Everything about Afrikaner Calvinism totally explained
Afrikaner Calvinism is, according to theory, a unique cultural development that combined the
Calvinist religion with the political aspirations of the white Afrikaans speaking people of South Africa. From
1652 to
1835, settlers primarily from the
Netherlands, and migrant and refugee Calvinist Protestants from
Germany,
France,
Scotland, and elsewhere in
Europe, combined in
South Africa to form a distinct people, called the
Afrikaners or
Boers. A significant number of the French progenitors of the Boer people were
Huguenots, who first began to arrive between 1687 and 1691 in flight from the persecution that lasted for one hundred years after the
Edict of Nantes was revoked. Between the end of the
18th century and the end of the
20th century, these people increasingly considered themselves Afrikaner rather than European. They spoke their own, indigenous language, called
Afrikaans, and were bound together by a form of
Calvinist religion. Though they lost control of their South African republics to the
British after the
Boer Wars, the Afrikaners finally negotiated a home-rule arrangement 10 years later and firmly established themselves as the ruling minority in South Africa until international pressure and increasing chaos within South Africa compelled them to dismantle their policies of exclusive control, called
Apartheid.
The Calvinism of the
Boers of the
Transvaal in South Africa developed in a different way from its European and American counterparts. This uniqueness is theoretically a direct result of geographical isolation and political and cultural estrangement, which shut out the influences of
the Enlightenment. The cross-currents of change which arose within the Protestant cultures of Europe in response to the Enlightenment had minimal effect upon the development of religious thought among the Boers.
This view of Afrikaner Calvinism implies that it's a purer expression of what Calvinism originally was, without the diluting effects of the Enlightenment. Particularly, this view implies that cultural development under the influence of Boer
civil religion is an illustration of the cultural implications of Calvinism. This is especially interesting to contemporaries considering that a form of nationalistic Calvinism arose, which had direct bearing upon the establishment of the Apartheid policy in
1948.
Settlement period
The Dutch settlement of the
Cape of Good Hope was the first colonial success in South Africa. The key to this success was the establishment of strict rules of trade between the settlement and the native population. No trade or
Christian missionary ventures among the Africans were permitted without the permission of the company administrator. Stealing or shooting
cattle was especially forbidden as a cause of inevitable conflict with the natives. The early Europeans were appalled by the appearance and the customs of the Africans, and the completely false report that the natives were cannibals reinforced their motive to avoid unnecessary contact. The Cape was a walled garden, with
Africa on the outside and
Europe within. This strict order minimized conflicts with the Africans during the early settlement period.
Yet, many of the settlers had arrived with a missionary motive. The synthesis of these attitudes of strict avoidance and a missionary conscience resulted in the widespread practice of indenturing the native Khoisan population, and within that master/servant relationship, to teach the
Bible to them in hope that the message would filter back through the servant's family (along with reports of the superiority of European life) and thus bring about conversion.
The farmers who lived outside of the physical walls of the towns had a different arrangement than the townspeople. To them, occupation meant ownership, and ownership implied the right to protect their property. As they settled into the seemingly unnoccupied territories surrounding the Cape, they enforced these assumptions of ownership and its rights when the wandering hunters or herding tribes would cross the
Fish River into farm territories in search of grazing land or game. Thus, the farms represented an extension beyond the towns of the wall of separation between the white and the black occupants of the land. As in the towns,
plantation slavery was sometimes seen as a means of
evangelism.
Separation and rules of exchange were opposed very early in the Afrikaner mind to invasion and conquest. And, this anti-imperialism extended also to the theory of missionary obligation that developed within the
Dutch Reformed Church: the
kingdom of God will grow within the sphere of influence assigned to the church by divine providence, as children are taught the Gospel by their parents and family. If God deems it fitting for the Gospel to be received by the natives, and taught to their children, then this is his glory. Toward that end, Christians have a defining role given them from God, a calling, or covenantal responsibility as God's people, to keep themselves pure in the faith and just in their dealings with the heathen, and to be absolutely unyielding in their protection of what has been legitimately claimed in the name of the
Triune God.
Folk Religion
This history is essential to understanding the distinctive concept of "calling" that developed among the Afrikaners. These attitudes, very early adopted, went with them through later conflicts, formed in a way that seemed to them obviously crafted by the hand of God Himself. They believed themselves preserved by God's own wisdom and
Providence. The things they suffered, and the strong bonds between them that were formed through it all, seemed to confirm this idea at every turn. Their history as a people has a central place in forming the Boer religion. In this way, a distinctive folk character became attached to their Calvinistic beliefs.
This
folk religion wasn't articulated in a formal way. It was the experience of the Afrikaners, which they interpreted through their assurance that their absolutely sovereign Creator and Lord had shown special grace to them as a particular people.
Nationalism
However, the
French Revolution brought these habits of thought more self-consciously to the surface. Because the Dutch of the Netherlands supported the French and American revolutions, the
British declared war on the Netherlands and began seizing their trade routes. They landed at the
Cape of Good Hope in
1797. After the Dutch declared bankruptcy, the British annexed the Cape and appointed British land administrators there in
1805, who were zealous propagators of the Enlightenment. They loosened the trade and labor regulations, speaking of the blacks as 'noble savages' whose untainted natural souls they professed to admire, finally outlawing slavery in
1835. They called the blacks equals, and gave them access to the courts in suit against white landowners. And, they professed to believe in their own autonomous
Reason above all else.
A more antithetical message could hardly be imagined, as the English Enlightenment forced itself upon the Afrikaners. From the Boer point of view, the Enlightenment invaded their shores, seized their properties, annexed their farms, imposed alien laws, liberated their slaves without compensation, justified these actions by appeal to Reason alone, and claimed in all of this to be more virtuous than God. They were exposed to the Enlightenment, and it appeared to them to be a revolution against God.
Laager strategy
Resorting once again to the time-tested wisdom of progress through separation, thousands of farmers, later called
Voortrekkers, left the Cape beginning in
1835, and travelled in ox-drawn wagons as far as the Transvaal. Along the way on this
Great Trek, the pioneers heading east were attacked by
Xhosa tribes who were also moving into the region in retreat from the
Zulus. To the north, they were attacked by the Zulu, when trade relations failed. And behind them, the British offered no protection. The great journey of the
Voortrekkers is a central, defining event in the history of the Afrikaners. At the symbolically significant
Battle of Blood River in December,
1838, fewer than 500 Boers circled their wagons to fight off tens of thousands of Zulus without losing a single member of their own party. The
laager (wagon fortress) became symbolic of Boer solidarity, and of their confidence that God would keep them safe against overwhelming odds, if only they'd be faithful to Him and rally to the aid of one another. The partly mythologized history of the Boers grew into a theological/nationalistic consciousness in the second half of the 19th century.
Because the Cape Dutch Reformed Church was seen by the
trekkers as being an agent of the Cape government, they also didn't trust its ministers and emissaries, seeing them as attempts by the Cape government to regain political control. There were also religious divisions among the trekkers themselves. A minister from the Netherlands,
Dirk van der Hoff went to the Transvaal in
1853, and became a minister in the
Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk, which was constituted in
1856, and in
1860 recognised as the State Church of the
South African Republic, separate from the Cape Church.
Meanwhile, back in the Netherlands, the Dutch church had been transformed by the Enlightenment, a change represented in the minds of those opposed it, by the loss of any meaningful profession of faith as requisite for adult church members, and the singing of hymns (in addition to psalms) and other innovations in worship and doctrine. In the Netherlands a movement grew in reaction to this perceived dismantlement of Biblical faith. It was called the
Doleantie (grieving), a movement that led to schism in the Dutch Reformed Church, and the formation of the
Christian Reformed Church in the Netherlands. The writings of
Guillaume Groen van Prinsterer, and the leader of the Doleantie,
Abraham Kuyper, began to become known to the Afrikaners. Highly critical of the Enlightenment, the "revolution" as they called it, the Doleantie in the church had counterparts in education and in politics. The timing of this influence was significant, coming on the crest of a wave of evangelical revival, the
Reveil (
Awakening) in the Dutch Reformed Church which had been led in South Africa by the Scottish preacher,
Andrew Murray (minister). The slogan of the Doleantie, which eventually rang with unintended
nationalist nuance for the Afrikaners was, "Separation is Strength".
Doppers
In the South African Dutch Reformed Church, the more conservative party (known as
Doppers) were opposed to singing hymns in church. They asked the Afgescheiden Gereformeerde Kerk in the Netherland to provide them with a minister. The Rev.
Dirk Postma came from Zwolle to the South African Republic in 1858, and was accepted as a minister of the Hervormde Kerk, but on learning that he and his congregation could be required to sing hymns (rather than
the Psalms only), he and the Doppers, numbering about 300 adults, among whom was the later President Paul Kruger, broke away from the state church to form the
Gereformeerde Kerk in Rustenburg in February 1859. There were thus now three Dutch Reformed Churches in South Africa — the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk (the Cape Synod), the
Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk, which was the state church of the South African Republic, and the
Gereformeerde Kerk, the smallest of the three, led by Postma.
The originally contemptuous name,
Dopper, may come from the Dutch
domp (
wick-snuffers) for their opposition to candles and other innovations in worship, perhaps representing their contempt for the Enlightenment; or,
Dopper may originate from Dutch
dop (and thus
drinkers), perhaps on account of their strong opposition to small, individual communion cups.
The separatism of the Doppers, expressed in the severity of their doctrine, the austere
puritanism of their worship, and even in their distinctive dress and speech, set them in stark contrast to European influence. Nevertheless, the Doppers were symbolic of resistance to all things English in South Africa, and despite their small size and distinctiveness they were culturally sophisticated and disproportionately influential during and after the Great Trek. It was the Dopper church that established
Potchefstroom University. It was from this sect that
Paul Kruger arose.
The new Boer states which arose after the Great Trek needed a comprehensive philosophy upon which to organize a genuinely Afrikaner society. Voortrekker 'Uncle' Paul Kruger, first president of the
South African Republic upon its reacquired independence after the brief British annexation, adopted the Doleantie in its political form, and formulated the Afrikaner
cultural mandate based on the African Calvinist conviction that the South Africans had a special calling from God, not unlike the people of Israel in the Bible. The Doppers waged an intellectual war against outlander culture which was flooding into South Africa through the mass settlements of foreign squatters lured by gold and diamonds, accompanied by British armies. To the Afrikaner mind, the British represented imperialism, viciousness, outlander oppression, covetousness, envy, and unbelief. When the Anglo-Boer wars broke out, Paul Kruger's idealized version of Afrikaner history forged the Afrikaners into a united and formidable force. The Afrikaner's Boer War experience, including the death of 28 000 civilians and the destruction of homesteads, reinforced their laager mentality, so as to preserve themselves and their way of life against the British melting pot.
Afrikaner Broederbond
The Boer Wars had left many of the Afrikaners utterly destitute. The ruined farmers were seen in the hundreds, following the war, lining the highways selling produce by the basket. After the British reorganized the
Union of South Africa and relinquished control to democratic elections, a small, anonymous group of young intellectuals called the
Afrikaner Broederbond, formed in the years following the Second Anglo-Boer War to discuss strategies for addressing the overwhelming social problem of
poor whites and other Afrikaner interests. By the account of
Irving Hexham, according to
Klaus Venter and
Hendrick Stoker who were themselves disgruntled members of the secret organization, in 1927 the Broederbond moved to Potchefstroom University, asking that the school would take over leadership of the then-struggling group. That year, the Broederbond formally adopted the Calvinist philosophy based on the work of Abraham Kuyper. The Broederbond believed, with deep-rooted conviction, that what their past had provided them through the interpretation of faith was a model of anti-imperialism, self-discipline and responsibility, which in the end would preserve justice for all — blacks, coloured, and whites — against
Communist deceit. These strategies that arose from the Broederbond were directly responsible for the establishment of
apartheid, in 1948.
However some who had been members of the organization before
1927 preferred the philosophy of
Fichte, and other versions of European
Nationalism. A
Fascist,
social Darwinist agenda in sympathy with
Hitler arose among some whites in South Africa during the
Second World War, which became an unwelcome ally in support of these policies. The Calvinist party within the Broederbond tried to distance itself from this movement, with very limited success because of the secrecy of the organization, their later confessed complete misunderstanding of the real ambitions of non-Afrikaners and blindness to the agony of 'Coloureds' and 'Blacks' under apartheid, and the extreme unpopularity of the apartheid policies in the eyes of non-Afrikaners. The anti-Calvinist nationalists, led by
H.F. Verwoerd, overcame the Calvinists in 1950 and used the Broederbond to advance his own political ambitions. International pressures mounted, increasingly isolating the Afrikaners and identifying their policies with the worst kind of godless oppression; but this was a long time in producing a crisis of conscience — or at least, it didn't for some time produce sufficient energy to dismantle the complex social system that had been founded upon apartheid.
After the
Sharpeville massacre in
1960, under enormous international pressure, the Broederbond began a slow and quiet re-examination of their policy proposals. And yet no significant changes took place to reform the apartheid system until the
Soweto riots in
1976. Some time after this, the Broederbond declared apartheid an irreformable failure and began work to dismantle it. The conviction had finally become established, although not universally that, if the Afrikaner people, language and religion were to survive, they must take the initiative to emerge from the laager, and invite South Africa in. The Broederbond (dropping the policy of secrecy and with the new name
Afrikanerbond) began proposing initiatives for land reform and the reversal of apartheid.
Radical changes
The reversal of apartheid has cast the
Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK) into a period of change. While remaining confessionally Calvinist, the religious character of the church is now less cohesive and more difficult to assess. Having been thoroughly conflated with apartheid, historic Calvinism appears to have fallen out of favor. In some quarters,
Liberation theology which embraces the Enlightenment idea of
Revolution has gained a foothold, and appears to have advocates on the left and the right ends of the political spectrum. American-style evangelicalism also appears to have made inroads, which with its more individualistic emphasis has less potential for a full-scale civil religion. Certainly, the old synthesis of revealed and
Natural theology is largely repudiated; officially at least. But, the folk religion of the Afrikaners isn't dead. Some scholars and revisionist historians are attempting to draw lines of distinction between Calvinism
per se, and the history of the Afrikaners, and the civil religion of the apartheid regime in particular.
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