod decision females are now the exact equivalent of men in the ministry of the church. The arguments used to justify this could lead the church to propose total role-equality in the family as well.

Logically, if the General Synod of the NGK is consequent with its policy of allowing women in official church office and in confessing the sins of the church, then it must also confess their collective guilt to all the women they have oppressed for so long.

Lutheran Klaus Nürnberger, in The Cost of Reconciliation in South Africa, succinctly sums up the "costly reconciliation" Social Arianism demands:

Social Arianism and Democratic Rights

Now the Social Arian error leads directly to the ideology of the French Revolution (i.e., Jacobinism). This humanist ideology is foundational in the human rights movement. It assumes that no person must be above another: "Liberty, Equality, and Brotherhood." J. J. Rousseau and other key thinkers of the Jacobin revolution assumed that all people are born in essence free. Logically, therefore, all must be completely equal. Since social anarchy is intolerable to most humans, only the will of the whole of the people can justly be put above the free will of the individual. Thus, "democracy" as the voice of the people (vox populi) is the highest norm. This is in essence anti-Christian and idolatrous. The Romans termed this doctrine vox populi, vox Dei: the voice of the people is as the voice of God. Reformation Christianity has always asserted the contrary: lex Dei, lex populi [God’s law is the law of the people]. No state has a just right to pass and enforce a law contrary to God’s law. The state is only a servant of God (Ro 13:4ff) and hence must obey him as do all of his servants (see Ps 139).

As discussed in the Covenant Principle, C&S has a very strong tendency to the individualism that springs from the Radical Reformation. As also discussed, Jacobinism is merely a secularization of religious Radicalism. This leads necessarily to democratic individualism (see Kreitzer 1997).

C&S clearly states that every individual in the geographic boundaries of the South Africans state has the right to "political say [inspraak], participation, and activities" (C&S, 199). This implies that every individual has the human right to vote and to form a political party. This must include the right to join and form a Revolutionary party such as the South African Communist Party (SACP); the Maoist, Pan African Congress (PAC); the radical socialist African National Congress (ANC); as well as the Blanke Bevrydingsbeweging (BBB), and the various other National Socialist and Fascist parties.

NGK leadership church did not protest when the former government unbanned all of these anti-Christian and idolatrous parties in the run up to the "first democratic elections." This occurred in contradiction to the NGK’s own theological standards, especially Article 36 of the Belgic Confession which forbids the Church to hold this religious form of communalist, Jacobin opinion and by extension its secular form as well.

As further evidence that C&S has adopted several presuppositions of Jacobinism is seen in its critique of Apartheid as a system. C&S wants to consult the whole population ["die hele samelewing"] as to whether their just interests are being served ["daardeur gedien word"] (C&S, 276). There is nothing per se wrong in that. In fact Scripture teaches that wisdom comes from many counselors. However, as discussed in the Universal Equity Principle, these interests can be defined using anti-biblical, Social Democratic presuppositions. This C&S does. It advocates a moderate form of forceful income redistribution and a vote-voice (stemreg = right of a voice) for all people in civil government.

This concept is further spelled out in C&S, 278. In the context, C&S states that the voice of the majority of inhabitants of the RSA as well as that of worldwide "states and political institutions" (C&S, 278) must be "taken into consideration" (C&S, 277). The implicit agreement with these world churches and states is that the divisive apartheid policy is per definition oppressive [onderdrukkend] because it undemocratically, therefore unjustly [onregmatig] puts a minority above the majority.

These words accept three basic premises based on the concept that apartheid is oppressive and therefore unjust because (1) it limited the vote to a minority: Euro-South Africans (i.e., it was exclusive and hence not inclusive-democratic (C&S, 272-273); (2) it had as its policy forceful partition of the one country so that each ethnic group would enjoy separate freedoms in their own ethnic homelands (C&S, 283); (3) it was an attack on the voiceless majority’s "humanity" (i.e., their human right; "vergryp teen die mensheid," to vote and to be able to tax money away from the rich minority. (C&S, 278).

In other words, it seems that C&S gives too much credence to the concept which equates a Social Arian democracy with true Christianity. This would make an anti-Christian ideology the norm for judging truth, justice and oppression. That, ironically, is exactly what C&S, 15 warns against. All other forms of Christianity are "sinful" and "non-Christian."

However, to be even handed, C&S 281 does state: "In principle the right and freedom of peoples to preserve and promote their own cultural and other values are acknowledged as integral to human rights" (C&S, 281a). However, that is immediately qualified and contradicted by the following words: "provided that the rights and freedom of others are not affected thereby, and the biblical demand to love one’s neighbour and to accept one’s fellow-man are not negated" (C&S, 281b).

In other words, in a ethnically homogeneous land the freedom of a people to self-determination may be a fine ideal. However, the dogma of self-determination does not deal with the reality of South Africa with its "diversity of communities, each with their own cultural heritage and values, [who] have to live together" (C&S, 273). Exclusive love for one’s own ["vir die eie"] threatens appreciation for the values of others (see C&S, 272).

This is true if the wording implies that love for one’s own culture means the ethno-centric exclusion of any appreciation for other cultural values. However, if the implication is that a Christian civil government must incorporate value and legal pluralism into the constitution and courts, then this is anti-Christian doctrine of cultural relativism (see chapters on the sola Scriptura and universal equity principles).

This seems to be the implication of the following paragraph (C&S 273). It equates the sin of exclusivism with "absolutizing of one’s own" and with a legal and constitutional order which allows each pagan group and religion "freedom of self-expression within their own cultural milieu" (C&S, 273). Doing that, leads "to discrimination" and "can lead to injustice" (C&S, 273). Such legal and value pluralism, C&S claims, is contrary to the Golden Rule. That, of course, ignores the last half of that rule which claims that the very exclusivistic law and prophetic writings is summarized by the Great Commandment or Golden Rule. That which is the summary cannot contradict that which is summarizes (see Universal Equity Principle).

Johan Heyns, one of the major voices in C&S, and Moderator of the 1986 General Synod which approved the original version of C&S, spells out the meaning of this. In an "Godsdiensaktueel" [Contemporary Religion] column in the Johannesburg Beeld on 4 December 1990, he uses Social Arian, that is to say holist and Social Democratic assumptions to support his social theological contentions (note square brackets):

Social Arianism and the Test for Partition

The proposed test of whether land partition and race separation (Apartheid) are just is also discussed by C&S (1990).

First of all, what the Synod did not say will be discussed. A primary source will be J. A. Heyn’s article cited above:

• The church did not say that a person who becomes a believer must leave his culture behind.
• The church did not say that someone that loves Christ must or can hate his people. . . .
• The church’s judgment of apartheid did not reject one political party and support another.
• The church did not erect a certain political model display it as something worthy to be followed. . . .
• The church did not reject apartheid per se as sinful. Such an apartheid does not exist nor do we recognize such [system]. . . .
• The church never and nowhere judged and rejected the diversity of peoples, and therefore the church did not equate indigineity [eisoorigheid] with apartheid. Therefore is the rejection of apartheid not equivalent to the rejection of diversity or indigeneity [eisoortigheid]. (Heyns 1990)

Fair enough, but does this square with what the church did say. Again citing from Heyn’s article:

• The church said that it recognizes the good right of each person to love his own people and to appreciate his own cultural values. However, this love may never be exclusive and may never endanger the appreciation for other’s values and culture [see C&S, 272-273].
• The church recognizes the right and freedom of peoples to protect their own cultural values and to further, however in doing so it may not deny the right and freedom of other [peoples]. . . .
• The church has said that the basic constitution of the kingdom of God is love. . . . Neighbor love means, among other things, respect for humanity which is created in the image and likeness of God. Therefore a political policy must not allow people to suffer, to exploit, nor to discriminate. Justice must occur with respect to the individual and the group; one group may not be privileged above and at the expense of another. All must enjoy privilege and freedom and share in the same opportunities with the goal that they may gain prosperity and property.
• The church, based on these foundational principles, went and examined apartheid . . . and found that it had begun so functioning through forced separation that one group was unjustly privileged above the others, by which the humanity of the fellow man was effected and thus came in conflect with the principles of love and justice. Such apartheid was rejected. (Heyns 1990)

Discussion needed??????????

No geographic partition can be just

The clear implication of all of how Heyns interprets C&S is that no form of geographic partition or formation of a homogeneous homeland or a Calvinistic Afrikanervolkstaat [Afrikaner ethno-state] in Southern Africa can be just.

Therefore the implication is that "social justice" must be defined using presuppositions shared with Social Arian standards. Therefore justice must be (1) non-discriminating (i.e., no group can be exclusively based on gender, age, or ethno-linguistic diversity), (2) inclusive (i.e., non-exclusive, therefore unity, "a whole" is morally better than a part) and (3) value pluralist ("may never endanger the appreciation for other’s values and culture," i.e., art. 36 of the BC is wrong).

Secondly, because the "rights and freedoms" of other peoples [volke] must be respected, there can be no exclusive "group anything" allowed. That would be putting one group above another and hence would be divisive. As discussed previously, this must mean "individual rights" and/or "collective rights" of all individuals in a whole, non-divided collective?

Now, if there are only individuals as the locus of justice, there can logically be no exclusive country borders, either in South Africa or in the rest of the world. Borders must be open for all. Closed borders put one group unjustly above another. Logically this also means that Marxists, Satanists, homosexuals, AIDS sufferers, idolaters, and Islamic terrorists must have free entry. There can be no immigration control at all.

If the philosophical assumptions of Social Arianism are carried through to its logical end, both classic Liberalism (individualism) and Collectivism (social individualism) will lead to a unitary South Africa and then a unitary world-state. Furthermore, logically, there can be no exclusive one way to God through Jesus Christ. That is exclusive and puts one man above another. This leads directly to inter-faith ecumenicism and a unitary new religion. Inevitably it must be humanistic, the worship of man, because it puts man’s wisdom above God’s knowable, inerrant Word.

Thirdly, the Synod criticized all forced separation:

All forced separation, it seems, coerces the evil of exclusivity. This leads to one group being granted voting and economic privileges above another. That violates the (more or less moderate) Arian, Social Democratic equalitarian ideal that C&S seems to support. What this means in practice is that no person must serve another . All must have the same freedom and rights. To deny this foundational presupposition is to touch a person’s basic human dignity. The denial, therefore means that the Apartheid system was "in conflict with the principles of love and righteousness" in the Arian and holistic sense that C&S seems to define these terms.

Rejection of force introduces a subtle semi-Pelagianism

Lastly, the Synod seems to express a negative bias against all force. The reason, it seems, is because such force violates a person’s free choice. Because all must have the right to vote, therefore all groups must be open/inclusive and all groups must have the right to political organization ("[the right] to political say, participation, and activities; C&S, 199). The consequence is that only absolutely minimal force must be used, if at all, without a person’s consent. The implication is that that force must be democratically agreed upon. Not to do so would violate Arian social justice which states that no man can rule over another apart from his consent.

This is much closer to Rousseau’s individualistic Le Contrat Social and Jacobinism than the Reformed-Protestant Biblical Faith. There can be no syncretism between the two theories. Southern Presbyterian theologian-philosopher, Robert Dabney, describes the assumptions of the Jacobin party of the French Revolution which seem to have been adopted in C&S’ doctrine of human rights. In sum, it means: "If I haven’t given my consent, it is not just":

Dabney refutes the Social Arian assumptions of Jacobism with its doctrine of no force apart from consent:

It is interesting to note that this Arian, equalitarianism with its non-neutral policy of free non-coersed "democratic" consent, was also an Anabaptist error. Because they rejected the Old Testament definition of justice, and because they read holistic Arianism into the words of Christ, they claimed, in the words of one of their fathers:

This Anabaptist father forgets that they were not persecuted for their opinions. None of the Reformers taught that. No Anabaptist was forced by the sword to believe. Most (not all) were persecuted for their disobedience and stubborn continuance in proclaiming radical and anti-Christian doctrines and practices.

Philosophically, Anabaptism is so close to Arian Jacobinism that it indeed led to a Revolution in the times of the Reformation. This was led by the most consequent of the Anabaptist radicals, Thomas Müntzer and Jan van Leyden. The Radical Reformation in its various manifestations, some more logically consequent than others, is similar in several presuppositions to Jacobinism.

Social Arianism and the Definition of Reconciliation

Due to its holistic tendencies, C&S constantly seems to assumes "reconciliation [versoening]" means "restoration of undivided unity" or "unity out of all social division." It couples reconciliation with unity and obedience giving the impression that to have an ethnically or even gender divided church is rebellion to God’s Law (see C&S, 227: "it [the church] prays for . .. reconciliation, unity and obedience."). As we have seen, the C&S has a strong tendency to redefine sin as division: i.e., as divided socio-political structures. Reconciliation thus implies that a local church or national church must not indeed cannot be ethnically exclusive (see C&S, 67). That would be divisive and Christ, it seems C&S implies, came to reconcile, that is to unite all social divisions. This we have already seen, is contrary to Christ’s commandments and is based on anti-Biblical assumptions.

This implies, further, that a reconciling church must also be non-violent in contrast to the legitimate use of force allowed by God’s law. This seems also to be moving in the traditional anabaptist direction of pacifist, non-confrontation style of dialogue. Anabaptists have traditionally claimed that all use of force—even strong verbal confrontation and the State’s just use of the sword—is actually oppressive violence and part of this old, divided, evil world. The Church, they claim, is part of and must demonstrate a totally new world, with a totally new law, and totally new form of social arrangements, all of which nullify those distinctions and social divisions implicit in the creation and established in God’s law/word.

In addition to this, "Truth," in the view of the most consequent anabaptists and neo-anabaptists, is something that must be progressively revealed by the "spirit" who works through peaceful, non-controversial dialogue even with anti-Christians. This is in essence antinomian, that it is against God’s absolute and changing Law-word.

For example, in the following there is much to be praised, but also enough ambiguity to sense great danger of an antinomian view of truth lurking behind the beautiful rhetoric:

There are several worrying aspects of this section. Remember that the vast majority of C&S theologians hold a non-reformed, non-orthodox view of Scripture. Absolute, infallible truth can never be discovered nor communicated inerrantly. To hold to that doctrine is to be a self-righteous "fundamentalist." Truth can only be approximated in an endless give and take of dialogue and self-examination. With no absolute and unchanging law-word from a self-revealing God, then no real "acknowledgment of guilt" is possible because no-one can ever know if he is right or wrong absolutely. The only guilt that is possible is the deep existential angst, the feeling of rejection and shame in the presence of one’s ecumenical colleagues who are proclaiming the latest version of eco-feminism, spiritual ecology, or the vision of inter-faith unity. Without God’s law, C&S opens the door to the slavery of desiring to be more pleasing to men than God (see Jn 12:42; Ro 2:29).

C&S’ view of the church’s mission is essentially Radical and socially antinomian. In its essence, being antinomian, it is actually revolutionary, that is desiring the total overthrow of existing social structures (non-violently, of course). The Church is a "unique . . . people of God’s own possession [eiendomsvolk]" (232) and "a window to God’s imminent new world" (C&S, 72). This uniqueness is "kingdom oriented," that is something different from the created order. "In its very existence [it must] establish a visible symbol and concrete expression of the Kingdom of God" (C&S, 229).

Furthermore, the church must be "...for all sectors of society . . . a living display window of what God in his grace accomplishes" (C&S, 229). What does God’s grace accomplish? A totally new social structure. "In contrast to the social structures emanating from creation, the church is the only social structure which is the fruit of God’s re-creation" (C&S, 230). In other words, though not explicitly stated here, in the kingdom of the Christ proclaimed by C&S, there are no more male and female creation distinctions, no more social class distinctions (slave and free), nor ethnic distinctions, but "reconciled" oneness in a holistic "Christ."

According to social antinomian and Radical assumptions, the church must indeed be a reconciler/unifier of all social division (gender, ethnic, age and class). Such a holistically reconciled Church is a sign/window of the coming holistic, classless, non-sexist, non-ageist, and non-ethnic lawless, "perfection" of the Kingdom. That reconciling Kingdom, they claim, makes all things new by destroying the old and divided world and all the social bonds that are derived form the creation (see C&S, 230 cited below).

Of course, this is contrary to the Law of God which Paul claims establishes created male-female distinctions (1Co 14:34; 11:8; 1Ti 2:11ff), does not overturn master-slave relations (1Co 7:20ff; Eph 6:5ff; 1Ti 6:1ff, et al); nor depreciate ethnic identity created by God (Ac 17:26ff; Ro 9:1ff; 11:11ff) and to be actually redeemed and reconciled to God in the future as it is now reconciled in potential (2Co 5:17-18).

However, the spirit of C&S’ Christ is one who "can completely renew human relations" (C&S, 230). Such renewed believers must not acquiece in the church’s divisions: "The divisions [gebrokenheid = dividedness] within the church must not be accepted as normal" (C&S, 72). Its "enmity and hate . . ., falsehood . . ., division . . ., violence and confrontation" must be overcome with "love . . ., truth . . ., unity . . ., reconciliation and peace"  (C&S, 72). Everything must be done to restore reconciled-unity from the "fragmented reality" as the first priority:

Methodist minister, Lecturer in Pastoral Theology at Rhodes University, Thomas Cunningham explains the philosophy behind these words. In the context, he is speaking about an ethnically homogeneous people’s church:

As we have seen, this is clearly antinomian and anti-Reformed-Protestant. Therefore it is not Biblical. The Bible says that God restores all the societal bonds of the First Creation without destroying them. Louis Berkhof’s discussion of anabaptist presuppositions cited above in the section on Anabaptism demonstrates this clearly.

C&S, thus, in adopting rhetoric which is so similar to a definition of the new Creation as an absolute undivided Newness, rejects Biblical norms.

C&S tries desperately to remove itself from the accusation that it has fallen into a sectarian trap by claiming that the Church as the New Creation is not an "alternative [communal-equalitarian] community" as modern Radicals such as John Howard Yoder and others claim it is. However, the whole passage below contradicts that attempt to escape from the rhetoric of the Radical Reformation.

In contrast to the social structures emanating from creation, the church is the only social structure which is the fruit of God’s re-creation. It is in fact the first-fruit of his new creation. The church is not intended to be an alternative society replacing existing social structures. Within society it must be an exemplary fellowship. It ought to be a fellowship that serves as an example to all, and in it’s very existence no only protest against sin and oppose it in all its forms in society, but also provide an inspiring example of the power of the Holy Spirit who can also completely renew human relationships...." (C&S, 230).

Compare this with what Johan Retief of the NGSK (NG Mission Church) has written in his Katkisasie (Catechism). He calls the Church an "an alternative community . . . a new community in the full sense of the word." He then adds in explanation:

C&S seems to share the Radical Reformation’s claim that the "reconciled," individualistic-equalitarian church is the only reconciling and unifying fruit of the new creation: "the church is the only social structure which is the fruit of God’s re-creation" (C&S, 230). In other words, to borrow the category of H. Richard Niebuhr, "Christ is against Culture." The Reformation’s witness was the opposite: the family, state, school, and economy can also be "Christ transformed" and thus become part of the new creation as they are renewed and reconciled to God by the faith-obedience of men who apply the King’s Law—both Old and New Testaments—to every human institution.

The unified witness of the Reformed-Protestant movement was that family and civil governments, school, and economy can be transformed. They can, thus, become part of the New Creation and God’s Kingdom as they are renewed and reconciled to God by the faith and obedience of men who apply the Law of the King to every human institution.

The contention that C&S adopts a "holistic" concept of reconciliation is not mere speculation. Two further illustrations will substantiate the point. Former moderator of the NGK, Johan Heyes, and a member of the committee that produced C&S, states that reconciliation helps restore social division, which in turn is the cause of great evil:

Contrary to what Heyns states, the church’s task is not to restore all socio-political, religious, economic division. This is his actual definition of reconciliation if his presuppositions are logically followed through to their inevitable conclusion. He sees that conclusion and desperately tries to escape it in the last sentences and other sections of the article from which I did not quote. It is also certainly not true that interpersonal and intergroup polarisation leading to social fragmentation and division is the cause of violence. That is a basic social democratic and marxian assumption. Social division is the cause of revolutionary violence.

Even though Johan Heyns refuses to admit it, his antinomian presuppositions must ultimately lead to the destruction of all diversity. This leads ultimately to the radical Revolutionary Socialist’s dream of the ideal communal society without gender, age, social class, and ethno-cultural divisions. Why is this true? All forms of Socialism, including the social democracy of the USA and Western Europe, teach that the unity and equality of the whole population is more important than any individual or his God-given, Biblically defined legal rights. This is especially true of a persons inalienable legal right of private property. Once the door is opened to relativize true diversity as expressed in these covenantal-legal rights, then the evil of anti-Trinitarian and antinomian "justice and reconciliation for everyone" [i.e., every individual] destroys all forms of freedom for any smaller portion of the whole population (i.e., gender group, individual rights, political and ecclesiastical self-determination for ethno-cultural groups, etc.).

Furthermore, the task of the Church and State is also not to seek to give everyone equal opportunities and possibilities, as the author desperately tries to suggest as a way out of the logical conclusion of his presuppositions. Even to produce equal opportunity would mean drastic socialist wealth redistribution programs based on theft and statist war on the citizens. This Social Democratic option is just as repugnant to God and his holy, righteous, and just Law as is the Democratic Socialist/Revolutionary option.

Johan Retief’s proposed Catechism provides a second illustration. He also defines "reconciliation" using antinomian, holistice presuppostions:

Is this biblically accurate? Does the Gospel remove all political, ethnic, linguistic and gender distinctions (i.e., in Retief’s words, "barriers")? According to Scripture, man is reconciled to God by removing the rebellion of men and the just wrath of God that the engendered. Sin and wrath destroyed the relationship of God and man. Christ’s work removed that barrier to relationship yet did not destroy the fundamental Creator-Creature division (1Co 5:17ff; Ro 3:24ff; 5:9-11).

The exact opposite is true. The dividing barrier ["wall of separation"] between God and redeemed mankind is even more firmly established and respected—not removed. Sinful man, in fact, tried to be "reconciled" to God in the Garden by being "as God, knowing [i.e., determining for himself] good and evil."

In addition, reconciliation between individuals, people, and peoples comes when the disobedience to the Law of God that created enmity in the first place is repented of and made right. This is clearly seen in the example Christ uses in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:23-26). "Being reconciled to your brother" did not mean removing gender, age, ethnic, social class distinctions/barriers between the brothers. Least of all does it mean removing the sexual purity barriers between families, or the barriers between the rich and poor found in the right to private use of private property in the Eighth and Tenth Commandments.

A person is not reconciled to my brother by offering him his wife nor allowing the state to redistribute to the poor his honestly gained wealth. Reconciliation is "remembering that your brother has something against you" and "going and making it right" in terms of God’s Law-word. Reconciliation between a man and his wife (see 1Co 7:11) does not remove the role distinctions created in the Creation order. It means to repent of the sin which caused the separation (especially the sin against the New Testament role orders!) and then making it right so that God’s shalom (i.e., creation order and harmony) can be restored in the family. Exclusiveness is not per se sin. Inclusiveness is not by definition "reconciling" whether the inclusiveness applies to the church, state, or family spheres.

True reconciliation will begin when leaders who are working day and night to destroy the Afrikaner’s biblical right of self-determination and hence his political borders repent of that sin. Without such repentance and the subsequent restitution flowing from that repentance, there never will be peace and reconciliation in Southern Africa. Borders—respected and honored by all preserve peace.

Modern religious Jacobins forget, or ignore, the biblical doctrine that all men are born or placed by God under government. A child and a wife, although of the same human essence as the husband and father, have a God-ordained different and subordinate role. The same applies to an employee. The owner has a right to do with his own what he wishes, within the constraints of the specifics of God’s Law (Ex 20:15, 17; Mt 20:15). The employee must obey. This applies also to prisoners (the modern equivalent of slaves), and for ethnic aliens in a land. They have no natural right to determine the laws of a land. God alone does. That brings us again to the point made earlier: "Disobedience to the specifics of God’s Law-word is the sin of apartheid, not refusal to extend voting rights, nor ethnic exclusiveness, nor forced geographical partition." Social Arianism is anti-Christian and must be repented of.

The source of authority in a land comes from God and His Law-word. The aggregate of equal individuals who freely and "democratically" elect a government are not the source of Law. As Dabney pointed out, that is Hobbes’ Jacobin theory. No just civil governor needs a mandate to enforce what is right. What is right is defined solely by God’s Law (BC, art. 36). All good men rejoice in justice (Pr 21:15). Even evil men know the ordinance of God that homosexuals, promiscuous individuals, murders, etc. deserve the death penalty (lit. Gk. Ro 3:32). All men have God’s one Law inscribed upon their hearts (Ro 2:16-16. True natural Law is God’s Law. Social Arianism is thus rebellion against God’s law order.

Furthermore, just civil government, as Dabney pointed out, was always based on covenanted families led by their male covenantal heads. God has so ordained the world at Babel that people of the same language, because they are part of a large inter-married extended family, live and communicate together. God says that their civil government must be first an obedient and impartial servant of God in Christ (Ps(s) 2, 72, 82, 94:20-21; Isa 10:1-2; Jer 21:12, 22:3, 16-17, 23:1ff; Ro 13:4), then he must be a servant of his people (citizens) (Ro 13:4f; cf. Dt. 1:9-18, 17:14-20). The Law and the Prophets are full of the testimony that peoples are responsible and accountable to God as ethno-covenantal groups. They lose their independence through disobedience to God’s Law-word (see Lev 18:26-28; Jer 1:10, 9:25, 12:14-17; 18:5-10; 46-51; etc.).

Therefore, no Christian government from a covenantally Christian people can justly submit its citizens to an alien people with their alien gods and alien law-systems (except as a curse from God!). This violates their covenantal Right to Liberty to serve and obey God alone (1st and 2nd Commandments). Furthermore, it violates their covenantal Right of Contract. Do the majority of Afrikaners, voting collectively, have the right to make themselves and even the majority of non-Euro South Africans the slaves of a Xhosa dominated, atheistic minority? No. Afrikaner families, coerced by the British imperium, contracted together (granted, together with British citizens) to form a free nation under God. For the majority of Euro-South Africans, even the majority of Afrikaners to vote away the right of liberty/freedom of minority of their own people, not only violates that Contract, but is equivalent to kidnapping, a capital crime (Ex. 21:16). Once a people has a covenantally Christian civil government from its own people, only God’s curse can take it away. No referendum for a New South Africa will be just according to the standards of Divine Law.

Secondly, C&S’ social Arianism and its critique of apartheid ignores the question of who owns the land? It is not an accident that Afrikaners own, not all, but a large proportion of the land, justly gained. Reformed-Protestants belief in Divine Sovereignty. All the people as equal individuals do not own all the land as the ANC’s Jacobin democratic propaganda leads us to belief. Ultimately God owns the land and has given it to a people to exercise divine dominion and divine justice therein (Lev. 18:26ff, 25:23; Dt. 10:14; Ps. 24:1, 37:9-11, 27-32; Pr. 2:21-22; 1 Cor. 10:26). To give away "all the land to all the people" violates the Right of Property.

Thirdly, the C&S’ social Arianism and its critique of Apartheid ignores the question of who owns the family? God who has delegated the education of the family, its financing and control to parents. Therefore to submit all schools to the "people" who will forcibly teach alien ideologies very possibly in an alien language, is violation of the God-given Right of Family.

Fourthly, to turn over the control and ultimate ownership of the property, industry, and legal system of the Afrikaner to the "People" because no one must be above another, and no forced separation or exclusivity is just, must ultimately violate the very Right to Life itself. This holistic-socialist, Arian Philosophy always leads to poverty, unjust coersion, murder, and death.

Therefore, property owning citizens of the various national states, including the Afrikaner in his justly and historically owned areas, have the biblical right to expel (forcibly if necessary) ethnic aliens who wish to steal their property, their children, and their blood bought liberty under God. This is derived from the defensive "sword right" of civil government. These people are no longer the alien [ger] of the biblical Law, but an invading "Midianite" army. The sin of Apartheid is not inequality, force nor subordination but violating God’s specific Law-word which commands total civil government impartiality and that there be one Law for both citizen and alien. Both petty apartheid and income redistribution are sinful and anti-Christian.

Am I reading all these logical extremes in? Yes. But the logic must be pushed. Once the door to apostasy is opened, the logic of the error is pushed, generation by generation, until it leads to total chaos and anarchy. God’s judgment must then come on the totally anti-Christian nature of the society . Without repentance, the logic will be carried out, even though at present, it still appears, perhaps, quite moderate.

Lastly, this is the policy of a political party even though church leaders deny it. C&S is not politically neutral.17 The NGK theologians have taken a choice, a religious, political and philosophical choice. It is not Trinitarian Christian. Some, such as Johan Kinghorn, have shown the political implications of this philosophy.