As many have noted, the idea of separation and differentiation, of dividing and consigning, is a prominent theme throughout the first chapters of Genesis as the world is being described.” The concept of separation and division, the making of things that are different essentially, each having an identity and self-action, controls much of the further presentation of material in the book of Genesis. But in particular it is that which gives the cultural mandate to man to develop (differentiate) the whole earth its concrete content and meaning.
We learn then from Scripture that no choice has to be made between unity and sameness in Christ and having distinct earthly identities. In other words, no appeal to the dynamic directive of redemption to be one in Christ can be made to determine the structures of earthly, institutional life. Both unity in Christ and differentiation in creation are very good, the former representing God’s work in redemption, the latter, which data relevant theory investigates, God’s work in creation. Oneness in Christ is no alternative to natural separations and differences in the world and hence is no alternative to a social theory of separate cultural development.
Stated in general terms, God’s act of creation is an act of separation, definition, and law-giving. The unity of things is a moral and religious principle, not an alternative definition of what being should be like. In fact the unity of things is dependent, according to Christian faith, on their distinctiveness in being. If the central ecclesiastical argument against Apartheid is that its idea of separation contradicts the biblical idea of reconciliation in Christ, then the ecclesiastical critics are simply theologically wrong, cashing in on a biblical and religious idea to legitimate a taken-for-granted “natural theology” of integrationism for which they are dependent on the homogenizing philosophy of modern, British political liberalism. Though there is a moral and emotive point to the outcry that Apartheid is a heresy, in substance this charge is a simplicism that is unbecoming of the best of Reformed social thought and practice.
Dr. Henry Vander Goot
Former Professor of Religion and Theology,
Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
“Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis in the Reformed Community Today” , pgs. 111-112
