Two Conservative Ministers Changed Sides on Apartheid

Sometimes the people who change their minds teach us the most about courage.

Dr. Danie Rosslee and Reverend EG Fourie spent decades supporting apartheid through their churches in South Africa. Both came from deeply conservative Reformed traditions where challenging the system wasn't just unusual, it was unthinkable.

In 1990, Professor Willie Jonker shocked South Africa by confessing the Dutch Reformed Church's guilt for apartheid at a major conference. Conservative church members immediately attacked him, demanding to know who gave him the right to speak for them.

The backlash was strongest in Rosslee's own synod in Western Transvaal. As a former moderator known for his conservative views, Rosslee was expected to join the criticism.

Instead, he stood up and supported Jonker's confession. He went further, making his own confession and challenging those who dismissed Jonker's words as unauthorized.

The silence in the hall was absolute. Nobody could believe what they were hearing.

Years later, Rosslee explained that the biblical prophet Amos had changed him. After decades of reading scripture, Amos's demand for justice finally broke through his old convictions and transformed how he saw the world.

The change cost him dearly. Old friends stopped speaking to him and would cross the street to avoid him. But Rosslee never regretted his decision and later called himself "a liberated person."

More than twenty years later, Reverend EG Fourie stood before a re-enactment of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His church, the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk, had deeply supported apartheid and hadn't even participated in the original 1997 hearings.

Fourie didn't make excuses or try to soften his church's history. Instead, he used a phrase that captured both honesty and hope: his church was in the "slow class" when it came to reconciliation.

He called his congregation "late bloomers" and acknowledged how far behind they were. There was no pretending they had arrived where others had been waiting for years.

Why This Inspires

Both men show us that the timing of transformation matters less than the courage to transform at all. They didn't change when it was easy or popular, they changed when it was personally costly.

Their stories also remind us that real change often comes from unexpected places. The conservative ministers who once defended injustice became powerful witnesses precisely because of where they came from.

Most importantly, they prove that nobody is beyond change. Reading a biblical text with fresh eyes liberated Rosslee after a lifetime in ministry. Fourie's willingness to admit his church's failures opened a door for others still struggling with the same journey.

Their late blooming still brought beauty into the world.