What has the Freedom Charter to do with the Church today?

A lot! For one thing, many participants in the Congress of the People were professed Christians. For another, all progressive Christian Churches condemn apartheid as evil, heretical as well as theologically untenable. Modern theological scholarship is acutely aware that those who are committed to the struggle for total liberation must address themselves to the social, economic and political structures of the society in which they live.

The Freedom Charter provides a broad-based progressive forum for those who are committed to self-determination for the majority of people. Nothing could be more Christian than waging a struggle for freedom.

At the theoretical or ideological level it is imperative for the Christian in South Africa to understand how apartheid serves the interests of monopoly capital and international imperialism. Through the Freedom Charter, thousands of people from all social classes and strata declared their option for a social order which would facilitate a fairer distribution of natural as well as other resources. They also wanted to create conditions where “the people shall govern”, where they will create and control their sovereign and independent countries. They committed themselves to a society wherein all bona fide South Africans would enjoy full rights of citizenship.

The Freedom Charter puts the human person right in the centre of the universe. It takes democracy quite seriously. That is why it is a people's document. The interests of the people are paramount.

Unlike the racially exclusivist ‘national’ convention of 1908-9, the Congress of the People was open to all those who subscribed to the values of a free, united, just and non-racial society. It is now generally acknowledged that the Congress of the People was the culmination of a struggle against white conquest, economic exploitation and political domination.

The historic assembly at Kliptown crowned its deliberations by producing the first anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist people's document in South Africa – the Freedom Charter.