Boesak, Alan

Boesak, Alan (1945- ), South African minister of the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), who rose to prominence in the troubled 1980s as an outspoken opponent of South Africa's system of apartheid, using his Church as a platform. He was born at Kahamas, and while at high school served as a sexton in his local DRC. He decided to make the Church his career and graduated from Belleville Theological Seminary in 1967. He became interested in politics and joined a radical group within the DRC, known as the Broederkring (Brother Ring), which aimed to reform the Church's policies towards race relations. At a meeting of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Ottawa, Canada, in 1982, he was unanimously elected its president; he introduced a motion that apartheid be declared a heresy against the gospel. In September 1982 he was elected Assessor of the Sendinkerk, the main Coloured community church in Cape Town. He organized opposition to the proposals of President P. W. Botha for a three-chamber constitution that excluded representation for blacks and became a founder member of the United Democratic Front (UDF) that was launched in Cape Town in 1983 when he was elected a patron.