"Met watter gesag se U hierdie dinge?" Opmerkings oor kerklike dokumente oor die openbare lewe

Abstract

"What authority do you have to say these things?" Remarks on church documents about public issues. For a number of reasons it has become important for South African churches to reconsider the ways in which they were accustomed to speak about public issues. In the first part of the article some of these reasons are pointed out. In the second part an important study of the German Protestant Church, the EKD, addressing these issues, is analysed. In the third part an assessment is made of the contribution the German study makes to the debate on church declarations on public issues in the South African context.