Inhoud: Louis Jonker, Julie Claassens, Prof Mbaya, Dion Forster, Peter Nagel, Prof S Mahokoto, Reggie Nel

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Testimony of Peter Harris at Stellenbosch University Theology Faculty

July 2021

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20)

Assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus (Ephesians 4:21)

I, Peter Harris, went into Stellenbosch Theology Faculty at the beginning of 2017 with the hopes to grow closer to Christ, His Word, and to be equipped for the ministry of the Gospel, yes, even to take this Gospel to the ends of the world. This however did not happen through the theology faculty (the Dutch Reformed Kweekskool) but rather was kindled through my attendance to our local church, daily time in God’s Word, and the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. What I was met with at the Kweekskool was sorely disappointing. For three years straight, those of us who held to the fundamentals of the Christian faith (e.g., Penal substitutionary atonement, biblical inerrancy and the veracity of the resurrection of Christ and original sin) had to fight for our faith as we found many of our professors denying these things.

There is no doubt that the Kweekskool at Stellenbosch University is through and through liberal. They teach liberal theology and hold to liberal theological assertions. It must be stated from the outset that this is in fact a religion but a very foreign religion to historic Christianity and to the Christianity of the early church, the patristics, the great medievals, the Reformers, the Puritans, the Dutch Further divines and modern-day evangelicals. Historic Christianity has always believed in the original sin of man and our need for a Saviour which is provided by God through the Lord Jesus Christ. This first gospel promise was of course promised in Genesis 3:15, the proto-evangelion, that the offspring of Eve (Christ) would crush the head of the serpent and the heel of the Christ would be bruised by the serpent (on the cross).

Christianity is a redemptive religion which provides free grace and forgiveness whilst Liberalism is a non-redemptive religion completely different from Christianity, yet it uses some of the same jargon or terminology if you will.

It seems to me that at Stellenbosch University Theology Faculty (we shall proceed to call it the Kweekskool from now on) has two main thoughts on how mankind can be saved. The first view is that of universalism where everybody is saved no matter which religion you follow because all religions ultimately lead to the same God (so they say). This of course is the spirit of ecumenism which has nothing to do with true Christian unity, which is founded on the truth of the gospel.

The second view is that of the social gospel (which is not really a gospel because it is so far from good news) where they believe one is saved by doing good works such as acts of mercy and justice and living a charitable life and so forth. Both of these views ultimately stem from the belief that man is intrinsically good and can save himself without any external acting upon by God. At the end of the day the Kweekskool has no message of grace and salvation because they shove aside the atoning work of Christ where He takes the punishment for our sins and instead elevate man as being good enough to earn his own salvation.

I was doing the BDiv programme at the Kweekskool but had such a shocking experience in second year Old Testament that I decided to change to a Bth to do one less year. The teaching which left me shocked and appalled was that of a man named Louis Jonker. In the very first class of our second year Old Testament module, one of the first things he said was that “Moses did not write the Pentateuch.” He pressed this assertion very hard and taught the classic historical critical view of the JEDP or documentary hypothesis (which is losing ground in modern theology anyway).

Further, he said that Jesus is not in the Old Testament! How about that! The Word of God in Luke 24:27 says this: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He (Jesus) interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Jesus, who is God, interpreted to the disciples on the road to Emmaus the things concerning Himself in the Old Testament. Only somebody blinded by the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4) cannot see how Jesus is clearly the subject matter of the Old Testament. He is the great Prophet, Priest and King to whom the whole Old Testament points toward in types and shadows. We heard in this class that Isaiah 53 does not point to Jesus and that the prophecy about the virgin birth in Isaiah points to Cyrus (whom Jonker claims is the Messiah!). These views are of course not new but form part of classical German higher critical thinking and theology which was impacted by the Enlightenment and has nothing to do with historic Christian exegesis and belief.

Jonker also taught us that those who believe in a young earth theory (such as we do) are fundamentalists and that it is an absurd assertion. He says we should not read Genesis 1 and 2 literally but figuratively. Thus, he taught us that evolution and the Bible are compatible, which of course they are not. We understand evolution and Darwinianism to be an anti-God doctrine which has led to the degradation of classical Christian belief and even to atheism. Ultimately, the worldview of Jonker and much of the theology faculty is that of naturalism – the denial of the creative power of God and disbelief in miracles. How is this training any man or woman for the ministry?

Of course, by denying Genesis 1-3 as historic and authoritative, the theology faculty can undermine the rest of the Bible as well as natural human relations as intended by God. Genesis 1-2 gives us the blueprint of God’s design for humanity. We can see in Genesis 1-2 that humans are made in the image of God, reflect His glory and are given definite genders assigned by God, founded in creation. Genesis 1:27 asserts, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Jesus actually refers to this foundational Scriptural teaching in Matthew 19 and states, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female” (v. 4). What we learn from both God’s Word and natural law is that man and woman are created by God, given distinct genders and thus only a man and a woman are to form the sole constitution of a marriage. This is also evident in the creational mandate which God gives to humanity as seen in Genesis 1 & 9 to “be fruitful and multiply.” Even more than this, Ephesians 5 testifies to the fact that marriage actually portrays the glorious truth of the gospel – the love of Christ for His bride. Now, the theology faculty denies these things and has bought into the LGBTQ agenda. They teach that one can choose their gender and that homosexuality is fine and not sinful.

1 John 3:23 states the following: “And this is the commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has commanded us.” We as evangelicals from different denominations, believe we are to love our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as well as all people in society. It is a form of neighbour love for us to call out wrong for what it is because living in darkness and sin will only lead to misery. The God of the Bible is the Creator of the universe and thus His laws are good and perfect and lead to both the flourishing of the individual and of society. He has created an objective moral order which when followed and lived by brings flourishing and joy. We of course have all fallen short of His glory and disobeyed His law and thus it is only through the gospel that we are regenerated, made right with God and are able to live according to His law, delighting in it and flourishing as God intended. We believe that because God has made us male and female, it is a very harmful and destructive ideology to tell people that they can choose whatever gender they choose or that they should give into their passions of lusting after the opposite sex. This is classic post-modern thinking which elevates desire to the level of personhood. The Bible denies this and calls us to put to death our earthly desires and to desire the greater joy and delight in the Lord who gives us life and who paves the true way for us to walk.

So, by denying Genesis 1-3 through historical criticism and liberal theology, the faculty promotes the LGBTQ agenda and reads this worldview into the Bible in many classes and courses.

Let us briefly look at a few things which were shocking to us in each year we studied:

First Year:

In first year, we had Julie Claassens for ONT 114. To be honest, in the first year of theology you do not receive too many readings or teaching which is blatantly heretical. They seem to warm you up until you get to second and third year where it starts to get worse and worse. We received readings in ONT 114 about a gender-queer reading of the Old Testament and we constantly debated with Claassens about the true meaning of the text and how she was reading her ideas of transgenderism and queer theology into the text. At the theology faculty you can make up any interpretation you want of the text as long as you do not claim yours is the authoritative meaning of what the author was saying, then you get shunned to the side.

Second Year:

We have already looked at Louis Jonker and his appalling ideas of the Bible and his push to convert students to a historical critical method of interpreting Scripture.

Prof. Mbaya: He believes one can be a Christian and still worship African spirits and ancestors and denies the sole mediatorship of Christ. Further, he believes we should not evangelize Muslims but rather ecumenize with them because we all worship the same God. Even though he teaches missiology, in his class, we never learnt about preaching the Gospel, evangelizing the lost, or reaching lost and dying sinners for Christ. There was no shame that those who worship another God besides the God of the Bible will be lost in hell forever, rather we looked at how we should befriend those of other religions but not seek to evangelize them. Is not this the exact opposite of the mandate given to the church by Jesus in Matthew 28? What about Paul’s command to Timothy to “preach the Word”?

I must say that in second year we had Marius Nel for New Testament and he was great. He was the only professor out of our whole degree who gave us semi-evangelical sources to read.

Third Year:

There is a professor called Dion Forster at the theology faculty who has a very charismatic personality and therefore many students are attracted to him. I remember Forster praying to God as ‘mother’ and encouraging students to stop reading theology and to read liberal philosophers like Charles Taylor instead. He teaches public theology, affirms homosexuality and fights against complementarianism (the belief that a man and woman complement each other with their God-ordained roles in marriage). There is no doubt that I think he is sincere. Unfortunately, he just sincerely wrong about the Gospel and what it teaches. He is very much a proponent of social justice and critical race theory. Jesus is more of a moral teacher than the eternal God who bears the wrath of God on our behalf (as Saviour) for him.

One of my wife and I’s (including a few other students) hardest times at the theology faculty was with our encounter with Peter Nagel. He is relatively new at the Kweekskool, but he is probably the worst heretical teacher of them all. I do not use the word heresy lightly. I affirm God’s sovereignty in salvation, yet I do not think my Arminian brothers are ‘heretics.’ Heresy is a belief which will damn one’s soul to eternal condemnation. Heresy is holding to a belief which is so wrong that it will lead one to hell. Heresy does not refer to minor disputes within evangelicalism such as whether women can be deacons or not or even whether one holds to infant or believers’ baptism. Heresy is holding to a belief that denies the fundamentals of the faith which ought to be held in order to receive salvation.

In our very first class with Peter Nagel, he wrote on the board: “Jesus ≠ The Logos“. He told us that Jesus is not the Logos (or Word of God). Rather, Jesus was merely a man who only became the Christ when he was baptized at the Jordan. Jesus, Nagel said, shows us how we can all be inhabited by the Christ which is a divine spark. This is proto-Gnosticism! He teaches these views as if they are new, but we read in the works of Irenaeus that this is a Gnostic heresy, one which the Apostle John was fighting against (Cerinthianism).

When we tried to defend the eternality of Jesus and the fact that He is God in class, we were met with much hostility and anger. Nagel also denies the Trinity and says that it is not in the Bible! What else is heresy other than this? In 1 John we read that he who denies the Son denies the Father also and that those who are unwilling to believe the Apostolic testimony concerning “the One who was from the beginning” do not have fellowship with the Father or the Son. Further, Nagel gave us readings by New Testament scholars who read the Bible through a stoic Gnostic lens. They view the Holy Spirit not as a person, such as the Bible proclaims, but as a divine spark inherent in the material universe. He also told us to never get into a pulpit, said God is not Almighty, denies the NT speaks of the divinity of Christ.

On top of Gnosticism, Nagel teaches that Jesus was merely a creature and was created by God. Nagel even personally told me that he thinks it is idolatry to worship Jesus as God! This is blatant Arianism, an early church heresy condemned at the council of Nicaea, which teaches that Jesus was created by God before all ages.

Further, Prof. S. Mahokoto: Calls the Holy Spirit ‘it’ because he is scared of offending those who see the Holy Spirit as the ‘daughter’ in the Trinity. He believes you can assign whatever pronoun you want to God even though the Holy Spirit is described as a Person and also the ‘Spirit of Christ’ in the NT.

Reggie Nel, the Dean, believes in the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. This is a classical belief in the liberal religion – that we are all children of God and that all religions lead to the same destination. Thus, we need not unify over truth but over our common ‘faiths.’

Before I close, a final word must be said about the confusion over gender and homosexuality in the theology faculty. It is far worse than many people think. There have been people who have gone into the theology faculty and have been persuaded by their peers and others (Professors?) that they are gay or queer etc. The theology faculty sees this as a form of fighting for ‘justice’ in this day and age. The only problem is they are completely misguided. As the church we believe in justice and we believe in doing good to others, especially the orphan and the widow, whom the Father holds dearly to His heart. This is not fighting for justice but rather destroying the creational norms of what God intended for humanity and how He intended humanity to flourish and relate to one another. Struggling with one’s gender identity is an extremely difficult thing, and the church should show compassion and help towards those who struggle with this issue. However, the answer is not to affirm them in their confusion and tell them they are okay as the Kweekskool does. Rather thew answer is to point them to the Gospel and to the God who made them male or female. We point them to repentance and trust in God, we do not point them to cast off all restraints and shake their fists at God. It seems the Kweekskool is actually affirming people in their rebellion against God, which is not loving, nor will it lead to the flourishing of society and of individuals. No church should send their students to such a place, void of salvation, life and true love of neighbour and society.

If there are any true believers in Christ and the Gospel at the theology who are Professors, my question to them is this: how can you continue to yolk yourself to those who teach things which could lead people into an eternity apart from Christ in hell? I call on you to leave and to help further the cause of Christ and the Gospel elsewhere in these important times.

If we truly love God and the Bible and we believe that man is saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, how could we send anybody to the Kweekskool to be corrupted by doctrine which may lead them and others to eternal condemnation?

No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life. – 1 John 2:23-25. The promise of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus His Son. But He who denies the Son does not have eternal life. I am writing my testimony concerning this faculty because I believe eternal life is at stake and this is the most important matter in the whole world. How can we be okay with allowing people to study under a type of theology which will keep them and others from life eternal? I can see nothing more unloving than this.

My greatest joy is the Gospel of Christ. He saved me from a drug addiction which would have ruined my life. He led me to believe in His written and inerrant Word and how it testifies to this great Gospel found in the saving work of Christ. May you be led by God to shepherd your people and lead them into the truth of who God is and how He has redeemed mankind in Christ. Although I could write much more about the heretical teachings at the Kweekskool, may this suffice to sway you not to send your young ones to sit under such poisonous teaching but rather to a place which exalts the supremacy and Lordship of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Let us as evangelicals in South Africa put our minor differences aside and unify over the great and glorious doctrines of Scripture, Faith, Creation, Original Sin, Redemption in Christ, and the communion of the saints where the Word is preached, the sacraments applied, and church discipline is practiced. Let us fight together for the Bible and reformation and revival in South Africa. Let us fight for the doctrine which accords with godliness and humility, not being puffed up but serving one another as Christ has served us. Jesus Christ is the true Word of God and the Creator of us all. Let us bow our knee and submit to Him. For He alone will satisfy our souls, set our hearts alight and empower us by His Spirit to glorify Him and testify in a world which desperately needs Him and Him alone.

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12)

Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum

Soli Deo Gloria