(Cape Town: Vineyard International
Publishing, 2005.)
Reviewed by Nathan Rieger
Some writers are called prophetic for their predictions
about the future, but Alexander Venter earns the term in the manner of the
prophets of old. He confronts harsh political reality like Amos, presents God’s
preferred future like Micah, calls for repentance like John the Baptist, and
declares God’s restitution to the poor like Mary. It is a firsthand and
anguished jeremiad of the past abominations of apartheid, as well as a hopeful
and helpful walk out of its devastation, and into Shalom. All this he calls Doing
Reconciliation.
This book was commissioned in the heat of conflict by the
Association of Vineyard Churches of South Africa, and so carries some corporate
authority. It also carries the personal history of one who participated in
apartheid and then renounced it and made the journey to the other side of the
tracks. Together with his fellow pastor, a black man from the slums of Soweto,
this stunning story emerges in a way that rivets the reader to the pages. They
are not shy about telling the truth of the betrayal and complicity of the
church in the apartheid years. You will find yourself gripped with anger, then
hope.
Because of the transparent humility of the writers we have
been given a great gift in this book. We get an inside look – inside their
hearts, inside the church, and inside the townships – at how such terrible
oppression was made to seem innocuous in the years when it held sway. And in
telling the story of the church in South Africa, we in North America are given
a mirror to see ourselves, where, perhaps without the overt legislation by
which South Africa separated class and race, we continue to enjoy the rewards
of colonialism here. And next to the repentance of our white brothers and
sisters in Africa, our self-delusions of innocence lie exposed as neither subtle
nor mild, yet all this is done without pointing fingers.
Doing Reconciliation is ultimately a book about the hope of
the Kingdom of God that has broken in to our divided world, and the why’s and
how’s of its working to bring unity to broken humanity. Venter is convinced
that practicing reconciliation at all levels of human existence is a sign of
the Kingdom, just as Jesus said healing and the casting out of demons was. Venter
covers not only the divide of race but also those of economics and gender. He
laments the dualism between faith and life, faith and politics, faith and
almost anything meaningful to those who suffer, and he points a way past this
divide. His theological mentors, Bonhoeffer and George Ladd among others,
combine to forge in his thought a unique theological contribution that has
special relevance for us in the Vineyard movement, but also dialogues well with
the church ecumenical. Doing Reconciliation is story; it’s theology, and it’s a
working manual.
For those of us that believe that some great truths can only
be learned in places of oppression and among the poor, for us that long to
encounter Christ in the faces of the dispossessed, this theology of
reconciliation will renew hope that out of ashes, much beauty has already begun
to come; walking the path Venter points to will bring much more.
Nathan Rieger is a pastor at Winnipeg Centre Vineyard.