‘THE WEAKNESS OF SOME’: THE DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH AND WHITE SUPREMACY
Abstract
The complex rise of segregation in Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) of South Africa and the fumbling efforts of the church to deal with its members’ prejudices represent a major challenge to historians. The key factor, often overlooked in the literature, is the influence of slavery that was both pervasive and pernicious. Among the Afrikaners it produced at the same time a strong egalitarian ethos, particularly in the interior, and a fierce rejection of gelykstelling or social levelling between them and slaves, ex-slaves and servants. The segregation of parishes made possible a more concerted DRC missionary effort. Along with segregated schools, laid, it laid the foundation of the segregation and apartheid orders, and provided the material basis of the Afrikaner nationalists’ “civil religion” of the twentieth century.Downloads
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