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Rev Riaan de Villiers | A wake-up call to the Church this Easter | News24

Riaan de Villiers

17 April 2025

Reverend Riaan de Villiers asks that in 2025, what injustices are unfolding before our very eyes that the church is silent on – or worse, complicit in?

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On the Wednesday of Holy Week this year, I stood next to the Slave Tree memorial in Cape Town, offering a prayer as part of a Stations of the Cross walk through the city. We began in District Six, stopping at 14 sites – each one a witness to the suffering woven into our city’s past and present, each one echoing with the pain of the crucified Christ.

The Slave Tree stands just metres from a church where, for nearly 200 years, people gathered Sunday after Sunday to worship the God of freedom while others were bought and sold like livestock on the church’s doorstep.

How many Easters came and went without that contradiction being questioned?

In 2025, we must ask again: what injustices are unfolding before our very eyes today that the church is silent on – or worse, complicit in?

‘The gospel is not a tourist route’

This Easter, as Christians proclaim “Christ is risen!”, we must ask whether our lives as believers of the Easter story truly reflect resurrection.

Jesus was not crucified for Easter eggs, long weekends and niceties. He was executed because he broke boundaries – loving too freely, healing on the wrong days, confronting power and welcoming those deemed dangerous by society. He paid with his life for a love that refused to bow to fear or control.

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That same fear and control are alive and well today – from the rubble of Gaza to the townships of Cape Town. In Bethlehem, I met a Palestinian Christian who told me he had applied every year for the past 40 years to worship in Jerusalem – just 10 kilometers away. Each time, denied. This, in the land where Jesus was born.

Another Christian brother from Bethlehem said something I can’t forget: “People come here to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, but they don’t. They ride air-conditioned buses to sacred sites, take a photo, say a prayer and leave. Jesus would walk among the people – in the refugee camps, on the streets, hearing our real stories and setting us free.”

It’s a heartbreaking truth. The gospel is not a tourist route. It’s a lived path of solidarity.

The violence against Palestinians – Christians and Muslims alike – should grieve the church deeply. And yet many churches remain disturbingly quiet. Even worse, some offer theological cover for occupation and apartheid.

The painful truth is that many of us have domesticated Easter. We’ve made it about personal salvation, avoiding the political and prophetic implications of resurrection. But as South Africa’s own struggle confession The Belhar Confession reminds us, the church must visibly stand where God stands – with the oppressed, the marginalised, the suffering.

Jesus’ resurrection is not a private comfort – it is a public confrontation. It exposes the futility of violence, empire, greed and religious hypocrisy. It is the tree of death bursting into blossom. It calls us to love our enemies – not arm ourselves against them with Scripture and slogans.

We cannot claim to follow Jesus while supporting the total destruction of Gaza or defending systemic violence in our own cities.

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The connection between the violent occupation of Palestine and the forced removals of District Six is stark. Both are rooted in ideologies that worship land, power and fear instead of love. One generation later, the children of those removals are dying on the streets of the Cape Flats. Another generation lost, while churches remain safely behind stained glass.

What haunts the church

We are told that approximately 85% of South Africans identify as Christian. And yet we remain the most unequal country in the world, plagued by violence, poverty and trauma.

Something is deeply wrong.

During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Dominee Beyers Naudé looked at his own denomination – the NG Kerk – and asked: “Now that we have heard these terrible atrocities, the church must ask: what was said – or not said – from our pulpits, that allowed people to sit in church on Sunday and commit horrendous acts on Monday?”

It’s a question that still haunts us.

Jesus warned us against chasing power, security, and wealth – the very temptations he rejected in the wilderness. But many churches have built their identities around these things. We’ve turned the gospel into a transaction and our buildings into fortresses.

What if our sanctuaries became wellsprings of healing – places for dialogue, trauma support, feeding schemes, art, music and hope? What if we stopped merely going to church and started being the church?

Even AfriForum members may find themselves in church this Easter, singing “Hy het opgestaan.” But how can that be confessed with integrity by those who run to the US to complain about land reform while bowing at the throne of Mammon – and aligning themselves with those who support the land theft of Palestinians? The contradiction is staggering.

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The fruits of resurrection are not fear, greed or ideological pride. They are humility, courage, mercy and love. Jesus told Peter to put away his sword. He forgave his executioners. He laid down all forms of violence – and calls us to do the same.

What are the fruits of Easter? And what are the fruits of Caesar, Trump, Netanyahu, Zionism, Putin, and apartheid? If we cannot tell the difference, we have not yet encountered the risen Christ.

We live in an age of nuclear tension, rising fascism and ideological warfare. But love remains the most powerful force on Earth. It can turn enemies into friends, heal wounds, and transform the world.

As we walk from Easter into Pentecost, and follow the gentle Spirit of Love, perhaps it is time to sing a different hymn. An old famous Afrikaans one we sing in our church always reminds me to seek and find the way of Jesus again, when I find myself lost:

Love unlocks true and everlasting life.

May the sun of righteousness that rose from that cold, dark tomb on Easter Sunday shine into our churches, our cities and our hearts – showing us where we must rise too.

From silence to truth. From fear to courage. From death to life.

Let us rise.

– Reverend Riaan de Villiers leads the NG Kerk (Groote Kerk) in Cape Town.

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Kommentaar

Daniel Louw

Sekere mense sal nooit oor apartheid kom nie. Riaan de Villiers is uiters woke en baie definitief ‘n voorstaander van kritieke rasteorie. Met ander woorde: Die wêreld is inherent rassisties teenoor swartmense en Moslems en wit mense moet hulle sukses daaraan toeskryf dat hulle onregverdiglik bevoordeel word bo ander rasse.