Within the churches in South Africa, and indeed worldwide, the KD led to intense and often heated debates. The unpolished nature of this radical document allowed many critics to disengage from real debate. For example, Markus Barth and Helmut Blanke make a rather brief, disparaging remark, which seems to be based on a reading of the KD that is significantly at variance with its substance. In the KD, Barth and Blanke claim, "it is the starved, exploited, oppressed people whose cause, as it were, by definition is righteous, while all political, economical, and ecclesiastical wielders of institutionalized power are depicted as instruments of the devil."