The general synod of South Africa's predominantly white Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) - a church which supplied the theological "justification" for apartheid - has denounced apartheid as a "theological heresy."
On Tuesday, the church's general synod rejected "apartheid as wrong and sinful, not simply in its effects and operations, but also in its fundamental nature."The synod also declared that: "The theological justification (of apartheid) is a travesty of the gospel and, in its persistent disobedience to the word of God, a theological heresy."
The decision means that the church has now met all the conditions to be restored to full membership of the main international organization of Reformed churches - the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) - from which it was suspended in 1982 because of the church's "heretical" support for apartheid.