The Reformed Churches in South Africa look back at a painful and problematic history. For a long time the white reformed Churches were staunch supporters of the policy of racial separation, apartheid. They even went beyond support when they claimed to have found a theological and biblical justification for apartheid. Since the end of the white regime and democratisation a lot has changed within the Churches as well. Previously segregated Churches, like the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (black) and the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (coloured) merged into the Uniting Reformed Church. This very name indicates that it is an ongoing process, especially since the white Churches are still keeping apart. The white Churches had to deal with their history in order to find an opening into the future, a path that would help to overcome the legacies of apartheid.

From 14 to 16 May 2012 a conference on the history of the reformed Churches in South Africa was held at the University of Stellenbosch. The organisers decided to focus on the thirty years between 1960 and 1990. These were the decisive decades when the pro-apartheid stance in the Churches hardened after Cottesloe and the intervention of Prime Minister Verwoerd. The Churches submitted to the official ideology of the government. During those years dissenting voices were marginalised but never silenced. At the end of this period they even became more and more outspoken and dominated the discourses. Finally the reformed Churches, some like the conservative white NHK rather reluctantly, abandoned apartheid theology. These dissenting voices were those of individual persons, who were ostracised and excluded like Beyers Naudé. The focus on key persons in this book is a justified and necessary tribute to these people, without turning their portrayals into uncritical eulogies.

The contributions to this volume have been grouped together in six sections of different size according to their topics. Among the authors are people who as theologians and pastors were actively involved in the developments that are the topic of this book. In a short review it is not be possible to discuss each of the thirty articles, but I want to give a more general impression of the book and its main topics.

The first section contains two overview articles on memory and the Reformed Churches whereas the second section looks into the history of the different Churches, mostly from the Afrikaans family of Reformed Churches. Articles sketch and evaluate crucial developments from the time of Cottesloe (1960) to the Rustenburg confession of guilt (1990). The contribution on the Presbyterian Church and its early rejection of apartheid is especially valuable because it makes clear that Reformed theology as such did not have an affinity with apartheid. There were always alternatives to the stance of the DRC within Reformed theology. The road to an open repudiation of apartheid was a long one not only for the white DRC, but also for the segregated Churches for Blacks, Coloureds and Indians. They adapted and were silent because of their financial and institutional dependence on the white Church.

Three articles look at theological contributions from feminist theology and from two theologians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Abraham Kuyper and Karl Barth. In contrast to widespread assumptions, Kuyper was an inspiration not only to apartheid ideologists but also to theologians opposed to it. There was a further external influence: the European Protestant theologian, Dietrich Bonhöffer. His name comes up in numerous contributions, although there is no one article devoted to his life and work since he was not Reformed but Lutheran. Regrettably the book does not have an index, which makes it rather difficult to find the references to Bonhöffer or others.

A lengthy section of nine articles on prominent South African reformed voices is actually the key section not only because of its size but because it is devoted to those courageous individuals who in the end brought about change. Beyers Naudé is the first who comes to mind when resistance to apartheid from a Christian point of view is mentioned. There are two contributions on his work, one by Allan Boesak who pays tribute to the man who would rather follow his conscience than bow to nationalist pressure. Johan Heyn is a much more ambiguous person, in contrast to a protagonist of change like Nico Smith. This well-known critic of the Broederbond was one of the first white pastors to devote his work to an African community in Mamelodi (Pretoria). There were those who used their influence to change the Church from within by slowly dissolving the intensive ideological coherence and conformism of the apartheid Church: Willie Jonker, Jaap Durand or David Bosch. And there were others, who out of a reformed position led a frontal assault on apartheid theology and the biblical justification of racial separation. In their case this was linked to a political programme and the Church had to be involved in a political struggle: Allan Boesak was the foremost and most outspoken representative of this position. Boesak's great impact on the move towards an open rejection of apartheid becomes evident in quite a number of articles. It was mostly due to Boesak's courage and his Christian radicalism that the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa liberated itself during the late 1970s from dependence on the white DRC.

Boesak's appearance at the World Alliance of Reformed Churches meeting in Ottawa in 1982 led to the world body declaring the situation in South Africa a status confessionis. This led to the formulation of the Belhar Confession, an act of more than just political defiance. The rejection of racism shifted to the centre of Reformed selfconsciousness and proved decisive for developments within the South African Churches. It was the parting of the ways, a liberation from apartheid theology, and a wake-up call to the white Churches to rethink their own attitudes on race.

Some of the papers in the last section were certainly interesting contributions to the conference, but they are not that important for the message of the book. On the other hand a number of articles on the ‘bad guys’ are missing: apartheid theologians and leading church representatives such as J. S. Gericke or Koot Vorster.

Nevertheless this book shows how intensive discussion of the past has been and still is within the reformed Churches in South Africa. The conference and the proceedings played an important part in an ongoing, often painful process of dealing with a past that was full of political interventions, ideological pressure and nationalist conformity. The book and the discussion are necessary if the reformed Churches in South Africa are to find their way out of the heritage of apartheid and into a new society.