BB Keet

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. 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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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”.

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)