Following the Cottesloe Consultation, initiated by the World Council of Churches, Geyser became an opponent of Article III of the NHKA constitution, which specifically forbids black people as members. It was inevitable that he would clash with what he saw as the "ideological theology" of his own and other Afrikaans churches. This made his position as a Professor in the Faculty of Theology of the Church untenable, both for the Church and for himself.

In September 1961, Geyser was accused of heresy and insubordination because of his interpretation of Philippians 2:5-11. The Church failed to prove his guilt. Geyser left the University of Pretoria in 1963 after successfully applying for the position as the first Professor and Head of the Department of Divinity (later the Department of Religious Studies) at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Geyser retired from his professorship in 1983 following 20 years of productive academic work at the University of the Witwatersrand. In an interview with the Sunday Express in January 1983 he warned that: “A Church in isolation is doomed to futility. It has no function and becomes a museum piece, because the very concept of a church is that it should be universal.”

For more information on the Commemorative Lecture, please contact Carusta van der Merwe: [email protected]