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B. B. Keet
Born	Barend Bartholomeus Keet (1885-06-20)20 June 1885 Alice, Cape Colony, South Africa
Died	21 June 1974(1974-06-21) (aged 89) Stellenbosch, Cape Province, South Africa
Other name	Bennie Keet
Education	South African College Stellenbosch Theological Seminary Princeton Theological Seminary Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Occupations	Minister, theologian, professor and Bible translator
Employer	Stellenbosch Theological Seminary
Known for	Translation of the Bible into Afrikaans and theological criticism of apartheid
Spouses	Johanna Maria van Aarde ​ ​ (m. 1916; died 1918)​ Frances Jessie Reitz ​ ​ (m. 1931)​
Children	1
Parent(s)	Barend Bartholomeus Keet Jacoba Petronella Herholdt

Barend Bartholomeus Keet (20 June 1885 – 21 June 1974), commonly known as Bennie Keet or B. B. Keet, was a South African Dutch Reformed minister, systematic theologian, professor and Bible translator. He taught dogmatics, ethics and church polity at the Stellenbosch Theological Seminary from 1920 to 1959 and was one of the five final translators of the first complete Bible translated from the original languages into Afrikaans, published in 1933.

Keet became one of the earliest prominent theologians within the Dutch Reformed Church to reject attempts to present racial segregation and apartheid as requirements of the Bible. In four articles published in 1949, his 1955 book Suid-Afrika—Waarheen?, the 1957 lecture The Ethics of Apartheid and the 1960 collection Vertraagde Aksie, he argued that Scripture could not be used to justify permanent racial division, white domination or racially separate understandings of the Christian church.

Keet's position developed over time. He had initially accepted forms of racial separation for cultural and practical reasons, but became increasingly critical when apartheid was implemented as official state policy after 1948. Although his criticism remained gradualist and he was not a political activist, his rejection of the theological foundations of apartheid influenced later Dutch Reformed dissenters, particularly his former student Beyers Naudé.

Early life and education

Keet was born on 20 June 1885 at Alice in the eastern Cape Colony. He was the fifth of seven children, and the third son, of the Reverend Barend Bartholomeus Keet and Jacoba Petronella Herholdt. His father was a Dutch Reformed minister who served congregations in the eastern Cape, including Victoria East, Peddie and Humansdorp.

Keet first attended school in Humansdorp, where his father was minister, and later moved to Cape Town. While living in Humansdorp, he encountered both Afrikaans- and English-speaking religious and social communities. The local Dutch Reformed congregation held an English-language evening service twice a month, and Keet formed a friendship with the son of a local English-speaking minister. His biographer J. C. de Beer argues that these contacts, during a period of increasing tension before the Second Boer War, contributed to Keet's later willingness to engage with people outside his own language and ecclesiastical community.

During the war Keet attended the South African College School in Cape Town. He subsequently studied at the South African College and completed a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1907 he entered the Dutch Reformed Theological Seminary at Stellenbosch, where he completed the four-year ministerial course.

As a student, Keet became involved in the emerging Afrikaans language movement and participated in the management of the Afrikaans Language Union. His support for Afrikaans formed part of the Second Afrikaans Language Movement, which sought recognition of Afrikaans as a language of education, worship and literature rather than merely a spoken form of Dutch. He was associated with fellow language advocates including Tobie Muller and Gordon Tomlinson.

After completing his theological studies, Keet undertook postgraduate study at Princeton Theological Seminary in the United States. Princeton records list him among the seminary's graduate students. His arrival in New York in 1910 was therefore connected with temporary postgraduate study rather than permanent immigration.

From January 1911 Keet studied at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he worked under the Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck. He received his doctorate in 1913 for the dissertation De theologie van Ernst Troeltsch, an examination of the theology of German theologian Ernst Troeltsch.

Bavinck's emphasis on the universal character of Christianity later became important to Keet's criticism of racial separation. Historian George Harinck has argued that Keet drew directly upon Bavinck's neo-Calvinist theology in rejecting claims that apartheid represented a divinely ordained social order.

Ministry and family life

Keet was licensed for ministry in 1913 and ordained in 1914. He first served as an assistant minister at Noorder-Paarl. In 1916 he became a co-minister of the Dutch Reformed congregation at Graaff-Reinet.

On 7 December 1916 he married Johanna Maria van Aarde at the Dutch Reformed congregation of Kruisrivier near Tulbagh. The ceremony was conducted by her father, the Reverend Johan Hendrik van Aarde. Their only child, Barend Bartholomeus Keet, was born on 18 May 1918.

Johanna Keet died from pneumonia at the Graaff-Reinet parsonage on 16 October 1918, five months after the birth of their son. Keet remained a widower for thirteen years.

On 6 December 1931 he married Frances Jessie Reitz, a teacher from Paarl. They had no children together. Frances survived Keet and continued to live in Stellenbosch after his death.

Academic career

In 1919 Keet was called to succeed P. J. G. de Vos as professor at the Stellenbosch Theological Seminary. He remained at Graaff-Reinet long enough to attend the 1919 Cape Synod and took up his professorship at the beginning of 1920.

Keet taught dogmatics, Christian ethics and church polity. His inaugural lecture, “The Authority of Holy Scripture”, reflected the importance of biblical authority and interpretation within his theology. He remained attached to the seminary for almost forty years, teaching from 1920 until 1959.

Although Keet belonged to the Reformed and neo-Calvinist tradition in which he had been trained by Bavinck, he was receptive to theological developments beyond the dominant Dutch Reformed establishment. After the Second World War he introduced students to the theology of Swiss theologian Karl Barth in a generally sympathetic manner. This distinguished him from many South African neo-Calvinist theologians who regarded Barth as theologically suspect and politically threatening.

In his lecture at the centenary of the Stellenbosch theological faculty in 1959, Keet surveyed a century of Reformed theology and concluded with an appreciation of Barth's contribution. The lecture was also his valedictory address. Theologian John de Gruchy has described its favourable treatment of Barth as courageous in a theological environment in which opposition to Barth was closely connected with the defence of Afrikaner nationalism and apartheid.

Afrikaans language and Bible translation

Keet was an early advocate of the use of Afrikaans in the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1914 he delivered an address at Stellenbosch supporting an Afrikaans translation of the Bible. At the Cape Synod of 1919, he proposed that Afrikaans should be recognised alongside Dutch as an official language of the church. The synod accepted the proposal and also supported the translation of the Bible into Afrikaans.

Keet was subsequently appointed to the Bible translation project. The translators initially attempted to adapt the Dutch Statenvertaling, but later decided that a new translation should be prepared directly from the biblical languages. Keet became one of five final translators, together with J. D. du Toit, J. D. Kestell, E. E. van Rooyen and H. C. M. Fourie.

The completed Bible was formally received by representatives of the three Afrikaans Reformed churches at Bloemfontein in August 1933. It was the first complete official translation of the Bible into Afrikaans from the Hebrew and Greek texts.

Keet and Du Toit continued working on revisions after 1933. A revised edition appeared in 1953, with Keet playing a leading role in its completion. His work on the translation contributed both to the development of Afrikaans theological terminology and to the wider recognition of Afrikaans as a language of scholarship and worship.

Keet also helped establish a body of theological literature in Afrikaans. His books included Ons Redelike Godsdiens and Sedelike Vraagstukke, both published in 1945. The latter was among the earliest substantial treatments of Christian ethics written in Afrikaans.

Theology

Keet's theology combined a strong commitment to the authority of Scripture with an insistence that biblical texts had to be interpreted within their literary, historical and theological contexts. He objected to the use of individual verses as proof texts for political programmes and argued that the overall witness of Scripture should govern Christian ethics and ecclesiology.

His work was shaped particularly by Bavinck's understanding of Christianity as universal rather than racially or nationally confined. Keet distinguished between legitimate cultural differences and the construction of permanent barriers between human groups. He argued that Christian faith did not require the elimination of cultural distinctions, but that distinctions could not be transformed into divisions that denied common humanity or Christian fellowship.

Keet's engagement with Barth strengthened his emphasis on the church's responsibility to subject political ideologies to the judgement of the gospel. He was therefore critical of attempts to equate Afrikaner nationalism, racial survival or a particular state policy with the will of God.

Criticism of apartheid

Development of his position

Keet did not begin his career as an unqualified opponent of racial separation. Harinck's study of his theological development concludes that he initially accepted forms of segregation for cultural and practical reasons. His position changed as segregation developed into the comprehensive apartheid programme adopted by the National Party after 1948.

Keet's principal objection was directed against claims that apartheid was prescribed by Scripture or represented a permanent Christian solution to South Africa's racial conflicts. His criticism also developed from concern about the effects of apartheid upon black South Africans and about the isolation of the Dutch Reformed Church from the wider Christian community.

Keet remained a moderate and gradualist critic. He did not join a political party or liberation organisation and continued to believe for some time that separate church institutions might be maintained for practical purposes. He nevertheless insisted that such separation could not be absolute or permanent and supported representation of black mission churches in shared church bodies and common celebration of the Lord's Supper.

The 1949 articles

In 1949 the Cape Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church considered and accepted a report on race relations that sought to provide theological support for apartheid. Keet attended the synod as a seminary professor but was not an official congregational delegate and was therefore unable to participate in the debate.

After the synod, he published a four-part series titled “Die Heilige Skrif en apartheid” (“Holy Scripture and Apartheid”) in Die Kerkbode. The articles appeared on 30 November and 7, 14 and 21 December 1949.

Keet questioned the report's claim that apartheid would promote the spiritual development of black South Africans. He criticised its use of Scripture and warned that the Dutch Reformed Church risked becoming sectarian by isolating itself from the wider Christian world. He argued that interpretations defending apartheid appeared to be shaped more by white fear and political interest than by responsible biblical exegesis.

Keet also challenged the elevation of the Afrikaner volk into the principal category of Christian identity. He maintained that Afrikaners could understand their historical calling only as Christians and that national identity could not take precedence over Christian responsibility.

Suid-Afrika—Waarheen?

Keet developed his criticism in the 1955 book Suid-Afrika—Waarheen? 'n Bydrae tot die bespreking van ons rasseprobleem (“South Africa—Whither? A Contribution to the Discussion of Our Racial Problem”). An English translation, Whither, South Africa?, appeared in 1956.

The book examined racial prejudice, the biblical arguments advanced for apartheid, racial separation within the church and the ethical consequences of government policy. Keet maintained that the existence of different peoples and cultures did not imply that God had ordained permanent racial barriers. The distinction between peoples, he argued, could not be transformed into a doctrine of racial separation or unequal rights.

Keet rejected appeals to the Old Testament separation of Israel from surrounding peoples as a model for South African racial policy. He argued that the coming of Christ had removed the religious barriers separating Jew and gentile and that the New Testament provided no basis for racial apartheid. Christian unity could not be confined to an invisible spiritual realm while Christians remained permanently separated in worship and institutional life.

Although Keet continued to acknowledge cultural diversity, he criticised the attempt to preserve white privilege by presenting racial domination as Christian guardianship. He argued that political policy had to be judged by its effects upon those subjected to it, not merely by the stated intentions of those who held power.

Harinck has described the book as an application of Bavinck's universal Christian theology against the theological arguments used to defend apartheid. Keet encountered opposition within Dutch Reformed circles but maintained his position.

The Ethics of Apartheid

In 1957 Keet delivered the thirteenth Alfred and Winifred Hoernlé Memorial Lecture for the South African Institute of Race Relations. Published as The Ethics of Apartheid, the lecture examined apartheid as a moral system rather than only as a programme of administrative separation.

Keet argued that policies governing relations between racial groups had to recognise the equal moral worth and common humanity of all people. A system that permanently subordinated one group to another or denied people participation in decisions governing their lives could not be justified merely by appealing to cultural difference or political expediency.

The lecture attracted criticism from defenders of apartheid, who accused Keet of ignoring the supposed benefits of separate development. His intervention nevertheless reinforced his reputation as one of the leading internal critics of apartheid within the Dutch Reformed Church.

Vertraagde Aksie

Following the Sharpeville massacre in March 1960, Keet joined a group of Afrikaans-speaking ministers and theologians seeking a more adequate Christian response to apartheid. With New Testament scholar Albert Geyser, he edited Vertraagde Aksie: 'n Ekumeniese Getuienis uit die Afrikaanssprekende Kerk, published in 1960.

The collection contained essays by eleven ministers from the three Afrikaans Reformed “sister churches”. Its contributors criticised apartheid policy and the theological and ecclesiastical assumptions used to support it. Keet wrote the opening contribution, “Die klok het reeds gelui”, translated in the English edition as “The Bell Has Already Tolled”.

Keet argued that the Afrikaans churches had delayed too long in responding to the injustice produced by apartheid. He called upon them to inform the government that they could no longer support the policy and to seek direct consultation among white and black South Africans. If the state failed to initiate such discussions, he argued, the churches should undertake the process themselves and present an alternative course to the government.

Vertraagde Aksie appeared shortly before the December 1960 Cottesloe Consultation. Although the two initiatives were institutionally separate, both reflected the growing dispute among South African Christians over racial discrimination, church unity and the theological defence of apartheid.

Later life and death

Keet retired from teaching in 1959 after almost four decades at the Stellenbosch Theological Seminary. He continued to write on theology and church government. His later work included Orde in die Kerk, published in 1963.

He lived with his second wife, Frances, in Jonkershoek Road, Stellenbosch, during his retirement. He died at Stellenbosch on 21 June 1974, one day after his 89th birthday. Frances Jessie Keet died in 1999.

Legacy

Keet is regarded as one of the earliest substantial theological critics of apartheid to emerge from within the Dutch Reformed Church. His importance lay particularly in challenging the claim that apartheid rested upon an authoritative or unambiguous interpretation of Scripture.

His position was not identical to the later, more comprehensive rejection of apartheid articulated by the Christian Institute of Southern Africa, the Belhar Confession or the Kairos Document. He initially accepted some forms of practical separation and generally pursued change through theological argument and church discussion rather than political activism. Nevertheless, his insistence that racial division could not be made into Christian doctrine helped open space for later dissent.

Keet had a significant influence upon Beyers Naudé, who studied ethics and dogmatics under him at Stellenbosch. Harinck identifies Naudé as the most prominent student inspired by Keet's opposition to apartheid theology, while De Gruchy describes Keet's sympathetic teaching of Barth as an important element in Naudé's theological formation.

During his acceptance of an honorary doctorate from Stellenbosch University in 1996, President Nelson Mandela named Keet, Ben Marais, Johan Degenaar and others as courageous voices of warning and opposition to apartheid that had arisen from the university.

Later Dutch Reformed assessments have similarly identified Keet and Marais as dissenting voices whose contextual reading of Scripture anticipated the church's eventual rejection of the theological justification of apartheid.

Selected works

• De theologie van Ernst Troeltsch (1913)
• With Gordon Tomlinson, Tobie Muller: 'n inspirasie vir jong Suid-Afrika (1925)
• One of five final translators, Die Bybel (1933)
• Ons Redelike Godsdiens (1945)
• Sedelike Vraagstukke (1945)
• “Die Heilige Skrif en apartheid”, four articles in Die Kerkbode (1949)
• Suid-Afrika—Waarheen? 'n Bydrae tot die bespreking van ons rasseprobleem (1955)
• Whither, South Africa? (1956)
• The Ethics of Apartheid (1957)
• With Albert Geyser, ed., Vertraagde Aksie: 'n Ekumeniese Getuienis uit die Afrikaanssprekende Kerk (1960)
• Orde in die Kerk (1963)

See also

• Ben Marais
• Beyers Naudé
• Albert Geyser
• Vertraagde Aksie
• Bible translations into Afrikaans
• Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK)

Further reading

• De Beer, J. C. (1992). Prof. B.B. Keet (1885–1974): Leraar en hoogleraar in die Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk. DTh thesis, Stellenbosch University.
• De Gruchy, John W., and Steve de Gruchy (2005). The Church Struggle in South Africa. 25th anniversary edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
• Harinck, George (2017). “‘Wipe Out Lines of Division (Not Distinctions)’: Bennie Keet, Neo-Calvinism and the Struggle against Apartheid.” Journal of Reformed Theology. 11 (1–2): 81–98. doi:10.1163/15697312-01101025.
• Heine, Q. E. (1986). Die Etiek van B.B. Keet. BTh dissertation, University of the Orange Free State.
• Vosloo, Robert R. (2015). “The Bible and the justification of apartheid in Reformed circles in the 1940s in South Africa.” Stellenbosch Theological Journal. 1 (2).

External links

• Biographical entry in the Christelike Kernensiklopedie
• B. B. Keet at the Gemeentegeskiedenisargief
• The Ethics of Apartheid at the South African Institute of Race Relations
• Whither, South Africa? at Google Books