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Afrikaner Christianity: The Dutch Reformed Churches in South Africa
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The Afrikaner Church began with the founding of a community of settlers in Southern Africa in 1652. These Dutch Calvinist settlers worked for Dutch East India Company, which used the Cape of Good Hope as a reprovisioning station.
Theologically the Dutch Reformed Churches take their stand within the Calvinist, and ultimately Augustinian, tradition, stressing GodÕs sovereign control over the universe, the thoroughgoing pervasiveness of human sinfulness in a fallen world, and the reality of Jesus ChristÕs redemptive work, saving, not only human souls, but also redeeming human culture, through the work of the Holy Spirit within the Christian community.
Their stress on the redemption of human culture through the agency of the Christian community as directed by the Holy Spirit has led the Dutch Reformed Churches to work on shaping a New Jerusalem in South Africa. Afrikaners see themselves as the obedient people of God shaping a society according to Biblical, Christian principles. The Afrikaners saw strong parallels between themselves as the people of God, and the Biblical nation of Israel as the people of God. As a result their theology tended to focus heavily on the Old Testament as a model, rather than the New Testament.
For historical reasons the Afrikaner community has felt itself to be an embattled minority struggling to be obedient to God while faced with hostile forces all around trying to prevent it from doing so. This sense of threat -- from the black majority and from the powerful English supported by liberal world opinion, has led the Afrikaner churches to develop racist and exclusivistic responses, and to defend those responses theologically.
Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK):
As soon as the the Dutch Calvinist colonists landed at the Cape of Good Hope, they formed the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK), by far the largest and most influenctial of the Afrikaner churches.
The NGK has been the church of the Afrikaner establishment. From 1948 to 1994 it, (along with the NHK) was the church most closely identified with the racist policies of Apartheid, and provided theological justification for Apartheid. http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/misc/verkuyl.html
The NGK gained full independence from its Dutch mother church in 1824. In the early years it was an interracial church in which whites and blacks worshipped together. Some white Afrikaners came to object to drinking out of the same cup as black Christians during the Lord's Supper. The Synod (annual General Meeting) of 1857 proposed that "as a concession to the prejudice and weakness of a few, it is recommended that the church serve one or more tables to the European members after the non-white members have been served." This recommendation came in spite of their recognition that the Bible taught that all Christians ought to worship together. In addition the Synod recommended that "if the weakness of some requires that the groups be separated, the congregation from the heathen should enjoy its privilege in a separate building and a separate institution." This concession soon grew into a policy of separating white and non-white churches, and eventually led to formation of the missions churches (the NGSK and the NGKA)
Nederduitse Hervormde Kerk (NHK)
The 1830s saw the departure of some 10,000 Afrikaners from the Cape Colony to freedom from British rule inland. These "Voortrekkers" left in protest against the British abolition of slavery in the Cape Colony in 1834. Slaves were, they believed, essential to their success as farmers and had become an integral part of their way of life. They also felt that the Bible tolerated and even condoned slavery. The NGK, however, opposed the Great Trek of 1835-43, and as a result the Voortrekkers established an independent, equally Calvinist and even more conservative church, the Nederduitse Hervormde Kerk (NHK) in 1855. The NHK is geographically largely restricted to the Transvaal.
The Gereformeerde Kerk: the Doppers
Two years after the NHK left the NGK, a third church was formed as the "Doppers" left the NHK to form the Gereformeerde Kerk. The "Doppers" were even more rigid and literal in their understanding of the Bible than either the NGK or the NHK, believing, among tother things, that their journeys had been charted by the prophet Joel, and would ultimately lead them to the Biblical New Jerusalem -- a fascinating parallel to the Zionist churches which were springing up in the black communities.
Although the GK was the most conservative and "verkrampte" of the Reformed churches in South Africa, both socially and theologically, they were less tied to the government of South Africa and were therefore freer to make theolgical dicsions witout necessarily following the government line. Dopper evangelists could be found telling black children that their social position and poverty were the result of GodÕs curse on NoahÕs son Ham [Genesis 9:18-24] and that black people were all decended from Ham (Geneis 10:6, while Europeans were descended from Japheth and Semitic people from Shem. At the same time, the GK renounced Apartheid as unbiblical 20 years before either the NGK or the NHK did.
This page was based on the following sources, which you can consult for more detailed information:
Elizabeth Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa from Antiquity to the Present. London: SPCK, 1995.
Christianity in South Africa, edited by Richard Elphick and Rodney Davenport. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997
Although it is a novel, James MitchenerÕs The Covenant is perhaps the most accessible, as well as generally accurate treatment of Afrikaner theology. See especially Chapters ÉÉÉ..
http://www.southafrica.net/arts/afrika.html