{"id":35347,"date":"2017-06-26T15:18:08","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T15:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/south-africa-church-locks-out-black-pair\/"},"modified":"2017-06-26T15:18:03","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T15:18:03","slug":"south-africa-church-locks-out-black-pair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/south-africa-church-locks-out-black-pair\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa church locks out black pair"},"content":{"rendered":"

{South Africa’s Afrikaanse Protestante Kerk church in Orania Sunday barred two black journalists from attending a service.}<\/p>\n

An official told the journalists \u201cthe church is only for whites\u201d.<\/p>\n

Orania is an Afrikaans-only South African town located along the banks of the Orange River, in the arid Karoo region of the Northern Cape Province.<\/p>\n

The journalists were on an assignment and decided to attend a Sunday service before returning to Pretoria. They were intercepted by a church leader, identified as Mr Theunis Oukamp, at the door.<\/p>\n

Mr Oukamp said allowing black people into an all-white church would be violating the \u201crights of Afrikaans people\u201d.<\/p>\n

{{Protect the rights}}<\/p>\n

\u201cI am now in a difficult situation. You know that Orania is only for white people, this is why we are here. You must understand I know you want to serve God and everything but I have to protect the rights of Afrikaans people. So I cannot let you in, you guys can go to any other church, but this one is only for white people,\u201d Mr Oukamp said.<\/p>\n

Mr Langton Ndlovu, a Christian, described the move as ‘diabolical’.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is demonic, in this day and age, I never thought this was real. That’s unacceptable. I wonder how they read the scripture that says \u201cthere is neither Greek nor Jew\u201d but we’re one in Christ,\u201d said Mr Ndlovu.<\/p>\n

The president of the South Africa Union Council of Independent Churches, Archbishop Modiri Patrick Shole, expressed shock that there was still segregation in the body of Christ, 23 years after apartheid ended.<\/p>\n

{{Have discrimination}}<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t discriminate in church because before God we are one \u2013 whether white or black. I find it weird that we still have discrimination in the church,\u201d he said.
\nA member of the church, Mr Sarel Roets, slammed Mr Oukamp saying turning away black people from church was \u201cnot the Christian way\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m very upset that my church did this, it’s not right. I’ve already sent the Reverend a message. From me, I\u2019m sorry, it’s completely unacceptable. We still have problems in Orania, this is one of the problems,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The church\u2019s spokesperson, Mr James Kemp, said the leader acted out of line with the church’s policy. He said an internal process would take place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sensitivity of the Orania church is that over the last few years they have had six journalists visiting the congregation and it had a negative impact in the media. It was mainly European publications,\u201d Mr Kemp said.<\/p>\n

{{Afrikaans culture}}<\/p>\n

He added that there was a need to educate congregants on how visitors should be treated.<\/p>\n

Orania Movement leader Carel Boshoff Junior, said there were still people who were in the small town for the \u201cwrong reasons\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Boshoff’s father was pioneer to the idea of an independent Afrikaner homeland to preserve the Afrikaans culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard about the incident and I am disappointed, it is contrary to our policy. It’s not the church’s policy, neither is it an Orania policy, but it is an individual that decided to act in that manner,\u201d Mr Boshoff Junior said.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/figure>\n

Source:The East African <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{South Africa’s Afrikaanse Protestante Kerk church in Orania Sunday barred two black journalists from attending a service.} An official told the journalists \u201cthe church is only for whites\u201d. Orania is an Afrikaans-only South African town located along the banks of the Orange River, in the arid Karoo region of the Northern Cape Province. The journalists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2460],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-35347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-the-east-african"],"bylines":[{"id":2460,"name":"The East African","slug":"the-east-african","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2460,"name":"The East African","slug":"the-east-african","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35347"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=35347"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=35347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}