"Jesus is Lord" as the Hope of Reconciliation
"Jesus is Lord"
About the author: Ashwin Afrikanus Thyssen is a Junior Lecturer in the Department of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology at Stellenbosch University, specializing in church history, church polity, and religion and law. His current research investigates the intersection of race, sexuality, and religion.
“Jesus is Lord” has been the ecumenical church’s confession since the apostolic age. Today, of course, these words continue to resonate throughout the world in their varied vernaculars. During the tumultuous days of 1980s apartheid South Africa, a Reformed denomination—namely, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC)—would express this creedal conviction through its articulation of the Belhar Confession.
Today, some decades later, it may prove helpful to return to some key insights that may be garnered from both Barth and the confessional tradition that has shaped the Belhar Confession. To do this, the present reflection draws Barth’s treatment of Christian hope in conversation with Belhar’s conception of reconciliation.
Barth’s Christological Hope
In Volume IV of Church Dogmatics, Barth spends a great deal of time discussing reconciliation. In his treatment, it is exceptionally clear that reconciliation must be read through the lenses of Christology. Soon after the publication of the English edition, Bromiley notes that for Barth:
“Jesus Christ in His personal work as the God who humbles Himself [sic] and therefore reconciles man with Himself, and, secondly, by viewing Him as the man who is exalted by God and therefore reconciled with Him. In this way Barth has sought to do justice to the traditional discussion on the highpriestly (sic) and kingly offices of Christ.” [1]
Reconciliation is, therefore, actualized in and through the threefold office of Christ. Reflecting the depth of this reconciliation, Barth writes “Man’s reconciliation with God takes place through God’s putting Himself in man’s place and man’s being put in God’s place, as a sheer act of grace. It is this inconceivable miracle which is our reconciliation.”[2] Because of this reconciliation, Barth maintains that the Christian hopes in Jesus Christ, “in Him alone, but in Him confidently. For He alone, but dependably, is the origin, theme and content of his hope.”[3] Informed by this profound awareness, the Christian faithful are summoned by the free Word of God to live as a reconciled people.
Belhar and Boesak
When the DRMC drafted and adopted the Belhar Confession, it did so as a response to a socio-political reality, namely apartheid South Africa.[4] Taking seriously the World Alliance of Reformed Churches’ call for a status confessionis, the denomination sought to correct the heresy that suggested that God created a hierarchy of human races, that it was the divine will that racial segregation be the polity of both society and church.[5] Offering a corrective, the DRMC expressed the belief that it believes “that God has entrusted the church with the message of reconciliation in and through Jesus Christ.”[6] Affirming this belief, it also boldly rejected
“any doctrine which, in such a situation sanctions in the name of the gospel or of the will of God the forced separation of people on the grounds of race and colour and thereby in advance obstructs and weakens the ministry and experience of reconciliation in Christ.”
Because unity is both a gift and an obligation, the Christian faithful bear the responsibility of committing themselves to the work of reconciliation. Like Barth, the Confession holds that Christian hope can only be actualized in and through Christ. The work of the church, then, is to witness to this hope—not to fall into the temptation of presenting itself as the hope but reflecting Christ to humanity. Offering the Confession for adoption by other Reformed denominations and reflection by the ecumenical community, the DRMC also provided the Accompanying Letter, writing, “We believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ offers hope, liberation, salvation and true peace to our country.”[7] I contend that it is through hope, as described by Barth, that the denomination could commit itself to the work of reconciliation.
Some years ago, Boesak offered a warning against too quickly using hopeful language. Drawing on Augustine of Hippo, he says “Hope has two daughters: Anger and Courage.” Personalizing Hope in this way, Boesak contends, “The Anger of Hope means that one refuses to accept something that is wrong, to put up with what is driving one to despair. The Courage of Hope means to have the firm resolve to pull oneself to one’s feet and to attack injustice, even if one has to pay a price for doing so.”[8] Doing the work of reconciliation, the church does so by taking its stand with Christ who embodies reconciliation.
And so, taking our place to stand where God stands, the church is invited to experience the present anger. The anger of a world at war with itself—in Gaza, Ukraine, and Congo. Still, this anger ought not to have the final word; the church is also charged with the task of being courageous: confronting the violence of disunity, calling to account harmful ideologies propagating half-truths. Boesak reminds us, that standing where God stand is “the only place from where we can make the affirmation to which the Confession of Belhar clings: ‘Jesus is Lord.’”[9]
Today Barth offers us the reminder that it is indeed Christ who is the one reconciling. Boesak challenges our use of the language of hope, arguing for it as a revitalizing force that can aid the Christian faithful. As we think about the promise that the Belhar Confession may symbolize, Barth prompts us to confess our faith freely; in a way the DRMC did. After outlining how the church ought to stand where God stands—that is, through the work of unity, reconciliation, and justice—the Belhar Confession encourages the faithful to do so in true obedience. Through this obedience—faithfulness to the One, who is at work reconciling the cosmos to himself—the church can proclaim in hopeful freedom that, indeed, Jesus is Lord!
[1] Ronald Wallace, “Barth Doctrine of Reconciliation,” The Expository Times (1957), 21.
[2] Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline (2020), 115.
[3] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3 § 73, 235.
[4] Mary-Anne Plaatjies-Van Huffel, “The Belhar Confession: born in the struggle against apartheid in southern Africa,” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae (2013).
[5] J.C. Adonis, “The History of Belhar,” in Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif (2003), 235.
[6] “Addendum 15: Confession of Belhar,” in Belhar Confession: The Embracing Confession of Faith for Church and Society, ed. Mary-Anne Plaatjies-Van Huffel and Leepo Modise (2017), 493.
[7] “Addendum 15: Confession of Belhar,” Belhar Confession, 423.
[8] Allan Boesak, Dare We Speak of Hope?: Searching for a Language of Life in Faith and Politics (2014), 44.
[9] Allan Boesak, “To Stand Where God Stand: Reflection on the Confession of Belhar after 25 Years,” Belhar Confession, 423.
The promise in the subheading Belhar, Boesak, and Botman seemed only partially fulfilled. Where is Botman in this treatment?