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Cape Folk (Cape Coloured) Christians

19th Century Protestant Missions

The story of the Christian Churches in South Africa, like the story of South African society in general is the story of many tribes, whose histories are on the one hand interwoven and interconnected, but, on the other hand, are also rigidly distinct from one another and independent. There are five major and influential South African tribes -- the Afrikaners, the Cape Folk (Cape ÔColouredÕ), the Xhosa , the English, and the Zulu-- to list them roughly in the order in which they joined the story of South African Christianity. There are also smaller tribes and more subtle distinctions in South African society and the South African Churches and it is true that the boundaries between Xhosa and Zulu churches can be more fluid than those which separate the other tribal churches. However, it is extremely rare to find members of one tribe sitting in church with members of any of the other tribes.

Afrikaner Christians

South African Christianity began in 1652 with the founding of the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK) in the Dutch East India Company reprovisioning station established at the Cape of Good Hope. The NGK, which is by far the largest and most influential of the Afrikaner churches, is Dutch in its roots, Calvinist in its theology, conservative in its politics and almost exclusively white. Its identity, however, along with the Afrikaner identity as a whole is African, though it has continued to maintain ties with the worldwide Reformed community, especially in the Netherlands and North America.

Cape Folk (Cape Coloured) Christians

The first non-white Christians came from among the slave population of the Cape, though it was not at all uncommon for slave owners to introduce their slaves to the Christian faith, but forbid their baptism, on the grounds that baptism effected their freedom. These slave Christians and their descendants formed an important part of the Cape Folk or Cape Coloured community, a racially mixed, but culturally Afrikaner community. The story of the Christian church among persons of racially mixed ancestry is complex and multifaceted, and includes independent mixed-race communities, like the Griqua, who moved out of the Cape area and established quite an independent cultural and ethnic identity. The Griqua were among the first communities to convert to Christianity in large numbers when the missionaries began to arrive at the end of the 18th century.

The Xhosa

When the missionaries came to South Africa, their converts came mostly from among displaced and marginalized people like the Griquas and the Mfengu (beggars) who were driven out of their homes by the Zulu Mfecane (grinding) campaign of the early nineteenth century. The Mfengu, many of whom were Xhosa, enthusiastically adopted modernity in all its forms, including Christianity. Their traditional world had been crushed in the grinding, they were willing to adopt western Christianity as they were rebuilding their culture.

The English

The English colonizers came on to the South African scene early in the nineteenth century, when the Afrikaners turned to the protestant English to avoid becoming a French Catholic colony when Napoleon conquered the Netherlands and with it the Dutch East India Company, which owned the colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Tensions between the English rulers and the Afrikaner farmers over slavery, which was abolished by the English in 1834, led many of the latter to the Great Trek to set up independent colonies inland; and the Boer war led to lasting bitterness between the Afrikaners, who accused the English of genocide and the victorious English. Socially, the English have tended to be urban, and have controlled South African finance, business and industry. Afrikaners started out as farmers, and then, when they began to win the elections, became civil servants and controlled the public sector. Religiously, the English are almost all Anglicans, members of the Church of the Province of South Africa. http://www.cpsa.org.za/ Their Anglicanism is part and parcel of the English colonial mindset. Where Afrikaners see themselves as white Africans, rather than Europeans, the English continue to refer to England as home, and their sojourn in South Africa, even if it continues for three or four generations, as temporary. The English send their children back to England to be educated and many retire to England at the end of their career.

The Zulu

The Zulu came to Christianity relatively late, partly because the structure of the mission villages forced converts to renounce their citizenship and leave their villages for the mission villages. With the overthrow of the Zulu kingdom in the 1880s and the growth of cities attracting younger Zulu, more and more Zulu became Christians. An important manifestation of Zulu Christianity is the Zionist movement. Zionist churches, of which there are some 2,000, are independent churches in the prophetic tradition. They share many characteristics with the Pentecostal movement in the rest of the world, but also often adopt distinctive uniforms, focus on a particular holy site, and depend on the prophetic voice of a charismatic leader. In many ways the Zionist churches can be thought of as a means of spiritual escape from the woes of an oppressive society.

Contextual Theology

The most recent theological movement of great significance to South Africa has been the rise of a South African theology of liberation, usually known as Contextual Theology in South Africa. Contextual theology emphasizes the Biblical themes of justice, and the preferential option for the poor. It is by and large a theology developed and preached within Black and Coloured churches. Contextual theology was particularly powerful before the breakup of Apartheid in 1994, though it has by no means gone away in the years since 1994.

This page was based on the following sources, which you can consult for more detailed information:

Adrian Hastings, The Church in Africa: 1450-1950. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994

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

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