Allan Boesak
South African churchman. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report describes him as president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 1982 and credits him with promoting its resolution declaring apartheid a heresy.
The report of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission describes Dr Allan Boesak as president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches at the time of its meeting of 1982, and says that his influence in promoting the resolution that declared apartheid a heresy, adopted by the Alliance and afterwards by the World Council of Churches and many of its member churches, was of far-reaching significance (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Report, vol. 4, ch. 3, para. 89). It lists him among those opponents of apartheid who rose to positions of leadership in their churches (Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Report, vol. 4, ch. 3, para. 64).
For the wording of the Alliance’s declaration, as a member church quoted it, see the Churches and Apartheid (United Church of Canada, Apartheid as Heresy (1984), preamble and first resolve). This entry states only what those documents say.
In the timeline
- 1982 to 1986, firm dateThe Churches and Apartheid
Between 1982 and 1986 the Reformed world alliance calls the theological defence of apartheid a heresy, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church adopts the Belhar Confession, and the Kairos Document appears. The Dutch Reformed Church, which had sanctioned apartheid, later confesses it.